Author Archives: Yves Smith

Big Drop in New Foreclosures?

There has been evidence here and there of a marked fall in new foreclosure filings. Lender Processing Services, which handles more than half of the loans serviced in the US, said its revenues in its Default Services Group were down in the final quarter of the year. Why? Its revenues are tied to initial foreclosure filings, and its were off 33%, no doubt in large measure due to the robo signing scandal. Recall that it led many banks to halt foreclosures (some all over the US, others in judicial foreclosure states only) while they inspected the state of play and scrambled to revamp procedures. Banks piously claimed that they found no problems in the correctness of foreclosure actions and that ex making the changes needed to assure affidavits were proper, they were going to be back to business as usual post haste.

Now we already know that that isn’t the case. Since the robosigning scandal broke, foreclosure activity has been down. RealtyTrac reported that foreclosures in January were up only 1% over December levels, which was down 17% from the year prior.

But RealtyTrac captures every foreclosure filing in that particular report, so it is a mix of new foreclosure filings plus additional filings for foreclosures already underway….

Speculators Not Wagering Much Against Periphery Country Eurobonds

Given how many commentators believe that Greece is destined to default on its bonds (particularly since they are subordinate to any new money from the IMF and EU), you’d think they’d be putting their money where their mouth is.

But the old saw in the US is “don’t fight the Fed”. And the same logic appears to apply with the ECB. John Dizard of the Financial Times reports that perilous little in the way of CDS contracts is being written on everyone’s favorite sovereign default candidate (although the leader of Fine Gael, which will be leading the new coalition in Ireland, fired a shot of sorts across the bow of the eurozone officialdom).

Links 2/27/11

Rare, Unique Seeds Arrive at Svalbard Vault, as Crises Threaten World Crop Collections ScienceDaily (hat tip reader furzy mouse)

Doodling in Math: Sick Number Games Barry Ritholtz

The historical roots of yoga Tyler Cowen

Gasland and Natural Gas Drilling Ed Harrison

Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers New York Times (hat tip reader Crocodile Chuck)

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Guest Post: The 10 Most Systemically Risky Financial Firms in the US

Yves here. As we noted in January,

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is trying to duck the assignment given the Financial Stability Oversight Council under the Dodd Frank legislation, namely, that of identifying “systemically important” financial institutions….The Treasury devised a list of banks it subjected to stress tests; conceptually, how is this process any different?

I’m pleased to see four professors from New York University’s Stern School take up this task. And they end their analysis with a rebuke:

This is the easy part for the Financial Security Oversight Council. The tough part is to then design efficient regulation that discourages the build up of excessive risk.

By Viral Acharya, Thomas F. Cooley, Robert Engle, and Matthew Richardson. Cross posted from VoxEU.

As part of the US policy response to the global crisis, the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act calls for regulators to identify systemically risky financial firms – the sort that took the US financial crisis global. But how to identify these firms remains unclear. Some claim the task is impossible. This column begs to differ and names the 10 most systemically risky financial firms in the US.

Matt Stoller: AG Tom Miller Negotiating in Secret with Banks Over Whether to Put Bankers in Jail

By Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. His Twitter feed is http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller. Cross posted from New Deal 2.0

If NFL fans are demanding negotiations be opened up, why are homeowners kept in the dark?

Zach Carter wrote a good piece on homeowners’ demands of the big banks. National People’s Action has coordinated thousands of homeowners in asking for an aggressive settlement with the banks on their handling of foreclosures. Iowa Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller, who is heading the 50-state investigation, is one of their prime targets.

But it’s this video that makes it interesting.

On the Problem Rising Oil Prices Pose for Central Banks

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph voices his concern that central banks are going to misread the impact of rising oil prices and therefore make the wrong interest rate decision. Bear in mind that Evans-Pritchard called the 2008 oil spike correctly, deeming it to be a bubble, and was also in the minority then in arguing that deflation was a bigger risk to the economy than inflation.

One leg of his argument is that oil price increases slow economic growth. That’s hardly startling; indeed, this concern has been echoed widely in the last few days. For instance, as David Rosenberg notes, courtesy Pragmatic Capitalism:

Links 2/26/11

Mouse heart ‘re-grows when cut’, study shows BBC. This is no doubt useful, but who dreams up these experiments?

Voodoo ritual sparks fatal New York apartment fire BBC

How My Smart Phone Got Me Out Of A Speeding Ticket In Traffic Court SkatterTech

WikiLeaks now selling merchandise TechBlorge. A reminder that a NC t-shirt is long overdue…but a site facelift probably comes first.

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NYT’s Joe Nocera Defends Failure to Bring Wall Street Execs to Justice

Aargh, it is frustrating to see how quickly establishment-serving shallow arguments become conventional wisdom. We get a big dose of this line of thinking from the New York Times’ Joe Nocera in an article titled, “Biggest Fish Face Little Risk of Being Caught.”

Now you can’t disagree with the conclusion: no major banking industry figure is going to be brought to justice. But the explanation he offers is incomplete and misleading, and serves to misdirect the public from more fundamental and more troubling causes.

Colbert Report: Glenn Greenwald Discusses Being Targeted by HB Gary

he Colbert Report did a fine job of recapping the issues in a smear campaign that was being planned by the so-called cyber security firm HB Gary (along with Palantir and Berico Technologies) against journalists who defended WikiLeaks, in particular Salon’s Glenn Greenwald.

Sanctimonious Wells Fargo ‘Fesses Up That it Will Probably Pay Fines in Enforcement Actions

Although banks are having to pay fines or make settlements now and again that are grossly inadequate relative to the damage they’ve inflicted on consumers and communities, I thought I’d single out this example.

The reason is simple. Wells Fargo has annoyingly tried to maintain that it is as pure as the driven snow, and has gone as making easily proven misrepresentations in meetings with Congressional staffers in doing so (which makes one wonder how much truth-stretching it has engaged in in communications with investors).

So I must confess to a bit of schadenfreude in reading this Bloomberg story:

Links 2/25/11

Baby Dolphin Deaths Spike on Gulf Coast The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (hat tip reader furzy mouse) :-(

Craigslist ‘a cesspool of crime’: study IBTimes

Pathogen in Roundup Ready Soy and Corn Could Lead to Calamity, Scientist Warns Mother Earth News and Letter to Vilsack About Dangers of Roundup Leaked Save New Mexico Seeds (hat tip reader furzy mouse). The lengths Monsanto has gone to to preserve its profits from Roundup, which was the company’s big cash cow in the early 1980s, are remarkable.

How Common Is Financial Infidelity? New York Times

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Al Jazeera on Egypt’s Revolt Against Neoliberalism

An article by ‘Abu Atris’ on Al Jazeera (hat tip Richard Kline) confirms an argument made by Matt Stoller in recent post, namely, that the rebellion in Egypt is not merely political but economic, and specifically in opposition to neoliberal policies. This so-called “Washington Consensus” reached its apex of influence in the 1990s

The article focuses on the individuals and groups that profited handsomely during the implementation of “reforms” that syphoned money to the top of that society at the expense of the rest, and how the one beneficiary that remains in a position of influence, the military, might play its cards. In addition to providing a window in some of the dynamics at work in Egypt, it also provides a vivid description of the nature and destructive impact of a neoliberal economic program. It is not hard to see that America has already gone a long way down that dark path.