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Secrets of the Bailout, Now Revealed – Gretchen Morgenson

Secrets of the Bailout, Now Revealed – Gretchen Morgenson


I’ve always said if walls could talk in these secretive rooms, look no further than Gretchen to shut it down with a story.

NYT-

A FRESH account emerged last week about the magnitude of financial aid that the Federal Reserve bestowed on big banks during the 2008-09 credit crisis. The report came from Bloomberg News, which had to mount a lengthy legal fight to wrest documents from the Fed that detailed its rescue efforts.

It is dispiriting, of course, that we are still learning about the billions provided to various financial firms during the crisis. Another sad element to this mess is that getting the truth requires the legal firepower of an organization as rich as Bloomberg.

[NEW YORK TIMES]

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Fannie, Freddie, MERS, LPS & the Bankers Dozen Meet

Fannie, Freddie, MERS, LPS & the Bankers Dozen Meet


Gretchen Morgenson tears this one up… gotta love this piece of the story

“Only Lender Processing Services had more — 91 — than Fannie and Freddie. (Perhaps they robo-signed their registrations.)”

NYT-

THE mortgage business is moribund. New loans are down. New foreclosures are up.

But why let a little sorry news get in the way of a good party? Last week, almost 3,000 people descended on the Hyatt Regency in Chicago for the 98th annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The price of admission: about $1,000 a head. But for that grand, you got to hear the band Chicago play hits from the ’70s. And David Axelrod and Jeb Bush give speeches. And experts discuss things like demographics, the politics of housing and the future of the mortgage industry, according to a flier for the event.

[NEW YORK TIMES]

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The Rescue That Missed Main Street – Gretchen Morgenson

The Rescue That Missed Main Street – Gretchen Morgenson


But NOT Wall Street

Fair Game-

FOR the last three years we have been told repeatedly by government officials that funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to large and teetering banks during the credit crisis was necessary to save the financial system, and beneficial to Main Street.

But this has been a hard sell to an increasingly skeptical public. As Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former Treasury secretary, told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission back in May 2010, “I was never able to explain to the American people in a way in which they understood it why these rescues were for them and for their benefit, not for Wall Street.”

The American people were right to question Mr. Paulson’s pitch, as it turns out. And that became clearer than ever last week when Bloomberg News published fresh and disturbing details about the crisis-era bailouts.

[NEW YORK TIMES]

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The Fannie and Freddie Fallout – Gretchen Morgenson 2008

The Fannie and Freddie Fallout – Gretchen Morgenson 2008


This wasn’t the way the “ownership society” was supposed to work.

Fair Game-

IT’S dispiriting indeed to watch the United States financial system, supposedly the envy of the world, being taken to its knees. But that’s the show we’re watching, brought to you by somnambulant regulators, greedy bank executives and incompetent corporate directors.

This wasn’t the way the “ownership society” was supposed to work. Investors weren’t supposed to watch their financial stocks plummet more than 70 percent in less than a year. And taxpayers weren’t supposed to be left holding defaulted mortgages and abandoned homes while executives who presided over balance sheet implosions walked away with millions.

[NEW YORK TIMES]

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Here comes the start of small towns, major cities to go BK … Wall Street’s Tax on Main Street

Here comes the start of small towns, major cities to go BK … Wall Street’s Tax on Main Street


NY TIMES – Gretchen Morgenson

AMID all the talk of debt and default in Washington last week, tiny Central Falls, R.I., went bankrupt.

Like many states and cities in these hard economic times, Central Falls — population: 19,000 — was caught short by hefty pension obligations and weak tax revenue. It may not be the last municipality to file for bankruptcy. Jefferson County, Ala., is now on the brink of it, thanks to a sewer bond issue gone wildly bad.

But while pensions and the economy are behind many of municipalities’ troubles, Wall Street has played a role, too. Hidden expenses associated with how local governments finance themselves are compounding financial problems down at city hall.

[NY TIMES]

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The Swindler and the Home Loans – Gretchen Morgenson

The Swindler and the Home Loans – Gretchen Morgenson


NYT

HOLDING banks accountable for all those disastrous mortgages has been remarkably difficult. But last week, a big bank agreed to pay a price: Bank of America announced that it would part with $8.5 billion to settle claims that its Countrywide Financial unit had packaged garbage loans into investments that were said to be safe.

That is good news for investors, as these things go. But another, lesser-known case now winding its way through the courts may help others recover losses from lenders who dealt in risky mortgages and claimed that they had no duty to their customers.

Continue reading [NEW YORK TIMES]

[ipaper docId=59212998 access_key=key-2iecrsh12607lpl0er9o height=600 width=600 /]

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Home Truths | To keep itself politically bullet-proof, Fannie Mae paid competing lobbyists to sit on the sidelines.

