It’s an outrage!

there must be a greed gene

Sadly, I think greed is a growth industry.

It’s a wonderful thing to create wealth, it’s quite another to take it from others.

It’s not as though some of the folks getting loans don’t have responsibility for signing off on something with bad terms, because they do. But a lot of the misconduct involved hiding those bad terms and using low “teaser” rates which were not fully disclosed in terms of when they ended, and on and on and on. And if folks didn’t know to be cautious, they got screwed. That things were set up to allow that — not just condone it but really actively encourage it so that loans could then be bundled, sold and taken off the hands of the people who initially made them was what opened the door to a whole host of these problems.

Prior to the deregulation, all of my research points to a whole host of these loans never being made because banks would have had to carry them on their books. On the one hand, there is an admirable sentiment of trying to open things up to folks who hadn’t had opportunities to buy a home before — folks with little to no credit record who paid on time and purchased a starter home and improved the lives of their families which is a wonderful thing to help someone to do.

On the other hand, though, in opening that up there was no real oversight, no guidelines on what not to do, nothing but “encourage profit and the market will take care of the rest,” and look where that got us? Jeebus, what a fricking mess…

christie – apologies for being OT

CSPAN alert

Senate Judiciary Hearing on Establishing a Nonpartisan Truth Cmsn. (10am)

(cspan 3 live stream)
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN3_wm.aspx

Aaarghh! Letting the same people who profited the first time off this fraud turn around and profit again is just insanity. When will it stop?

Saw that this morning — Judiciary has a list of witnesses up for the hearing, too.

I know! Blew my mind this morning — Mr. ReddHedd had to listen to me rant about it over breakfast.

Why is it that this reminds me a whole lot of the arguments against “Son of Sam” getting nay income from his book? This is just plain disgusting.

But Countrywide didn’t set up the industry to run that way: folks like Larry Summers and Phil Gramm did.

ding!

can anyone think of a major gov economist on the D side worse than larry summers?

I especially liked the part where Mr. Kurland sold off about $200 million in his Countrywide stock — presumably part of his compensation gleanings through the years — right before he left them in 2006. Just before the big shitpile hit the fan.

I tried to this morning as I was writing this and couldn’t come up with anyone, frankly. I read this NYTimes article over my first cuppa coffee today and thought my head would explode.

Actually, in some kind of Karmic universe, these guys would be condemned to clean up their own mess like this. I think I kind of like the way this is happening…

The less people understand about homebuying (and this really applies to anything), the more they rely on “experts” to help them through it. If the mortgage brokers were advising people to take bad loans, while making money on those loans, and not disclosing the risks, how would buyers know? There is a certain amount of trust you have to put in people when dealing with complex situations. That trust has been broken at so many levels.

Thanks Christy, digg is open.

just in case folks don’t know, i’ve been posting daily lists of hearings (including most witnesses) at oxdown on tues, wed and thurs. here’s today’s: Hearing List for Wednesday, March 4, 2009

if i miss any, would love a heads up in the comments.

Here’s my one piece of lawyer advice for everyone this morning: read everything before you sign it. Always. And if you don’t understand it? Never, ever rely on the person who will profit from your signature to explain it to you.

I’d like them to have to personally sit down with little old ladies who were fraudulently pushed into some of the more egregious loan packages and have had to choose between their medicine, food and their mortgage for the last few months. And then I might feel some karmic justice had been served.

Good Morn Christy and Puppies.

It’s that reddhair gene, hon. Let it blow off some steam, and then we’ll tackle whatever you desire.
Is Mr. Redd o.k.? Nice of you to have that beautiful action pic up during breakfast. I can smell it from here!

Molly told us Phil was mean. Where do we line up?

As if a nonlawyer could understand those documents.

that’s not a bug, that’s a feature

That was my first reaction, too — and then I thought about them having to put their expertise in this particular area of finance to work to try and help salvage housing for some of these mortgage-holders and that made me happy. And then I started thinking about the profits they’d be raking in from doing this — even though the bulk of the money does go back to FDIC with them taking a percentage on the back end…and I got conflicted all over again.

