I am an Enterprise IT Infrastructure Consultant specializing in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and more generally, in client technology enablement. I moved to West Palm Beach in 2010 from New York. The devastation to the community was obvious, even to an outsider. It was blatantly obvious that mountains of bad decisions, driven by profits and greed, had literally ruined thousands of lives. I wish that I had known that this was going on behind the scenes while I was living there! Heck, I was driving those streets, eating in those restaurants and drinking in those bars. By 2012, I was thoroughly disgusted by the corruption, backdoor dealing, and pervasive culture of “anything for a buck,” so I packed up my stuff and moved to Chicago, the MOST corrupt city in America, where we are working for actual money instead of nickels and dimes! 🙂 At least here, the city and residents are engaged in an unofficial armistice treaty, where the city operates mostly in good faith and the citizens tacitly turn a blind eye to the corruption and the bribes.

Anyway, it was a truly riveting read and should probably be turned into a movie, but the fairly depressing, anti-climatic inevitability of the outcome might not play well in Hollywood. Congrats David, Lawyers, and Activists. You have truly provided me with a valuable education on this issue and have officially gained an ally.

Lou – Let me correct you on the the ladder of origination. Lenders and mortgage companies CANNOT employ drug addicts, etc. New regulations that went into effect over 3 years ago requires all such persons to be licensed and in that licensing is a background check and credit report check. This is mandated annually. The only ones that escaped this regulation were the banks. All those that couldn’t pass the new regulations applied for positions at the banks! So, now all the thieves are located in one place! Please don’t include mortgage brokers and loan officers in that group because they did not market, create or fund those programs derived at Wall Street. And for the most part, most of them stayed away from those programs. As a mortgage broker for 44 years I am proud of my career and the fact that I provided a service and a means for hundreds (probably more like thousands) of people to own a home and it was done using honest means and counseling. My business is 99% referral and that doesn’t happen by being dishonest!