What's Good for the Goose.....

I just love the fact that the big banks are upset with the Federal Mortgage Agencies who have decided to sue them for having sold them mortgages with shoddy if not outright fraudulent documentation.

Now our friends at the banks are using as a defense that the Federal Agencies were "the epitome of a sophisticated investor" and that "the forensic analysis of the mortgages" proposed should have been part of Fannie and Freddie's underwriting when they bought the securities.

The list of angry responses goes on ending, as always, that this suit will be "bad for the economy".

Now to be fair the last thing the banks need right now is a gazillion dollar lawsuit. But then again, when the banks were making a gazillion dollars selling "toxic" securities they were happy to pay themselves handsomely.

And when the music stopped and there were basically no chairs they fell over themselves to take TARP dollars. Goldman and Morgan Stanley even became banks to ensure their eligibility!

Now, when their balance sheets are relatively healthy again thanks to government support they revert to their old habits.

I am sure some of you are wondering what happened to "Buyer beware". Yes. There is definitely that aspect. But it is stretching the limits of that warning when the activities are fraudulent.

That is perhaps why the lawsuits are apparently aimed not only at the banks, but at the individuals who signed off on loan documentation which allegedly contained "materially false" statements about the quality of the underlying mortgages.

The proverbial "gander" in this case however is my friends at Halliburton who, interestingly enough, are suing BP over "inaccurate information" and "negligent misrepresentation" with regards to the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Now that wording sounds vaguely familiar....