The more people look at the abruptly-arranged settlement of the OCC/Fed foreclosure reviews, the more they realize something does not smell right.
Elijah Cummings and Elizabeth Warren have started an investigation of the settlement:
Today, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry seeking documents relating to their recent settlement with mortgage servicers that ended the Independent Foreclosure Review (IFR) process.
“We believe that public confidence in the settlement – the confidence necessary to speed recovery of the housing markets – will exist only if the OCC and the Federal Reserve provide additional transparency into the process used and information gathered during the Independent Foreclosure Review process,” wrote Warren and Cummings. “It is critical that the OCC and the Federal Reserve disclose additional information about the scope of the harms found to establish confidence in the sufficiency and integrity of the settlement.”…
The Members requested documents and information including:
• The results of all IFR performance reviews by the Federal Reserve or the OCC, including all documents reviewing the performance of each of the independent contractors that conducted reviews of borrower files under the terms of the consent orders issued in April 2011;
• All documents compiled by the Federal Reserve or the OCC indicating the total amount of settlement funds paid to each independent contractor; and
• The total number of reviews of borrower files initiated by each of the independent contractors, and the number of borrower files in which unsafe or unsound practices were found.
Some people in a position to know believe that this inquiry was prompted in part by our series, as well as the work done by ProPublica and the Huffington Post.
The language of the letter requesting documentation leaves me a bit concerned about whether people in power truly recognize what went on and what is going on within these banks. There’s a level of passive aggressiveness you have to deal with in officialdom rhetoric, because there’s a veneer of politeness that assumes good faith. This is a problem, because what happened in this situation is obvious bad faith collusion from regulators, banks, and consulting firms stocked with corrupt ex-regulators. Yet, Warren and Cummings are pretending otherwise.
For instance, the letter says its objective is to restore confidence in the settlement. Huh? Who cares about “confidence in the settlement” or for that matter “confidence in the housing markets”? The objective was to do justice for homeowners. Since when does the need for “confidence” in a process that was suspect from its very outset trump the contractual and legal protection of citizens? Since when does the need for “confidence” in the markets trump the rule of law? Well, since the Geithner Doctrine, but is that policy going to be institutionalized? Hopefully, this rhetoric is simply a way of keeping options open, and Warren and Cummings understand the depths of the depravity and intend to do something about it.
The pretense of good faith helps the bad guys. For instance, the official position of the OCC is that hardly anyone was harmed. Do you think in your wildest dreams the OCC will reverse their official position? Do you think the consultants like Promontory and Deloitte are going to divulge the lower-level information that points to harm? Promontory didn’t do the granular tests (A-G) at Bank of America, and allowed Bank of America two opportunities to argue with the findings of the surprisingly independent temps they paid for. The audit notes showed that Promonotory consistently accepted Bank of America’s self-serving views. If you ask Promontory, they’ll insist nothing bad happened either in the reviews or at the servicers who were their clients.
Merely having tea and cookies talks with the OCC, Deloitte, and Promontory is an invitation to have them trot out new, improved spin. The only way to get at the truth is to demand that Promontory hand over all their files on CaseTracker and to invite some of the whistleblowers in to look at files they worked on to make sure they weren’t scrubbed. I hope Cummings and Warren recognize that this is the only path to actually dealing with the multiple overlapping public policy problems here. We no longer have time for the pretense of good faith.
Aside from Cummings and Warren, Maxine Waters, ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, wrote to Bernanke and to Thomas Curry, Comptroller of the Currency, asking for an explanation and demanding minimum protections for homeowners.
