A fascinating story I haven't seen elsewhere. Because it relies on the analysis of a single person, it's hard to the real impact this move by the fed had.

The author did a good job on a complicated subject; he might have pointed out that the Comptroller of the OCC has to be the one issuing a regulation and that it is a political position. he could have also pointed out the OCC's charter more specifically than 'safety and soundness' by quoting from the OCC itself "Issue rules and regulations governing bank investments, lending, and other practices" And pointed out how the OCC has CRA (community reinvestment act) responsibilities: http://www.occ.treas.gov/crainfo.htm http://www.occ.treas.gov/cra/limited.htm The statement "state legislatures gave up" would also indicate the story is larger than the space allotted the writer by his editors and that ,perhaps, is why the statement ... More »

Basically good story. Could have gone farther, including, for example, the State of Ohio stopping Cleveland's anti-predatory lending law. Might have included a statistic or two on how bad the situation actually is.

The story twists a bit as the author spins what is good information. The author fails to sufficiently blame neo-con dereliction of duty as they rush to grant the worst wishes of a rapacious group of corporations that make huge contributions to political machines. It is another example of the failure of unfettered capitalism. The author manages to spin it into an advocacy for states rights instead of an advocacy for public oversight of corporate excess greed.

Very well done. Direct citation of public documents (at least 8) to support the premise that GA, NY, NJ, and NM tried, in concert with AARP to craft model legislation to curb lending practices with sub-prime mortgages and were blocked by the lenders lobbying efforts. Clearly the states were ahead of the game here and only the OCC at the federal level was able to cause them to bypass correcting this environment of greed. The sad thing was pointed out that GA actually removed their enacted law to allow there state chartered banks in on the action. Too bad they did not protect them from this mess - it may have helped bring some sanity to the process.

Provides very interesting new information on how the federal government actively prevented states from protecting themselves from predatory sub-prime loans.