Economy - FORECLOSURE FRAUD

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Abigail Field: Insider Says Promontory’s OCC Foreclosure Reviews for Wells are Frauds. Brought to You by HUD Sec. Donovan

Abigail Field: Insider Says Promontory’s OCC Foreclosure Reviews for Wells are Frauds. Brought to You by HUD Sec. Donovan


If anyone can set the record straight, Abigail is just the person to do it!

Naked Cap-

U.S. Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan has embarrassed himself yet again. This time, though, he’s gone in for total humiliation. See, he praised the bank-run Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) foreclosure reviews as an important part of the social justice delivered by the mortgage “settlement“. But thanks to an insider working on an OCC review, we know that process is a sham. Worse, the insider’s story shows that enforcement of the settlement is likely to be similar, which is to say, meaningless. Doesn’t matter how pretty the new servicing standards are if the bankers don’t have to follow them.

Let’s start with Donovan’s sales pitch for the OCC reviews:

For families who suffered much deeper harmwho may have been improperly foreclosed on and lost their homes and could therefore be owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages — the settlement preserves their ability to get justice in two key ways.

First, it recognizes that the federal banking regulators have established a process through which these families can receive help by requesting a review of their file. [ACF: That’s the OCC process] If a borrower can document that they were improperly foreclosed on, they can receive every cent of the compensation they are entitled to through that process.

Second, the agreement preserves the right of homeowners to take their servicer to court. Indeed, if banks or other financial institutions broke the law or treated the families they served unfairly, they should pay the price — and with this settlement they will. [bold throughout mine]

Now, the justice of the settlement has been debunked many times over. And David Dayen debunks Donovan’s OCC pitch here. What’s important is that Bank Housing Secretary Donovan wants you to believe the Wells Fargo OCC process is a meaningful contribution to holding bankers accountable and compensating victims.

Wells Fargo’s Fraudulent OCC ‘Independent’ Foreclosure Reviews

[NAKED CAPITALISM]

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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Insider Says Wells Fargo’s Independent Foreclosure Review for OCC is “a Sham” – Mandelman Matters

Insider Says Wells Fargo’s Independent Foreclosure Review for OCC is “a Sham” – Mandelman Matters


I got an email the other night from one of my readers.  It said…

 

“I was hired as one of those “Independent File Review Specialist” at a company called Promontory working on Wells Fargo Bank. I have 15 years industry experience in all facets of the mortgage & title industry, and just needed a job at the moment.  I must say the whole project is a mess, and a terrible joke on the victims of foreclosure and the American people. It’s a total sham.”

 

No kidding, I said to myself.  Or, as Yves Smith would say… “Quelle surprise.”  The email continued…

 

“I have found errors that should be moved up through the ranks, but am told “quit digging so deep”…”put your shovel away”…Focus on the questions “in scope”… The review forms are set up so no harm could ever be found. It’s equivalent of an attorney presenting his case to a judge with just 20% of the evidence.”

 

Well, that can’t be good, right?  He went on…

 

“I would also like to mention that I was brought in through a temp agency…..some of the people brought in with me do not know the difference between a truth in lending statement, and a note. It’s a shame, these are your reviewers!!! The supervisors don’t want any trouble…they are mostly temps too, just trying to get a promotion to full time. Does this sound like a fair and impartial review to you? Since we’re temps I suppose that’s impartial, not to mention they made us “affiant notaries” so we can so-called “notarize each others reviews.”

 

Doesn’t sound “fair and impartial” in the least, now does it?  But I do like the ability to notarize each other’s reviews.  That sounds handier than a pocket on a man’s shirt.  He closed by saying…

 

“The foreclosed victims don’t realize if they do not provide specific dates on the intake forms… their complaints are considered “general comments” out of scope. They should specifically ask for a “full file review” and hopefully their info has not been scrubbed or purged… I could go on and on, but I just felt I needed to share this.”

 

And in my opinion, you’ve done a very good thing.

 

Our insider says he was hired by Promontory Compliance Solutions, LLC to do work on the Independent Foreclosure Review for Wells Fargo Bank.  The company’s Website describes itself as follows:

 

Promontory excels at helping financial companies grapple with and resolve critical issues, particularly those with a regulatory dimension. Taken as a whole, Promontory professionals have unparalleled regulatory credibility and insight, and we provide our clients with frank, proactive advice informed by evolving best practices and regulatory expectations.

Promontory is a leading strategy, risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm focusing primarily on the financial services industry. Led by our Founder and CEO, Eugene A. Ludwig, former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, our professionals have deep and varied expertise gained through decades of experience as senior leaders of regulatory bodies, financial institutions and Fortune 100 corporations. 

 [Continue to Mandelman Matters] it gets much better!

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© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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Homeowners, Investors in Mortgage Backed Securities Feel Your Pain. Hear Their Lawyer Talk About Servicer Nightmares.

Homeowners, Investors in Mortgage Backed Securities Feel Your Pain. Hear Their Lawyer Talk About Servicer Nightmares.


Absolutely do not miss this piece from Abigail Field – So head over and please absorb the information.

 

Abigail C. Field-

If you want to cut through some of the nonsense the banks have managed to sell as information about the housing situation, robosigning, mortgage modifications, check out this very accessible interview of attorney Talcott Franklin by Martin Andelman.

Tal represents the majority of investors hosed once by Wall Streeers selling AAA-rated mortgage backed junk, and constantly being hosed again by the big bank servicers of those mortgages. Interestingly, his perspective sounds very much like homeowners’. Yes, a couple of times it gets a little too legalistic, but only for about 5 minutes of the slightly longer than the hour chat—when you hit the overview of the contracts structuring securitization, or any other topic that is more in the weeds than you want to go, take a deep breath and keep going. Most of the interview is in a rhythm and a language that creates clarity I’ve not seen or heard elsewhere.

[REALITY CHECK]

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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The World of the Investor with Attorney Talcott Franklin – A Mandelman Matters Podcast

The World of the Investor with Attorney Talcott Franklin – A Mandelman Matters Podcast


Please find some time today or over the weekend to listen to this excellent podcast of Martin Andelman’s interview with Attorney Talcott Franklin, who represents more than half of all the investors in mortgage-backed securities on the planet.  Tal’s the co-author of the “Mortgage and Asset-backed Securities Litigation Handbook,” and he’s a very experienced and highly sophisticated litigator. You will learn a whole lot and many thanks to Martin for this super interview.

Please head over to Mandelman Matters for the full article.

