Three-house Monte

Here I was thinking about the latest in the "housing bubble" news - the recent spate of articles about some sort of large-scale, long-running scam in foreclosures - when I came across this; an explanation of how all these people got into the position of having their homes jerked out from under them.

Even rhe logic tree is fairly tortuous;And here's the thing; I cannot for the life of me discern how any of this frenetic financialization and securitization and banksterization of something as simple as a home loan benefits anyone other than the street hustlers in the nice suits at the places like Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs that crafted all this cleverness.

Someone - Bob Reich, maybe? - said once that the financiers hadn't "invented" anything of genuine benefit to the average citizen since the ATM machine, and this sort of big-money street hustle makes me suspect that he was on to something.

Essentially a home loan should be just that, a single, simple transaction between lenders, who get interest on the money they lend, and borrowers, who get the capital they need to own the place they live. I cannot see how any further fiddling with the arrangement benefits anyone other than the three-card monte hustlers in the financial "business".

If they did this on a street corner you'd expect the beat copper (are there beat coppers anywhere anymore?) to chase them down the block with cards and quarters going every which way, the sort of minor comic scene you'd expect in a Thirties movie.Except at the moment it isn't a movie - it's our lives.

Can anyone explain to me why we seem to be more upset about things like public arguments over religion and television programs that this? Are we that stupid, or just that easily distracted by the shiny pretty?