But it does show there are opportunities out there — this really is a brilliant business venture concept. I just wish it weren’t being run by people who profited previously from the very practices they are now being paid to help clean up. But, again, they were simply taking advantage of a system that was set up by governmental regulations to foster the very shit they were doing. Ugh. It’s like peeling away the layers of a very smelly onion, isn’t it?

Excellent advice. Sometimes next to impossible, but necessary to follow. Would that everyone in mortgage situations had responsible, honest, knowledgeable sources of help when they need to borrow. So many vicious predators out there. And not the predators are desperate themselves, thus doubly dangerous.

Oh, I know! Even lawyers who don’t work in the finance and corporate side of the business can’t comprehend them because the language is so highly specialized, frankly.

A deliberate one. Just another part of the mafia of the intelligentsia.

spellexing again, dang..”not” means “now”, sigh.

I doubt that would serve any purpose other than to aggravate the little o;d ladies. The fraudsters would have to have a conscience for that to have an effect on them. I would rather they sat down with a prosecutor.

gee. you don’t suppose that was deliberate and calculated, do ya?!

btw, it took me quote a while to find just the right pile of steaming shit as a picture. *g*

i don’t know who you are referring to… surely not independent real estate lawyers? don’t banks and especially the big mortgage brokers seem like much more likely culprits?

I would be seriously interested if folks have ideas on restructuring or regulating some of this? I’ve seen discussions on hows and whys from various sources, but would love your thoughts if anyone has them…

My idiot congressman (I’m sorry, is that redundant?) insists that this conflagration was the fault of borrowers who recklessly got themselves in over their heads, who purchased homes they could not afford, who should have read the fine print. This misguided (read: completely insane) thinking drives his voting. Never mind the facts.

As anyone with a pulse and an ounce of brains knows by now, what actually happened is that RE agents wanted a commission, brokers wanted their fee, and the bankers wanted to book the loan, whether to carry it or sell it off to the secondary market. Clearly, it’s irrelevant that the clients were suckered into exotic loan products that they neither understood nor could afford. “Hey, the market will always go up, so no problem. Right?” Right.

My point? There continues to be a lot of “thinking” in the “business community” that responsibility for this disaster rests with the borrowers. I don’t know how that mindset gets corrected, but it’s a necessary element in getting this steaming pile shoveled into the past.

One more point: Can we please target my idiot congressman in the 2010 election? I’m sick of his neanderthal bullshit. (Ken Calvert – in the top 20 most corrupt list three years running, and an all-around dirtbag.)

Last night on KO’s show, Jonathan Turley stated flatly that we don’t need another “commission”, but what we do need is a special prosecutor. I’m with Turley on that…

Thanks Christy! This isn’t a historical precedent. The RTC made a lot of money for people responsible for the mess that entity was supposed to clean up. The insiders had first shot at buying up assets for pennies on a dollar then too.

It’s apparent to me that the vultures want to pick the last bits of flesh from the carcass of America. AND it seems Obama is willing to let them.

First clue? Summers and Geithner.
Now this from PDA: Healthcare.
http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/is…..ake+Action

We are FUBAR. Talk about beating a dead horse. Thsi goes beyond simple greed to psychosis.

If the documents were written in plain English, perhaps the “independent” real estate lawyer would not be necessary, saving the house buyer substantial fees. That’s what I mean by mafia of the intelligentsia. Those who have special knowledge make sure to structure the system so you have to pay them.

Just made an insurance payment yestidie. Sent it wayyy early, certified, return rec’t, so’s it’d be “safe” as could be. Just as I was double-checking before closing the envelope, it leaped out at me from the page. Company actually providing the coverage had changed since last year. You guessed it. Now it’s AIG. Arrrrggggghhhhh.

There IS no way. They’ve got us hoist onto the barBQ spit, no matter what we do! So my little pennies help baste out AIG. Nice. Just dandy.

I don’t hate any living thing, but sometimes it’s hard, really hard, to keep up the pretense.

I only know of one solution…!!!!!!!!!![deleted]!!!!!!!!!!NOW!

