This question is not loaded, nor is it rhetorical. I quite simply want to know.

Through all of this mess with the lending industry, I have been watching in horror. How could the things that have happened have happened? Why did those lenders not have to answer to anyone all along?

I do not want to hear about how borrowers did it to themselves. We all know that happened in some cases. But how did conditions exist for that to happen at all?

How do usury laws work in this? Or not? Do we have any usury laws? Or is it the technicality of usury being defined as an exceedingly high rate of interest? Does usury cover all the other stuff? Predatory lending? I live in a state that is filled with those awful payday loan places. Talk about usury. I have never figured out why those things are allowed.

Back to the mortgages though. How did this happen? It never happened before. What changed? And why?

How did it start? Why wasn't it stopped?

I knew all along that we were all tied to the railroad track together, in the path of an oncoming train. I knew it all along. And I am a bumpkin. What did our elected know or not know or not care about all through this whole mess?

Please educate me. I am serious. I want to know and I have no idea. How could this ever have happened?

Boomer