If Fannie and Freddie are guilty of misleading investors, they deserve to pay the penalty. And yet, I do sense more enthusiasm to go after these government sponsored enterprises than to go after the private banking firms which were far more responsible for subprime. This feeds a false narrative that government somehow caused the financial crisis by forcing lending to poor people. Fannie and Freddie followed the market in subprime and did not originate it.

Perhaps trying to make up for the smackdown they took at the hands of Judge Jed Rakoff, who accused them of letting big banks get off scot-free, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against six former executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including the CEO, accusing them of securities fraud.

The LA Times’ is running an excellent series on subprime auto loans. The first installment concerned “Buy Here Pay Here” used car dealerships, and how they hook low-income borrowers into high-interest loans, then repossess the car when the loans go bad and resell the car to the next mark. It echoes the housing mortgage scams, complete with securitization schemes.

Just the kind of man America needs in the White House.

Laws and rules are for the little people. Especially the ones without guns.

An extended metaphor: Mortgages as meat, and banks & mortgage lenders as sausage makers.

Trust me — it makes sense!

Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke is appearing at this hour before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and he mainly said in opening remarks that too big to fail must be solved. He believes the new resolution authority will provide the opportunity for regulators to wind down firms without taxpayer resources exposed.

In law, a case can be dismissed two ways: one is without prejudice, which means that the plaintiff can bring a new case on the same matter up until the statute of limitations runs out; the other way, “with prejudice” means that the plaintiff can never bring that case again. Foreclosure fraud cases are beginning to to be terminated with prejudice. Booyah!

If we had a media that highlighted events in proportion to their importance to the nation, Carl Levin’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations would be plastered across every channel in the nation, including MTV. Yesterday, Levin’s committee hosted an incredible hearing on the credit rating agencies, the “independent” analysts who assess various types of securities. During the financial crisis, the rating agencies, who are owned and funded by the very banks who create the securities they rate, simply gave up any pretense of independent assessment, rubber-stamping toxic assets as triple-A and safe, neglecting the very real dangers for investors and creating a false sense of security.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, virtually moribund for the last decade while giant vampire squids looted local, state and union pension funds and misled investors, has finally chosen to take on Goldman Sachs for conning everyone. Who knew?