An expose of bad businesses and their unethical practices

The sub-prime loan crisis, with its attendant foreclosure issues, continues to dominate business news. There is serious planning underway for a multi-billion-dollar bailout. Who is to blame for this mess? Is it the Lenders, the government, or the borrowers? We have already discussed each of the three groups in previous columns.

I believe that it is the mortgage lenders who are most to blame. They stood to make the most money from these obviously bad loans; all of the up-front fees went into the bank accounts of the mortgage lenders. It is their greed that really drove this issue to crisis proportions. They are clearly the most to blame.

The government officials and functionaries who were supposed to be providing oversight for the mortgage lending industry in America also must accept a large share of the blame for the current crisis. They simply did not do their jobs. They abrogated their responsibilities to the American people, and are therefore largely culpable for this crisis.

The buyers are the amateurs involved in the individual transactions. It is easy to see how they could have been convinced that these loans were in their favor by those that had the most to gain. It is therefore difficult to take these individuals to task for signing off on these loans. They simply were not made aware of the future problems. Don’t blame the sheep in the midst of wolves for any ensuing bloodshed.