The podcast is available in two versions… MP4 and MP3.  The MP4 version includes a couple of slides that show diagrams of the basic securitization process, but the MP4 format may not play on some computers.  The MP3 version is audio only, and should play on most any computer.  Most listeners will have no trouble following along either way.

So, turn up the volume on your speakers, and click the MP4 or MP3 version.  I loved recoding this podcast.  If you want to know more about the foreclosure crisis, you’re about to learn from an expert on the other side of the foreclosures, the investor side… it doesn’t get any better than this!

CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE ENHANCED MP4 VERSION

… INCLUDES SLIDES ON SECURITIZATION

 OR

CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE MP3 VERSION

Mandelman out.


© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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US, France Knew In 2007 Financial Collapse Was Imminent Due To Wall Street Fraud

US, France Knew In 2007 Financial Collapse Was Imminent Due To Wall Street Fraud


#WikiLeaks- PAULSON DISCUSSES FINANCIAL MARKETS, IRAN WITH SARKOZY, LAGARDE

Alexander Higgins-

In 2007 top US and France officials knew rampant fraud being committed by regulators, rating agencies and Wall Street Banks would soon cause a global financial collapse.

While investors and nations around the world were happily giving trillions of dollars away to crooked Wall Street bankers top officials in the United States and France knew the market would soon collapse and people would be robbed of millions.

While raising the issue that the role of government regulators and rating agencies needed to be reviewed in the wake of the upcoming crisis, US officials ignored calls from the French government to enact necessary regulation to stop the rampant fraud that would soon result in investors losing tens of trillions of dollars they had invested into the markets.

The cable reveals that while discussing the ability of the French banks to survive the crisis, French President Sarkozy was pushing the US to enact regulations to forestall the crisis. Instead, Henry Paulson responded by telling Sarkozy not to overreacted because the” it would take months, not weeks, for credit to be re-priced” telling France this is “not a major crisis.”

Paulson went on to warn that the major problem was with the German banks and which would require a bailout from the taxpayer while warning that the assets held by banks but covered up from investors by being held off-balance sheet presented systematic risk to banks and to sovereign wealth.

The cable clearly reveals that taxpayer bailouts would be needed.  Paulson further up sticks up for the Wall Street hedge fund saying they were not to blame for the crisis while acknowledging there were major Wall Street transparency issues.

To summarize, the cable reveals that top government officials in France and the US knew Wall street banks were committing fraud in the origination and packaging of sub-prime mortgage and lying to investors about the resulting securities they were creating and selling. Officials knew banks were also lying about their own liabilities and hiding them from investors by keeping the assets off their balance sheets.  The government also knew that both regulators and ratings agencies were participating in the scheme.

Remember as you read this cable, these conversations all took place over a year before the 2008 financial collapse when taxpayers around the world were forced into giving up trillions of dollars for banker bailouts. Also keep in mind that while the cable discusses “systemic risk”, “bailouts” and “market turbulence”, none of these had happened yet. They were discussing what would soon happen in the future.

The discussion of “systemic risk”, “market turbulence” and “taxpayer bailouts” over a year before the markets actually collapsed and those events actually occurred, show they knew a global financial collapse. Not only did they know it would occur but knew what the consequences would be for the investors and the governments who were fleeced by Wall Street. As the cable reveals, Paulson chose to deal with the crisis by letting it continue and urging France to keep the issue underwaps  by  urging Sarkozy not  to “over react”, hence allowing the scandal to the continue which just postponed the inevitable.

Also remember when we were forced into these bailouts, it was  under the guise that our governments had no idea the banks were doing this and this was a sudden and unforeseeable crisis. Finally, remember that – while there have been plenty of accusations from “conspiracy theorists”,  “fringe economists” and “wing nut” politicians such as Ron Paul – there still has been no admission from our government that financial regulators or the ratings agencies played a role in the crisis.

[ALEXANDER HIGGINS]

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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Sound Familiar? Who says history doesn’t repeat?

Sound Familiar? Who says history doesn’t repeat?


Cross-Posted from Chink in the Armor

In 62 BC,  the Roman Senate was in a terrible state. They functioned more like a city council than as an imperial government.  The influx of wealth and slaves from the Carthaginian wars meant business was more about banking and finance than anything else.  Business men were more interested in state contracts and the financing of games than they were in trade,  true commerce and the building of true wealth.  It was all about pleasuring their egos and pandering to the hedonistic whims of the citizenry

Ruinous taxation impoverished the people compelling them to turn to the money lenders to meet their obligations and debt collection turned them into virtual,  if not absolute slaves.  This had the effect of concentrating the real wealth,  the land,  into fewer and fewer hands and the use of slaves in farming sent the landless poor to the larger cities which became populated with wretched human beings destitute of all moral and social development.

“At bottom,  usury was the cancer of the Republic.  […] seldom had a people sunk so low.  Bereft of religion,  morality and all the social virtues,  the dole-fed masses wallowed in vice.  Luxury begot brutality and brutality licence;  licence led to celibacy,  and childlessness became more and more prevalent.  To these degenerates,  licence, spelt liberty,  but to the plutocrats,  liberty spelt power,  profit,  and an unlimited scramble for wealth,  until money became the sole link between man and man.”[1]

Sound familiar?

On June 16, 1963, Thich Quang Duc,  a Buddhist monk sat down in the middle of the street in downtown Saigon,  poured gasoline over himself and his robes and calmly set himself on fire to protest the religious persecution under the Diem regime which was supported by the US Government.  The effect in South Vietnam was electric.  Citizens who had heretofore cowered in their homes in fear of the police began to stand up in defiance of the regime.

Three years later,  in May of 1966, Thich Nu Thanh Quang, a Buddhist nun, immolated herself in the city of Hue.  By the end of the month,  the US Consulate in Hue was set afire by angry mobs.  The affect in this country was almost as dramatic.  With brute force,  it brought home to the psyche of America that we were the bad guys.

Sound familiar?

Just over a week ago,  Tom Ball,  a 21 year Army veteran from Massachusetts  doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in front of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene,  NH.  In February last year,  Joe Stack flew his small plane into the IRS offices in Austin,  TX.  Just a few days ago,  James Verone walked up to a teller at a Gastonia, NC bank and handed her a note.  It said “This is a bank robbery, please only give me one dollar.”  He did it so he could get medical care.

Just this year,  on June 23rd,  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase.  “We’re not doing it because we want to do it, we’re doing it because if we don’t do it,   [ … we will] have to go out and borrow a trillion dollars over the next 10 years to finance those tax benefits for the top 2 percent, and I don’t think I can justify doing that.”

