I’d just like to state for the record that the “Who could have known?” defense about the housing bubble and its possible effects is a poor one, and is historical revisionism both to avoid criminal prosecution by financial elites and to ensure that their behavior is allowed to occur again.

I’ve seen people I like and respect assert that no one could have known what would happen as a result of the collapse of the housing bubble and the corrupt mortgage market – which means, of course, that they did not know.

However, financial experts – and specifically those perpetrating the worst of the fraud – knew very well what the likely effects were. No, no one could have known nor given a precise chronology of the future disaster, but that the inevitable crash was likely to cause widespread economic carnage was extremely, extremely well-known in the financial industry.

Those responsible just did not care because the bonuses has already been paid out.

I was telling people as early as 2005 that the housing bubble was going to burst, and though I did not then guess the full scope of its effects, I knew it would be very bad. No one wanted to hear that, of course.

And you can bet if I knew – I who have no inside contacts, not that much special knowledge, and am little-concerned with all of that – then experts definitely knew.

But the “hoocoodanode” defense did keep the “important” people out of jail, and the regular people (most of whom didn’t know) thoroughly snookered, so it was a complete success.