(10-08-2023 01:16 PM)banker Wrote: Tanq, your Texas example is flatly ridiculous as a comparison and you know it. It’s just saddening that you believe anyone here would be ignorant enough to buy it. Why didn’t you just say Bernie Madoff and Trump are the same? It would have been equally valid, as in not valid at all.
First - I can show you harm in your example.
Second - I can show direct impact on the citizens (or residents) of Texas in your example.
Third - I’m willing to bet an actual complaint was filed in your reference case with the state by an affected party.
You can show none of these in the Trump case.
The Colonia example is an exact example of an instance of standalone fraud.
Not meant to be an exact perfect fact pattern. But a great instance of AG intervention in standalone fraud.
I take it you think standalone fraud should be tolerated? I have zero issue with AG action in standalone fraud. There *is* a societal interest in policing such fraud. You seem to think such fraud as victimless, and I guess you condone it? Sounds like a stupid justification. I'm not the one saying "golly gee willikers.... lie all you want as a borrower. No harm no foul."
Yeah, that's a great stance.
Question for you: what other firms of fraud do you think we should overlook just 'because"?
Edited to add: wasnt at a place I could type easily previously. Fuller explanation follows ---
A state, any state, has a fundamental and vested interest in ensuring that *no* fraud (of any sort) occurs. Fraud can be combatted in two manners -- one by private action (where an aggrieved party makes a claim for damages); or another by the state in a standalone action (where the measure of hit by the fraud perpetrator is the amount of profit they made, and/or the loss of right to conduct business in the state).
One simply cannot argue that a party has a right to lie to a lender about their financial status to obtain loans, or to obtain better terms on loans. The issue *you* look at is whether the private counterparty sustains damage. Maybe they do, maybe they dont.
The issue is whether the state as an actor will condone fraud in the loan process, or whether they will police it. If the state allows it to happen, then by default more people will engage in it. In the aggregate, more fraud in the loan application process *is* harmful to business in a state -- any state.
Your stance is apparently the above -- the state should overlook that fraud. Thus impliedly you support allowing people to generate profit using fraud and artifice as the basis. Are you comfortable with that? Im not.
In response, a state pursues a standalone claim -- if someone persistently engages in fraudulent acts, and does them in the context of business, a state has the option and power to perform the following --- a) strip the fraud perpetrator from doing business in the state, and/or b) penalize them in the amount that they profited from such fraudulent activity.
Instead of impliedly endorsing persistent fraud by simply not pursuing it, a state has a full option to the above --- and when the latter course in taken the state takes steps to keep anyone who pursues persistent fraud from benefitting from that fraud, *and* maybe strips them of their license to do business in that state.
I dont see anything wrong in the state pursuing those actions.
If you believe a state should simply allow anyone to profit from persistent fraudulent activity, you have every right to think that.
As a banker, I would assume that you understand that a borrower has an underlying obligation to be truthful in loan activity. An obligation that is independent in nature. If you believe a state should stand idly by and allow persons who persistently engage in fraud related to that activity to profit from that activity --- again, you have every right to support the idea that the state should sit on the sidelines.
My drothers is that the state actually try to inhibit that fraud activity.
