From the Gang That Couldn't Govern Straight. Nobody could have predicted our current financial meltdown . . . only, they did. Seven years ago:
The FBI was aware for years of "pervasive and growing" fraud in the mortgage industry that eventually contributed to America's financial meltdown, but did not take definitive action to stop it."It is clear that we had good intelligence on the mortgage-fraud schemes, the corrupt attorneys, the corrupt appraisers, the insider schemes," said a recently retired, high FBI official. Another retired top FBI official confirmed that such intelligence went back to 2002.
Sooooo . . . why the bureau's inaction?
Both retired FBI officials asserted that the Bush administration was thoroughly briefed on the mortgage fraud crisis and its potential to cascade out of control with devastating financial consequences, but made the decision not to give back to the FBI the agents it needed to address the problem. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, about 2,400 agents were reassigned to counterterrorism duties . . . That administration policy, the P-I reported, resulted in a dramatic plunge in FBI criminal investigations and referrals for prosecution. And recent data from Syracuse University researchers shows the problem has worsened.
Okay, what about the regulatory agencies?
The SEC . . . did not show an interest in working with the FBI on the problem, either. And it didn't begin responding to pervasive financial corruption until after the economy collapsed."The regulators are the ones embedded in the banks," the first retired FBI official said. "They would be able to see it if they were looking. They were the first line of defense in detecting it."
SEC officials declined to comment.
Hmmmm. Summing up:
High FBI and Bush administration officials knew a potentially devastating problem was on the horizon and failed to stop it."It was a sleight of hand because the public thought the administration was resourcing counterterrorism when in fact they were forcing cannibalization of the criminal program," the retired FBI official said. "Now the chickens have come home to roost."
Is there anything this gang didn't fuck up completely over the last eight years? Just think about it---most of what we are enduring now---the mass layoffs, the epidemic of foreclosures---could have been prevented. That is, if someone in the White House actually gave a rat's ass about the problem, or about the safety of the Republic in general. Then again, that's how they treated national security policy before September 11th, so it is all of a piece, now, isn't it?
When the annals of this decade are written definitively, I have little doubt that it will go down as the most singularly corrupt, venal, incompetent and lawless period in our history as a Republic. The Gilded Age is looking more and more like a basement bingo racket by comparison.
---Vitelius
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