While wind and solar are rapidly approaching the price of coal and nat gas energy, Repugs/BigCarbon are rolling back RETs (renewable energy targets) in many states, intending to block, nullify, non-enforce EPA rules if they can't kill EPA completely.
The Repug/VRWC strategy is to immobilize USA at least at current pollution levels, while permitting even higher pollution, rather than fed and state govts MOBILIZING with policies that aggressively promote wind, solar, EVs. (interesting that hybrids have sorta peaked, and the major mfrs all seems dead set on hydrogen EVs.)
BigCarbon and their dumb End Times Bible humpers will make sure your pollyanna future won't arrive.
Crime PAYS!
Whistle-Blower on Countrywide Mortgage Misdeeds to Get $57 Million
A former Countrywide Financial executive who became a whistle-blower is collecting more than $57 million for helping federal prosecutors force Bank of America to pay a record $16.65 billion penalty in connection with its role in churning out shoddy mortgage and related securities before the financial crisis.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/deal...an-57-million/
Mozillo still claims no fault, no regrets
Holder starts 90-day clock on potential prosecution of bankers
Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department will determine within the next 90 days whether to charge individual Wall Street executiveswith crimes related to the 2008 financial crisis.
Holder said he’s asked the prosecutors who have been investigating the major banks and their executives to make recommendations whether to bring charges or close the probes.
“I’ve asked the U.S. attorneys … over the next 90 days to look at their cases and to try to develop cases against individuals and to report back in at 90 days with regard to whether or not they think they’re going to be able to successfully bring criminal and or civil cases against those individuals,” Holder said in a speech at the National Press Club Tuesday.
The announcement comes as the attorney general prepares to leave his post after more than six years on the job. President Barack Obama has appointed Loretta Lynch, the U.S. attorney for Brooklyn, to succeed him.
Holder has been criticized for failing to bring any individuals to justice for misdeeds that led to the collapse of the mortgage market and the subsequent financial crisis that resulted in the worst recession since the Great Depression
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/...eid=3b8f64cce8
Study links credit default swaps, mortgage delinquencies
Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas recently published the first empirical investigation connecting credit default swaps to mortgage defaults that helped lead to the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
The researchers found that the
presence of credit default swaps further stimulated the strong demand for mortgage-backed securities, which led to lax lending standards in the mortgage origination market and encouraged predatory lending and borrowing practices. Lenders increasingly offered subprime mortgages, which inevitably drove much higher mortgage default rates.
"There are many media reports that to some extent link the financial crisis to the housing market crash, and subsequently, research has confirmed that," Zhang said. "One of the issues that people have paid particular attention to is the role played by derivative securities, and in this case, credit default swaps."
A credit default swap (CDS), in essence, acts as an insurance policy, Zhang said. When investors buy mortgage-backed securities, a CDS provides protection to the investor in case the borrower defaults on the loan.
The researchers found a
direct effect between credit default swaps and higher loan default rates.
Poor quality loans were originated by lenders, and then were repackaged, securitized and sold to investors.
The loans were no longer on the lenders' books, so they had less incentive to monitor the borrowers. The investors relied on their insurance policy—the CDS—and also neglected to monitor the borrowers.
"That's how the credit default swaps created more hazard issues and actually exacerbated the financial crisis, because it encouraged origination of poor quality loans," Zhang said.
more than 9 million privately securitized subprime mortgages originated between 2003 and 2007.
http://phys.org/news/2015-05-links-c...-mortgage.html
I'll never forget pussy eater blaming Community Reinvestment Act!
Foreclosed nation: Wall Street, the dispossessed & the quality of American democracy
If those affected by foreclosure were a voting bloc, we'd treat the crisis as the ongoing emergency that it is
Why has the continued crisis of dispossession not been treated as a national emergency?
Given the scale of the foreclosure crisis, the policy response has been muted.
Congress and the Obama administration have repeatedly rejected demands for a national moratorium on mortgage foreclosures.
Legislators in several states introduced foreclosure moratorium bills, but few states enacted them, and those only briefly, in response to evidence of forged do ents and other egregious fraud by lenders.
Calls for “cramdown” legislation that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to reduce mortgage loan principal went nowhere.
The federal government created several programs to respond to the crisis, including the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the Home Affordable Modification Program, the Home Affordable Refinance Program, the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program, the Home Affordable Unemployment Program, and the Emergency Homeowners Loan Program.
Many of these programs were commendable, but few of them were effective, and from the standpoint of the dispossessed they were too little, too late.
None of them had much effect on the pace of foreclosures.
Nor did any of them direct much aid to people who had already been dispossessed.
This is not how we would treat the crisis if it were recognized as the ongoing emergency that it is.
One reason that we have not done enough may be the sheer scale of the problem.
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/31/fore...can_democracy/
Foreclosure Crisis: Too Big To Fix.
for those foreclosed upon, it's an emergency. for Berkshire Hathaway/Goldman-Sachs/JP Morgan Chase and the like, it's an opportunity.
