ligonlaw
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
How Michael T. Pines Defies the Law
The mortgage crisis did not affect a small group of people. It was the basis of the meltdown of the American economy and the primary cause of the Great Recession. Wall Street investment banks demanded more and more mortgages so that they could be "securitized" and turned into bonds, which were toxic investments. The big banks, like Bank of America, where I once worked, were in such a hurry to turn bad mortgages into securities that they stopped recording mortgage transactions at the Country Recorders' offices. The big banks and the investment banks began to manufacture fraudulent title documents. These were the documents they brought into court in order to evict people from their homes. The courts became involved in the fraud when they accepted bank documents which were fraudulent. The process was repeated all over the United States. The title to much of the real estate was in limbo as a result of the banks' failure to perfect title. The American people bailed out the banks, the perpetrators of the fraud. Mr. Pines was one of a few lawyers who represented the little people.— February 27, 2013 2:07 p.m.