In his new book “Homewreckers,” investigative reporter Aaron Glantz looks at the devastating legacy of the housing bust and the key players who benefited as millions of people lost their homes and savings.
In his new book “Homewreckers,” investigative reporter Aaron Glantz looks at the devastating legacy of the housing bust and the key players who benefited as millions of people lost their homes and savings.
In his new book “Homewreckers,” investigative reporter Aaron Glantz looks at the devastating legacy of the housing bust and the key players who benefited as millions of people lost their homes and savings. A prominent figure in the book is Steve Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s current treasury secretary, who at the time ran OneWest Bank and oversaw so many foreclosures he would later be dubbed “the foreclosure king.” Glantz says Mnuchin’s bank was even “subsidized by us, the taxpayers,” for kicking people out of their homes. “He struck a deal with the federal government where the federal government actually paid him when he foreclosed on families to mitigate his losses. We paid him, his group, more than $1 billion.” Glantz says there were many “very senior people” inside the Obama administration who pushed for an alternative response to the housing bust, one that bailed out homeowners rather than Wall Street, but he says that advice was consistently ignored.