Another bit of fallout may be the sudden demotion of Michael Brosnan, who had been senior deputy comptroller of large banks at the OCC. Note that the foreclosure reviews appear to have taken place in the large bank supervision operation; Morris Morgan, who was in that unit, appears to have been a point person. Some well informed readers think it is likely, but not provable, that the apparent demotion of Brosnan was the result of our series. That’s not as presumptuous as it sounds. Curry became head of the OCC after the hopelessly compromised review process was underway. When reports began leaking out that Bank of America, rather than Promontory, was performing substantial parts of the review, Morgan insisted that the banks were doing only clerical tasks and the substantive work was being performed by the “independent” consultants, which in Bank of America’s case was Promontory. We presented overwhelming evidence, including documents, to the contrary. If I were Curry and I had been lied to by my staff and entered into negotiations being misbriefed on what had taken place on the reviews, I’d want a few heads to roll.
Now admittedly Curry has gone to some lengths to preserve appearances and pretend that Brosnan asked to be assigned to a less responsible post. But this story in American Banker (hat tip Deontos) says the troops aren’t buying it:
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency unexpectedly announced Wednesday that Michael Brosnan, the senior deputy comptroller of large banks, was leaving his post to become examiner-in-charge of Zions Bank.
The move is both unusual and effectively a demotion, though Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry suggested it was a change sought by Brosnan himself.
“Now that we are moving beyond the crisis, I can understand why Mike was interested in moving into a new position,” Curry said in the press release, adding he was “surprised” by the request….
“As is the case with many of you, I’ve been here for most of my life because the roles and family of the agency have made it easy to look forward to each and every day,”Brosnan wrote. “I am now in the unfamiliar and uncomfortable realm where it isn’t fun any longer. I find myself exhausted as it has been extraordinarily difficult to recover a sense of proper balance in our lives.”
Yet several OCC insiders were shocked by the news, and openly doubted whether Brosnan was leaving of his own accord. They pointed to the sudden departure last year of Julie Williams, the agency’s longtime No. 2, who was forced out by Curry.
“My own read is he just got the Julie Williams, which is unthinkable,” said one former OCC official. “He can rankle people but the bottom line is he knows those banking companies. They respect him. He’s a good supervisor and if he’s gone, two thirds of that large-bank team can retire.”
The official said others at the OCC are “all just dumbfounded.”
Another OCC official who had been in contact with Brosnan very recently said he had mentioned nothing about an impending position change.
“I thought it was a hoax,” this official said when they received the e-mail Brosnan sent to staff. “Something dramatic must have happened over there in the last day or two for this to happen this way.”
Now we get to the really funny part of the article. Curry, who did the public a great service by getting rid of the old chief counsel, Julie Williams,* and is trying to change the culture at the OCC, is presented as an ogre:
But a third former OCC official disagreed with the others, saying “this was Mike’s decision.”
“This was not a Julie Williams deal,” the third official said.
Instead, the third official attributed the change to overall morale problems at the OCC since Curry took office in April.
“It’s a sad situation when someone who is as talented as Mike is so frustrated that he decides he has to do this,” the third former official said. “The OCC has lost a great leader, and somebody who would speak up and take a stand.”
First, did you notice the “former OCC official” apparently has no source of intelligence on this other than from Brosnan? And of course Brosnan is going to say this was voluntary. Moreover, if this sudden change was the result of Brosnan being unhappy with the OCC, the usual course of action would be to get a new job, not seek a different post at the agency.
The fact that aggrieved staffers at the OCC are complaining to American Banker is the best news I’ve heard all week. The staff at the OCC should be made to feel miserable after all the financial devastation they’ve enabled. We can only hope that more of these demoralized staffers get the message and decamp. Good riddance.
All in all, the tea leaves here are somewhat opaque. Most savvy people in DC knows that this is a story of greed and malevolence, but they are all too polite and culturally captured to say it outright. Still, some of the better members of Congress are requesting documents and politely suggesting that perhaps stealing hundreds of thousands of houses is a bit tacky. So there’s that. And OCC chief Tom Curry seems to be cleaning house at the OCC, prompting much whining from the horrific staff. I have as much sympathy for the regulators as they have for the people whose homes they allowed to be stolen by their banker friends, which is to say, I’m enjoying their frustration and feel like they deserve fair more of it.
