And no one seems to grasp that filing false affidavits with the court, under penalties of perjury, is no different than if an actual human being took the stand, swore to tell the truth, and then flat-out lied.

The "paperwork problems" that the banking and mortgage-serving industry wants everyone to focus on, isn't "the" problem, but a symptom of something much bigger and much more pernicious.  And it certainly cannot be fixed by saying "oops!" and filing new affidavits.

Whether someone gets to live in a house "for free" isn't nearly as problematic as how long it will take to clear title to millions of homes - including the titles to homes where mortgages are current and the homeowner thinks he or she doensn't have a problem because they aren't caught up in what they think is a problem confined to those in foreclosure.  Or what investors who bought mortgage-backed securities will do to recoup their losses if their investment turns out to be worthless because the trusts that issued the securities don't own the underlying mortgages.

Yes, a lot of people bought homes they had to stretch to afford, banking on the sales pitch of "your home will only increase in value, your equity will increase and then you can refinance," but banks and brokers looked the other way, ignored conventional underwriting standards, because everyone was looking to cash in.

If the lenders failed to dot all the i's and cross all the t's in their haste to start cashing in, that's on them.  And if they thought the best way to cover up their mistakes was to commit fraud upon the courts, well, I think that needs to be taken seriously, and consequences imposed.

What really makes me angry is that we keep allowing the "too big to fail" metric to excuse the behavior of corporate entities which have done little but sink their teeth into the economy and consumers with no regard for the consequences.

It's beyond unconscionable.

How hard is it to understand this basic point?

there never were any WMD's in iraq, it was all lies used to justify the otherwise unjustifiable.

When the Watergate impeachment hearings began, only 25% were in favor of Nixon's impeachment; then came the televised impeachment hearings, with some of the old starts of the Senate, strictly following procedures, patiently asking question after question, and allowing the facts to come out as the nation watched spellbound as the case unfolded.  Result: The nation got a living education in the rule of law, and 75% were in favor of impeachment at the end of the process.

In short, the investors made the mistake, buying the securities that weren't legally secure. On the surface, it appears they bought swampland in Florida (as my parents used to say in the 60s).

Well, either way, blame the banksters in the middle. They're the ones that screwed over their customers. The banksters should be forced to pay whatever they've got, then thrown into jail for the rest of their natural lives.

Meanwhile, long as I can, like my grandparents and parents before me, I'll continue to pay my mortgage, on which I was screwed fair and square. It's the American way.

The accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom dispelled the myth of effective corporate governance. These days, the idea that our banks were well capitalized and supervised sounds like a sick joke. And now the mortgage mess is making nonsense of claims that we have effective contract enforcement -- in fact, the question is whether our economy is governed by any kind of rule of law.