Appreciate the feedback Dave. If I can “hijack the rhino” briefly (programmer invented a new urban cliche!), the transparency of the securities is critical to adjudicating justice, as in enforcing penalties, and implementing resolution, as in restructuring of the institutional ownership.

My reading is that these securities were flying around the globe and none of the holders were aware of how much “bad paper” they owned. One of the reasons/excuses during the early days of the “sub-prime” story for being unable to value the extent of the problem was not knowing where it was at any given day; hence the slow exposure of the foreign impact. The short story being that the bad mortgage paper was traveling incognito through the CDO vehicle and probably a few other tricks I am not fully apprised of.

In my view, the Gambino family and human nature are never to be discounted – at any rate – but, in this case, they’re facilitators, not root causes. The problem began with the new lending institutions that generated mortgages in the complete and in many cases criminal absence of proper asset confirmation procedures that are standard in the mortgage industry.

Furthermore, it is my understanding, that these “new lending institutions” came about as a result of removing the long-standing (70 yrs?) “Chinese Wall” (Glass-Steagall) between investment banking and commercial banking. These are the culprits.

Fannie/Freddie not so much. But now comes a perfect opportunity to take them out.

That last sentence being pure speculation, of course, in keeping with the spirit of the subject.

This risk started in one place. The civil/criminal penalties won’t be able to find their way back that far.