Ruinous taxation,  more money spent on games and pleasure than upon the creation of wealth,  money lenders driving people into virtual slavery with onerous debt;  a population bereft of religion and morality,  a vicious scramble for wealth and now money is the sole link between man and man.  Divorce,  broken families, eugenics and childlessness preached from street side bill boards,  the wealth drained from the nation so those in power can have just a little bit more,  a devastated middle class.

Sound familiar?

In 61 BC,  Rome was ripe for a man on a white horse.  On September,  29th of that year,  that man arrived.  Pompey,  a victorious general from the wars against the terrorists (pirates) who were raiding the shipping lanes of the eastern Mediterranean rode into town to upset the power balance between  Porcius Cato and Licinius Crassus.  Pompey aligned himself with Crassus and it was a period of great political tension.  While all eyes were upon him,  Julius Caesar,  a member of the Populares party also arrived to stand for Consulship.  Cato denied Caesar the triumph he expected from his victories in Spain and added Caesar to his enemies.  In the ensuing struggle,  Crassus and Pompey agreed to support Caesar for Consulship in exchange for political favors and repeal of certain taxes.

With Cato out of the way,  it wasn’t long before the triumvirate were squabbling amongst themselves and a civil war between the forces and citizens loyal to Pompey and those loyal to Caesar broke out.  In early January of 49 BC,  Caesar “crossed the Rubicon” a shallow river in northeastern Italy forcing Pompey and  the rest of the Senate to flee Rome.  Caesar was victorious over Pompey in the ensuing civil war and he was never held accountable.

We haven’t seen our man on the white horse yet,  but is it too far fetched to imagine it will happen?  And when he comes,  can he unite or will there be terrific division between competing factions?  Could there be a military coup?  It isn’t so far fetched and to read this,  you can see it is something they are already thinking about.  If so,  would there be the counter coup? Add into that a cyclical view of history rather than a linear view and one can see historical pressures building up.

Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and resolved the indecision and competing interests of Rome.  He did this by fashioning his military to become an instrument of his will.  His military was he and he was his military.  His was a struggle of an entire people yearning for something new.  Caesar was able to utilize all aspects of the empire: money,  trade,  propaganda and political manipulations as means to an end.  Lastly,  and perhaps most importantly,  he saw that in war,  as in peace,  opponents are equally fearful of each other and the first to set aside fears of the moment and act boldly has the best chance of victory.

Caesar saw that what Rome needed was a monarchial democracy;  freedom and democracy,  not licence and greed;  a strong hand to rend order out of chaos.  He destroyed the power of the money lenders by relieving the provinces of their money making governors and sent each of them at least 80,000 new citizens to promote democracy.  His vision for a new social order is best explained by quoting a speech he made to a group of mutinous soldiers at Placentia in 49 BC:

“For no society of men whatever can preserve its unity and continue to exist if the criminal element is not punished,  since,  if the diseased member does not receive proper treatment,  it causes all the rest,  even as in our own physical bodies to share  in its affliction.  […] For wherever the insolent element has the advantage wherever wrong-doing is unpunished,  there self restraint also goes unrewarded […]”[2]

At the root of it all is money as debt.  It nearly destroyed Rome and it is on the verge of destroying this country.  It is (one of) the duty (ies) of the sovereign to produce the coin of the realm.  In this country,  the sovereign,  which in this country is manifested by the central government in Washington DC, abdicated that power to a group of men for their private profit nearly 100 years ago.  Until this duty is reclaimed by the sovereign, just like Rome before the arrival of Julius Caesar,  the problems we face will not be solved.

Sound familiar?

_____________________________________________________________________________________


[1] A Military History of the Western World by Maj. General J.F.C. Fuller page 177

[2] Div’s Roman History,  translated by E. Cary (1916),  XLI,  29-30

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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[VIDEO] NBC Discusses MERS, Counties Seek Millions From Mortgage Giant

[VIDEO] NBC Discusses MERS, Counties Seek Millions From Mortgage Giant


MERS under fire for unpaid fees

By CHRIS GLORIOSO
Updated 7:08 AM EST, Tue, Mar 8, 2011

Most Americans have never heard of it, but this mortgage industry holds interests in 50 percent of all U.S. home loans.

No, not Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac either.

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, otherwise known as MERS, is a private firm that tracks ownership in hundreds of thousands of home loans.  The computerized network allows banks to buy and sell mortgages without having to record the transfers at the county level.

An added bonus for the banks is the avoidance of county fees.  When MERS is used to turn a regular mortgage into an investment, financial institutions don’t pay “recording fees,” which are usually small charges of between $50 and $100, to the counties where the underlying properties are physically located.

Full Article HERE

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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The Elephant In The Foreclosure Fraud Room: Second Liens

The Elephant In The Foreclosure Fraud Room: Second Liens


There’s been plenty of recent media attention to the prospect of investor lawsuits over fraudulent mortgages and mortgage securities. But investor lawsuits against mortgage servicers could be even more damaging than these other lines of legal inquiry. The four largest banks hold nearly half a trillion dollars worth of second-lien mortgages on their books—loans that could be decimated if investors successfully target improper mortgage servicing operations. The result would be major trouble for the financial system. The result would be major trouble for too-big-to-fail behemoths.

Mortgage servicers are the banking industry’s debt collectors. They accept payments and forward them along to investors who own mortgage securities– servicers themselves don’t actually own the mortgages they handle. This is a recipe for trouble for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest problems is the fact that the nation’s four largest banks also operate the four largest mortgage servicers. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup service about half of all mortgages in the United States. They also have multi-trillion-dollar businesses whose interests often conflict with those of mortgage security investors.

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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FORECLOSURE CRISIS by The Daily show with JON STEWART

FORECLOSURE CRISIS by The Daily show with JON STEWART


Foreclosure Crisis

The banks admit to not reading the fine print on the crappy mortgages the American taxpayers now own.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Foreclosure Crisis
www.thedailyshow.com

DinSFLA

Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

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© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in assignment of mortgage, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, forgery, robo signers, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUDComments (0)

Handcuffs for Wall Street, Not Happy-Talk

Handcuffs for Wall Street, Not Happy-Talk


“If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists
– to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.”
– BARACK OBAMA, speech, Aug. 28, 2006

Zach Carter

Zach Carter

Economics Editor, AlterNet; Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future

Posted: September 12, 2010 02:52 PM

The Washington Post has published a very silly op-ed by Chrystia Freeland accusing President Barack Obama of unfairly “demonizing” Wall Street. Freeland wants to see Obama tone down his rhetoric and play nice with executives in pursuit of a harmonious economic recovery. The trouble is, Obama hasn’t actually deployed harsh words against Wall Street. What’s more, in order to avoid being characterized as “anti-business,” the Obama administration has refused to mete out serious punishment for outright financial fraud. Complaining about nouns and adjectives is a little ridiculous when handcuffs and prison sentences are in order.

