These things get exposed and yelled about all the time and everybody has lots of fun. But they didn't cause the current mess. What did is much less fun and safe to talk about but has had catastrophic consequences and wiped out trillions of wealth: affirmative action lending.

The central factor in WHY lenders felt and responded to pressure to hand out loans at below-market rates was race, or "expanding minority homeownership", "greenlining not redlining", or any of many other slogans and euphemisms.

I'd rather a golden parachute or two than a massive systematic pattern of malinvestment based on racial politics and nearly causing a Depression but which we are not allowed to acknowledge, let alone correct and prevent recurrences of.

Where are the exposés of the hustlers, shakedown artists, spineless CEOs, pandering politicians, and the rest who almost took us all over the cliff in their gravy train?

CARNEY! R U A MORON? 25 MILLION? IF IT'S OUT OF YOUR POCKET! GIVE ME THE GUYS ADDRESS, I'LL SEE IF I CAN GET A REFUND, OR SEND ONE OF THE MILLIONS OF DISGRUNTLED TAXPAYERS BY!! HOPE THIS GUY DROPS DEAD BEFORE HE GETS TO SPEND IT!!! MAYBE YOUR DIVERSIONARY COMMENTS WERE MEANT TO COVER UP YOUR GOLDEN PARACHUTE OR MAYBE YOU R SUCKING THIS GUYS WEINER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carney is absolutely right. It should also be noted the neither Merrill nor BofA took money from the government. BofA was forced to take 25 billion to detour a run on the banks that actually needed the money.

Merrill Lynch should never have given Peter Krause $25million for any reason when he resigned after only 3 months. They nearly collapsed after Lehman etc. and had to be bought by Bank of America to survive. How do they justify giving Kraus this money when he resigned after only 3 months! As an investor, I lost thousands last year like others did and I'm very disgusted with the way these execs are riking in the money from these companies. We are the ones paying these people - "our loss, their gain" and it's not right. These blown-up salaries have to end immediately. I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure that they are. How can you sleep at night Peter Kraus? You should give every penny of that money back to ML - get out of your Park Ave. apartment. You didn't work for it anyway. Shame on you for your greed.

I cannot ignore your comment that the financial crisis was created because lenders felt pressured to loan money to minorities. That, Carney, is an innacurate, ignorant, "from the hip" comment, and is not a worthy subject for debate.

How dare you suggest that "greenlining" caused this crisis? You are a racist!

Whether "redlining" or "greenlining" caused the current financial crisis is a debatable statement. Under our constitution, Carney has the right to express his/her opinion. Now thats its 2009, lets let people speak their mind without accusing them of being a "racist." On to the topic of the article, I too am disappointed to see good money thrown at executives that did nothing to earn it, those overseeing the bailout should have better safeguards in place.

Below market rate loans would never have caused a crisis of this magnitude. What caused this problem is the uneducated consumers, and the unscrupulous lenders willing to gamble to make a buck. It first starts with crap loads of commercials telling you that owning a home is the best thing since sliced bread. You take the bait, pick your house, then end up talking to a shyster mortgage loan writer. He fabricates your income, writes you this crazy loan that cost you 7-800 dollars a month for the first 5 years, 13-1400 a month after that. They tell you the housing market will be in the sky in 5 years, make all of your payments and you can refinance to get a lower rate. Banks are willing to accept the loans because they stand to reap huge profits. These huge profit are then leveraged and accounted for which allows these Investment Banks to borrow up to five times their worth per year.
At some point most of these people don't have the ability to get out of these loans and the banks then foreclose. It's is not a Black thing, Blacks and Hispanics are not the only ones being foreclosed on. Their are far more poor Caucasian people caught in the trap than the media writes about. I feel the media is doing a disservice to the poor Caucasian plight. And if they (the media) would pay more attention, the help would trickle down to the all of the homeowners. But since everyone thinks it just Black people, it would be unconscionable to help Black people. Yet we are willing to give this money to bank so that they can lend more. What is the point of that?
On another subject I have a citi credit card formerly with 3.99 percent interest, well I guess with all of their woes they have raises my interest rate to 8.99 a whole 5 percent, what the $@&%. They are breaking their contract with me on so many levels. Especially since the feds interest rate is almost zero right now. We bail these companies out and they put it right in your a$$ with no Vaseline.

Carney, you're an idiot and you need to get off you a-- and do some serious reading. Start w reading about CDO's and Credit Default Swaps and you will see that all those highly paid, poor decision making, greedy CEO's of all of these financial services firms not only caused their firms to lose tremndous value, but they also caused the loss of bilions of dollars to their investors, small businesses, schools, non-profits, cities, states and even you. Don't be so stupid...when did it make sense to give anyone $25 mil for several months work.

To Fred in #6....

Am I not afforded the same freeedom Carney has? I believe his comments about minorities to be rascist. Not to mention ridiculous.

I'm not the first too suggest this but assaination is becoming a real deal to these thieves. Its enough that they raped the American economy, but totally a sin to be taking federal money and paying it out in bonuses to these thieves. Put a price on their heads of $50,000. or kidnap their children for $1,000,000. per head and the problem will be solved. America needs to exist like the "rest of the world"!
PS - Remember the Mel Gibson movie - This will call for maximun action!