On balance, I’d chalk this up as a win for us. I’d also say, thanks to everyone who donated in our fundraiser last year. This is what you paid for, and we’re just getting started.
_____
*Her replacement, Amy Friend, does come from Promontory and was also at the OCC, but my sources say this is not a cause for alarm. Friend was only briefly in both roles and is considered to be tough.
45 comments
Comments are closed.
Conclusiong of the final report of the committee:
“We are shocked, SHOCKED, to find that there is corruption occruing in the US financial crime family”
Maybe more of a Mr. Bill report: “I’m beginning to wonder about Mr Invisible Hands”.
http://bit.ly/cVprE4
I pray the Senator and Rep have NC’s thorough analyses at their fingertips!! Could your work be used for a class action suit?
NC has also scored another home run on the mortgage mods where the banks refused to take the hit on second mortgage write-downs. Yves was way ahead of the pack on this one:
The NYT
Fresh Questions Over a Bank of America Settlement
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: February 3, 2013 29 Comments
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/business/new-questions-raised-over-a-bank-of-america-settlement.html?hp&_r=0
“…culturally captured…” How and when we decide to speak up or act or not speak up or not act are influenced by our emotions. More than a decade of horrendous decisions yielding devastating consequences (how many more can we endure?) has me wanting to know how and why we decide. Your use of the phrase “culturally captured” is new to my ears and has peeked my interest. I don’t find it at all trivial
to wonder what that phrase means to you more specifically.
I’m deeply intrigued.
You are absolutely right about the only way to get to the truth, but don’t hold your breath. Even though you’ve handed it to them on a silver platter, exposure of the truth does not necessarily result in action that will help homeowners harmed. A bridge too far, I suspect.
I’ve been trying to think through the consequences of your series on the foreclosure defense process. The startling fact that lenders often lack the most basic of information about the payment status on their loans, not to mention the missing notes and fraudulent assignments, would bode well for the defense. But in court, the discovery process is the wild card in the scenarios I envision. If the truth outs, and the truth is that you have a bad faith lender and a debtor nevertheless demonstrably in default….je ne sais quoi.
Here’s a good roundup of case law in my state on bad faith lender litigation.
http://corporate.findlaw.com/business-operations/lender-liability-update-recent-cases-and-trends.html
In Washington, a legislative attempt at solution:
http://www.rmxhomes.com/shared/fs/0098/009800212/Mortgage%20Foreclosure%20Fairness%20Act%20Legal%20Hotline.pdf
In California, defense attorneys trolling for bad faith lender claims: (somebody ought to email the entire BoA series to these guys)
http://www.californiabankruptcyattorneyblog.com/2010/10/borrowers-increasingly-sue-mortgage-lenders-for-bad-faith-in-loan-modifications.html
“…the truth is that [if] you have a bad faith lender and a debtor nevertheless demonstrably in default….”
I believe — I could be wrong, but I believe — that in these conditions the *key* thing for the debtor to say is “I want to make sure that I’m handing my house over to the right bank. This has been a terrible situation, and I need to be guaranteed that some OTHER bank won’t come after me saying that they were the REAL creditor. If you, your honor, can’t guarantee that, then you’re leaving the debt hanging over my head AND taking my house… when I lose my house, I ought to be guaranteed that that’s the end of it, that I gave it to the real creditor.”
This is the key argument which ought to change the thinking of anti-debtor judges.
The people running the confidence game that is our current politico-economic system, that’s who. And anyone who is working for them…if Warren, Cummings and Curry don’t do the right thing and apply the law to banks, we’ll know who’s pockets they’re in.
You hear that Warren? We’re watching you. Do this right and we’ll support you every way we can. Do it wrong and we’ll be coming for your (metaphorical) head first.
