A DC contact warned me last week that the banks were readying a massive pushback on the foreclosure crisis. It went into full swing over the weekend. Obama, admittedly through his proxy, David Axelrod, threw his weight in behind the banks on Face The Nation: Q: I guess the first question I would have is […]
Read more...Readers may argue I’m reading more of a bank PR role in a page one Wall Street Journal story than is warranted. However, even the Columbia Journalism Review took notice of the Journal’s scanty reporting on the foreclosure crisis, a mounting series of problems that is deservedly damaging to the banking industry’s image and bottom […]
Read more...The fact that an IMF meeting ended with the participants unable to feign a narrowing of differences on the currency front is further evidence that positions are hardening. And let us put none too fine a point on this: the currency row is simply an acceptable way to fight over imbalanced trade patterns. As we […]
Read more...I got a very interesting report from a contact who is reasonably well plugged in with some of the government authorities that are taking a hard look at the foreclosure crisis. Readers have no doubt heard of hedge fund manager John Paulson, whose famed subprime short bet is reportedly the most profitable single trade in […]
Read more...Wow, someone in DC has connected the dots: that the banks’ failure to adhere to contractual and legal requirements in the residential mortgage backed securities market are so extensive and widespread as to constitute systemic risk. Alan Grayson, Congressman from Ground Zero of the foreclosure mess, is calling on the Financial Stability Oversight Council to […]
Read more...MIrabile dictu, for once Obama isn’t taking every order coming from the banking industry. There is no story up yet, merely a “Breaking News” headline “White House: President Obama will not sign foreclosure bill” and an e-mail alert from the Washington Post: Amid growing furor over the legitimacy of foreclosure proceedings, a White House official […]
Read more...Last night, some fresh comments by Obama Administration officials confirmed its cynicism and duplicity in its Ministry of Truth version of health care reform. It’s one thing to suspect Team Obama was playing the public for a fool, quite another to have proof. Today we have more corroboration of Obama Administration double dealing, this on […]
Read more...We’ve discussed the fact the fact that banks have become so powerful in Florida that they have managed to get what amount to kangaroo foreclosure courts created. Not surprisingly, the assembly line imitation of justice railroads borrowers, and prevents legitimate grievances from being heard. It turns out that banks in that state are so confident […]
Read more...So much for the idea that the affidavit problem is a mere technicality and a mere operational hassle for the banks. They had clearly viewed complying with their own agreements as an option, not a requirement, with the savings for cutting corners only somewhat offset by the costs of getting caught from time to time. […]
Read more...The battle lines are forming. In the last two years, local attorneys working for the small minority of borrowers who contest foreclosures have reported a wide range of what in spin doctor land would be called irregularities. These reports were so widespread and consistent as to suggest that malfeasance was endemic, but without corroborating evidence […]
Read more...One of the defenses I occasionally hear about the Obama sellout to financiers runs something like this: “Obama isn’t interested in finance and economics, he delegated that to Summers and Geithner. Indeed, it was because he was so insecure in this area that he went with established figures who could [to use that horrid expression] […]
Read more...Last week, the simmering threat of trade disputes erupted into a full boil when Brazil’s finance minister Guido Mantega said that national governments around the world were weakening their currencies in an “international currency war” to gain competitive advantage. Mantega stressed that Brazil was prepared to back his words with action to lower the value […]
Read more...Barack Obama is purported to have studied the Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan presidencies in depth before he took office, yet he appears to have ignored one of Lincoln’s best known sayings: “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you […]
Read more...A story up on Bloomberg may be far more significant than its bland headline, “China to Spur Domestic Demand to Stabilize Economy, Wen Says,” suggests. In recent posts, we’ve inveighed about the dangers of the path China is now on. Its economy is unbalanced to an unprecedented degree. Exports plus investment account for a full […]
Read more...A bombshell has dropped in mortgage land. We’ve said for some time that document fabrication is widespread in foreclosures. The reason is that the note, which is the borrower IOU, is the critical instrument to establishing the right to foreclose in 45 states (in those states, the mortgage, which is the lien on the property, […]
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