Freeland is a long-time business editor at Reuters and the Financial Times, and the story she spins about the financial crisis comes across as very reasonable. It’s also completely inaccurate. Here’s the key line:

“Stricter regulation of financial services is necessary not because American bankers were bad, but because the rules governing them were.”

Bank regulations were lousy, of course. But Wall Street spent decades lobbying hard for those rules, and screamed bloody murder when Obama had the audacity to tweak them. More importantly, the financial crisis was not only the result of bad rules. It was the result of bad rules and rampant, straightforward fraud, something a seasoned business editor like Freeland ought to know. Seeking economic harmony with criminals seems like a pretty poor foundation for an economic recovery.

The FBI was warning about an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud as early as 2004. Mortgage fraud is typically perpetrated by lenders, not borrowers — 80 percent of the time, according to the FBI. Banks made a lot of quick bucks over the past decade by illegally conning borrowers. Then bankers who knew these loans were fraudulent still packaged them into securities and sold them to investors without disclosing that fraud. They lied to their own shareholders about how many bad loans were on their books, and lied to them about the bonuses that were derived from the entire scheme. When you do these things, you are stealing lots of money from innocent people, and you are, in fact, behaving badly (to put it mildly).

The fraud allegations that have emerged over the past year are not restricted to a few bad apples at shady companies– they involve some of the largest players in global finance. Washington Mutual executives knew their company was issuing fraudulent loans, and securitized them anyway without stopping the influx of fraud in the lending pipeline. Wachovia is settling charges that it illegally laundered $380 billion in drug money in order to maintain access to liquidity. Barclays is accused of illegally laundering money from Iran, Sudan and other nations, jumping through elaborate technical hoops to conceal the source of their funds. Goldman Sachs set up its own clients to fail and bragged about their “shitty deals.” Citibank executives deceived their shareholders about the extent of their subprime mortgage holdings. Bank of America executives concealed heavy losses from the Merrill Lynch merger, and then lied to their shareholders about the massive bonuses they were paying out. IndyMac Bank and at least five other banks cooked their books by backdating capital injections.

Continue reading…..The  Huffington Post


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Posted in Bank Owned, citi, conspiracy, Economy, FED FRAUD, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, goldman sachs, hamp, indymac, investigation, jobless, lehman brothers, MERS, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., OCC, racketeering, RICO, rmbs, Wall Street, wamu, washington mutual, wells fargoComments (0)

Global Collapse of the Fiat Money System: Too Big To Fail Global Banks Will Collapse Between Now and First Quarter 2011

Global Collapse of the Fiat Money System: Too Big To Fail Global Banks Will Collapse Between Now and First Quarter 2011


When Quantitative Easing Has Run Its Course and Fails

By Matthias Chang

Global Research, August 31, 2010

Readers of my articles will recall that I have warned as far back as December 2006, that the global banks will collapse when the Financial Tsunami hits the global economy in 2007. And as they say, the rest is history.

Quantitative Easing (QE I) spearheaded by the Chairman of  delayed the inevitable demise of the fiat shadow money banking system slightly over 18 months.

That is why in November of 2009, I was so confident to warn my readers that by the end of the first quarter of 2010 at the earliest or by the second quarter of 2010 at the latest, the global economy will go into a tailspin. The recent alarm that the US economy has slowed down and in the words of Bernanke “the recent pace of growth is less vigorous than we expected” has all but vindicated my analysis. He warned that the outlook is uncertain and the economy “remains vulnerable to unexpected developments”.

Obviously, Bernanke’s words do not reveal the full extent of the fear that has gripped central bankers and the financial elites that assembled at the annual gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But, you can take it from me that they are very afraid.

Why?

Let me be plain and blunt. The “unexpected developments” Bernanke referred to is the collapse of the global banks. This is FED speak and to those in the loop, this is the dire warning.

So many renowned economists have misdiagnosed the objective and consequences of quantitative easing. Central bankers’ scribes and the global mass media hoodwinked the people by saying that QE will enable the banks to lend monies to cash-starved companies and jump start the economy. The low interest rate regime would encourage all and sundry to borrow, consume and invest.

This was the fairy tale.

Then, there were some economists who were worried that as a result of the FED’s printing press (electronic or otherwise) working overtime, hyper-inflation would set in soon after.

But nothing happened. The multiplier effect of fractional reserve banking did not take off. Bank lending in fact stalled.

Why?

What happened?

Let me explain in simple terms step by step.

1) All the global banks were up to their eye-balls in toxic assets. All the AAA mortgage-backed securities etc. were in fact JUNK. But in the balance sheets of the banks and their special purpose vehicles (SPVs), they were stated to be worth US$ TRILLIONS.

2) The collapse of Lehman Bros and AIG exposed this ugly truth. All the global banks had liabilities in the US$ Trillions. They were all INSOLVENT. The central banks the world over conspired and agreed not to reveal the total liabilities of the global banks as that would cause a run on these banks, as happened in the case of Northern Rock in the U.K.

3) A devious scheme was devised by the FED, led by Bernanke to assist the global banks to unload systematically and in tranches the toxic assets so as to allow the banks to comply with RESERVE REQUIREMENTS under the fractional reserve banking system, and to continue their banking business. This is the essence of the bailout of the global banks by central bankers.

4) This devious scheme was effected by the FED’s quantitative easing (QE) – the purchase of toxic assets from the banks. The FED created “money out of thin air” and used that “money” to buy the toxic assets at face or book value from the banks, notwithstanding they were all junks and at the most, worth maybe ten cents to the dollar. Now, the FED is “loaded” with toxic assets once owned by the global banks. But these banks cannot declare and or admit to this state of affairs. Hence, this financial charade.

5) If we are to follow simple logic, the exercise would result in the global banks flushed with cash to enable them to lend to desperate consumers and cash-starved businesses. But the money did not go out as loans. Where did the money go?

