Entries by Karl Denninger

The NY Times puts forward the following sob story:

FLINT, Mich. — Carol Y. Vliet’s cancer returned with a fury last summer, the tumors metastasizing to her brain, liver, kidneys and throat.

That's very bad, by the way.

As she began a punishing regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, Mrs. Vliet found a measure of comfort in her monthly appointments with her primary care physician, Dr. Saed J. Sahouri, who had been monitoring her health for nearly two years.

She was devastated, therefore, when Dr. Sahouri informed her a few months later that he could no longer see her because, like a growing number of doctors, he had stopped taking patients with Medicaid.

For what purpose was she being put through Chemo and Radiation "therapy"?

Look, I don't mean to sound callous, but there are times we must be objective.  This is one of them.

Let's talk about the monetary issue here before we get back to the patient issue.  Specifically:

If she takes too many Medicaid patients, she said, she cannot afford overhead expenses like staff salaries, the office mortgage and malpractice insurance that will run $42,800 this year. She also said she feared being sued by Medicaid patients because they might be at higher risk for problem pregnancies, because of underlying health problems.

Do you understand what this means?

Let me explain it to you:

If you are not on Medicaid you are paying part of the Medicaid patient's health care bill every time you walk in that doctor's door. 

You are literally being held up at gunpoint, without even being told, to pay someone else's bill.  This happens because you had the temerity to get sick.

This is at the core of what is wrong with so-called "health care" in America.  Your price is not my price, for the same procedure performed on the same day in the same clinic or hospital.

If you pay cash, you probably pay the most.  If you have a "health insurance plan", it pays something less.  And if you are on Medicare or Medicaid, it pays less still. 

Now here's the part you're really going to like: If you're an illegal invader or flat broke, you will pay nothing at all.

In each case those who pay less force those above them to pay more.  This happens because doctors and hospitals are immune from anti-trust laws, which generally bar this behavior.  They lobbied hard for this "right" to screw you blind - literally - rather than acting as every other business in every other profession does.

Oh, and as they did, prior to these changes in the law.

Your "local physician" and "local hospital" is not a "victim" of this.  He, she, or it is a willing, intentional malignancy in fomenting this distortion and, unless you're one of the "privileged" (that is, on Medicare, Medicaid, an illegal or broke), is screwing you blind.

This is why your health insurance premiums are going up 20% or more a year.  It, along with what comes next, is the precise reason that costs are out of control.

Now let's get to the other part of it.

I feel for Ms. Vliet.  But this view of entitlement to medical care and (extremely expensive) treatment, when there is no ability to pay or any reasonable medical chance of a cure (metastatic cancer that has spread to multiple locations is nearly always fatal - we're arguing over time here, not outcome), while the patient does not have the means to provide for that care, is a problem.

This is the discussion - the debate over what you're entitled to as a matter of social responsibility and law - that nobody wants to have.

But we have to have it.

See, there is only $X to spend on health care.  We cannot spend the last dollar to wring the last minute of life from every person.  Our nation, and indeed no nation, has the wealth to do so.  This isn't about compassion, it is about reality.

This does not mean we shouldn't provide comfort.  We deign not to do that either, and that's flatly wrong.  We're so "scared" of someone getting addicted to heavy painkillers that doctors are afraid to prescribe them to people with illnesses like this lest the DEA come knocking and threaten them with either arrest, the loss of their medical license, or both!

But this much I can tell you - we can't afford to provide "every last option" for those who have no resources to spend of their own, yet have contracted an illness that we cannot, within reasonable medical certainty, offer a cure for.

Indeed, the line is probably further back from there - although we don't want to admit it. 

Nonetheless, it is.

This is a fundamental debate around our medical policy we simply must have.  We as a nation believe we're supermen and superwomen, and we're distinctly uncomfortable with our own mortality.  This must change.

We can either change it by choice, or fiscal realities will change it by force.  The latter will be far more traumatic, and less-pleasant, than if we do it voluntarily.

I know you're not going to listen to me.

I'm going to say it anyway, because as a concerned citizen of The United States of America, I must.

You are making a grave, perhaps nation-ending mistake.