[Mod Note: Please no violence, fantasy or otherwise, thank you.]

none that you could print at the moment, this being a family-safe website ‘n all…

Okay. Dear, beloved eCAHN. Please tell us what to do. Scream it to the heavens. We’re being robbed in broad daylight, with weapons crafted by our “protectors”.

I think that the model for the workouts should be something like the public defenders office rather than one where fees are being paid by the borrower. The fees were part of what led to the abuses.

Yeah, we sure wouldn’t want to do a Hannity-like poll, would we??

Precisely. The argument on the other side continues to be that the borrowers should have known better. Bullshit. The fault lies with the RE agents, the brokers and the institutions booking the loans. They were riding high and they didn’t give a flying fuck.

And when I hear that “they should have known better” crap, I reply with, “So given that logic, then I guess I know better than a doctor when there is a medical condition”, etc.

I’ve been pondering the “what to do” for almost 20 years with no solutions. And anything that might look promising has zero probability of happening. So I’m stuck in the mode of pointing out the fundamental problem with no recommendations. Some might label that “complaining.”

That’s what Pelosi sez she wants. Leahy, not so much,,,,,,,,wants to give immunity so all these nice criminals will come testify…like Rove, I guess

well now. SHAME on you, dear. i guess you’ll have to join me in the line of folks pretending to “behave ourselves”. My thots are my own. How ’bout yours? Will you have a spot of tea. Here. Put a marshmallow in it and pretend it’s hot chocolate. Now. Have a seat on this nice soft pillow. Might as well be comfy while we await the barBQ Spit!

Christy thank you so much for including the fraud that these companies have perpetrated . I want to remind people that accounting fraud exists in a large percentage of these loans. What that means is that payments are not getting applied properly, escrow accounts are being mismanaged and fees are being handed out for bogus reasons. The courts have been overwhelmed and defunded since 2001/2002 and therefore there has been almost no legal recourse for people to fight back when violations of TILA and RESPA laws occurred. These banks are making money on their own violations of law. They created the system and then make money off it.

This is all part of the cover up.

Thank you Christy!!

Sounds like Pelosi and Leahy are playing “good cop, bad cop”. That’s what I would guess, anyway.

I’m sorry. Did that sound cynical?

don’t disagree with the first part, just don’t see independent real estate lawyers as a driving force for anything. that i think in this case belongs with the companies selling the mortgages (and their legal departments) – but that’s the mafia of big corporations. do independent real estate lawyers have more political power than i’m aware of?

here’s the video of the Turley interview

When Clinton was prosecuted persecuted by a special prosecuter, the concept of it being a partisan witchhunt took place. I think that many who are legitimately guilty of crimes would be viewed as victims, This would ultimately be counterproductive.

You are taking too micro a view of the problem. Members of the mafia generally create structures that protect the whole profession. Some more than others., but the whole is more than the sum of the parts. WRT protection of real estate lawyers, perhaps it is an unintended outcome of lawyers for large corps protecting their own jobs by making the docs incomprehensible to nonlawyers.

Anyone else have the feeling like the more they dig into any of this, the more frustrated and disgusted you are by the behavior of everyone involved in the whole, damned mess?

and yet . . . these folks wrote the book on simplified forms

6 pages total – 4 pages of instruction and 2 of ez fill app

I think that the first step of recovery should be to ban, permanently, all companies and high executives who took part in the initial fraudulent mortgages. There are many small, regional banks still doing quite well who could bid on the business of restructuring loans in their neighborhoods. They should get these contracts rather than Countrywide. They have a vested interest in seeing local homeowners stay in their homes. The big firms: not so much. They just don’t care about individuals and that’s how we got here in the first place.

Seriously, no snark. You make me feel better, simply by being honest and straight forward. Just keep talking to us, and we can stand anything. At the very least, we’re learning some lessons in economics. You comments are truly valuable to those of us ignorant in the art.

((((eCAHN))))

Thanks. Diagnosis precedes cure, even when there is no cure.

General rule of disasters: no matter how much of the bad you know, reality is always unimaginably worse.

The intellectual side of me knows that full well. But that doesn’t make my gut feel any better, ya know? Ugh.

They are not ’stupid’. It was the point, they know they are robbing the country. They don’t care, it’s class war.