... that their Congressional enablers/protectors won't hinder, except Warren, Sanders, Grayson, etc and other "socialists".
Consumers Can’t Void Second Mortgage In Bankruptcy, SCOTUS Rules
Consumers taking out a second mortgage will now have to consider the fact that if they encounter financial difficulties and file for bankruptcy, they won’t be able to strip off the additional loan obligation.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of banks
when it came to determining that struggling homeowners can’t get rid of a second mortgage using bankruptcy protection, even if the home’s value is less than the amount owed on the first mortgage.
http://consumerist.com/2015/06/01/co...-scotus-rules/
Mortgages Are About Math: Open-Source Loan-Level Analysis of Fannie and Freddie
Ben B!
http://toddwschneider.com/posts/mort...e-and-freddie/
Banks That Failed to Fix Mortgage Services Face Restrictions
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and four other large banks have failed to make long-promised improvements to their mortgage operations, a federal regulator said on Wednesday.
The six banks, and several others, had agreed in 2011 to make dozens of changes to the way they issue and service mortgages after being accused of wrongly foreclosing on homeowners after the financial crisis. Homeowners had faced problems including bungled loan modifications, deficient paperwork, excessive fees and wrongful evictions that stemmed from the sprawling mortgage issues.
As a result of their failure to comply with the 2011 agreement, the banks will now have new restrictions on their mortgage divisions, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said on Wednesday.
The agency, which is one of primary federal regulators of financial ins utions, said that the six banks cited would also face additional fines and restrictions in the coming months that would vary based on the degree of the continuing problems.
The announcement underscored just how long it has taken the banks to correct the problems that were turned up during the crisis. Back in 2011, regulators initially gave the banks 120 days to make improvements in a number of areas. While the banks were later given extensions, few expected the issues to persist into 2015.
The O.C.C. found that HSBC had the most continuing problems; it did not make 45 of the 98 changes it had agreed to in the 2011 consent order and an amended agreement in 2013. Wells Fargo, the largest mortgage lender in the country last year, failed to put in place 15 of the 98 changes.
Wells Fargo did not, among other things, take adequate steps to deal properly with customers in bankruptcy, and did not have the proper processes in place “to ensure that all fees, expenses and other charges imposed on the borrower are assessed in accordance with the terms of the underlying mortgage note,” the new consent order said.
Because of the extent of their problems, HSBC and Wells Fargo will be barred from acquiring any new mortgage servicing rights from other banks.
JPMorgan, Santander, U.S. Bank and EverBank will be able to acquire new rights only with advance approval of regulators. None of the banks will face any restrictions on mortgages they issue themselves.
The mortgage servicing arms of the banks manage the direct relationship with borrowers and deal with homeowners when they fall behind on their payments. Banks often buy the right to service mortgages issued by other ins utions. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan currently have the largest servicing portfolios in the country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/bu...s&emc=rss&_r=0
Eric Holder: before, during and after
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...ies-big-banks/After failing to criminally prosecute any of the financial firms responsible for the market collapse in 2008, former Attorney General Eric Holder is returning to Covington & Burling, a corporate law firm known for serving Wall Street clients.
The move completes one of the more troubling trips through the revolving door for a cabinet secretary. Holder worked at Covington from 2001 right up to being sworn in as attorney general in Feburary 2009. And Covington literally kept an office empty for him, awaiting his return.
The Covington & Burling client list has included four of the largest banks, including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Lobbying records show that Wells Fargo is still a client of Covington. Covington recently represented Citigroup over a civil lawsuit relating to the bank’s role in Libor manipulation.
Covington was also deeply involved with a company known as MERS, which was later responsible for falsifying mortgage do ents on an industrial scale. “Court records show that Covington, in the late 1990s, provided legal opinion letters needed to create MERS on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and several other large banks,” according to an investigation by Reuters.
The Department of Justice under Holder not only failed to pursue criminal prosecutions of the banks responsible for the mortgage meltdown, but in fact de-prioritized investigations of mortgage fraud, making it the “lowest-ranked criminal threat,” according to an inspector general report.
Mary Jo White has to go
Loretta Lynch also handled Wall St with 100% deference.
who picked her?
Obama. they are ALL pledged to enrich/protect/enable the financial sector. iow, America is ed and un able.
Hey Winehole23 I know you and I don't get along particularly well but I would like to say I'm glad to see you posting more lately. Get TB posting more and this place will feel a bit closer to normal.
thx, Fuzzy.
TB?
Thanks Fuzzy. My job, an unbidden career as a process and controls consultant, keeps me travelling 5-6 days a week and free time has simply evaporated. I get to peek in alot but rarely have time to put together much.
six years after the epochal bust, the hits keep coming:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/goldman-sac...estors-1513622US banking major Goldman Sachs is on the verge of settling another lawsuit over its dealings with mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.
