As a McClatchy report over the weekend reveals, Goldman Sachs bet that a slew of mortgages would fail, marketed and peddled them to more customers, and are making billions off of their scheme: 'Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.

"The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion," said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who's proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks. "This is fraud and should be prosecuted."'

Here's an article from Kristina Rizga (who covered ANWF back in April). Latvia's economic bubble burst in late 2008 and Kristina has been working on explaining what happened and what new hope there is to rebuild their country. It's an interesting parallel to what is happening here, as consumer spending fueled the bubble that was also financed by private debt. A quote from the article applies to what we need in this country as well.

"In the current situation, we have definitive proof that you can't let the markets run completely free. The state has to be involved to assure fair rules for everyone and provide safety nets for the most vulnerable."

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