Category Archives: Banking industry

Quelle Surprise! Banks Getting Credit for What They Would Have Done Anyhow in Mortgage Settlement

Today, Joseph Smith, the official monitor for the Federal-state mortgage settlement entered into earlier this year with five major servicers, released a glossy initial report on program progress. Needless to say, my cynicism was piqued both by the glossy format of the document and the decision to release it well before the required date of second quarter 2013.

But the distressing part is the way the settlement is playing out according to script.

Spain Worse

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

As I wrote early last week Antonis Samaras was to spend much of the weekend in talks with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande about the future of his nation. As the Telegraph pointed out yesterday the results were, as expected, unconvincing:

“Nonsense Economics” and the Deepening Greek Crisis

Real News Network has a sobering interview with Costas Lapavitsas,a professor at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, who gives an update on the political and economic situation in Greece.

New Real Estate Train Wreck Coming: Securitized Rentals

No matter how bad things get, it turns out they can always get worse. Wall Street is about to foist a new “innovation” on investors that even the ratings agencies won’t touch.

Quelle Surprise! Former JP Morgan Chairman Offers Dubious Defenses of Big Banks

Ordinarily, it might not seem worth the bother to debunk yet another piece of bank propaganda. However Thursday’s op ed by former JP Morgan Chase chairman William Harrison, “Don’t Break Up the Big Banks,” recites a classic set of time-worn canards. As regulatory compliance expert Michael Crimmins said via e-mail, “It’s sounding desperate that they’re dragging Harrison out of retirement to spout this drivel.”Thus shredding this piece makes for one-stop shopping on this topic.

Greece’s Great Depression: “Everyone is Going into a Black Hole”

RT interviews University of Athens economics professor Yanis Varoufakis on the latest round of Greek bailout negotiations.

Ezra Klein Deems Joe Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Elizabeth Warren (Plus Other Serious People) Not Credible

Ezra Klein demonstrated how far he’s has to descend into the Humpty Dumpty world of words meaning just what he chooses them to mean in order to defend failed Administration policies.

Our Coming Rentcropper Society

We are in the midst of a sea change in terms of the relationship of ordinary Americans to the housing market. Policymakers are not only in denial as to its magnitude, but are actively enabling courses of action that are likely to prove destructive.

New York Times Publishes Apology for Obama’s Failed Housing Policies

On the one hand, the dismal failure of the Administration’s cosmetic responses to the foreclosure mess is so evident that the New York Times is willing to acknowledge it, via a first page article titled, “Cautious Moves on Foreclosures Haunting Obama.” On the other, what the story offers is a whitewash, not an analysis.

Yanis Varoufakis: How the ECB is Complicit in a Macro-Financial Debacle

Ponzi growth happens when unsustainable capital flows, wilfully predicated upon funding schemes that Reason knows to be fraudulent, give rise to large spurts of economic activity.

Ponzi austerity, in contrast, is what happens when unsustainable spending cuts, wilfully predicated upon funding schemes that Reason knows to be fraudulent, cause significant drops in economic activity.

It is an incontestable fact that Europe’s Periphery shifted from Ponzi growth to Ponzi austerity some time after the Crash of 2008.

Paul Ryan – Insider Trading and War on Medicare

Paul Ryan has become a lightening rod for controversy, both for his aggressive plans to cut Medicare and Social Security and for questions surrounding suspicious-looking trades in financial stocks that were September 18, 2008, the same day Congressional leadership was briefed about the crisis by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

The Real News Network interviewed Tom Ferguson to parse out history from hype on both issues.

Washington Supreme Court Issues MERS Smackdown

While MERS has served to illustrate the utter recklessness of the securitization industry, in that its promoters apparently believed that they could implement it nationwide and simply force state law to comply. But as the banks have found out, the law is not always so obliging.

How to Beat Vulture Debt Collectors

In a bit of synchronicity, last weekend I had dinner with a buddy whose sibling recently was dunned by a buyer of junk debt. For those not familiar with this dark underbelly of the credit markets, these vultures buy consumer debt from banks (mainly credit card receivables) that the bank has written off. That means they don’t think it’s worth pursuing. At best it’s too close to the statute of limitations expiring or the documentation is questionable or the amounts are all wrong. Most of the time. it’s worse than that: the debt was never owed (they are going after the wrong person), the debt was paid off or discharged in bankruptcy, the statute of limitations has long passed.

Spain Out of Options

Yves here. We’ve flagged in earlier posts how the Spanish banking crisis has the potential to become destabilizing politically, as if Spain wasn’t already at considerable risk of upheaval. Spanish depositors were pushed to convert their deposits into preference shares, which they were told were just as safe. This was a simple desperation move by the banks to save their own skins, customers be damned, by raising equity from the most unsophisticated source to which they had access. And now that that gambit failed, these shareholders are due to have those investments wiped out unless the Spanish authorities can cut a deal to spare them. Don’t hold your breath.