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- You wouldn’t think that anyone could look at the calamity of the foreclosure crisis, where fraudulent mortgage origination, fraudulent securitizations, fraudulent loan servicing and fraudulent evictions combined to dispossess 6 million Americans from their homes, and see it as a money-making opportunity. Well, nobody except for perhaps Donald Trump. But a news investigation into the aftermath of the crisis shows that the U.S. government did turn a profit on after-the-fact enforcement of these interlocking frauds, without distributing those profits to the homeowner victims. We can add a clause to the famed Occupy Wall Street chant: Banks got bailed out, we got sold out and the government made a killing.
The indicators I've seen (housing sitting unsold at unsustainable prices, consumer credit card debt rising rapidly, the return of mortgage-backed securities, real unemployment numbers) point towards another housing crisis. It's worth reconsidering what happened last time so you're ready for it next time.