I had considerable real estate at that time, including motels, hotels, truck stops, golf courses, apartments, and land, and knew the financial frauds that would follow deregulation. It didn't take any great expertise to predict the consequences, and surely members of Congress and the industry recognized that fact, even sooner than I.
Developers, Mafia figures, and crooks started buying small savings and loans in out-of-the-way-places. In that manner they gained access to the Treasury of the United States, permitting them to engage in self-dealings, sham transactions, and massive fraud against the American taxpayer. Deregulation and the concurrent fraud were financially fabulous for many people, fueling massive growth in the real estate industry during the 1980s. The price tab was picked up by the public in the 1990s, and they would pay, for decades, well into the next century. The losses, much of which were outright theft, exceeded the cost of World War II. Never in the history of the United States had such a massive financial debacle occurred, making the American taxpayer the victim of the biggest scam in the nation's history.
The crooks acquiring savings and loans immediately gave themselves fabulous salaries and expense accounts. They made loans to themselves or corporations they owned or controlled, and had a fabulous lifestyle that couldn't possibly be supported by the income of the savings and loan they acquired...