Spotted this just after today’s Ireland post. I reckon NC’s UK and US readers and others will have got the idea of ‘extend and pretend’ , aka ‘forbearance’ already; always good to see it getting called out again though.
Read more...Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang? io9 (hat tip reader John M) Rhino left with no place to hide Los Angeles Times Test tells age from blood drops BBC Libertarians Behind TSA Junk Touching Outrage Orgy Also Masterminded “Topless Tuesdays” Moe Tkacik (hat tip Richard Smith). This is a bit […]
Read more...No formal announcement yet, but some presumably well-sourced rumours about the size of the Irish bailout (EUR 85Bn), and the rate (7%, via the redoubtable Twitterer on all matters Irish @LorcanRK). While we await the budget statement, there are reasons to suspect, or hope, that the bailout, like Godot, will never come, because it’s failing […]
Read more...Felix Salmon reports on a conversation with departing assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr on newly-commenced reviews of the practices of bank servicers. Barr’s patter might sound convincing to the uninformed. An “11-agency, 8-week review of servicer practices, with hundreds of investigators crawling all over the banks”! Promises to hold miscreants accountable! Banks required to fix […]
Read more...Lisa Epstein of Foreclosure Hamlet sent an eye-opening letter from Christopher Meister, who ran for the sheriff of Lee County, Florida as an independent and lost. As much as I’ve read plenty of reports of dubious judicial behavior in Florida, I still find myself appalled when new stories crop up. The Meister letter provides specific […]
Read more...From the folks at Versus. Enjoy!
Read more...An Alternative to Body Scanners at the Airport UrbanGrounds (hat tip Marshall Auerback) Chip implant ‘to help paralysed’ BBC Diary of a Recession Baby: Thanksgiving is here, and so is hunger MarketWatch Woman who told Obama she was ‘exhausted’ loses job Raw Story Taliban Leader in Secret Talks Was an Impostor New York Times. Or […]
Read more...It was predictable, as soon as the press took notice of a potentially very damaging bit of testimony by a Countrywide manager, that its parent, Bank of America, would do everything in its power to deny its validity. By way of brief background (see here, here, and here for more detail), a recent court decision […]
Read more...I was going to relegate this story to Links, but it is escalating before my eyes. North Korea is known for saber rattling and firing rockets that conveniently fall in the ocean when the verging-on-starvation nation needs a handout. But even at the outset, its latest move looked uncomfortably more belligerent than its usual ploys. […]
Read more...Yves here. Normally I put up cross posts without additional commentary, but I wanted to offer a couple of observations about this post. While this piece is admittedly a bit heavy on economist-speak, and readers may differ with the policy recommendations, = it gives an even-handed account of the early rebound during the Great Depression […]
Read more...By Thomas Cox, a retired bank lawyer in Portland, Maine who serves as the Volunteer Program Coordinator for the Maine Attorney’s Saving Homes (MASH) program, cross posted from New Deal 2.0 Back in September, I was asked to give some unusual advice to a client. This woman, a resident of rural Northwestern Maine, wanted to […]
Read more...There is a great post by Adam Levitin at Credit Slips which discusses the implications of the fact that a recent court decision in Kemp v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. stated that Countrywide had not transferred the note (the borrower IOU) to the Bank of New York, trustee for the securitization trust. Perhaps more important, […]
Read more...Tiny chihuahua set to join Japan police BBC (hat tip reader John M) Leaking Siberian ice raises a tricky climate issue Associated Press (hat tip reader John M). Methane emissions from permafrost, oh my! Is this a true blue moon? Christian Science Monitor Mammograms mismatched due to software error Free Access (hat tip reader Sugar […]
Read more...Some readers may have been unhappy with my failure to comment on a Washington Post article late last week about a push by the mortgage registry service, MERS, to “legalize” its activities. Even though the article indicates that dollars are being thrown at lobbyists to sell the MERS version of reality in DC, their approach […]
Read more...By Tom Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive On Sunday, the New York Times reported on a recent case known as Kemp vs. Countrywide. In it, the judge in his decision states that for the mortgage loan in question in the case, a Countrywide employee testified that the mortgage note had never been delivered […]
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