I’m sure you’ve heard about the document mills that forged mortgage papers for banks so the banks could foreclose on people’s homes. According to Matt Taibbi:
Put it this way. If the banks had to pay what they actually owed – from the registration taxes/fees they avoided by using the electronic registry system MERS to the money taken from investors in toxic mortgage-backed securities to the fees and payments stolen from homeowners via predatory loan practices and illegal foreclosures – they would probably all go out of business. That’s how much money is at stake here.
So it should be no surprise to anyone that the banks are suddenly giving astounding amounts of money as campaign contributions to state attorney generals. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller was a particularly strong beneficiary — according to a report from the National Institute for Money in State Politics, “Nearly half of the money Miller raised in 2010 was donated after the October 13 announcement that he would be coordinating the 50-state attorneys general investigation.”
As Taibbi puts it, the best way to raise campaign money is to investigate banks. And if you’re a bank, exercising your newly minted free speech rights (where speech is money) is also the price of buying justice.
2 Comments
Who needs the state Attorneys General anyway? There’s more than enough information for civil class action fraud suits against the banksters.
True, but getting at that information is not something most people are willing to do. With the backing of the government, an Attorney General has more push to get solid data and documents out of organizations like banks.