Great Recession: Lenders "Push Marketed" Loans at Wall Streets Request for Profits!

With the disaster help consuming most of the air time, the Financial Inquiry Crisis Commission is all but invisible. With that invisibility, the public is again going to be kept in the dark about what caused the Great Recession, relying instead on the misinformation campaign by Republicans free marketeers like Rep. Paul Ryan, conservative radio and the unapologetic arm of the GOP Fox News.

But check out this from BansterUSA.org's , Mary Bottari, who appeared on Sly in the Morning's WTDY radio show (listen to the audio below for more):

Mary Bottari wrote: The top bankers that were called to testify before the independent Financial Inquiry Crisis Commission in Washington today touched on the drama of the September 2008 financial crisis. They complained of nervous anxiety and sleepless nights. Julia Gordon, a housing expert from the Center for Responsive Lending, took the stand and dove straight in.

"The bankers touched upon their sleepless nights at the height of the crisis. Today, 6.5 million American are suffering sleepless nights, every night, wondering if they will have a home tomorrow."

"The most tragic aspect of the subprime crisis that triggered the larger financial crisis is that it was utterly unnecessary. Never have so many toxic loan products been aggressively marketed on such a large scale with such loose lending rules."

Fraud is at the heart of the issue. A study for the Wall Street Journal found that of the subprime loans originated in 2006 that were packaged into securities and sold to investors, 61 percent “went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional [i.e., prime] loans with far better terms.” The result? The asset base of entire neighborhoods was “wiped out” according to Gordon, hitting Latino and African American communities the hardest.

"Consumers were not asking for these loans, Wall Street was asking for these loans. They told brokers that they would pay more for ‘no doc’ loans, and the brokers turned around and push marketed them to consumers," said Gordon.

Her recommendations? The big banks should not be permitted to initiate foreclosures while servicers evaluate eligibility for loan modifications. Homeowners should be allowed to ask a judge to modify their first home in bankruptcy proceedings, in the same manner in which the wealthy can have their debt on vacation homes and yachts modified.

Finally, Congress needs to pass a strong and independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect consumers suffering from fraud and abuse in its initial stages before the practice is able to bring down the world's economy.