In the latest development, the bank has agreed to pay around $270m (£173m, €246m) to settle a lawsuit brought by Pension funds led by NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund of Illinois, who invested in residential MBS underwritten by it, according to media reports.
Banks Rejected Three Out of Four Requests for Loan Modifications Under Vaunted Obama Program
A Slack Lifeline for Drowning Homeowners
Advertised in 2009 as a lifeline for as many as four million troubled borrowers, the program was one of the Obama administration’s signature efforts to help homeowners. But the report, by Christy L. Romero, the government official with authority to monitor the program, shows that six years later, just 887,001 borrowers are participating in loan modifications — deals that reduce the costs of mortgages.
It appears that the program has allowed big banks to run roughshod over borrowers again and again.
Instead of helping some four million borrowers get loan modifications, the report noted, banks participating in the program have rejected four million borrowers’ requests for help, or 72 percent of their applications, since the process began. From the outset, Treasury’s loan modification program had problems. Among them were two design flaws: making the program voluntary for the banks and letting those banks that participated run the process on their own.
The data points in the new report are grim.
CitiMortgage, a unit of Citibank, had the worst record, rejecting 87 percent of borrowers applying for a loan modification. JPMorgan Chase was almost as bad, with a denial rate of 84 percent. Bank of America turned down 80 percent, and Wells Fargo rejected 60 percent.
The banks say they have good reasons for rejecting loan modification applicants. In 38 percent of cases, the banks blamed the borrower for either not completing the paperwork or failing to make the first payment under the program.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/bu...borrowers.html
The bankrupt, bailed-out banksters refuse to bail out underwater Human-Americans. They got them under contract, and they'll get every last dollar, or take the home cheap, rent it out and/or flip for a big profit.
Barry Ritholz in Bloomberg, on who got bailed out:
http://www.bloombergview.com/article...-from-bailoutsYou probably learned the phrase "moral hazard" during the financial crisis. In short, what it means is that the bailouts rescued leveraged, reckless speculators from the results of their unwise professional folly and gave them an incentive to do it all over again. They were and the intended rescuees.
Do you think I am exaggerating? Consider the U.S. bailout in its manifold forms, from TARP to ZIRP to QE. How many bondholders suffered losses from their poor investment decisions? With the exception of holders of Lehman Brothers' debt and a handful of banks that weren't deemed too big to fail, just about every other bondholder was made whole, 100 cents on the dollar.
Thanks to rescue plans such as the Trouble Asset Relief Program, holders of bonds from a diverse assortment of failed and failing companies suffered literally no losses. American International Group? Zero losses. Government sponsored en ies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Zero losses. Banking giants Citigroup and Bank of America? Zero losses. Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns? Zero losses.
Last edited by Winehole23; 08-02-2015 at 10:47 AM.
without the susbidy to TBTFs, financial sector profits and bonuses would vanish, says Robert Reich. suggests the financial sector might still be essentially insolvent, seven years after the epochal bust.
http://robertreich.org/post/79512527145People who park their savings in these banks accept a lower interest rate on deposits or loans than they require from America’s smaller banks. That’s because smaller banks are riskier places to park money. Unlike the big banks, the smaller ones won’t be bailed out if they get into trouble.
This hidden subsidy gives Wall Street banks a compe ive advantage over the smaller banks, which means Wall Street makes more money. And as their profits grow, the big banks keep getting bigger.
How large is this hidden subsidy? Two researchers, Kenichi Ueda of the International Monetary Fund and Beatrice Weder di Mauro of the University of Mainz, have calculated it’s about eight tenths of a percentage point.
This may not sound like much but multiply it by the total amount of money parked in the ten biggest Wall Street banks and you get a huge amount – roughly $83 billion a year.
Recall that the Street paid out $26.7 billion in bonuses last year. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or even a Wall Street banker to see that the hidden subsidy the Wall Street banks enjoy because they're too big to fail is about three times what Wall Street paid out in bonuses.
Without the subsidy, no bonus pool.
By the way, the lion’s share of that subsidy ($64 billion a year) goes to the top five banks – JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo. and Goldman Sachs. This amount just about equals these banks’ typical annual profits. In other words, take away the subsidy and not only does the bonus pool disappear, but so do all the profits.
The reason Wall Street bankers got fat paychecks plus a total of $26.7 billion in bonuses last year wasn’t because they worked so much harder or were so much more clever or insightful than most other Americans. They cleaned up because they happen to work in ins utions – big Wall Street banks – that hold a privileged place in the American political economy.
one of the biggest dangers, is this description of the present:
The reason Wall Street bankers got fat paychecks plus a total of $26.7 billion in bonuses last year wasn’t because they worked so much harder or were so much more clever or insightful than most other Americans. They cleaned up because they happen to work in ins utions – big Wall Street banks – that hold a privileged place in the American political economy.
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