It's Alive, the Mortgage is Alive. I am about to lose some libertarian "creds." It seems to me that the government power of definition could be used to help our financial mess. I do not know that I would call this regulation, but self honesty compels me to admit it is. If there is a known definition of mortgage for example, then one who issues or resells a "mortgage" that does not meet that definition is guilty of fraud.

To a large extent, due to rather utopian ideas of the market by regulators, "loans" that in years past would never have been issued were issued. These were the infamous "ninja" loans—no income no job. They were issued due to the way executive compensation works in our modern financial Babylon.

I suggest you listen to the 2012 Bill Black interview I embed below as it explains exactly how this works.

Or if you do not have time to listen, consider these words:

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

- Frederic Bastiat

This is our modern Babylon that calls evil good and good evil. No non-psychopath ever wants to think of themselves as evil, so a little redefinition is needed.

Control of definitions, or as I call it here the template, predetermines the outcome. We need better definitions, and a better template to look at the world.