We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us

Hurd admitted that during the early and mid-2000's, he operated a company called "The Gift Program," which he described as a "seller funded down payment assistance program" used to provide home buyer's money to make the down payment and initial mortgage payments on real estate purchases. Hurd further admitted that he used The Gift Program to create an elaborate scheme to defraud lenders by concealing the transfer of loan funds to the borrower from the lender. In essence, through the use of The Gift Program, lenders unwittingly funded their own down payment and made the initial mortgage payments.

What a wonderful decade for housing development, mortgage debt, high flying property "values" (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean), brokers with gelled hair and ass clown attitudes, etc.  We now find ourselves as a country neck deep in our own filth.  My own guess & O-Pinion (that and 4 Ben Bernanke Fun Bucks will get you a Starbuck's "tall") is that 65% of the increases in value came as a result of fraud.  We as a people became a bunch of contortionists capable and willing to blow smoke up our own asses.