Given today's computing power, I wonder how hard it would be to produce periodic reports(*) listing all of the hard assets that back particular securities, along with the percentage of each, and then figure out the total value of securities backed by each asset. I would expect that there would be some hard assets which aren't backing up much of anything, and others that are backing up an amount which would vastly exceed even the most optimistic estimate of their worth.
(*) The reports wouldn't be printed on paper, but would be generated 'virtually' as input to the process that would evaluate is being backed by each hard asset.
I really don't mind paying a corporate CEO $100M if he does a good job running a thriving company. I most emphatically object, however, to the fact that the Fannie/Freddie executives are making lots of money while shafting taxpayers. IMHO, the bailouts should take the forms of loans secured by the flesh of the CEOs involved.
We already have that and have had that for decades.
It just doesn't apply to governmental entities, GSE's, or members of Congress.