6) It went back to the FED as reserves, and since the FED bought US$ trillions worth of toxic wastes, the “money” (it was merely book entries in the Fed’s books) that these global banks had were treated as “Excess Reserves”. This is a misnomer because it gave the ILLUSION that the banks are cash-rich and under the fractional reserve system would be able to lend out trillions worth of loans. But they did not. Why?

7) Because the global banks still have US$ trillions worth of toxic wastes in their balance sheets. They are still insolvent under the fractional reserve banking laws. The public must not be aware of this as otherwise, it would trigger a massive run on all the global banks!

8) Bernanke, the US Treasury and the global central bankers were all praying and hoping that given time (their estimation was 12 to 18 months) the housing market would recover and asset prices would resume to the levels before the crisis. .

Let me explain: A House was sold for say US$500,000. Borrower has a mortgage of US$450,000 or more. The house is now worth US$200,000 or less. Multiply this by the millions of houses sold between 2000 and 2008 and you will appreciate the extent of the financial black-hole. There is no way that any of the global banks can get out of this gigantic mess. And there is also no way that the FED and the global central bankers through QE can continue to buy such toxic wastes without showing their hands and exposing the lie that these banks are solvent.

It is my estimation that they have to QE up to US$20 trillion at the minimum. The FED and no central banker would dare “create such an amount of money out of thin air” without arousing the suspicions and or panic of sovereign creditors, investors and depositors. It is as good as declaring officially that all the banks are BANKRUPT.

9) But there is no other solution in the short and middle term except another bout of quantitative easing, QE II. Given the above caveat, QE II cannot exceed the amount of the previous QE without opening the proverbial Pandora Box.

10) But it is also a given that the FED will embark on QE II, as under the fractional reserve banking system, if the FED does not purchase additional toxic wastes, the global banks (faced with mounting foreclosures, etc.) will fall short of their reserve requirements.

11) You will also recall that the FED at the height of the crisis announced that interest will be paid on the so-called “excess reserves” of the global banks, thus enabling these banks to “earn” interest. So what we have is a merry-go-round of monies moving from the right pocket to the left pocket at the click of the computer mouse. The FED creates money, uses it to buy toxic assets, and the same money is then returned to the FED by the global banks to earn interest. By this fiction of QE, banks are flushed with cash which enable them to earn interest. Is it any wonder that these banks have declared record profits?

12) The global banks get rid of some of their toxic wastes at full value and at no costs, and get paid for unloading the toxic wastes via interest payments. Additionally, some of the “monies” are used by these banks to purchase US Treasuries (which also pay interests) which in turn allows the US Treasury to continue its deficit spending. THIS IS THE BAILOUT RIP OFF of the century.

Now that you fully understand this SCAM, it is left to be seen how the FED will get away with the next round of quantitative easing – QE II.

Obviously, the FED and the other central banks are hoping that in time, asset prices will recover and resume their previous values before the crisis. This is a fantasy. QE II will fail just as QE I failed to save the banks.

The patient is in intensive care and is for all intent and purposes brain dead, although the heart is still pumping albeit faintly. The Too Big To Fail Banks cannot be rescued and must be allowed to be liquidated. It will be painful, but it is necessary before there is recovery. This is a given.

Warning:

When the ball hits the ceiling fan, sometime early 2011 at the earliest, there will be massive bank runs.

I expect that the FED and other central banks will pre-empt such a run and will do the following:

1) Disallow cash withdrawals from banks beyond a certain amount, say US$1,000 per day; 2) Disallow cash transactions up to a certain amount, say US$10,000 for certain transactions; 3) Transactions (investments) for metals (gold and silver) will be restricted; 4) Worst-case scenario – the confiscation of gold AS HAPPENED IN WORLD WAR II. 5) Imposition of capital controls etc.; 6) Legislations that will compel most daily commercial transactions to be conducted through Debit and or Credit Cards; 7) Legislations to make it a criminal offence for any contraventions of the above.

Solution:

Maintain a bank balance sufficient to enable you to comply with the above potential impositions.

Start diversifying your assets away from dollar assets. Have foreign currencies in sufficient quantities in those jurisdictions where the above anticipated impositions are least likely to be implemented.

CONCLUSION

There will be a financial tsunami (round two) the likes of which the world has never seen.

Global banks will collapse!

Be ready.

© Copyright Matthias Chang, Future Fast Forward, 2010

The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20853

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in bernanke, cdo, chain in title, conflict of interest, CONTROL FRAUD, corruption, FED FRAUD, federal reserve board, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, geithner, securitization, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUD, sub-prime, trade secrets, Wall StreetComments (2)

Emergency S.O.S.| America Falling to Foreign Bank Takeover

Emergency S.O.S.| America Falling to Foreign Bank Takeover


These people DO NOT care about you or your family! STAND UP!

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in EconomyComments (0)

Peter Schiff – Watch Out For Run Away Inflation

Peter Schiff – Watch Out For Run Away Inflation


Expect more stimulus and a rise in interest rates.

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in EconomyComments (0)

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Too Large for Stains

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Too Large for Stains


By GRETCHEN MORGENSON The Wall Street Journal

Published: June 25, 2010

OUR nation’s Congressional machinery was humming last week as legislators reconciled the differences between the labyrinthine financial reforms proposed by the Senate and the House and emerged early Friday morning with a voluminous new law in hand. They christened it the Dodd-Frank bill, after the heads of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees who drove the process toward the finish line.

The bill is awash in so much minutiae that by late Friday its ultimate impact on the financial services industry was still unclear. Certainly, the bill, which the full Congress has yet to approve, is the most comprehensive in decades, touching hedge funds, private equity firms, derivatives and credit cards. But is it the “strong Wall Street reform bill,” that Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat, said it is?

For this law to be the groundbreaking remedy its architects claimed, it needed to do three things very well: protect consumers from abusive financial products, curb dangerous risk taking by institutions and cut big and interconnected financial entities down to size. So far, the report card is mixed.

On the final item, the bill fails completely. After President Obama signs it into law, the nation’s financial industry will still be dominated by a handful of institutions that are too large, too interconnected and too politically powerful to be allowed to go bankrupt if they make unwise decisions or make huge wrong-way bets.

Speaking of large and politically connected entities, Dodd-Frank does nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the $6.5 trillion mortgage finance behemoths that have been wards of the state for almost two years. That was apparently a bridge too far — not surprising, given the support that Mr. Dodd and Mr. Frank lent to Fannie and Freddie back in the good old days when the companies were growing their balance sheets to the bursting point.

So what does the bill do about abusive financial products and curbing financial firms’ appetites for excessive risk?

