A good deal of the responsibility for the crisis should also be placed on regulatory failure. Consumers were not adequately protected. There was an epidemic of deceptive lending. A lot of victims were elderly. Not all mortgages were fraudulent, of course,. Many people were looking to make a quick profit with little money down. Nonetheless, specialty lenders such as IndyMac Bank of Pasadena (California) set out to make bad loans. Mortgage brokers and loan officers, compensated on sales volume, sold so-called liar or "no income, no job or assets" (NINJA) adjustable-rate loans with false or incomplete documentation. What is evident is that many banks gutted lending standards. Internal credit controls were weakened. Because risky loans command higher interest rates, the business model promised profits in the early years. It was guaranteed to end in disaster. In that sense, it was calculated dishonesty[22] .
It is most appropriate therefore that attention is shifting from financial rescue to financial reform, from the short term to the long term. "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things," said Peter Drucker. However, reform requires courage and diplomacy as well as careful thought. Bashing Wall Street is easier than trying to reorganize it. There is a risk that nothing substantive will be done. Doing nothing would be a disgrace since it generates the conditions for another world-wide financial meltdown[28] . No matter what they say in public, chances are that most bankers long to return to business as usual. Even so, the banks may be interested in cutting deals. They will try to advance the political fortunes of individual lawmakers in exchange for sympathetic treatment (In 2009 alone, America's commercial and investment banks contributed $150 million to political campaigns.). In addition, viable reforms require international coordination.