Who Are These Idiots?

And why are they in charge of anything? Isn’t it time that we re-evaluate who the best and the brightest are? And why are they paid enormous sums of money to be wrong time and again? Not to mention how much they are paid to leave the Shitepile (h/t to Atrios) that they have created and enabled.

From the Shrill One:

Crony capitalism rears its ugly head. If this is as bad as it looks, the subprime mess has just entered a whole new level of scandal:

Countrywide Financial Corp. fell more than 10 percent in New York Stock Exchange trading after U.S. Senator Charles Schumer urged the regulator of the Federal Home Loan Bank system to probe cash advances to the largest U.S. mortgage lender.

Schumer said he was alarmed by the volume of advances the system’s Atlanta bank has made to Countrywide considering “the rapid deterioration'’ in the credit quality of some of the Calabasas, California-based company’s mortgages. Schumer expressed his concerns in a letter sent today to Federal Housing Finance Board Chairman Ronald Rosenfeld.

The Atlanta bank has made $51.1 billion in advances to Countrywide as of Sept. 30, representing 37 percent of the bank’s total outstanding advances, Schumer wrote, citing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The Federal Home Loan Bank is what the British call a quango — a quasi-non-governmental organization. Although it isn’t legally backed by taxpayer money, it’s widely perceived as having an implicit federal guarantee. And at first glance, it appears that taxpayers’ trust is being used to bail out one of the biggest bad actors in the subprime story.

PS: I wondered if I was overdoing it, but Yves Smith makes an even stronger statement: Amazingly, Countrywide manages to soldier on despite all the organizations and individuals that have the bank in their crosshairs. But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s an organization that has always existed on the edge of the law.

This is making me even more convinced everyday that all that free market and deregulation talk, etc., is really a “good” thing is total Bullshit! Oh, yeah the “Masters of the Universe” rule again, and again and again!

Why are these lessons never learned? I remember the S&L debacle and knew before hand that it was inevitable and I was just a youngster at the time. Oh, yeah, that’s right I had some actual experience in the Savings and Loan Industry and knew the players not to mention that I was actually paying attention.