Category Archives: Politics

Even American Banker is Savaging the OCC’s Mortgage Settlement

It’s clear the OCC is winging details it should have nailed down before settling.

Whistleblower: Wells Fargo Fabricated and Altered Mortgage Documents on a Mass Basis

Over the last two and a half years, Wells Fargo, like most of the major mortgage servicers, claimed that it had a “rigorous system” to insure that mortgage documents were accurate and complete. The reason this mattered was that there was significant evidence to the contrary. Foreclosure defense attorneys found repeatedly that, for securitized mortgages, the servicer or foreclosure mill attorney would present documents to the court that failed to show the borrower’s note (a promissory note) had been transferred properly to the trust. This mattered not only on a borrower level, but indicated that originators of the mortgage securitizations hadn’t bothered transferring the notes properly to the trusts that were to hold them. This raised the ugly specter of what was called “securitization fail,” that investors had been sold securities that they had been told were mortgage backed when they might in practice not be.

The robosiging scandal was merely the tip of the iceberg of mortgage and foreclosure problems that resulted from the failure to adhere to the requirements of well-settled state real estate law. The banks maintained that there was nothing wrong with mortgage ownership or with the records. All they had were occasional errors and some unfortunate corners-cutting with affidavits. If they merely re-executed all those robosigned documents, all would be well.

Wells Fargo’s own actions say the reverse.

Nathan Tankus: Germany, the “German View” of Hyperinflation and the Ghettoization of Dissent

By Nathan Tankus, a student and research assistant at the University of Ottawa. You can follow him on Twitter at @NathanTankus

Money is a social construct. It also facilitates many complex, interrelated social relations. As a result, it’s difficult to pin down for the average person what the effects of a particular policy will be, especially with regard to economic policy. While inflation may have negative effects in certain times or places, it’s difficult to figure that out just by looking around a city or country. As a result when politicians or other figures with agendas want to talk about inflation, they inevitably go for the most visceral descriptions available. For some number of decades now, the example they go to do decry inflation is people carrying around “wheelbarrows full of money” to go buy something such as bread. One of their favorite examples is Weimar Germany. So let’s talk about it.

Is the Eurozone Nearing a Make or Break Point?

One of the dangers of trying to understand what is going on in the Eurozone if you are a hapless but interested American isn’t simply that you’d have to be fluent in a lot of languages to keep on top of the media, but the media themselves are, as NC readers know well, not exactly reliable. Look at how much dictation from business and political leaders masquerades as news in the US. And we have a less controlled press than, say, Italy does.

So I will give readers some fresh data points and let you duke it out.

Beppe Grillo’s Parliamentarians Threaten Nuremberg Trials for Corrupt Italian Politicians

Former Italian senator Sergio De Gregorio confirmed: “The Cavaliere paid me,” he said about the €3 million he’d received in 2006 from Silvio Berlusconi. “Of course I took the money.” Frustrated with this daily display of corruption, 8.7 million angry Italians voted for Beppe Grillo’s 5-Star movement. While it wasn’t enough to govern, it was enough to give the political establishment conniptions—and show that anger and frustration finallycount.

Congressmen Criticizing OCC Mortgage Settlement, While More Misrepresentations and Coverups Emerge

The Wall Street Journal today stresses that a lot of Democratic congressmen are unhappy about the botched settlement process but are unlikely to do more than beef because the new Comptroller of the Currency, Tom Curry, was selected by Obama.

But the more people poke at the settlement, the more creepy crawlies emerge.

Mirabile Dictu! More Executive Pay Revolt as Swiss Impose Curbs

It isn’t clear how effective the pushback against stratospheric top-level compensation will be, but the howls in the European media suggests that the corporate overlords really are concerned.

US Climate Policy: Take Five

By James K. Boyce, who teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and whose latest book is Economics, the Environment and Our Common Wealth. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

“For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.” These words in President Obama’s State of the Union address came as music to the ears of environmentalists. Do they herald a real effort to break the climate policy impasse in Washington?

Environmentalists Need to Make Being Green Keynesian

Jonathan Harris of the Global Development and Environment Institute has a new post at Triple Crisis, Green Keynesianism: Beyond Standard Growth Paradigms, in which he argues that pro-growth policies need to find a way to deal with environmental/resource constraints. On the one hand, a lot of NC readers will find that argument to be welcome, if a bit overdue, since quite a few members have been arguing that growth-oriented economic policies need to acknowledge environmental constraints.

Having read Harris’ well-intended post, I’m increasingly convinced that environmentalists have it backwards.

Dave Dayen: Servicers Committed Loan Error Rates of Either 4.2% or 97.2%, Take Your Pick

By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger, now a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @ddayen

Anyone paying a smattering of attention justifiably raised a skeptical eyebrow at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s assurances to Congress that the Independent Foreclosure Reviews revealed hardly any borrower harm from servicer malfeasance. One has to marvel at this wondrous finding, particularly since just about no one who has gotten close to the records who was not paid for by banks has come up harm estimates remotely this low. Which raises another question: did the OCC lie (or more charitably, artfully fudge numbers) to Congress?