4 million foreclosures and counting. And Liz Warren writes a letter “with a veneer of politeness that assumes good faith” – how quaint. She must know it is no longer a question of some inadvertent fraud, and has become more and more a question of civil rights and property rights. The contractors (Promontory et. al.) were NOT responsible at all for determining if the banks actually owned the mortgages and the notes! The banks themselves were given the sole responsibility to simply say they did own them and therefore they were the legal party of standing. The entire review was therefore based on a huge deception. A huge deception whose discovery is still being obstructed by protecting MERS. You remember that black hole where the ownership of mortgages is untraceable and notes have disappeared, where the land title system has been destroyed by agency, and titles can never be cleared. All of this “incompetence” now results in some very serious consequences which cannot be dealt with politely. Like interference in the sale of a property, and extortion from flat-out racketeering. Please Senator Warren, don’t try to bluff your way through this one.
According to FC defense lawyer Jeff Barnes, some of his clients have been offered principal reductions and unsolicited loan mod offers “for GMAC”. MERS IS SIGNING THE LOAN MODS! Figure that: MERS, which does not extend credit, loan money, or collect money and is not a lender, is offering a loan mod on behalf of a bankrupt entity.
Having paid attention to Liz Warren over the past four years, I believe she is congenitally polite. She is also tenacious. I also suspect, quite strongly, that once she finds a lie or unearths a crime, I suspect she will get the miscreants before her, under oath and carefully and thoroughly dismember their lies. Or, at least that is what I am busily praying for.
“restore confidence in the settlement” – um, who other than those doing the harming and those covering up the harm (government) even KNOW about the settlement? Even most of the homeowners harmed don’t know about it. The purpose of the reviews SHOULD HAVE BEEN to make those harmed whole – not to whitewash criminal behaviour. I hope Warren isn’t corrupted but this isn’t looking good. We don’t need another report. We need JUSTICE.
Yves, the work that NC has done on the foreclosure review has been outstanding.
Unfortunately I cannot share your sources’ optimism re: Amy Friend. Ms Friend (who was Senate Banking Committee Counsel and was instrumental in crafting Dodd-Frank) was a Promontory executive for two years. She herself states that she spent years at the OCC in her first gig there. Perhaps I am nit-picking, but I would not characterize that as brief. Further, it is important to note that after being fired by Curry, Julie Williams found a job at…Promontory.
My perspective is undoubtedly influenced by my time working for Promontory on the review. This company is as crooked as they come. Its founders come from the OCC and Covington and Burling. As you have shown in your reporting, the reviews were set up to fail.
But Obama’s AG Eric Holder was a partner at Covington and Burling. So how could Covington and Burling be corrupt?
* * *
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA! I crack myself up sometimes.
By “independent contractors” do they mean the contractor firms or individual contractors/reviewers?
The independent contractor was one firm per servicer. They could and typically did hire subcontractors. But the subs also had to be cleared for conflicts by the OCC.
Yves, you are quite right to call out the needlessly polite language being employed by those who would be our champions in government. Elizabeth Warren, of all people, should know better than to assume good-faith behavior by the banks or the regulators.
The delicate language and tortured avoidance of “calling a spade a spade,” reminds me of the dynamics of a dysfunctional family. One of the rules of living in an abusive family is that no one is allowed to talk about the abuse, nor even to label it as such. The abuse is only real when it’s actually happening, but afterwards, in the interim before the next beating, everyone has to pretend like daddy really loves us and we’re all a happy family.
The refusal to name abuse and call it what it is, enables that abuse. Warren and Cummings, with their polite, politic language, will ultimately be remembered as enablers, unless they stop playing the role of the dysfunctional mother: trying to convince the kids that daddy isn’t really evil, while at the same time suggesting to her husband, in hushed tones, that maybe he should go a little easier on the kids.
Heh, ties right into the “Democrats as Mother” meme beloved of Lakoff and his
dupesclients everywhere. What Lakoff et al neglect to mention is that the Democrats are the mother in an abusive family.I like your analogy of Democrats injecting the paralytic muscle-relaxant to prevent people from standing up to outright Republican abuse. It’s like a two-team protection racket. Republicans break in, smash things, and threaten injury; Democrats quickly follow up to comfort and “sell” insurance.
