They sought out every loophole they could to profit from California's misery.

Home ownership was the fig leaf for the rise in subprime lending. But that was really about cash-out refinancings, not buying homes.

The big banks advise cities about whether privatization is a wise choice. They also control the ability of states and cities to access the market for their financing needs.

No city embraced privatization more eagerly than Chicago, where I live.

Proponents of privatization argued that cities and states needed private capital to fund all the upgrades that our decaying infrastructure so desperately needed.

Capital isn't this pile of money sitting somewhere; it's an accounting construct.