Attempting to "deem" the Health Care bill passed when it has not actually been voted on is not Constitutional.  Article 1, Section 7:

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

This is the black-letter law of the land. 

There are millions of Americans who are extraordinarily pissed off right now.  Some of them, like me, write scathing columns on The Internet or we rant on Talk Radio and Television (such as Judge Napolitano)

But some just smolder.  Some remember the other founding document of our Republic, The Declaration of Indpendence, which says, in part:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

That doesn't sound so good.  What has tempered these people is largely what always has in all nations, that is:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Indeed.

Neither you or I know where the line is for that cross-section of the citizens in this land.  I cannot speak for them, for I am not inclined toward the sort of actions that they are, nor do I countenance them.  As such I'm not exactly on those folks' "A list".

In fact I fear the day they decide to express their disgust, for while in singular number those expressions are horrifying, as a group such actions harken to a time I hope we would never revisit in this nation.

But I do understand, and see, that they are seething in anger at what has befallen this once-great country.

They have watched as thirty years of corruption in Washington DC has turned our economy and government into a bad joke.

They have watched their jobs go overseas to a Communist Nation for the benefit of a handful of corporate oligarchs, while Washington chortles.

They have watched banksters do everything in their power to imprison them in debt, including bribing Congress to remove usury laws, "reform" bankruptcy so as to render a significant percentage of the population under effective indentured servitude (allegedly prohibited by the Constitution) while the very same banksters declare bankruptcy at the drop of a hat and stick lenders with losses, and while these very same banksters peddle fraudulent securities, cook their balance sheets and generally defraud everyone in the nation - then force the taxpayers, at gunpoint (quite literally, if you remember the fall of 2008 - you were in the room with Bernanke and Paulson when they threatened tanks in the streets) to bail them out.

Finally, they have watched Health Care turn into a monstrous mess, with cost increases of 10, 20 even 30% or more a year.  These costs are expanding at that rate because ambulance chasers like former Presidential Candidate John Edwards make millions while Congress has passed laws forcing Americans to eat the development expense for every advanced medical technology over the last 30 years.  Congress has refused to demand that medical practitioners bill everyone the same price for the same procedures and drugs.  Congress has passed laws exempting medical providers and insurers from anti-trust law, so those aggrieved cannot sue in private causes of action for these abuses.  And finally, Congress has forced all of us to eat the cost of care for illegal invaders who commit their first crime with their first step over our national boundary.  All of these abuses and more could be addressed, but none of them are in the bill you wish to advance, and that, Madame Speaker, is intentional.

But all of this, while it has been outrageous and even criminal, has been, for the most part, Constitutional.  It may be the stuff of a Banana Republic, and it may violate equal protection of the law (a founding principle and in fact a guaranteed right), but Congress has never cared about any of that in my 47 years on this planet.

Witness all the laws you, Madame Speaker and the rest of the Government (including this Health Care plan) do not have to obey while the rest of us do under pain of fine or even imprisonment.

What you propose to do now, however, is not Constitutional.

Rather than negotiate, advance and pass something like my four-point plan that would, along with dropping anti-trust protections and ending the practice of preventing reimportation of drugs and devices, attack the problem at the source, you instead are putting forward the Senate's 2200-page monstrosity.

You are doing so because this bill is not about Health Care at all.  It is about revenue, and you know it.  It is about the fact that The Federal Government is running into a wall at warp speed trying to furiously cover up all the fraud and scams in the financial system while at the same time spending over $1.5 trillion we do not have to replace collapsed consumer demand. 

You must raise revenues, and you know it - or this ship called "The USS Treasury" sinks beneath the waves, and the first sacrifices to go overboard will be all the Seniors on Medicare and Social Security - not by choice, but by force of fiscal insolvency.

In short, this is just another Washington scam. 

But this time you're going too far, and you're taking a horrific risk. 

You must not, Madame Speaker. 

You must instead face this nation and tell the truth.

We cannot fund the scams and frauds any more.  Those who committed them must go to prison, even if they're campaign contributors.

We cannot borrow 10% of our GDP and spend it forward, as the CBO projects we will try, in a futile and permanent attempt to replace consumer demand.

