Boiler Rooms and Foreclosure Mills: A Brief History of America's Mortgage Industry

Michael Hudson, staff writer with a nonprofit journalism organization, The Center for Public Integrity, writes in The Huffington Post:

• The news about the nation's foreclosure scandal has been coming fast and furious, fueled by tales of backdated documents, false affidavits and "rocket dockets" that push families into the street.

• A former employee with one of the nation's largest lenders testifies that he signed off on 400 foreclosure documents a day without reading them or verifying the information in them was correct.

• Ex-employees of a law firm that serves as a "foreclosure mill" for major lenders describe a workplace where speed -- not accuracy or justice -- trumps all. "Somebody would get a 76-day foreclosure," one recalled, "and then someone else would say, 'Oh, I can beat that!'"

• Shocking stuff. But surprising? Not for anyone who's been tracking the recent history of the mortgage machine. Just about every corner of America's mortgage industry has been blemished by significant levels of fraud over the past decade.

For more, see Boiler Rooms and Foreclosure Mills: A Brief History of America's Mortgage Industry.