For consumers and individual investors, Dodd-Frank promises greater scrutiny on financial “innovations,” the products that line bankers’ pockets but can harm users. The creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau within the Federal Reserve Board is intended to bring a much-needed consumer focus to a regulatory regime that was nowhere to be seen during the last 20 years.

It is good that the bill grants this bureau autonomy by assigning it separate financing and an independent director. But the structure of the bureau could have been stronger.

For example, the bill still lets the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency bar state consumer protections where no federal safeguards exist. This is a problem that was well known during the mortgage mania when the comptroller’s office beat back efforts by state authorities to curtail predatory lending.

And Dodd-Frank inexplicably exempts loans provided by auto dealers from the bureau’s oversight. This is as benighted as exempting loans underwritten by mortgage brokers.

Finally, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the überregulator to be led by the Treasury secretary and made up of top financial regulators, can override the consumer protection bureau’s rules. If the council says a rule threatens the soundness or stability of the financial system, it can be revoked.

Given that financial regulators — and the comptroller’s office is not alone in this — often seem to think that threats to bank profitability can destabilize the financial system, the consumer protection bureau may have a tougher time doing its job than many suppose.

ONE part of the bill that will help consumers and investors is the section exempting high-quality mortgage loans from so-called risk retention requirements. These rules, intended to make mortgage originators more prudent in lending, force them to hold on to 5 percent of a mortgage security that they intend to sell to investors.

But Dodd-Frank sensibly removes high-quality mortgages — those made to creditworthy borrowers with low loan-to-value ratios — from the risk retention rule. Requiring that lenders keep a portion of these loans on their books would make loans more expensive for prudent borrowers; it would likely drive smaller lenders out of the business as well, causing further consolidation in an industry that is already dominated by a few powerful players.

“This goes a long way toward realigning incentives for good underwriting and risk retention where it needs to be retained,” said Jay Diamond, managing director at Annaly Capital Management. “With qualified mortgages, the risk retention is with the borrower who has skin in the game. It’s in the riskier mortgages, where the borrower doesn’t have as much at stake, that the originator should be keeping the risk.”

In the interests of curbing institutional risk-taking, Dodd-Frank rightly takes aim at derivatives and proprietary trading, in which banks make bets using their own money. On derivatives, the bill lets banks conduct trades for customers in interest rate swaps, foreign currency swaps, derivatives referencing gold and silver, and high-grade credit-default swaps. Banks will also be allowed to trade derivatives for themselves if hedging existing positions.

But trading in credit-default swaps referencing lower-grade securities, like subprime mortgages, will have to be run out of bank subsidiaries that are separately capitalized. These subsidiaries may have to raise capital from the parent company, diluting the bank’s existing shareholders.

Banks did win on the section of the bill restricting their investments in private equity firms and hedge funds to 3 percent of bank capital. That number is large enough so as not to be restrictive, and the bill lets banks continue to sponsor and organize such funds.

On proprietary trading, however, the bill gets tough on banks, said Ernest T. Patrikis, a partner at White & Case, by limiting their bets to United States Treasuries, government agency obligations and municipal issues. “Foreign exchange and gold and silver are out,” he said. “This is good for foreign banks if it applies to U.S. banks globally.”

That’s a big if. Even the Glass-Steagall legislation applied only domestically, he noted. Nevertheless, Mr. Patrikis concluded: “The bill is a win for consumers and bad for banks.”

Even so, last Friday, investors seemed to view the bill as positive for banks; an index of their stocks rose 2.7 percent on the day. That reaction is a bit of a mystery, given that higher costs, lower returns and capital raises lie ahead for financial institutions under Dodd-Frank.

Then again, maybe investors are already counting on the banks doing what they do best: figuring out ways around the new rules and restrictions.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 27, 2010, on page BU1 of the New York edition.

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in UncategorizedComments (0)

Was There a Plan to Blow Up the Economy?  The Subprime Conspiracy: COUNTERPUNCH

Was There a Plan to Blow Up the Economy? The Subprime Conspiracy: COUNTERPUNCH


May 3, 2010

Was There a Plan to Blow Up the Economy?

The Subprime Conspiracy

By MIKE WHITNEY

Many people now believe that the financial crisis was not an accident. They think that the Bush administration and the Fed knew what Wall Street was up to and provided their support. This isn’t as far fetched as it sounds. As we will show, it’s clear that Bush, Greenspan and many other high-ranking officials understood the problem with subprime mortgages and knew that a huge asset bubble was emerging that threatened the economy. But while the housing bubble was more than just an innocent mistake, it doesn’t rise to the level of “conspiracy” which Webster defines as  “a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act.”  It’s actually worse than that, because bubblemaking is the dominant policy, and it’s used to overcome structural problems in capitalism itself, mainly stagnation.

The whole idea of a conspiracy diverts attention from what really happened. It conjures up a comical vision of  top-hat business tycoons gathered in a smoke-filled room stealthily mapping out the country’s future. It ignores the fact, that the main stakeholders don’t need to convene a meeting to know what they want. They already know what they want; they want a process that helps them to maintain profitability even while the “real” economy remains stuck in the mud.  Historian Robert Brenner has written extensively on this topic and dispels the mistaken view that the economy is “fundamentally strong”. (in the words of former Treasury secretary Henry Paulson)  Here’s Brenner :

“The current crisis is more serious than the worst previous recession of the postwar period, between 1979 and 1982, and could conceivably come to rival the Great Depression, though there is no way of really knowing. Economic forecasters have underestimated how bad it is because they have over-estimated the strength of the real economy and failed to take into account the extent of its dependence upon a buildup of debt that relied on asset price bubbles.