If we do not stop this idiocy we will soon be unable to fund Social Security, Medicare and Welfare in all its forms, leading to an immediate and critical breakdown of our society.

The mad reach for revenue, Madame Speaker, is why you're in such a hurry - and you know damn well I'm right.

If you succeed, we will get your tax bill now and the promised health care never. 

That's a fact.

There is a bright white line for every person in this country who has taken an oath to uphold our Constitution.  It is in different places for each of those individuals, but you had better believe it exists.

For some it will be crossed if you try to disarm Americans, as was attempted after Katrina. 

For some it will be crossed if you try to occupy their homes. 

And for some, it may be crossed if you attempt to "deem" this bill passed, when The House has not actually passed it.

I pray this evening I am wrong, and that for no material number of people - indeed, for no one person - that is where their personal line is.

But I am reasonably certain that this prayer will be offered in vain.

Therefore, the choice is yours, not mine, for all I can do in furtherance of my hopes (and abeyance of my fears) is pray. 

You, Madame Speaker, on the other hand, can act to quell this idiocy.

Or you may tempt fate, you may tempt the millions of people who have swore an oath to defend and uphold The Constitution and, having done so, went to war throughout our history.  Many of those people, along with millions more who never wore a uniform stand today in defense of that "quaint" old piece of parchment - but not in defense of you, nor any other person.

You may also provoke States to assert their long-dormant 10th Amendment rights for real, not in some quaint "one off" regarding intra-state weapons manufacturing.  That, Madame Speaker, harkens back to a time I'd rather not revisit as well.

You will almost certainly lose your Speaker's Gavel come November, as the mortal sin against the Constitution of deeming a bill passed without actually voting on it is so inimical to a republican form of government and displays such gross arrogance that you have forfeited your right to wield that gavel by mere contemplation of the act. 

I am quite certain that I stand with millions of other Americans who are willing to put forth whatever effort is necessary to see that occurs come November - at the ballot box - whether you proceed with your abhorrent plan or not. 

But what I pray for this evening, as I complete my day and offer homage to God before retiring, is that your office, and those of your fellow Democrats who are about to violate your sacred oaths willfully, intentionally, and with malice aforethought - is all you lose.

Let's put a bit more color on my morning HAMP Ticker - this time at a more-macro level of the economy.

To recap, here's the table in question:

From this we can "back in" to the median annual income of these completed mods.  If $837.86 is the median home payment and post-modification it is 31% of gross income (Front end ratio) then we get $2,703 a month in median income, or $32,433 a year.

This is gross income - that is, before taxes.

As I pointed out such a person will pay (monthly) $206.70 in FICA and Medicare tax (the half they "see" in their check) and will have another $300 or so a month withheld in federal income tax.

So we start with a "baseline" of $2,196 monthly that comes in the door (ex payroll and federal withholding taxes, but not accounting for state income tax.)

We know, however, that these people have 59.8% of their gross income that goes to all debt service (house and all other mandatory debts), which means that they have $579.30 to spend on everything other than that mandatory debt service a month.

Now realize this: "Mandatory" debt service only includes minimum payments on revolving accounts such as credit cards!  Making a minimum payment on a credit card, while charging nothing new, results in a pay-down period of many years.  But most people will charge back up at least the principal paid down (which isn't much when paying the minimum especially if you have a 29% interest rate!)

Diane Olick and other analysts say that 2 million homes have "started" HAMP.  Of those only something like 16% have wound up in permanent modifications - under 200,000 - which is what the above represents.  In addition, another 2 million+ people have gone delinquent since the HAMP program began.

The remainder of the HAMP "starts" either have not or will not lead to permanent modifications.  That is, their internals are either worse than or equal to the above - it is almost impossible they are better, or they'd be permanent modifications.

Let's put color on this.  According to Diane Olick 7.5 million homes are either delinquent or in foreclosure.  23% of those delinquent properties have been so for more than a year yet have not foreclosed. 

These are people who are spending in the economy, propping up GDP and economic numbers, because they are making no payment on their house at all.

