Surprise, surprise. The response to this new report by the banking lobbyist is laughable and predictable. See, the banks who are now inhaling billions to stay afloat and live the high life are really victims. The poor little lambs are as surprised as anyone that their shady business practices could crumble so quickly and be so costly. I mean, gosh, who could ever imagine besides maybe the crackpot Roubini? He has an accent and is a professor at some fancy pants college so this probably means he's untrustworthy and maybe even a communist. Washingtonpost.com:
While many portrayed themselves as unwitting victims of the subprime mortgage meltdown, the banks also enabled that kind of lending because it was lucrative, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative reporting group funded largely by charitable foundations. The group analyzed federal data on 7.2 million mortgages made from 2005 through 2007, a period that covers the peak and collapse of subprime lending.Of course the report "oversimplifies the problem" as the lobbyist (paid for by taxpayer bailout money) says. It's better if everyone gets lost in deep financial detail instead of seeing the obvious self-inflicted problems. Life was so much easier before the bubble burst and we could have media programs worshiping the brilliant corporate leadership who were making so much money. Those were the days.
The report oversimplifies the problem and ignores the complexities of the market, said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents some of the nation's largest lenders. "To say we are victims is understating, and to say we are enablers is overstating," he said.
Banks that received federal bailout money financed at least 21 of the top 25 subprime lenders, the investigation found. They owned these lenders, extended credit to them, or bought their loans and then sold them as securities.