Home Truths | To keep itself politically bullet-proof, Fannie Mae paid competing lobbyists to sit on the sidelines.


Wall Street Journal

‘The American people realize they’ve been robbed. They’re just not sure by whom,” write Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner in “Reckless Endangerment.” But Americans who read this outstanding history of the financial crisis will know, by the end, exactly who created the meltdown of 2008 and how they did it. This is a story, the authors say, “of what happens when Washington decides, in its infinite wisdom, that every living, breathing citizen should own a home.”


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‘Reckless Endangerment’: Morgenson, Rosner Name Names — Point Finger at Fannie Mae

‘Reckless Endangerment’: Morgenson, Rosner Name Names — Point Finger at Fannie Mae


YAHOO FINANCE-

In Reckless Engagement, the latest book about the financial crisis, co-authors Gretchen Morgenson and Josh Rosner do what many of their high-profile counterparts failed to do: Name names for those responsible for the crisis.

“Instead of it seeming like it was an ‘act of god’ that couldn’t have been prevented, we try to single out some of the people who were crucial at the center in the years leading up the crisis, not just when it struck,” says Morgenson, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist with The NY Times.

While familiar culprits like Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Barney Frank are cited in the book, front and center is a name most Americans probably don’t know: James Johnson, the former chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae.

continue reading HERE

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Partners, Not Regulators: The Federal Reserve’s Role In The Financial Collapse

Partners, Not Regulators: The Federal Reserve’s Role In The Financial Collapse


HuffPO-

This is an adaptation from “Reckless Endangerment”, an exploration of the origins of the recent financial crisis, by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. The book will be published today by Times Books. This excerpt examines the cozy relationship between Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve and the banks the Fed was charged with regulating. This is the second of three excerpts.

To regulators at the Federal Reserve Board, the financial crisis of 1998 and the collapse of the giant hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management had been an undeniably terrifying event. Officials at the prestigious New York Fed knew how extraordinary it had been for them to help the hedge fund; they were sensitive to the fact that they had aided in a speculator’s rescue and worked hard to downplay their role.


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Red Flags on NovaStar’s Mortgages Were Unheeded

Red Flags on NovaStar’s Mortgages Were Unheeded


It Teetered, It Tottered, It Was Bound to Fall Down

This article was adapted from “Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon,” by Gretchen Morgenson, a business reporter and columnist for The New York Times, and Joshua Rosner, a managing director at the independent research consultant Graham Fisher. The book is to be published on Tuesday by Times Books.

MARC COHODES had heard the stories.

Heard how these guys would give a mortgage to anyone — even to a corpse, the joke went. How the place was run like a frat house.

You wouldn’t believe the things that go on there, his brother-in-law had told him.

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



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Sure They’re Technical Errors | Mortgage servicer industry error rate might be 10 times higher says U.S. Trustee

Sure They’re Technical Errors | Mortgage servicer industry error rate might be 10 times higher says U.S. Trustee


NYTimes’s Gretchen Morgenson

Mistakes happen, of course. And loan servicers like to contend that if errors occur, they are rare and honestly made. But after sifting through the data produced by this investigation, Mr. White disagreed that problems are rare. “In Senate testimony, an executive from Countrywide said its error rate was 1 percent,” Mr. White recalled. “The mortgage servicer industry error rate might be 10 times higher, based on the number of cases we are looking at.”

“There are continued flaws in the process, and they are not merely technical,” Mr. White continued. “Those flaws undermine the integrity of the bankruptcy system. Many homeowners have been harmed, including where the lender has come in and said ‘we want to lift the stay and go back into foreclosure proceedings,’ even though they lacked a sufficient basis to do it.”


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In Citigroup Case, A Crack in Wall Street’s Defenses

In Citigroup Case, A Crack in Wall Street’s Defenses


Gretchen Morgenson-NYTimes

TWO individual investors just scored a remarkable win against Citigroup.

A few weeks ago, the pair was awarded a total of $54.1 million in a securities arbitration case against the Smith Barney unit of the company — the largest amount ever awarded to individuals in such a case, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

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



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Estimated More Than 200 Law Firms, Likely To Address Relationship with LPS For Alleged Fee-Splitting

Estimated More Than 200 Law Firms, Likely To Address Relationship with LPS For Alleged Fee-Splitting


HousingWire

The alleged splitting of attorney fees between foreclosure law firms and third-party mortgage servicing providers is the subject of another lawsuit, bringing the number of cases filed on this issue to five within the past seven months, said Nick Wooten, an Alabama-based plaintiff’s attorney involved in all of the cases.

