I would tattle, but I'm like that.

Since it's been enough of an issue that you've met with your boss about it before, it needs to be mentioned.

Beating a dead mortgage discusson, example that fraud was involved: [link]

Agreed -- it's not tattling, it's documentation of a known issue.

the hard thing is that he's such a bad communicator I can't even relate the conversation accurately. So not what I want to deal with today AT ALL

In perhaps slightly brighter news, the guy who insulted me in class the other week got an incomplete in one class for his absences and will have to take it over again. I know he has Issues with a capital Ish (including a brother-in-law who committed suicide a month ago) so I'm not taking 100% Schadenfreude on this circumstance, but honestly his behavior has made it hard for anyone to sympathize too much.

Beating a dead mortgage discusson, example that fraud was involved: [link]

Well, as I tried to explain yesterday, potentially criminal activity on the loan-writing level did not cause the credit crunch; again, you have to prove fraud with regard to the securitization and ratings agencies. I would not hold the position that every single mortgage was properly papered. Every time there is a major market movement downward, people want to find a criminal who apparently "caused" all this, but that's an overly simplistic view.

Beating a dead mortgage discusson, example that fraud was involved: [link]

Huh.

Gee, you give people a financial incentive to screw over the customer without repercussions, and people screw over customers. Wow.

Kinda' like that recent case where an executive got huge bonuses for canceling people's health insurance because these people had used their insurance a lot. They got sued by a customer who lost her health insurance when they found out she had cancer. (The customer won.)

you have to prove fraud with regard to the securitization and ratings agencies.

Here someone is alleging that: Author Alleges Banks Have Master Minded An Asset Securitization Fraud

(I haven't had time to read the whole thing.)

Greed, Fraud and Duplicity: How the Housing/Lending Bubble Inflated

But unlike a subprime borrower, Wall Street and the rating agencies (Moodys et. al.) could approve their own terms and grant themselves a high rating. In Bitner's memorable description, "Not only was the fox guarding the henhouse, he hired a contractor and built a separate wing so he could feast at his convenience."

...

The entire system flourished because the incentives were all wrong. The borrower got the money by lying,"forgetting" or fudging. The broker only made money by getting a lender to fund the loan, while the lender only made a fat profit if the mortgage was sold to Wall Street for securitization, and Wall Street only made money if they sold the mortgage-backed security to an investor with a high rating from Moodys or Fitch, who only made money if they rated the MBS as AAA regardless of its true risk.

Haven't read this whole thing either....