Back From the Vomitorium: The Looting of the Mortgage Settlement
Agreement  States are looting the Mortgage Settlement Fund, and
the odds are good that you or someone you know is getting robbed
-- for the second time.  According to recent reports,
politicians, not bankers, are the culprits this time around --
siphoning billions from that historic settlement and pumping it
into their broken state budgets. Instead of "manning up" and
changing their diet, they're taking a cue from ancient Rome:
After a quick trip to the vomitorium, it's back to the banquet
table. (Care for a mint?)  Their willingness to play fast and
loose with the settlement -- crawling through certain wiggle
words in its language to circumvent the clear intent of its
negotiators --- tells me they still haven't learned where "fast
and loose" leads. Ironically, some of the worst offenders are
the governors of states that originally led the fight to win
justice for consumers -- with California Gov. Jerry Brown
leading the charge.  Remember the se