Banks: Make Them PAY

I caught a little of 60 Minutes tonight and they had a story entitled, "Mortgage paperwork mess: the next housing shock?"  Apparently in the midst of people losing their homes left and right by being foreclosed upon by big-name banks, those banks have been losing the mortgage documents that back up the loans. Worse than that, the banks have then been obtaining replacement documents from a document mills, Docx, that are forgeries and submitting them to the Courts!

"...Banks whose paperwork was handled by the Docx forgery mill include Wells Fargo, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, U.S. Bank and Bank of America."

Now, if you or I were to commit this type of fraud, we would end up with a huge fine (probably higher than our net worth) and most likely end up doing time in prison (and not the country club type either).

FDIC Chairman Bair, "thinks rotten mortgage documents are so threatening to the economy that the government should force banks to pay into a massive fund."

"Bair's proposed cleanup fund would pay homeowners to accept a bank's ownership claim without a lawsuit. She says this could be cheaper for banks than trying to recreate the missing documents legitimately - not through document mills."

Are you kidding me? Boo Freakin' Hoo! Let's do to these banks what they have been doing to homeowners! Why should we give them a chance to recover? Do we really want these types of corporations to survive?

The executives and Board of Directors of these corporations need to be punished for allowing this to happen.  Regardless of whether they had first-hand knowledge of this illegal activity, they should not only be responsible but personally liable.  If someone is bringing home the sickeningly high salaries of these executives, then they should be expected to know everything that is going on in their company.  They are either duplicit in the activity or incompetent.  Either way, they MUST pay!

Their savings, investments, yachts, Mercedes, jewels, pentouses, mansions and any other assets should be siezed and used to pay back the victims of their corporate malfeasance!  I better start seeing some executives (and NOT scapegoats) from these banks doing time in prison, and not the country club type!

Finally, let these rotten banks fail.  Let's send a message to corporations and their management that if they want the high salaries then they better take the responsibility seriously or they will PAY!