Bill Moyers
PBS
Discussing the roots of the economic crisis with Bill Moyers on his weekly TV show, former regulator Bill Black said that much of the blame lies with lenders for issuing “liars’ loans,” in which borrowers’ claims about their financial situation were not verified.
Bill Black:
“Liars’ loans mean that ‘We don’t check. You tell us what your income is, you tell us what your job is, you tell us what your assets are, and we agree to believe you. We won’t check on any of those things. And, by the way, you get a better deal if you inflate your income and your job history and your assets.’ We know they said that to borrowers. That’s what you do… They just gutted the verification process. We know that [it produces] enormous fraud under economic theory, criminology theory, and 2000 years of life experience.”