New post.

I’ve been seeing for some time now some rather elaborate signs posted on telephone polls and such that say something like:

We buy houses…and an, I think it was, an 800 number. The signs made me think of ‘predatory’ but does anyone have an opinion if there might be a connection to those adds and this post by Christy?

at closing, i irked a few people by actually doing that. realtor had given me some forms to go over before closing so i would know what they were. but there were many many more there that i hadn’t seen yet. one in particular was almost a deal breaker. my realtor and i discussed it for a while. i wasn’t signing it until i understood the math involved.
i didn’t care, it was my neck on the line, not theirs. i was paying them to be there whether we were there for 1 hour or four. they were getting their ‘cut’.

former husband had to get back to work, so, he signed and left, i read and signed after he left. i wasn’t signing anything that big without reading it.

i commented that perhaps they should give people copies of things before they came in so they could know what they were signing and it could go a lot quicker. my realtor told me half the time people don’t even read it because of the other people sitting there tapping their feet. he advises to read before signing. and points out which forms were the ones i already read so i could scan. good guy. the selling agent’s underling rep was not happy being delayed and all.

Yup. Keep chipping away at the iceberg….

Seriously, I’d rather know how bad it is, than have a false sense of security.
I feel much safer, oddly, even though you see no cure. Because I know you are here with us for the duration. We can better protect ourselves, thanks to your skills and generous efforts.

i left a post on the KO turley thread stating that same thing.

very curious to see who the blowhards are leahy has lined up to further his committee proposal.

i just don’t get leahy since obama took office.

i call that observing and informing.
and being honest.
: )

re: anything that might look promising has zero probability of happening.

that’s what the PTB keep telling us. but i don’t believe it because history is full of examples of the impossible becoming possible. usually it requires organizing in order to change the power dynamics. doesn’t mean it’s easy or quick but if no one tries, what we will be left with?

i benefit every single day of my life from the efforts of other people to make the world a little bit more decent place. that’s a legacy i can chose to squander or try to build on.

Here’s my one piece of lawyer advice for everyone this morning: read everything before you sign it. Always. And if you don’t understand it? Never, ever rely on the person who will profit from your signature to explain it to you.

That is good advice. But, at these closings with motgagees like Countrywide, the dcuments totaled 50 or so pages. The mortgage was extremely lengthy and the language opaque.
Here is the ironic part, the Truth in Lending legislation has been used by these bastards
to obfuscate, rather than to inform. They comply, but in doing so, there is so much paper that what the borrower needs to know gets lost in the shuffle.

I’m not the conspiracy type, but….somebody’s got a file on Leahy, maybe?

It’s that or he’s just another sellout.

what’s the chinese characters combined to form a certain word? can’t remember exact ones, it’s something like this-

crisis + danger = opportunity

So now we have a mortgage ponzi scheme in the housing industry by giving a mortgage to someone who can’t afford it so that later ex mortgage/bank employees can repurchase them on the cheap. I thought it was unusual when a company from Tx was buying up so many homes that were repossed and sold for back taxes here in Mi and other states back in the summer of 08.

Which really flies in the face of what we are supposedly taught in law school to simplify rather than use documents to obfuscate. And you know that those documents had to be carefully crafted internally in oder to hide all of that language in plain sight — you don’t just stumble onto a way to make that happen, it has to be written and carefully crafted in order to make questionable fees and loan terms blend into the woodwork and fine print.

It’s not just the volume of the pages — which in enough to confuse the hell out of people who know what they are talking about let alone folks who have never sat through a closing before in their lifetimes — it’s also what’s carefully written onto them to make the more egregious portions recede.

Given the spineless MSM, that’s a very real possibility. Never mind that we’re comparing a tryst (however undignified) with the potential for suspension of civil liberties across the board. I can already hear the talking heads yammering. Idiots.

((((Selise))))

You didn’t know you’re part of my insurance blanket also, did you.

Thank you for all your tireless dedication and wonderful skills.

We are worlds stronger than we might be, simply because of efforts like yours.

