Banksters Get Away With Murder

Even before the foreclosure problem appeared, the level of public distrust of our financial and political systems was approaching the pathological. It's going to get even worse when the true lesson of this episode sinks in. To wit: If you screw up big-time when you deal with a giant bank, you're toast. If the giant bank screws up when it deals with you, it gets a do-over.

Making the point the the banksters get away with murder, with maybe a little slap on the wrist from time to time for their transgressions. Ordinary citizens who are not "too big to fail", however, would have the book thrown at them for making similar "mistakes".

It's utterly shocking, even to a congenital skeptic like me, to see that giant institutions such as Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), GMAC, and J.P. Morgan (JPM, Fortune 500) were allegedly using misleading affidavits to oust people from their homes. Employees of these institutions -- the "robo-signers" -- repeatedly misled courts by saying they had examined documents they hadn't examined and had reviewed documents they hadn't reviewed.

If you or I as individuals did that, we'd be kicked to the curb by the legal system in about two seconds. If we said that we hadn't wanted to spend the money to do things right -- the real reason that robo-signers exist -- it would take only one second for the system to whack us.

Want to get away with murder? Become a bank.