By mid-May, Wooten said he expects to file 10 to 12 additional cases, making similar allegations about what he claims are illegal, split-attorney fee arrangements between mortgage servicing outsourcers and law firms. The cases are concentrated in the Northern District of Mississippi, the Southern District of Alabama and the Northern District of Florida-Pensacola division.

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FL Class Action Against Ben-Ezra & Katz, Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS): IN RE: HARRIS

FL Class Action Against Ben-Ezra & Katz, Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS): IN RE: HARRIS


Via: NakedCapitalism

The latest filing is in bankruptcy court in the Northern District of Florida, In re Harris, and involves both LPS (the parent company and its subsidiary LPS Default Solutions) and major Florida foreclosure mill Ben-Ezra & Katz. The bankruptcy clients of Ben Ezra are the group that the litigation seeks to have certified as a class. Note that the usual remedy for the sharing of impermissible legal fees is disgorgment. In addition, the suit lists ten causes of actions, of which the fee sharing is only one.

[ipaper docId=53629676 access_key=key-ochsra4zdwixy1u0bcj height=600 width=600 /]

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Gretchen Morgenson takes on Regulators, LPS and the Shoddy Practices and Sloppy Accountings of the Mortgage Service Industry

Gretchen Morgenson takes on Regulators, LPS and the Shoddy Practices and Sloppy Accountings of the Mortgage Service Industry


The absolute beauty of this all,  is when one of the greatest gets the word out.

Understand that us bloggers don’t have the means both in funding nor in the capacity of such a global platform, but what us bloggers do have most importantly, a POWERFUL VOICE, your voice to manage to get the word out.

Make no mistake, no coincidence…In many opinions, insiders are tipped before anything major will break and why timing is EVERYTHING.

Read the latest from Gretchen Morgenson:

Homework Regulators Aren’t Doing

“ONE too many times, this court has been witness to the shoddy practices and sloppy accountings of the mortgage service industry. With each revelation, one hopes that the bottom of the barrel has been reached and that the industry will self correct. Sadly, this does not appear to be reality.”


Then come back and read the full case.

BLOCKBUSTER FRAUD | LA BK Judge Grants Motion For Sanctions Against Lender Processing Services (LPS) Liability IN RE: WILSON

The fraud perpetrated on the Court, Debtors, and trustee would be shocking if this Court had less experience concerning the conduct of mortgage servicers.

ELIZABETH W. MAGNER, Bankruptcy Judge

IN RE: WILSON

[Image: NYTimes]

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GRETCHEN MORGENSON | The Bank Run We Knew So Little About

GRETCHEN MORGENSON | The Bank Run We Knew So Little About


From New York Times

That Aug. 20, Commerzbank of Germany borrowed $350 million at the Fed’s discount window. Two days later, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and the Wachovia Corporation each received $500 million. As collateral for all these loans, the banks put up a total of $213 billion in asset-backed securities, commercial loans and residential mortgages, including second liens.

Thus began the bank run that set off the financial crisis of 2008. But unlike other bank runs, this one was invisible to most Americans.

[…]


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MAX GARDNER | Why Don’t AGs Want to Get to the Bottom of the Mortgage Mess?

MAX GARDNER | Why Don’t AGs Want to Get to the Bottom of the Mortgage Mess?


via Max Gardner

Gretchen Morgenson’s column in the New York Times yesterday points out a connection we should all be making:  the high-speed, no time to think or do things right mindset of the mortgage industry is to blame for a lot of the problems we’re facing today, and that same mindset seems to be controlling the actions of the Attorneys General right now.  Tom Miller, the Iowa Attorney General leading the talks, told us just last week, “We’re going to move as fast as we can.”

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



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NYT | MERS? It May Have Swallowed Your Loan

NYT | MERS? It May Have Swallowed Your Loan


Mortgage brokers hip deep in profits handed out no-doc mortgages to people with fictional incomes. Wall Street shopped bundles of those loans to investors, no matter how unappetizing the details. And federal regulators gave sleepy nods.

That world largely collapsed under the weight of its improbabilities in 2008.

But a piece of that world survives on Library Street in Reston, Va., where an obscure business, the MERS Corporation, claims to hold title to roughly half of all the home mortgages in the nation — an astonishing 60 million loans.

Continue reading … New York Times

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NY TIMES | In A Mortgage Case, a 7-Year Wait for 2 Answers

NY TIMES | In A Mortgage Case, a 7-Year Wait for 2 Answers


2 things pop right out. 1. As you read this article, think of the NJ case Kemp v. Countrywide involving Linda DiMartini “Notes were never delivered”, 2. Were they waiting on something to possibly happen dragging this out long enough? Just makes you wonder…thats all.