(*blush* I’m getting mushy this morn. Apologies.)

watching rerun of john stewart with sandra day o’connor, she has a new education website
http://www.ourcourts.org

The corollary would be this: If we do nothing, we can be absolutely certain that nothing will happen. Whereas, if we do something there is real potential to effect positive change.

I can’t believe what I hear on CNBC these days. In response to something Mark Haines said that I didn’t hear, Erin Burnett from CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” just said “even so the middle class is getting bigger” about 9:50 -9:55 this morning.

nope. just doing standard systems analysis. correlation does not equal causation.

Organized crime acting through “legitimate” corporations. It’s not isolated individuals acting out of greed. It is organized. It is criminal. It is organized crime and it is deeply embedded in our governments because that is not only where the most money is, but where the power to prevent prosecution or to select who is prosecuted resides.

(And, yes, I know that silence will be the primary response because those involved do not discuss it, those in true denial don’t discuss it, those whose worldviews don’t include it don’t discuss it. The only folks who will talk won’t discuss it, they’ll just label me a crazy or an America-hater or living in the sphere of deviance.)

“even so the middle lower class is getting bigger”

She just misspoke. Glad I could help.

That may be true if you consider a whole host of the upper class is downsizing into it now that financial sectors are collapsing and jobs are disappearing as a result of widespread fiscal problems caused by their own idiotic policies that CNBC and others have been pushing for years including mass deregulation.

But I’d bet they didn’t say that out loud. *g*

I just want to remind people that for instance in my case, my contract says absolutely nothing about fees for cashing my paper checks, or fees for property inspection. Nothing. I have had several lawyers review my contracts. It does say “reasonable” fees. But of course, that is a matter for discussion, and it says nothing in regard to cashing checks or processing the payments.

It’s not a simple one size fits all solution. GMAC simply did whatever it wanted to in regard to servicing these loans because they knew no one would stop them. A whole industry was created for “intervening in foreclosures” because these companies would stop communication while you were in foreclosure. I could not figure out why or how these companies could exist when they would not be needed if the industry were not violating TILA laws when folks were in foreclosure. These companies are still out there. They charge 1500. to negotiate a refinance with your mortgage company. They wouldn’t exist if the banks were communicating with people in foreclosure.

It’s a huge scam and many people were not aware of the TILA and RESPA laws and had not idea that laws were being violated. Homecomings financial gave millions in loans to hurricane Katrina victims.

I would also characterize it as organized crime. I’m certain there are plenty of felonies floating around…enough to put a lot of people away for a very long time. (Sounds like crime to me.)

Thanks for all the diggs, gang!

I would be seriously interested if folks have ideas on restructuring or regulating some of this? I’ve seen discussions on hows and whys from various sources, but would love your thoughts if anyone has them…

just like torture and all the other crimes that have been tolerated, imo we have to have real investigations re fraud. if people are in jail (only after fair trials, of course *g*) they aren’t free to continue their crimes.

re the big picture, the best list i’ve seen is hugh’s A Christmas list to fix the financial meltdown, although he may want to make some updates imo it’s still v timely.

thanks. mushy is good w me.

that was a wonderful interview. o’conner is really sharp & witty!

Does any one know if these games on laws are unbiased, GOP or Dem slanted?

http://www.texaslre.org/onlinegames.html
http://www.texaslre.org/federalists.html

urls from Susan Day O’Conner’s web site.
http://74.205.123.206/learn-ab…..r-students

rut roh

this witness for the SJC

John Farmer
Partner
Arsenault, Whipple, Farmer, Fasset and Azzarello, L.L.P.
Chatham, NJ

was a former counsel on the 9/11 committee – which never had a chance of viability, or respect after condi rice’s bff phillip zelikow was selected as executive director.

full of praise just now for the 9/11 commission – i hope farmer gets no where near this (potential) committee

I don’t think most folks realize how chaotic these loan closings involving lenders like Countrywide were. Often everyone would be at the closing table waiting for UPS to show up with the closing documents. Then it would go down hill from there. The names were wrong, the HUDs were all f…dup, papers were out of order or missing , the boiler room closing person couldn’t be reached, babies were screaming, the realtors cell phones were ringing, the sellers were pissed and on and on. After closing several of them, I called them up and refused any additional work.

