Bloomberg reports that Countrywide took a major setback in a suit against it by bond insurer MBIA. MBIA has alleged (quelle surprise!) that Country misrepresented the quality of loans it had MBIA guarantee. From Bloomberg:
Read more...By Michael Olenick, founder and CEO of Legalprise, and creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha)
The turn of the year is the time to make predictions and projections. I’m optimistic that the tide will finally turn for the American middle-class, suffering silently in a one-sided economic war. I don’t think this will be because of altruism, or even justice, but rather simple pragmatism. Specifically, I believe that parasitic financial institutions have pushed the boundaries so far that they’ve put their host, the middle-class itself, at risk. One new bit of information suggests the housing front is in more perilous shape than most pundits believe.
Read more...I tend to avoid the year end retrospective/forecast blizzard, although some of the more creative compilations can be fun.
However, some 2012 forecasts crossed my screen, and two were such striking outliers that I thought I’d call them to your attention and seeing if readers have come across other Extreme Predictions for the new year (aside from the Mayan end of the world sort).
Read more...As much as I’m fond of the name “Naked Capitalism,” I am beginning to wonder whether a more accurate description of this blog’s beat might be “Naked Corruption.” Our continuing discussion of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s foreclosure whitewash reviews serves as an object lesson.
By Michael Olenick, founder and CEO of Legalprise, and creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha)
The people in flight from the terror behind — strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.
– John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath.
I’m Jewish: my father is a Rabbi, my mother a prominent Jewish artist, but having been raised in the US it’s impossible to miss both the holiday and the meaning of Christmas.
As Christmas lights and Chanukah menorahs light up our dark winter nights it’s impossible not to look back over the prior few years, and contemplate the difference sunlight — in the form of the Internet shining information — has made in the US and around the world.
Read more...Given that the Office of Bank Boosterism Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is the clear first among the highly competitive ranks of bank-friendly regulators, the fact that the OCC launched a program for borrowers to obtain restitution for financial harm suffered due to foreclosures seemed more than a bit sus.
Gretchen Morgenson does an admirable job of exposing the multiple shortcomings of this OCC program.
Read more...While quite a few bloggers, prosecutors, economists, and other experts have taken the Administration to task on mortgage-related abuses, the mainstream media for the most part has not seriously challenged the mind-numbing Obama claim that the banksters did nothing illegal.
Reuters refreshingly opposed that bullshit assertion frontally yesterday. In a piece pointedly titled, “The Watchdogs That Didn’t Bark,” reporter Scot Paltrow shows that the mortgage arena is a target-rich environment:
By Michael Olenick, founder and CEO of Legalprise, and creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha)
“There Goes the Neighborhood,” which ran on 60 Minutes last Sunday, is a must-see piece. Scott Pelley walks through a pillaged house in Cleveland, slated for demolition in a county neighborhood stabilization program. This abandoned house is owned by Structured Asset Investment Trust 2003-BC11. An investor reports lists the property as “in foreclosure” despite no court filing. Ohio is a judicial foreclosure state, so a foreclosure filing requires a lawsuit, but there isn’t one.
Read more...The New York Times reports faithfully that the Department of Justice has entered into the biggest fair lending settlement on record with Bank of America on charges that Countrywide had charged more 200,000 Hispanic and black borrowers higher rates and fees than white borrowers with similar credit records. It also engaged in discrimination by marital status.
Impressive, no?
Read more...Quite a few housing market experts have argued that principal modifications to viable borrowers are the best way to resolve the housing market malaise. In the stone ages when banks kept the mortgages they originated, mortgage modifications, including principal mods, were standard practice when a borrower got in financial difficulty but was still salvageable. And because these restructurings were done behind closed doors, no one but the banker and his grateful customer were the wiser. But now that servicer bad incentives have meant they don’t do mods unless cajoled or bribed by the government (and not much even then), the topic has entered the public debate.
It had appeared that any principal mod program was going to come over the dead bodies of the banks, who have been feigned compliance with various Federal programs but either dragged their feet and/or gamed the schemes. So it was surprising to read that the acting head of the FHAF, Edward DeMarco, is considering what amounts to a principal mod program implemented through bankruptcy courts.
Read more...We’ve commented previously on Tom Miller as the contemporary exemplar of what in the 1960s was called a credibility gap. Readers no doubt know that he is the lead negotiator on behalf of the state attorneys general in what was formerly called the 50 state attorney general [mortgage] settlement. (Notice separately how the state AGs are providing cover for several Federal banking regulators, HUD and the Department of Justice, which are also parties to this deal).
A partial recap: Miller started by promising criminal prosecutions, then reneged. He has refused to do investigations, then has the temerity to try to claim they took place). He said there would not be a big waiver on mortgage liability, when as we discussed, that was the only thing Miller & Co. could offer that would get a deal to the numbers he had unwisely committed himself to (north of $20 billion). And several state attorneys general have walked from the deal precisely because they object to the plan in motion: a big release when they have an inadequate idea of how much questionable activity is being forgiven.
But the truly absurd part is the continued pretense by Miller that a deal will get done.
Read more...The development reported by the Financial Times’ Shahien Nasiripour, that the inspector general for the FHFA, the supervisor of Fannie and Freddie, and the Federal Home Loan bank, has decided to share information with New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman, is far more significant than it appears on the surface.
It’s a well deserved slap in the face of the Department of Justice.
Read more...Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Sixty Minutes’ December 11, 2011 interview of President Obama included a claim by Obama that, unfortunately, did not lead the interviewer to ask the obvious, essential follow-up questions.
I can tell you, just from 40,000 feet, that some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn’t illegal.
Obama did not explain what Wall Street behavior he found least ethical or what unethical Wall Street actions he believed was not illegal. It would have done the world (and Obama) a great service had he been asked these questions. He would not have given a coherent answer because his thinking on these issues has never been coherent. If he had to explain his position he, and the public, would recognize it was indefensible.
I offer the following scale of unethical banker behavior related to fraudulent mortgages and mortgage paper (principally collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)) that is illegal and deserved punishment. I write to prompt the rigorous analytical discussion that is essential to expose and end Obama and Bush’s “Presidential Amnesty for Contributors” (PAC) doctrine.
Read more...By Michael Olenick, founder and CEO of Legalprise, and creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha)
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has announced that their estimates for home sales have been materially incorrect since 2007, and that they plan to restate the number of homes sales downward. Apparently the NAR derives their homes sales information from the Multiple Listing Services, the proprietary “want-ads” real-estate agents use to list houses for sale.
Read more...The New York Times (hat tip Mary B) took note of a seamy JP Morgan effort at brand burnishing:
In a gambit to promote its charitable work — and maybe polish its image, which has suffered since the financial collapse in 2008 — JPMorgan Chase is financing and sponsoring the “American Giving Awards,” which will be televised by NBC on Saturday night. The two-hour show, with Bob Costas as host, will profile recipients of Chase donations, will be book-ended by Chase commercials and will regularly remind viewers that the whole event is “presented by Chase.”…/
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