Well H.R. 3915 has passed out of committee with almost no changes.

House Panel OKs Bill To Hold Mortgage Lenders More Accountable

Everybody wants to "do something" to make themselves feel better when we have a horrible situation like the subprime crisis we have been having. All of us here want the same result - the best for our customers and for ourselves. The mortgage industry definitely needed a cleansing, but this is definitely the wrong direction. Turning to arguably the most corrupt part of society, the government, to solve the problem won't work.

The hardest and most painful thing to do is to let the markets make the correction. But it is the most effective and long lasting solution in the end. The market is already well under way toward that solution.

It is much easier to assuage the conscience by demanding the government take care of punishing those bad people who caused the problem and rescuing the people who were taken advantage of. It makes us all feel better to be able to say we've done something. The problem now is that this solution is the equivalent of running in just as the fire is dying out and trying to douse it out with gasoline.

Take a look at this article from the Wall Street Journal for an insightful and different view on the subject. This bill is going to harm the very people we want to help.

A Sarbox for Housing 

Carl Pruitt 

FHA mortgage specialist