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With today’s announcement from Citigroup, the subprime may still have a ways to go, but the political issue is just getting started.

Yesterday’s Washington Post had an absolutely wretched article by Jim Rokakis, the treasurer of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. It’s almost something out of the The Onion. He basically blames the death of a little girl and an elderly man on predatory lenders. I’m not exaggerating:

Twenty years ago, the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland was a tightly knit community of first- and second-generation Polish and Czech immigrants. Today, it's in danger of becoming a ghost town, largely because a swarm of speculators, real estate agents, mortgage brokers and lenders saw an opportunity to make a buck there.

You could say it was because of them that 12-year-old Asteve' "Cookie" Thomas lost her life on Sept. 1, shot in Slavic Village when she stumbled into the crossfire of suspected drug dealers.

No, you can’t. You could, however, blame her death on the suspected drug dealers who fired at her. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that they're probably actual drug dealers as well.

It gets worse:

The Federal Reserve's recent decision to cut interest rates may calm the nerves of Wall Street bankers, but it won't bring back Cookie Thomas or Joe Krasucki.

Vile.

I think another Sarbanes-Oxley is on the way.

Posted by edelfenbein at October 1, 2007 11:09 AM