“In the U.S., during the recent business cycle of the years 2001-2007, GDP growth was by far the slowest of the postwar epoch. There was no increase in private sector employment. The increase in plants and equipment was about a third of the previous, a postwar low. Real wages were basically flat. There was no increase in median family income for the first time since World War II. Economic growth was driven entirely by personal consumption and residential investment, made possible by easy credit and rising house prices. Economic performance was weak, even despite the enormous stimulus from the housing bubble and the Bush administration’s huge federal deficits. Housing by itself accounted for almost one-third of the growth of GDP and close to half of the increase in employment in the years 2001-2005. It was, therefore, to be expected that when the housing bubble burst, consumption and residential investment would fall, and the economy would plunge. ” (“Overproduction not Financial Collapse is the Heart of the Crisis”, Robert P. Brenner speaks with Jeong Seong-jin, Asia Pacific Journal)

What Brenner describes is an economy \that–despite unfunded tax cuts, massive military spending and gigantic asset bubbles–can barely produce positive growth.  The pervasive lethargy of mature capitalist economies poses huge challenges for industry bosses who are judged solely on their ability to boost quarterly profits. Goldman’s Lloyd Blankfein and JPM’s Jamie Dimon could care less about economic theory, what they’re interested in is making money; how to deploy their capital in a way that maximizes return on investment. “Profits”, that’s it.  And that’s much more difficult in a world that’s beset by overcapacity and flagging demand.  The world doesn’t need more widgets or widget-makers. The only way to ensure profitability is to invent an alternate system altogether, a new universe of financial exotica (CDOs, MBSs, CDSs) that operates independent of the sluggish real economy. Financialization provides that opportunity. It allows the main players to pump-up the leverage, minimize capital-outlay, inflate asset prices, and skim off record profits even while the real  economy endures severe stagnation.

Financialization provides a  path to wealth creation, which is why the sector’s portion of total corporate profits is now nearly 40 per cent. It’s a way to bypass the pervasive inertia of the production-oriented economy. The Fed’s role in this new paradigm is to create a hospitable environment (low interest rates) for bubble-making so the upward transfer of wealth can continue without interruption. Bubblemaking is policy.

As we’ve pointed out in earlier articles, scores of people knew what was going on during the subprime fiasco. But it’s worth a quick review, because Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, Timothy Geithner, and others have been defending themselves saying, “Who could have known?”.

The FBI knew (“In September 2004, the FBI began publicly warning that there was an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud, and it predicted that it would produce an economic crisis, if it were not dealt with.”) The FDIC knew. ( In testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, FDIC chairman Sheila Bair confirmed that she not only warned the Fed of what was going on in 2001, but cited particular regulations (HOEPA) under which the Fed could stop the “unfair, abusive and deceptive practices” by the banks.) Also Fitch ratings knew, and even Alan Greenspan’s good friend and former Fed governor Ed Gramlich knew. (Gramlich personally warned Greenspan of the surge in predatory lending that was apparent as early as 2000. Here’s a bit of what Gramlich said in the Wall Street Journal:

“I would have liked the Fed to be a leader” in cracking down on predatory lending, Mr. Gramlich, now a scholar at the Urban Institute, said in an interview this past week. Knowing it would be controversial with Mr. Greenspan, whose deregulatory philosophy is well known, Mr. Gramlich broached it to him personally rather than take it to the full board. “He was opposed to it, so I didn’t really pursue it,” says Mr. Gramlich. (Wall Street Journal)

So, Greenspan knew, too. And, according to Elizabeth MacDonald  in an article titled “Housing Red flags Ignored”:

“One of the nation’s biggest mortgage industry players repeatedly warned the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other bank regulators during the housing bubble that the U.S. faced an imminent housing crash….But bank regulators not only ignored the group’s warnings, top Fed officials also went on the airwaves to say the economy was “building on a sturdy foundation” and a housing crash was “unlikely.”

So, the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America [MICA] also knew. And, here’s a clip from the Washington Post by former New York governor Eliot Spitzer who accused Bush of being a ‘partner in crime’ in the subprime fiasco. Spitzer says that the OCC launched “an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general just to make sure the looting would continue without interruption. Here’s an except from Spitzer’s article:

“In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis….the OCC promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. (Washington Post)

So, the Fed knew, the Treasury knew, the FBI knew, the OCC knew, the FDIC knew, Bush knew, the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America knew, Fitch ratings knew, all the states Attorneys General knew, and thousands, of traders, lenders, ratings agency executives, bankers, hedge fund managers, private equity bosses, regulators knew. Everyone knew, except the unlucky people who were victimized in the biggest looting operation of all time.

Once again, looking for conspiracy, just diverts attention from the nature of the crime itself. Here’s a statement from former regulator and white collar criminologist William K. Black which helps to clarify the point:

“Fraudulent lenders produce exceptional short-term ‘profits’ through a four-part strategy: extreme growth (Ponzi), lending to uncreditworthy borrowers, extreme leverage, and minimal loss reserves. These exceptional ‘profits’ defeat regulatory restrictions and turn private market discipline perverse. The profits also allow the CEO to convert firm assets for personal benefit through seemingly normal compensation mechanisms. The short-term profits cause stock options to appreciate. Fraudulent CEOs following this strategy are guaranteed extraordinary income while minimizing risks of detection and prosecution.” (William K. Black,“Epidemics of’Control Fraud’ Lead to Recurrent, Intensifying Bubbles andCrises”, University of Missouri at Kansas City – School of Law)

Black’s definition of “control fraud” comes very close to describing what really took place during the subprime mortgage frenzy. The investment banks and other financial institutions bulked up on garbage loans and complex securities backed by dodgy mortgages so they could increase leverage and rake off large bonuses for themselves. Clearly, they knew the underlying collateral was junk, just as they knew that eventually the market would crash and millions of people would suffer.

But, while it’s true that Greenspan and Wall Street knew how the bubble-game was played; they had no intention of blowing up the whole system. They simply wanted to inflate the bubble, make their profits, and get out before the inevitable crash.  But, then something went wrong. When Lehman collapsed, the entire financial system suffered a major heart attack. All of the so-called “experts” models turned out to be wrong.

Here’s what happened: Before to the meltdown, the depository “regulated” banks got their funding through the repo market by exchanging collateral (mainly mortgage-backed securities) for short-term loans with the so-called “shadow banks” (investment banks, hedge funds, insurers) But after Lehman defaulted, the funding stream was severely impaired because the prices on mortgage-backed securities kept falling. When the bank-funding system went on the fritz,  stocks went into a nosedive sending panicky investors fleeing for the exits. As unbelievable as it sounds, no one saw this coming.

The reason that no one anticipated a run on the shadow banking system is because the basic architecture of the financial markets has changed dramatically in the last decade due to deregulation. The fundamental structure is different and the traditional stopgaps have been removed. That’s why no one knew what to do during the panic. The general assumption was that there would be a one-to-one relationship between defaulting subprime mortgages and defaulting mortgage-backed securities (MBS). That turned out to be a grave miscalculation. The subprimes were only failing at roughly 8 percent rate when the whole secondary market collapsed. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill explained it best using a clever analogy. He said, “It’s like you have 8 bottles of water and just one of them has arsenic in it. It becomes impossible to sell any of the other bottles because no one knows which one contains the poison.”