Waiting Seven Years for Two Answers

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: February 26, 2011

WHEN Zella Mae Green of Georgia filed for bankruptcy to save her home from foreclosure in 2004, she and her lawyer wanted to know two things: Did she actually owe any back payments on her mortgage? And, if so, to whom?

It didn’t seem like a lot to ask. But until last week, those questions had been unanswered for seven years.

Mortgages are complicated to begin with, of course. But when homeowners fall behind on their payments, the situation becomes far more complicated. Recurring fees and charges muddle the accounting. That banks routinely transfer the notes underlying a property can make things cloudier still.

Continue reading… NYTIMES

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NYTIMES | Mortgage Giants Leave Legal Bills to the Taxpayers

NYTIMES | Mortgage Giants Leave Legal Bills to the Taxpayers


By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: January 24, 2011

Since the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers have spent more than $160 million defending the mortgage finance companies and their former top executives in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud. The cost was a closely guarded secret until last week, when the companies and their regulator produced an accounting at the request of Congress.

The bulk of those expenditures — $132 million — went to defend Fannie Mae and its officials in various securities suits and government investigations into accounting irregularities that occurred years before the subprime lending crisis erupted. The legal payments show no sign of abating.

Documents reviewed by The New York Times indicate that taxpayers have paid $24.2 million to law firms defending three of Fannie’s former top executives: Franklin D. Raines, its former chief executive; Timothy Howard, its former chief financial officer; and Leanne Spencer, the former controller.

[ipaper docId=47461391 access_key=key-10pwg3bnkex5q73neer6 height=600 width=600 /]

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VIDEO: GRETCHEN MORGENSON EXPLAINS MORTGAGE SERVICING, SECURITIZATION

VIDEO: GRETCHEN MORGENSON EXPLAINS MORTGAGE SERVICING, SECURITIZATION


Gretchen Morgenson is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Gretchen is one of the first journalist who began reporting on the mortgage crisis and understands exactly what is happening all around us. We thank Gretchen for all her hard work and we are proud to say she is aware of StopForeclosureFraud.com 🙂

From Pacific Street Films: pacfilm

Gretchen Morgenson, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times writer, interviewed for Pacific Street’s upcoming feature doc on the financial crisis. Begun in 2007, this film (yet untitled) has strayed in many directions; covered much ground, and, when completed, will offer a very different perspective on the personalities and companies that have played the principal leads in the longest-running soap opera in this country’s financial history. A Ken Burns documentary it is not…

Image credit: ?

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Posted in foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, gretchen morgenson, investigation, MERS, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., securitization, servicers, stopforeclosurefraud.com, Wall StreetComments (1)

NEW YORK TIMES ‘FORECLOSURE FRAUD’ ARTICLE MISSES THE MARK

NEW YORK TIMES ‘FORECLOSURE FRAUD’ ARTICLE MISSES THE MARK


Please don’t get me wrong. I really like Gretchen Morgenson and Geraldine Fabrikant but I am somewhat disappointed in today’s article High-Speed Courts Try to Rush Through Foreclosures, in which they really missed some important “key components”.

A few weeks ago our friend at Chink in the Armor said it best in his post Gretchen Swoops for the Kill, and Feints … Twice. He states “Gretchen Moregenson of the New York Times is circling the MERS story. Every once in a while she will seem to make a pass at it but at the last moment she diverts to something else, plucking a nice little morsel but leaving the main dish of MERS behind. She refrains, like everyone else, from coming in for the kill. I know for a fact she knows – from two different sources – but I don’t know why she holds her powder.”

He continues… “She had two stories this past week just like that.”

Again, don’t get me wrong, but there are other players just as important as, if not more so, than the Foreclosure Mills, such as MERS, Lender Processing Services, mortgage-backed security trusts, Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae (or GSEs??).

In today’s NYT’s article Gretchen and Geraldine did, however, manage to get in touch with David J. Stern. Of course, to no one’s surprise he “attributed any backdating to sloppiness on the part of paralegals“.

I am sure that statement will not sit well with any paralegals working there who are working hard, doing exactly what their supervisors are telling them to do.

I must say the most important statement from this article comes from the Florida Attorney General,… “Thousands of final judgments of foreclosure against Florida homeowners may have been the result of the allegedly improper actions of these law firms,” said Mr. McCollum in an interview. “We’ve had so many complaints that I am confident there is a great deal of fraud here.

My suggestion to any journalist that fine combs this site is to please do your research and, then, write a mind blowing article that will clear the smoke from the mirrors.

Gretchen, when will you finally swoop in for the kill?

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



Posted in chain in title, djsp enterprises, fannie mae, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, forgery, investigation, Law Offices Of David J. Stern P.A., LPS, MERS, MERSCORP, mistake, mortgage, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, Notary, notary fraud, note, servicers, stock, Wall StreetComments (1)

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