I suspect if this were a serious investigation, it would never have been launched by the party of the POTUS in power. There’s far too much chance this would embarrass the author of the so-called settlement, the license to continue looting.
Too cynical?
HILARIOUS
Holy crap, it’s real!
http://littledemocrats.net/images/obama_reading.jpg
This post is interesting because Yves starts out being cautiously cynical (suspicious of Warren’s polite tone as indicative of any real effort to get to the bottom of anything) and ends up being upbeat, “On balance, I’d chalk this up as a win for us”
As far as Warren goes, I suspect Yves’ first reaction is more accurate. The number of “heroes” to villains over the last four years has consistently proven to be 0 to many; think Bernie Sanders epic and utterly useless speech to an empty chamber (except for one cameraman) on not extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, think Dennis Kucinich’s heroic stand and breezy total capitulation for the public option, think Eric Schneiderman’s Vichy posturing for months only to utterly cave – true Casablanca style – (at the slightest twitch of Obama’s little finger) on the Bank mortgage fiasco settlement. Think chief justice Robert’s final shuffle (as if there were ever any doubt) to protect the fascistic economic relationship the industry behemoths drew up and Obama gave his blessing to between giant monopoly private enterprise (so called health insurers) and their new “Guido” collection agency the US government no less. The consistency of the loyalty to the dark side alone should be enough to make one suspicious of Warren if only by the fact she was allowed to run and allowed to win.
Great Post, BB!
I need to allow for the possibility that they might do the right think. And Cummings has been pretty serious about this stuff but he is only one guy.
Writing or calling Warren if you are a Mass resident would do a lot to help. If you call, BE SURE to call the in state # rather than the DC #. I gather out of state people typically use the DC# so any call there will have less weight.
Thanks DollyMadison. And thanks Yves for the suggestion about the state call. I’ll remember that and I will call her on this (on the phone, that is, but also on the sincerity – at least as much as speaking to an assistant to the Head Waste-Basket Technologist will allow me to).
I need to allow for the possibility that they might do the right think
That’s partly why I wouldn’t regret even one penny of my own contribution to this site even if Warren used these posts for little other than her own personal “Tail Of Two Cities.”
And in spite of my own cynicism (which seems horribly crazily accurate given the tip of the iceberg facts I base it on), I agree with the other commenters in this thread who praise your accuracy, commitment to facts, and careful analysis. It does make this site very powerful.
Still, I can’t help but suspect that it is mostly frustrating, for the time being at least, for the people you are talking about above. Worse, we will know it was effective when Obama and his merry band of legal lèche-culs succeeds in making it illegal to run a web site
with which the administration disagreesthat might be construed as being less than blindly, fawningly, totally, unreservedly enthusiastic about the administration and therefore, duh, an existential terrorist threat! – by the same logic that makes any teenagers near a drone strike “active participants” and thus non-countable as collateral damage.Another on the list of things they need to put near the top of their investigation list: stop the pending settlement between LPS and the attorney generals. LPS is the mother lode of evidence of borrower harm. Look into the history of its formation and the list of bank related investors at given points in time, before and after the crisis erupted in 2008. Many of those investors contributed to, and profited mightily from, the bubble they created. They then formed LPS as a vehicle to hose borrowers further when the bubble popped and facilitate the fabrication of documents as necessary to protect their interests. The extent of fraud that occurred at LPS is no secret and was observed by hundreds of file reviewers in the “independent” foreclosure reviews whose voices were then squelched by those at the top of the independent consulting firms. At a minimum, congressional investigators should be demanding full access to supporting invoice documentation housed at LPS, documentation that loan level reviewers were precluded from reviewing in the foreclosure reviews. Until that is done, the true extent of massive borrower harm will remain the banking industry’s best kept secret. And if there is a question as to where the funding to do a proper investigation should come from: According to the Obama Administration, the TARP program was a hugely successful and profitable endeavor for the taxpayer and Main Street. Well then….let’s do what should have been done with the initial legislation: let’s take say $25 billion of that TARP “profit” and give Main Street the fair and independent accounting of harm that it is due. Give the power to the CFPB (not the bank owned OCC) to conduct a thorough investigation (see Paul Krugman’s important “Friends of Fraud article” in the Feb 3 NY Times).