And that’s exactly what happened. The market for structured debt crashed, stocks began to plummet, and the Fed had to step in to save the system. Unfortunately, that same deeply-flawed system is being rebuilt brick by brick without any substantive changes.. The Fed and Treasury support this effort, because–as agents of the banks–they are willing to sacrifice their own credibility to defend the primary profit-generating instruments of the industry leaders. (Goldman, JPM, etc) That means that Bernanke and Geithner will go to the mat to oppose any additional regulation on derivatives, securitization and off-balance sheet operations, the same lethal devices that triggered the financial crisis.

So, there was no conspiracy to blow up the financial system, but there is an implicit understanding that the Fed will serve the interests of Wall Street by facilitating asset bubbles through “accommodative” monetary policy and by opposing regulation. It’s just “business as usual”, but it’s far more damaging than any conspiracy, because it ensures that the economy will continue to stagnate, that inequality will continue to grow, and that the gigantic upward transfer of wealth will continue without pause.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached atfergiewhitney@msn.com

Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, fdic, FED FRAUD, federal reserve board, foreclosure fraud, geithner, hank paulson, S.E.C., securitizationComments (0)

Wood Co. man barricades self in foreclosed home: TOLEDO

Wood Co. man barricades self in foreclosed home: TOLEDO


By Laura Rice TOLEDO24
Monday, May 03, 2010 at 8:23 p.m.Photo

WOOD COUNTY, OH — A Wood County man facing foreclosure has boarded himself up in his home along with five others.

They are refusing to leave, despite a court order, and they say they will be there until Wood County Sheriff’s Officers drag them out.

Protestors are gathered outside Keith Sadler’s home of 20 years in rural Wood County trying to bring public attention to what they say is unfair action by banks and trying to keep the sheriff’s department from kicking him out.

“So far they have not come. Probably because of the strong public presence that has been so basically we can call this a victory for the day and hopefully we can carry that through tomorrow and the rest of the foreclosure,” said Lance Crandall, Toledo Foreclosure Defense League.

But the real action is going on inside, where Sadler and five others are locked up with supplies with no plans to leave.

NBC24 spoke with Sadler over an internet connection.

“They’re going to have to drag us out. We’re not going to willingly walk out,” said Sadler.

Sadler emphasizes that this is a peaceful protest and that they do not have any weapons.

He says he is doing this for himself.

“Because it’s my home,” said Sadler.

But also for all the others that could not keep up with house payments. Sadler was off work after a hand injury.

“I cut all the avenues that I could before that to try to make payments, to try to keep as close to on time as I could and of course it was getting impossible,” said Sadler.

What Sadler wants now is a moratorium on foreclosures. But, in talks with Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn, that is not happening.

“(The Sheriff is) basically refusing to do that, saying it’s his duty to uphold the law of the courts even though the laws are immoral and unjust,” said Sadler.

NBC24 spoke with Sheriff Wasylyshyn who said it is Sadler who has broken his word.

Wasylyshyn met with him weeks ago to discuss an eviction plan and he says Sadler agreed to leave peacefully.

Wasylyshyn says sheriff’s deputies will remove the protestors from the property but he would not say when. He says his top priority is keeping his officers safe.

Posted in foreclosure fraudComments (2)

Could Bloomberg Lawsuit Mean Death to Zombie Banks?

Could Bloomberg Lawsuit Mean Death to Zombie Banks?


Center for Media and Democracy and www.BanksterUSA.org

Posted: March 28, 2010 09:43 AM
My recollection is a bit hazy. How does one kill a zombie exactly? Do you stake it? Cut off its head? Nationalize it? Perhaps it’s time to ask the experts at Bloomberg News.

Lost in the haze of the hoopla surrounding the insurance reform bill was some big news on the financial reform front. On March 19, Bloomberg won its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve for information that could expose which “too big to fail” banks in the United States are walking zombies and which banks were merely rotting.

Bloomberg, which has done some of the best reporting on the financial crisis, is also leading the charge on the fight for transparency at the Federal Reserve and in the financial sector. While many policymakers and reporters were focusing their attention on the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout bill passed by Congress, Bloomberg was one of the first to notice that the TARP program was small change compared to the estimated $2-3 trillion flowing out the back door of the Federal Reserve to prop up the financial system in the early months of the crisis.

Way back in November 2008, Bloomberg filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking the Fed what institutions were receiving the money, how much, and what collateral was being posted for these loans. Their basic argument: when trillions in taxpayer money is being loaned out to shaky institutions, don’t the taxpayers deserve to know their chances of being paid back?

Not according to the Fed. The Fed declined to respond, forcing Bloomberg to sue in Federal Court. In August of 2009, Bloomberg won the suit. With the backing of the big banks, the Fed appealed , and this month, Bloomberg won again. A three judge appellate panel dismissed the Fed’s arguments that the information was protect “confidential business information” and told the Fed that the public deserved answers.

The Fed is the only institution in the United States that can print money. It can drag this case out as long as it wants, but isn’t it a bid odd that taxpayer dollars are being used to keep information from the taxpayers?

After an unexpectedly rocky confirmation battle, Ben Bernanke kicked off his new term as Fed Chair in February with pledges of openness and transparency. “It is essential that the public have the information it needs to understand and be assured of the integrity of all our operations, including all aspects of our balance sheet and our financial controls,” said Bernanke. President Obama also pledged a new era of transparency when he entered office. What is going on here?

One theory is that Fed is hiding the secret assistance it provided to the financial sector, because it would expose how many Wall Street institutions are truly walking zombies, kept alive by accounting tricks like deferred-tax assets, “a fancy term for pent-up losses that the bank hopes to use later to cut its tax bills,” according to Bloomberg’s Jonathan Wiel. If this is the case, it raises doubts about the wisdom of Congress’ only plan to take care of the “too big to fail” problem by trusting regulators to “resolve” failing banks. If there is no will to resolve them now, why should we think regulators will resolve them in the future?

Another theory is that the Fed is hiding the fact that it broke the law by accepting a boatload of toxic assets as collateral. The law says the Fed is only supposed to take “investment grade” assets as collateral.

In either case, the public deserves answers. “This money does not belong to the Federal Reserve,” Senator Bernie Sanders. “It belongs to the American people, and the American people have a right to know where more than $2 trillion of their money has gone.”

The President and the Fed Chairman must live up to their pledges of transparency. They can start by abandoning this lawsuit and opening the doors on the Secrets of the Temple.

Posted in bernanke, bloomberg, federal reserve board, FOIA, G. Edward GriffinComments (0)


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