Dimon Testimony Whopper: CIO’s Gambling on Disaster = “Portfolio Hedging”
Well, there’s nothing like seeing Jamie Dimon swinging for the fences. Dimon has taken his defense and turned it into an offense, in both senses of the word.
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Bank Bonds vs German Intransigence
By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
The fallout from the Spanish bank “bailout” continued overnight with Spanish yields moving back up and over their November 2011 euro area highs:
Read more...More on the Supposedly Out of Control JP Morgan Chief Investment Office and the “Fortress Balance Sheet”
Whocouddanode? As more and more tidbits leak out about the activities of the JP Morgan Chief Investment Office, it increasingly appears to be a unit that was inadequately supervised. While that revelation is a dent to the reputation of self-styled ubermensch and alleged control freak Jamie Dimon, if he takes a few lumps in the press and otherwise can carry on as before, what difference will it make to him and the industry? Lloyd Blankfein took at least as much heat over a longer period, and he’s still firmly in place.
The CEO “I’m in charge and I know nothing” defense is alive and well because it has proven to be so successful.
Read more...Serious Questions for Jamie Dimon in Occupy the SEC/Alternative Banking Senate Letter
As many readers may know, Jamie Dimon is on deck tomorrow before the Senate Banking Committee to explain how a soi disant hedge produced losses that are almost certain to exceed the $2 billion the bank has ‘fessed up to.
Read more...Stealth Austerity Coming to Spain?
By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
So the worst kept and most predictable secret happened over the weekend with the Spanish bank bailout. Initially the deal appeared positive for Spain, but as usual the devil is in the detail. It must be noted that I don’t consider this something that, by itself, changes the medium to long term outcome of the country.
Read more...Michael Olenick: How Servicers Lie to Mortgage Investors About Losses
By Michael Olenick, creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha). You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick or read his blog, Seeing Through Data
A post last week reviewed a botched foreclosure for a mortgage loan in Ace Securities Home Equity Loan Trust 2007-HE4 dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the foreclosure cannot be refilled; a total loss for investors. Next, we reviewed why the trust has not yet recorded the loss despite the six month old verdict.
Read more...Satyajit Das: The Spanish “Bailout”, Whoops – “Assistance”!
On 11 April 2011, then Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado stated: “I do not see any risk of contagion. We are totally out of this.” A little over a year later, Ms Salgado and her party are no longer in power and Spain is well and truly in it.
Read more...Spanish Bank Rescue: Will the Treatment Make the Patient Worse?
Spain has reversed itself and asked the Eurozone for “up to” €100 billion after not long ago insisting it could go it alone. The proximate cost was the increase in its sovereign debt yields in the wake of the announcement of a bailout of Bankia, which was cobbled together from dud cajas. Even though Spain’s bond auction last week got off better than expected, that was likely in part due to the expectation that the creditor states would indeed ride in to the rescue.
But will the latest, yet to be finalized remedy do anything more than buy a little time?
Read more...Alabama Appeals Court Reverses Decision on Chain of Title Case, Ruling Hinges on Question of Bogus Allonges
In a unanimous decision, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals reversed a lower court decision on a foreclosure case, U.S. Bank v. Congress and remanded the case to trial court.
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Solidarity Euro-Style – Finnish Loans, ECB Bond Purchases, EFSF Tough Love and Assorted Horror Stories from the Postmodern Euro-Workhouse
The world seems convinced that Europe, perhaps under duress, put together a large Solidarity Fund (the EFSF) for the purposes of helping the fiscally-stricken Eurozone member-states avoid bankruptcy once they were frozen out of the money markets. The criticisms waged at this type of ‘solidarity’ centred on two issues: First, that the Fund’s size was not large enough (and thus unable to help Italy and Spain). Secondly, that this Fund resembles more a Victorian Workhouse whose real purpose was not to show solidarity to its residents but, rather, to make their life so unpleasant as to deter able-bodied workers from ever seeking its assistance.
Read more...Marshall Auerback: Beware German Trojan Horses – More “Europe” Might Mean More Fiscal Austerity
By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager
As several newspapers have recently highlighted, Germany is slowly but surely moving toward a plan to combine much of Europe’s bad debt into a single fund with the idea of paying it off over 25 years.
Read more...Cleaning Up the Mess: What to Do About Teetering Eurobanks?
Yves here. The Financial Times and New York Times tonight both have good overviews on the state of play in the effort to contain a slow-motion Spanish bank run. On the one hand, the Spanish government is in a position to tell the Eurocrats that it will consider only a bank bailout and not be required to take on further austerity measures. Given that retail sales have fallen nearly 10% year to year, it’s hard to see how anyone could expect more austerity to be a good idea.
Although markets reacted as if a deal was imminent, the FT makes it sound as if quite a few details need to be ironed out. And no wonder…
Read more...Michael Crimmins: What the Press Refuses to See in JP Morgan and MF Global Scandals
By Michael Crimmins, who has worked on risk management and Sarbanes Oxley compliance for major banks
Two former finance and political influence gods (Jon Corzine and Jamie Dimon) have tumbled back to earth. Yet, troublingly, the mythology that’s cowed the political establishment and the financial press for so long remains very much intact.
Read more...Michael Olenick: How Banks and Their Lawyers Win at the Expense of Investors and Homeowners
By Michael Olenick, creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha). You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick or read his blog, Seeing Through Data
The focus of news stories on mortgage abuses often focus on the immediate victims, the borrowers, but that’s far from a complete tally of the losers. And they also typically fail to look hard enough at the winners and the way they are able, again and again, to burn everyone but themselves.
Read more...Quelle Surprise! Treasury Inspector Audit Report Whitewashes OCC Fail on Foreclosure Fraud
Yesterday, various news and financial sites picked up the release last Friday of a report by the Treasury’s Inspector General titled “SAFETY AND SOUNDNESS: OCC’s Supervision of National Bank’s Foreclosure Practices“. The media accounts are workman-like summaries with titles like “Bank oversight office failed to spot foreclosure fraud, Treasury inspector general says.”
The problem is that these various accounts are narrowly accurate (in that they summarize the report) but missed the real story.
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