In Florida, crimes against the state, by gimleteye

The Miami Herald investigative series, highlighting massive mortgage fraud and regulatory breakdown, triggered the resignation yesterday of the state's top regulator for the financial industry, Don Saxton.

On his way out the door, literally, Saxon mumbled, "I have been contemplating this since long before the series came out, so this just seemed to be the perfect timing.''

It is also perfect timing for the state's editorial boards to connect the dots between the failure of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation and the dominant political ideology of the past decade that abjured regulation in favor of "the free market".

Saxon became the state's chief financial regulator in 2003, through a new office created by the Jeb Bush administration. In his inaugural address in January 2003, Jeb perfectly articulated the triumphant anti-regulatory theme that echoes throughout the mortgage fraud crisis in which 10,000 felons were denied the right to vote but allowed to defraud the public.

The Herald writes, "State leaders involved in mortgage industry legislation over the past five years said they favored the new proposals, but questioned why the agency took so long to press for changes."

The state's editorial boards must not let the assertion go unchallenged.

Saxon was only doing what his boss wanted. This is what Governor Bush said in his 2003 inaugural address that Saxon must have attended; “There will be no greater tribute to our maturity as a society than if we can make these buildings around us empty of workers; as silent monuments to the time when government played a larger role than it deserved or could adequately fill.” It would be interesting to know exactly where Saxon sat, in that audience.

"We never suspected that someone could have been guilty of a felony for fraud and still have a license,'' Sen. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, who chairs the committee that oversees the OFR, told the Herald.

It is now time for the state's editorial boards to connect the dots for the public.

From Al Hoffman and his bankrupt WCI Communities to the lowest scam artist committing white collar crimes in plain daylight, Don Saxon is simply following the trail of the housing crash and credit crisis: considered as all of a piece, they amount to crimes against the state.