Well, the flip side of the greed, was the presumed promise that the Federal Govt through Fannie and Freddie was going to be on the limb for the mandated lending policies. So yes, you can trust the banks to be "greedy", but they would not have been greedy without someone else being on the hook for the bad policies force on them. Does this help us understand that we are the guys writing the checks for government, good and bad?

I am not sure that more regulation would have exposed that banks were making bad loans. If the Fannie/Freddie promise was not there, and the banks would have been held liable for these loans, then the kickback would have been much stronger. Instead they were able to make their margins and resell the loans upstream to the Federally backed entities. So as much as some congressmen are dangling out the regulation bait, their role in things needs to be understood.

Trust is a hard thing. One one hand, you have lazy people that will do what is asked of them and only what is asked on them. You have people that are only looking for "advantages", then you have the people that honestly do care. For the first group, I make sure the instruction are as clear as possible and do the 'thinking' for them to specify what contingencies I need handled. For the second group, I have a personal problem dealing with them, but try to redirect them to what is needed. For the last group, just be there to help and point them where they can help the best.

I would agree Steve. For the most part the people I deal with are civil and well mannered. I do not think we are doomed yet, but there are increasing pressures on society to embrace belligerence and not think of others.