As I sit here in Honolulu catching up on the news over the long MLK holiday weekend, I was shocked to read about yet another serious banking fiasco. It seems that JP Morgan Chase, the nation’s #2 mortgage lender, overcharged several thousand military families on their mortgages and even improperly foreclosed on fourteen homes! Some families were overcharged by more than 4% on their loans! So while active duty men and women are overseas fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq or other hot zones, their families are back home in their own fight against the unjust practices of their bank. In a nutshell, our soldiers are fighting in the name of liberty while their own rights are being abused back home. Where’s the justice in that? Now whether you agree with our military campaigns or not (a separate discussion, please), I think we all respect the job these people have and consider this information quite disturbing.

This comes on the heels of a discussion I had the other day with a representative of Wells Fargo’s liquidation department regarding a certain short sale. The representative, while polite enough, told me point blank that sometimes poor offers get quickly accepted while she often sees perfectly reasonable offers — offers that would clearly help all parties — get rejected for no reason she herself can understand — and she works there everyday. And, of course, we’re only a couple months or so past the height of the robo-signing scandal.

What does this mean about the current state of foreclosures across America? Is it a stretch to say that the patients are running the asylum? With so many families in need of a loan modification or short sale, it’s understandable if some just throw up their hands and ask “What’s the point of fighting”? While I’d disagree with that position because there are professionals who can help, it certainly makes the job difficult for those same professionals who are fighting on the homeowners’ side against these lenders who, apparently, can’t even do their own job.

Here in Hawaii, we all know how big a part the military plays in our local economy and daily lives. I don’t know of any affected personally, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some local active duty personnel were wronged by Chase’s mistakes. That ought to bother all of us.

So I ask you — how much faith do you have in the current financial system to properly assess all the current and future preforeclosures (of which there are plenty), loan modifications, refinance requests and short sale applications? Are these isolated issues or are they part of a larger systemic problem? Should we let the system just flush itself out or is there still a fight to be won?