Let's remember that when these loans "resolve", no matter how they do, that spending power will instantly evaporate in the economy.  Whether their loan is modified into a "sustainable" one (ha!) or whether they are ejected from their house and become renters either way the more than $1,000 a month they are not paying for their mortgage, but are instead dumping into consumer spending will evaporate as they will be forced to spend that money on housing once again.

This is not an inconsequential amount of money.  If we assume the "average" amount not tendered in mortgage (and spent into the economy) is $1,000 per month per home, this is $7,500,000,000 - or $7.5 billion a month (that is, $90 billion a year) that is being "contributed" to the economy falsely and will come back out - one way or another.  It simply must.  This is a bit more than 1/2% of GDP - hardly insignificant - and that consumer spending fuels economic activity with a multiplier effect (the money these people spend at Starbucks pays the employees of Starbucks, who then spend THAT money into the economy.)  There is much argument about the multiplier effect of various government spending programs, but there is less dispute that private spending always has some multiplication factor associated with it.  Therefore, the $90 billion number is understated - the gross GDP "goose" from these defaults may be as high as double that $90 billion, or 1% of GDP!

To this we must add the positive impact of credit-card and other defaults.  The paradox is that failing to pay down debt - that is, defaulting instead of paying as agreed, actually increases GDP, because such a refusal to pay down debt while the money is spent elsewhere causes consumption to be supported.

This, along with the "fiscal juice" from running $1.5 trillion in deficits, are two of the biggest issues facing a "sustainable" economic recovery.  The refusal to understand this dynamic is responsible, in large part, for the (false) belief that our economy is in fact recovering.

You can't really blame most of the ToutTV and media idiots for their lack of thinking in this regard.  It requires analysis, which none of these folks actually do, in order to suss out what's going on.  We haven't had a debt-overhang-fueled recession for 70 years - the last one was The Depression in the 1930s.  Literally none of the current reporters and pundits was alive and trading in the markets or anywhere else the last time it happened, and all we have is a (biased) historical record - an incomplete recollection.

How many people think that the 1920s - the "Roaring 20s" - were a time of fiscal reason and a booming economy?  Nonsense.  The "Roaring 20s" were a time of rampant speculation and debt-binging.  The illusion of prosperity was bought, paid for and maintained the same way it was this time in the 2000s - with debt.  Yet if you read "history" you will find scant if any mention of this fact.

We're not out of this one folks, and we're not going to get out of it either, so long as we keep pretending that loans that aren't performing - and can't - are "money good."  Further, the temporary and ethereal "boost" to consumption and thus GDP that comes from debt defaults will dissipate.  It mathematically must, as eventually creditors run out of cash flow to maintain the illusion that they have "performing" assets when payments are in fact not being made.

Mark Hanson (of Hanson Advisors) once again digs up a gem.

He's been on the HAMP/HAFA nonsense since it began, but today I would like to focus on one snippet out of his latest missive, to be found right here:

Uh, yeah.

Gross debt-to-income ratios of 59.8% after modification?

Folks, do you understand what this means?  The average gross income of these folks is $2,702, or $32,433 annually.  But their debt-service ratio, or amount of debt post-modification, is 59.8%.

That means they're spending almost as much on their other debts as they are on their house payment, even after modification.

Let's break this down.

The person with a $2,702 monthly income has the following "come out" of their check:

• Their debt service of $1,616, of which half, roughly, is their (modified) house payment.
  
  
• FICA and Medicare tax of 6.2 and 1.45% respectively, or $206.70.
  
  
• Federal withholding of approximately 10% (slightly more, actually) assuming a married person, or approximately $300.  (If single head-of-household it is somewhat higher, if married with dependents it is somewhat lower.)

This "average person" has $579.30 once their mandatory debt service and withheld taxes are deducted, and from this they must pay:

• Electrical, water, sewer, and garbage disposal services.
  
  
• Health costs, if any (including deductions from their paycheck, co-pays, etc)
  
  
• Automobile insurance for their car, along with gasoline.
  
  
• Food
  
  
• Hazard insurance on the house (if not included in the back end ratio, and it frequently is not.)
  
