Excellent point Jack.
I was really disappointed with Joe Biden for leading the charge to change the bankruptcies laws; making them more favorable for the credit card companies…After all, Delaware is the home to the credit card giants.
You pegged it Jack, AIG is fine, except for the subprime lending part, and GE used to be one of the most stable companies in the world, but their credit card (Capital One) spin off is taking its parent company down.
Greed, shortsigthness, over extending and no oversight has to be considered.
Madoff ripped off investors for decades without detection…Heads have to roll for not catching that…..The FBI is still investigating Fannie & Freddie and Wall Street and the bankers are being given a stress test, so perhaps something will come out of this….Am I being too optimistic?

Don't overlook the role that credit card reform has played.  People that were living paycheck to paycheck making their minimum payments suddenly had their minimums increased to levels that were no longer manageable, all because the credit card companies wanted balances paid off in three years.
Look at some of the players in the mortgage problems, Citi, Capital One, Chase, all big credit card issuers and mortgage and home equity lenders.

I don’t disagree, in fact I mentioned that Mr. Frank said everything was ok at Fannie and Freddie and if Mr. Dodd, Schumer and Waters agreed that is not exactly an indictment because they were not in power to influence legislation…We still had 531 other legislators..If more are found; prosecute them…Oddly enough Mr. Franks is calling for a special prosecutor…Bring it on.
Several entities were involved according to a couple of documentaries I saw “House of cards” and a Frontline special….AIG, S&P and Moody’s Investors Service (bond rating companies) which made them easy to peddle overseas…
I don’t think government or congress played a large role because I do not think SEC Chairman Christopher Cox is corrupt, it is more about incompetence and as the whistleblower said the SEC does not have the financial expert’s necessary to decipher the schemes the MIT Wall Street bunch cooked up like the credit default swaps and other schemes..They even had Alan greenspan baffled and he has masters in mathematics.
I think personal favors to a state run entity, favorable loans rates, or having a spouse at the corrupt entity by our legislators are not indictable offenses, stupid maybe, on the fence, probably but it needs to be reined in.
If you watched the “House of Cards “ documentary it did not mention Fannie or Freddy but the Wall Street CEO they interviewed did a mea culpa, as did Greenspan and the bankers so far.
Who knows but I have been mesmerized by all of this and I appreciate any link you can provide.
I found this while I was looking for my proof.
Mr Cassano, who earned £203 million during his eight years running AIG Financial Products, "found a crack in the system that was unregulated" and exploited it to make huge profits, ABC News in America reported.
When the US housing market collapsed, AIG's heavy exposure to these swaps brought the company, the world's biggest insurer, to its knees and forced a $160 billion (£115billion) bail-out by Washington.
"AIG Financial Products was the core, the hottest point of the global financial crisis. It was the epicentre," Peter Koenig, an investigative reporter, told ABC's Good Morning America.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fi...

I agree that the Republicans should have called their bluff to filibuster and put them on record. But I will admit I saw no one but Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer saying everything was fine at Fannie and Freddie and that they needed no further regulation. If I have missed anyone particularly a Republican please let me know.
The junk that Fannie and Freddie put out had an implied triple A rating because these were Government Sponsor Entities. That's what was so dangerous and stupid. And if it's all Wall Street why did they have to bailout Fannie and Freddie. In fact I think Freddie is back asking for another 30 billion, oh well.
Congress will try as hard as they can to blame anyone but themselves but I think it's going to be difficult. They desperately want to lay this entire mess on Wall Street and the banks, they may fool some but I doubt if they fool more than a few.

You might have a point but I still believe we could put 10 people together for a fact finding mission because we need to know who did what, and how can we prevent it. It doesn’t have to be legislators; it could be a mixture of businessmen.attorneys, CPAs, and federal judges.
I agree somewhat, but I blame the system and this is one area where Obama has disappointed me, campaign finance reform..We need to rein in lobbyist money, because the day after a congressperson is elected; they are on the phone trying to collect money for the next election..That lobbyist money is pretty tempting, even without a quid pro quo; the suspicion will always be there.

Mike, you wrote:  "I believe Rep. Cantor also has a connection...Don't you think we need a fact finding commission?"
Is there ANY congress critter you would trust at this point?  Congressional fact finding commission -- Hah!  They couldn't find their backsides with a map and flashlight.

I have mentioned credit default swaps and the CDO's and I strongly disagree because direct contact between the seller and the public is always regulated......We have Truth in lending,bankruptcies laws, etc......Both parties agree when we get out of this mess,we will regulate Wall Street so this does not happen again..In fact during a congressional hearing the banks agreed to be regulated...Overregulation is one thing and minimal regulation is another...The voters are demanding it ,according to the polls I have looked at.
You continue to use your culprits but other reputable sources do not agree..The WSJ agrees with your assement but many others do not....
That filibuster was just a threat ,like the GOP is using today....Today,I think if the Dems feel that strong about a position let them filibuster because then America is watching and vise versa.
We will just have to disagree ,once again.

The Housing Regulation Reform Bill did not make it out of committe because the Democrats promised to fillibuster it and the Republicans did not have the votes to prevent it.  But that being said, regardless of political party the government had no business messing in the the home mortgage business. 
This thing really exploded when Fannie and Freddie got involved and started issuing mortgage back securities like they were going out of style.  Trillions of dollars in loans were involved.   Loans by Country Wide, a good friend of Chris Dodd, were made to people who did not have to offer proof of identification.  So far I have not mentioned Wall Street although they eventually became a player.  You start throwing around trillions of dollars they get the scent and become involved.
This problem has been confined primarily to sub prime loans.  CDO and credit default swaps in other ares of our economy have not been a problem, that ought to tell us something.