Accountability has many names...

See if you recognize my top 3 socially irresponsible individuals associated with the recent financial debacles on Wall Street:

1. James A. Johnson
2. Phil Gramm
3. Franklin Raines

So what if I told you there was a common thread that tied Countrywide Financial Corporation, Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers, and AIG together...surprised? You shouldn't be too much because in the world of finance they "were" all big players. But, what if you could tie a name(s) to all that, thus holding someone and not just a company accountable...justice right? Well not so fast, but James A. Johnson made my list at #1.

James A. Johnson currently works for the merchant bank and private equity fund management company called Perseus LLC, which also employs Richard C. Holbrooke who has ties with AIG. Prior to this Jim held numerous executive positions at Fannie Mae, and prior to that Lehman Bros. So what right...coincidences that all this is happening now and perhaps was unavoidable considering the downward spiral of our economy. Not exactly...through severe mismanagement, manipulation, excessive sub-prime lending, and an "estimated $16 Billion in misstated earnings" left Freddie and Fannie is disarray, yet still monopolizing the housing industry (Investors Daily). That's how it affected you, but you can always get a good judge of character by looking at their personal life, and for this we look at his ties with Countrywide;

Through a group internally known as "Friends of Angelo", a reference to Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo (who also made my top 10 list), Jim cashed in on some serious mortgage deals. To date records indicate he received some $7 million in loans under market value for homes in Washington's Dupont Circle, Palm Desert, Idaho, and some personal home equity loans. This trend was continued with #3 on my list; Franklin Raines, who also managed to take full advantage of his professional role at Fannie Mae by securing even better interest rates and more money up. That is until his forced resignation in 2004 from Fannie Mae after "its regulator found it had violated accounting rules in an effort to conceal fluctuations in profit and hadn't maintained adequate risk controls" (Simpson&Hagerty). He's only #3 and not higher on the list because he followed suite from Jim's lead, and there's a better #2 out there...his name is Phil Gramm.

Senator of Texas, Phil Gramm, has been credited with leading "the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era banking regulation law" (Lerer). This lack of regulating credit derivatives was etched in stone through the "Commodities Future Modernization Act of 2000, which specifically exempted new derivative markets from government oversight" (Leonard). In short, it would "protect financial institutions from over regulation"(Corn). The bottom line though is that through these steps to deregulate it ended up lining his pockets directly (his role with UBS), or indirectly (his wife working for Enron).

Do you see the root of the problem through all these details...GREED. Regardless that James Johnson and Franklin Raines have strong ties to the Democrats, or Sen. Phil Gramm's ties to the Republicans...they are all greedy scum! So where do we go from here if everyone in power is getting free handouts and leaving you on the back burner to bail out problems they leave behind????