  
• Any other expenses (e.g. clothing, school supplies if there are kids in the home, any sort of recreational activities, etc.)

All on $600 a month for a family of four?  You're joking, right? 

Good luck just buying your food and paying the electric bill on what's left!

These people are economic zombies.  HAMP has utterly failed to change the outcome for these individuals nor can it because their total debt load is impossibly high. 

What these people need is an expedited bankruptcy procedure that clears their balance sheet - but our lawmakers refuse to do that because that would force the LENDERS to eat their irresponsible loans at the same time the consumer went through Chapter 7!

We cannot solve this problem until home prices are allowed to contract to the point that people can afford them - and the rest of their debts are similarly defaulted!

These statistics show that of those who are in the HAMP program most of them are over-levered all the way across the board.  There is no "solution" for them - they were enticed by (and bit on) the bogus claim that they could "have it all" throughout their lives, and as such are deeply in debt. 

Remember, these are averages.  That means that a large percentage of the people coming out of "HAMP" are in worse shape!

A person with $30,000 a year in income that is carrying eight hundred dollars of non-housing related mandatory debt service has, typically, a moderately-priced "new car loan" and a couple hundred bucks of mandatory credit-card payments (totaling some $5,000 in debt.)  They can't afford this - not with a house payment of some $800 on top of it. 

Not a prayer in hell.

The issue isn't just excessive debt in their house - it is excessive debt everywhere.  We keep hearing bleating about how "underserved" and "lower income" people need "more access" to credit.

This report proves that's utter and complete nonsense, and that the actions of our "financial institutions" have been outrageously predatory - acts that should be felonious.

What that "access" the banking industry demands has gotten them is a one-way ticket to a crushing debt load they simply cannot afford and will NEVER be able to pay.

This problem is not confined to the housing market, it is literally everywhere and allowing the financial institutions that have KNOWINGLY AND INTENTIONALLY marketed this credit to people THEY KNOW CANNOT PAY to receive "help" from the taxpayer to avoid THEIR OWN BANKRUPTCY FOR MAKING OUTRAGEOUSLY IRRESPONSIBLE LOANS MUST STOP NOW.

Is this just words?  A glimmer of light flickers on in the dark halls of 535 fools....

Mr. President, last Thursday, the bankruptcy examiner for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. released a 2,200 page report about the demise of the firm and which included riveting detail on the firm’s accounting practices. That report has put in sharp relief what many of us have expected all along: that fraud and potential criminal conduct were at the heart of the financial crisis.

Exactly.  I've been writing about this for three years; indeed, it was recognition of fraud in large financial firms that led me to begin writing The Market Ticker.

Lehman structured its repo agreements so that the collateral was worth 105 percent of the cash it received – hence, the name “Repo 105.” As explained by the New York Times' DealBook, “That meant that for a few days – and by the fourth quarter of 2007 that meant end-of-quarter – Lehman could shuffle off tens of billions of dollars in assets to appear more financially healthy than it really was.”

It was a little more than that.  Lehman accounted for these transactions as a sale, when in fact they were a loan.  There's a hell of a difference between the two - in one case you remove an asset from your balance sheet and replace it with cash (and that change is permanent) and in the other you exchange an asset for a liability, and the net impact on your balance sheet is in fact negative, not positive (since you must pay interest on a loan.)

First, we must undo the damage done by decades of deregulation. That damage includes financial institutions that are “too big to manage and too big to regulate” (as former FDIC Chairman Bill Isaac has called them), a “wild west” attitude on Wall Street, and colossal failures by accountants and lawyers who misunderstand or disregard their role as gatekeepers. The rule of law depends in part on manageably-sized institutions, participants interested in following the law, and gatekeepers motivated by more than a paycheck from their clients.

Second, we must concentrate law enforcement and regulatory resources on restoring the rule of law to Wall Street. We must treat financial crimes with the same gravity as other crimes, because the price of inaction and a failure to deter future misconduct is enormous.

Third, we must help regulators and other gatekeepers not only by demanding transparency but also by providing clear, enforceable “rules of the road” wherever possible. That includes studying conduct that may not be illegal now, but that we should nonetheless consider banning or curtailing because it provides too ready a cover for financial wrongdoing.