Right, I was thinking the headline could be fixed to:
Congress Begins Investigation of Botched Foreclosure Review
SettlementCover-Up(I mean who are they kidding?)
Brava, Yves! It is immensely gratifying to see some real green shoots emerging from all the hard ground you’ve been plowing and sowing. Unfortunately, congressional investigations are too often cover-ups tied up with official ribbons and stamps, especially when the implications involve the POTUS of the initiating party. But Warren is not yet tainted by the stink, and I supppose there is a very remote possibilty that she retained some small fragment of her soul en route to the Roman Senate.
Good for a chuckle: “The language of the letter requesting documentation leaves me a bit concerned about whether people in power truly recognize what went on and what is going on within these banks.”
Just a wee “bit concerned” reveals your penchant for conspicuous understatement. Yes, after four long years, we’ve all become just a tad concerned about the rampant lawlessness going on under the white-powdered noses of the POTUS, the Supine Court, our misrepresentatives in the snake pit, the SEC, the DOJ, FDIC, etc. . . . just a smidge, a skosh . . .
Like congresspersons’ implausible ignorance of the drone murder program, it is manifestly impossible that those in power do NOT know about these bankster rackets, especially following the massive HSBC money laundering crimes and widespread Libor rigging, none of which raises any interest at the DOJ.
Friday, Testosteronepit.com broke the latest on Barclay’s $8.5 billion check-kiting scheme (a self-funded Qatar “investment”) partially papered over by the Criminal Reserve’s 3 trillion landfill of toxic waste, half of which has gone to foreign banks since mid-2011. Must have been a rogue trader. Yeah, that’s it.
I wonder if there is a faction among OCC staff who have been aware of its role in the crisis and tried to raise alarm but were silenced and stifled. If so, and if Curry wants to get serious, he could unleash them on the banks; as insiders they’d be best-placed to go after them. It would be unusual if the staff acted as one supporting the corrupt practices.
How can we support Warren and Cummings in their efforts?
“Catch-22 says they can do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”
It looks like the requested documents should list specific files reviewed by the independent contractors. If this is a legitimate investigation, I would think that any hint of misconduct (such as scrubbing of files) would be detected, and if misconduct is found it would lead to a wider investigation (turning over all case files).
The question becomes, can Cummings and Warren be bought or coerced like Schneiderman was?
Can Cummings and Warren be coerced?
They were “elected” weren’t they? With the help of lots of cash from both disclosed and undisclosed (secret) sources…
Remember, our “elected” representatives spend 5-6 hours EVERY DAY dialing for dollars.
http://www.movetoamend.org
Yves, i swear I couldn’t live without you. Sometimes when things are darkest, you give us hope. And a lot of hard work. Thank you.
i filed two OCC complaints on two different banks during my ongoing crisis. In one case, Deutsche Bank, the OCC finally started the ball rolling to a settlement and keeping the property. (Filing a lawsuit didn’t help.)
In the case of Chase foreclosing on a current but expired loan (and fully collatoralized) the OCC – -which is in Houston where Chase also has its terror forclosure headquarters and I’m sure the door is wide open to job-seeking OCC Quislings – the OCC “leaned” on Chase for an extension, which apparently was proforma. I got a call from Chase saying an app was in the mail. Then Chase promplty filed a NOD, and OCC promptly bowed out.
It seems it’s OCC policy that if any legal motions are filed, the OCC bows out as mediator.
