UMKC Prof. Sees Endemic Fraud And Cover Up In Financial Crisis

KCUR | By Frank Morris

Published April 9, 2009 at 1:13 AM CDT

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-830726.mp3

Kansas City, MO – It seems logical that banks caught stuck with billions of dollars in worthless assets got into that mess by mistake.

But, that's not how UMKC law and economics professor Bill Black sees it. Black says an administration hostile to regulation allowed mortgage bankers to write "liars loans," and allowed rating agencies and investment bankers to cash in on the charade. Now, he says the Obama appointees are obscuring a giant mess...one riddled on all levels by a single element: fraud.

Economy

Frank Morris

I’ve been at KCUR almost 30 years, working partly for NPR and splitting my time between local and national reporting. I work to bring extra attention to people in the Midwest, my home state of Kansas and of course Kansas City. What I love about this job is having a license to talk to interesting people and then crafting radio stories around their voices. It’s a big responsibility to uphold the truth of those stories while condensing them for lots of other people listening to the radio, and I take it seriously. Email me at frank@kcur.org or find me on Twitter @FrankNewsman.

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