I think there would be more middle class downsizing than upper class just because the middle class is bigger in numbers which means there wouldn’t be a growing middle class, or at the very least it would be a wash, equal in numbers but not a growing middle class.

Not to mention all those 3 + million lay offs many are sure to go from middle class to lower class with or without unemployment benefits.

I kind of like the visual of “Countrywide” as an adjective to coincide with your headline. It’s such a gigantic shitpile, countrywide is how far you’d have to spread it just to get it down to a depth of a couple feet!

Reminds me of that old saying when there is no mafia the government corporations become the mafia.

Boy, I hate to say this, and I don’t know how I could possibly put up a good defense in 25 words or less, but I don’t agree with several of your premises. I must tell you, Countrywide either holds or services my mortgage. Here’s the thing: they were not the original lender. My original predatory lender sold my loan to Countrywide on the secondary mortgage market. Countrywide acquired many loans that way. They may have been involved in some predatory lending of their own too. I just know that I worked my way out of the predatory loan that I made by good luck and good timing, and little more. So when I see folks losing their homes, I always feel, there but for the grace of god go I. Also, as a realtor with lots of real estate research experience, I can tell you that the country just can’t really stand the steep decline in housing values for much longer.

Therefore, I don’t have quite the righteous indignation that you are experiencing about knowing that these mortgage execs are now working to turn their market back around and put a floor in the housing market. Lenders do workouts all the time; if you think these workouts are strange, you should see what goes on in the commercial real estate market, or workouts involving developers (yes, even Trump. In fact, he probably drives an even harder bargain.)

The truth is, the properties that are being renegotiated at a fraction of the current balance of the original loan have realistically already lost a large percent of their value due to the collapse of the market. That collapse was the point at which the real estate bubble burst and values have been in a steeply declining spiral ever since. This was not the fault of the buyers, some of whom were extremely under-informed to the point of naivete about the real estate market. IMO, the lenders should have foreseen the bubble, the aftermath of the bubble, and the consequences to the bad loans they were producing, but there was a feeding frenzy going on, and their goal was the fees, not the roi (return on investment) of the loans. In any case, to do the workouts that keep the owners in their homes and lower the basis of the loan to current market values (which is what the lender would have to do anyway if they foreclosed, except they’d have the added risk of an empty house with costs piling on every day from maintenance, management, taxes and insurance) requires expertise from people who know the market. I think 20% is a little high, but keep in mind, they are being paid for their expertise and I wouldn’t think much of their expertise if they couldn’t negotiate themselves into an enviable position. I don’t begrudge them; I thank them. If folks are prepared to face reality and turn some lemons into lemonade, I don’t begrudge them.

It’s almost as though they thought they’d ALL get away with it. What were they thinking? Did they really think they’s get their permanent republican majority through voter fraud? The crowds Obama attracted were too large for them to pull that off this time.

You never signed loan docs then. 90 pages, which nobody can explain.

To those in foreclosure

Get a lawyer. Demand the note and all paperwork.

No need to get snippy — if you had bothered to read down a bit further, you’d see that oldgold and I discussed just that issue along with eCAHN. And I’ve not only signed loan docs, I’ve gone over them on behalf of clients, so I know full well how poorly drafted and deliberately crafted they can be on just those issues.

Hence the warning to read and understand prior to signing anything, for future reference.

I’ve got a fresh post up top on today’s Judiciary hearing and something that Sen. Whitehouse said about immunity for the law wonks out there…

So right. I have annoyed many a sales person with my insistence on reading before signing, and taking my time.
Many seem to find it amazing that anyone would want to read first.

Oh, and dont get me started on the apparently standard practice (whether receiving schedule 1 Rx’s or making a retail return for refund) of handing you the acknowledgment that you “have received xxxxx and it is in good condition/as stated/whatever” BEFORE they will give you the item you are swearing you hve already received. Grrrrr.

hunh. Just saw the last posts above my last one -

Guessing Synoia doesn’t know you ARE a lawyer.

Best life lesson from law school/bar exams:

Examine and recognize your assumptions before you write/speak/pass judgment.