Not yet news is the mushrooming investigation into mortgage fraud arising out of the sub-prime housing fiasco.

Fraud perpetrated in obtaining a mortgages may be committed in one or more of the following ways: Property Flipping; Silent Seconds; Nominee Loans/Straw Buyers; Fictitious/Stolen Identity; Inflated Appraisals; Foreclosure Schemes; Equity Skimming; and Air Loans.

Many of the sub-prime mortgage defaults will expose one or more of these elements. Full Story. The data on the web site has not been updated since 2005. However, it demonstrates that the authorities anticipated the avalanche of fraudulent transactions in early 2006.

I wonder whether the federal government has the resources and/or the political will to pursue these cases because much of this fraud was instituted by the very contributors to the political machine that allowed this situation to ripen. Just to go after the little guy would miss the point because none of this mortgage meltdown would have occurred if Wall Street had not been in position to make a financial killing on the sub-prime action.