Everything that went on leading up to the crisis, and most of what went on in "managing" it, was unlawful under already-established black-letter laws.  Some examples should make this clear:

• AIG sold credit-default swaps (a form of insurance, even though we don't call it that) with no capital behind them - that is, no ability to pay.  Entering into a contract with full knowledge that you have no ability to perform is a fraudulent act - you are representing to someone that you have capacity to pay under the loss scenario, when you do not.
  
  
• Purchasing "protection" of this sort at below the market rate of risk as determined by the spread is an uneconomic act.  That is, the essential purpose of such a purchase is not to buy protection against the adverse event, but rather to intentionally misrepresent to regulators that your assets are "covered" and thus of better quality than they are, for the explicit purpose of not having to hold reserves against them.  I argue that this is an act of fraud.  The essential point is that nobody works for free - it is therefore impossible to buy a Bond that has a risk spread over Treasuries (of equivalent duration) of 3% plus a credit-default swap to cover it for less than the same spread.  A seller of protection who does not charge at least the risk-adjusted spread will not have sufficient capital to pay, and a seller who does charge at least the risk-adjusted spread (and thus can pay) leaves you with a trade, in total, that yields less than the Treasury!   If you desire a risk-free trade it makes no sense to purchase the more-risky bond and credit-default swap, as your total return will be lower than just buying the Treasuries!
  
  
• Mortgage origination and rating was rife with fraud up and down the line.  The breaches of representations and warranties are not accidents or oversights - they are frauds.  The most-carefully-negotiated set of terms in any offering document (for anything) is always the reps and warranties; as a seller of a business in the past I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is the case, because it is the section by which you can be hung if you make false statements.  The Securitizers represented to the buyers of these mortgage-backed securities that the credit quality was of a certain caliber in the loans that were made, when in fact post 2004 it was known that the majority of "ALT-A" loans contained some element of misrepresentation.
  
  
• Carrying second lien loans on the books of a bank that are behind a 60+ delinquent first that is underwater at any material value is, in my opinion, a fraudulent act.  By black-letter law these second-position liens are entitled to exactly nothing until the first mortgage is fully paid.  In the case where such a loan is underwater and not performing they have no economic value whatsoever.  Current statistics are that virtually all 60+ delinquent mortgages will ultimately foreclose or sell short.  80% of the dollar value of HELOCs are in the four bubble states (Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida) and the majority of these lines are behind an underwater first.  ALL of the big banks are currently holding a massive number of these loans (tens of billions individually and hundreds of billions in aggregate) on their balance sheets at or near par value, that is, 100 cents on the dollar.  I can come up with no reasonable argument for these claimed valuations, and yet they are allowed to persist.  Packages of these loans currently trade on the second market for literal pennies on the dollar.

Why is this allowed to continue?  I have, for the last three years, asked repeatedly "Where are the cops?"

I have also asked a more-serious question, and one with unpleasant implications for our society as a whole: Is the government a felon itself?

I believe these questions are fair.  You speak in your letter of FERA, The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act.  Well, if we're supposed to be enforcing the law against fraud, where are the cops sir?  All I've seen FERA do thus far is fatten the officers at the local donut shop.

As I said more than a year ago: "At the end of the day, this is a test of whether we have one justice system in this country or two. If we don’t treat a Wall Street firm that defrauded investors of millions of dollars the same way we treat someone who stole 500 dollars from a cash register, then how can we expect our citizens to have faith in the rule of law? For our economy to work for all Americans, investors must have confidence in the honest and open functioning of our financial markets. Our markets can only flourish when Americans again trust that they are fair, transparent, and accountable to the laws."

The American people deserve no less.

We may deserve no less, but so far we the people have received zilch, all in the name of "not disturbing the so-called recovery."

But in point of fact we've not only refused to prosecute, we've allowed these financial institutions to try to cover the holes blown in their own balance sheets as a consequence of this fraudulent activity with fees and interest charges assessed on the people!

This is akin to not only looking the other way when the robbers show up and commit their heist, but then in addition assessing the victims a tax to pay for the robber's getaway car!