STOCK MARKET WATCH - Monday, 20 February 2012

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40. 84 Percent of San Francisco Foreclosures Fraudulent--Why are Bankers Still Getting Away with Crimes?

http://www.alternet.org/story/154210/84_percent_of_san_francisco_foreclosures_fraudulent--why_are_bankers_still_getting_away_with_crimes/

Last week, five of the nation’s largest banks and 49 of its attorneys general announced a $26 billion settlement that essentially let the banks off the hook for the widespread use of fraudulent documents in the foreclosure process. Thursday, the San Francisco County assessor released an audit suggesting that many, many more demonstrable crimes were committed during the foreclosure bust of the past few years. My use of passive tense is not accidental; the audit doesn’t name names, though it’s long past time we start doing so.

“It is very apparent that the system is broken from many different vantage points,” Phil Ting, the county assessor, told the New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson. Actually, someone broke the system, and evidence that the break was willful is now piled as high as banking execs’ bonuses. Morgenson describes the audit as such: “About 84 percent of the files contained what appear to be clear violations of law, it said, and fully two-thirds had at least four violations or irregularities.”

That’s not a quirk. That’s not a system that needs tweaking. That’s not even incompetence. It’s rampant lawlessness. And it’s by design.

Many lawmakers and regulators continue to politely avoid saying as much, because it would naturally lead to uncomfortable places. Acknowledging the crime forces dirty words like “prosecution” and, worse, “reparation.” These are words our lawmakers are far more comfortable hurling at the ‘hood than at the Street. But as Morgenson notes, knowingly filing false documents with any public office in California is a felony. Some people in corner suites could lose their right to vote.