Of course, this works to the banksters advantage since they are going to file an NOD anyway. Get call from OCC, file NOD, OCC goes away, problem solved. Take house.
I hope you’re right about Cordray., The fact the Repugs and the OCC staffers hate him does bode well.
Incidentally, did anyone see chief bank tout/whore (with all due respect for sex workers) Dick Bove on CNBC whining about how low interest rates are KILLLING the banks.
This just after Chase announced they are making record profits (1.60 percent) as compared to the historial average of .65 percent on all the loans they unload onto Uncle Bens QE3 shopping cart.
Sometimes I just hate everyone except Yves.
I agree with you Yves
Warren? The only way to have any confidence a politician is on the level is if they are not chosen to run.
This current episode is just a trial run to see if Warren can be of any use later with that ”public confidence” thingy when they finally go for the jugular on the social safety net.
Note to IT person: the (em)(/em) (replace parens with angle brackets) markup tags do not seem to be working
This may be the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” moment we’ve all been waiting for.
Perhaps the tide is turned. Let any true American patriot in Congress or the Senate — if there are any to be found — stand up, raise the torch of liberty and illume the dark places.
The Lord has lost his patience with prevarications and insolence. “As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal . . . ”
I wish Julia Ward Howe could beam back and do another version for us. Tho’ I wonder if she’d be all tatooed up and on some music video with her butt in a bikini, or whether she’d be more sedate.
Well done on the BoA series. It’s important to distinguish between reasoned arguments with the ability to influence people and rants/conspiracy theories. The latter are a dime a dozen online and are typically ignored by all. The difference is what was provided in the BoA series – facts, logical argument, evidence, documentation and supporting research. Add all those things and your argument becomes a lot harder to ignore.
I continue to believe that the greatest impact NC can have is to hold a microscope up to what’s actually going on, framed in a manner that people can understand, and supported with enough evidence that they can see it’s correct. The discrepancy with the story being presented in the MSM will then speak for itself. I think Neil Barofsky made the same point during the fundraiser.
Yves:
I think its great you have lit this fire under Watson, Cummings and Warren. Without the power of a subpeona or a committee hearing where witnesses can be put under oath, the trio may find themselves pissing up a tree. The Bernank can continue to enjoy his favorite red at lunch undisturbed (for now).
You mentioned Curry was cleaning house. He must not have gotten the memo yet on “see no evil.”
Settlements = Cover-up.
What are they covering up?
Exactly what Lanny Breuer is afraid of revealing, and the reason WHY there are no prosecutions…the SUBPRIME FRAUD/PONZI is the fact that there was no funding…NO FUNDING (do you REALLY think the banks would actually FUND ALL THOSE LOANS??? Well, they didn’t…they just manipulated paperwork to LOOK like they did)….the subprime was just a transfer of COLLECTION RIGHTS to already falsely default debt (GSE’s)—there were and are no “mortgages” or “loans” in the “mortgage-backed securities”…NONE.
The paperwork we signed was a LIE—the “notes” weren’t real “notes”…NOTHING was put into these “POOLS”.
You don’t have to fund collection rights…hello?
Mozillo’s “FUND’EM” license plate simply meant: “Get their signatures as fast as you can so we can PRETEND to “fund’em”, but in REALITY we are entering them into the giant Wall Street PONZI—(unbeknownst to them)—IT’S BRILLIANT!!! And we’re all going to be rich, rich, RICH!!”
And they got away with it.
And we got kicked out into the street with no jobs…and no hope.
Elizabeth Warren is in her Freshman year. When you consider the contribution financing Wall Street and the Banks thrown at members of the House & Senate the conclusion is obvious. Nothing will happen.
How do you explain the checks that are already being sent out? Will the government put a stop to the rest of the checks because of the lack of documentation?
and how many billions were already paid to the banks ‘consultants?’, more money that could have and should have gone to those screwed over by the banks.