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I've been watching this situation of the mortgage loan collapse, particularly the blame game that follows any catastrophe, with a growing sense of gloom. Someone is going to pay, literally, with not just their wallets, but their reputations.

This time, it's the mortgage broker industry taking the fall for Wall Street hubris.

For some reason beyond me, all fingers have pointed toward the men and women in this business, sloppy as it can be, as the evil juggernaut that needs to be brought to its knees.

The low point for me was the recent Democratic presidential debate in Iowa, where the issue came up as one of the last questions. Some good answers were offered on the need for more liquidity in the market. But alas, when it came time for our own Gov. Bill Richardson to speak, the whole thing went to another place when he offered this:

"The mortgage industry, they've become — a lot of them — a bunch of loan sharks," Richardson said.

Is this necessary? Seriously. What good can come from firing a shot at an industry that, by the way, has lost more than 45,000 jobs this year?

Steve Cecco, president of the New Mexico Association of Mortgage Brokers, has been hustling lately to say the least. He put it this way: "It is an election year and, unfortunately, Bill jumped on the bandwagon."

I know a few brokers in town. You probably do, too. They are part of an ecosystem of the home-buying process that has become a frothing free-for-all. If you want a bead on where the American heart beats right now, have a chat with a mortgage broker, because the stories are legion.

Customers in the so-called "sub-prime" market — and you can read that as poor and low-middle income folks — are not the ones clogging up the brokers' offices looking for loans. There's a "something for nothing" atmosphere out there right now that was out of hand long before the mortgage broker entered the conversation.

What brokers tell me is that once the easy-to-get loans became available, people clamored for quick money — not necessarily low-income folks but the greedy who wanted to take advantage of the system.

I caught up with Bill Elliot, who runs Rocky Mountain Mortgage and has seen his share of ups and downs in the business. While his shop does not handle sub-prime mortgages, I wanted to get his take on it.

"Sub-prime is getting a lot of bad publicity, some of it rightfully so, but sub-prime has its place," Elliot said. "A lot of people tried to get on the bandwagon, and the more competitive it got, the more programs people offered. It became a darling on Wall Street."

These shaky loans are not dipped out of the bubbling mortgage lender cauldron on Menaul or Coors boulevards. They're compliments of Wall Street investors, who have literally brainwashed the nation on this notion of free money. The investors put out the programs and whetted the public's appetite for cheap money. Mortgage brokers were merely the middlemen.

It's a tough spot, and a classic one. An industry made up of small shops whose numbers are dropping quickly and without the ability to lobby the Roundhouse and Capitol Hill. These mortgage brokers can't get their voice heard to bring some balance or sanity to the national conversation.

All that said, there are issues in this industry. Its members know it and can speak to it unflinchingly. They say the answer lies in licensing within the loan origination business in New Mexico, to ensure that all brokers are properly educated and certified. Their association has been looking for this in the Roundhouse for the past three sessions.

I had a good chat with Johnny Ortiz and Jesse Deubel, partners in Paramount Mortgage Group, and they drilled it. "The industry itself needs to step up so we have more qualified people in the field. It (being unlicensed) just adds to the misconception" that the industry is not as professional as other financial institutions, Deubel said.

The standoff in Santa Fe is that elected officials want regulation rather than licensing to rein in the mortgage industry. I would say both are needed — trained and licensed people along with regulation to ensure the industry is all on the same page and the consumer is protected.

If, as a result of licensing, the lower end of the industry shakes out, no one would cry over it.

The need for a black hat is a cherished American tradition. But I believe we're trying to stick it on the heads of the wrong people. Let's hope this thing simmers down soon and some common sense comes to the surface.