CANADIAN BANKS vs AMERICAN BANKSTERS RAPE & PILLAGE

MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com

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THE BANKSTERS HAVE UNLEASHED A PROPAGANDA MACHINE TO CONVINCE AMERICANS THEIR RAPE AND PILLAGE WAS AN ACT OF GOD… OR OF NATURE… BUT IT WAS A CONCERTED ACT BY WALL ST. BANKSTERS AND THE POLITICIANS THEY BOUGHT!

NO ONE HAS TAKEN MORE LOOT FROM BANKSTERS THAN BARACK OBAMA! AND THEY’VE DONE WELL BY HIM!





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CANADIAN BANKS vs AMERICAN BANKSTER PILLAGERS…



DURING THE GOLDEN MONTHS OF BANKSTERS’ RAPE, PILLAGE, BAILOUT & BONUSES and no REAL REGULATION of the BANKSTER PRESIDENT, BARACK OBAMA



When the American banksters realized that their days of looting would slow without a huge government bailout, they bought all the politicians they could, including BARACK OBAMA, and OBAMA DONOR, BUSH WAR PROFITEER, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein, one of the most self-serving and corrupt politicians of all time, has long fronted for the BANKSTERS’ INTERESTS, and has taken big loot from banksters WELLS FARGO and BANK of AMERICA, both global criminal operations. When the banksters wanted to FIX the system even more, they instructed Feinstein to shove their “BANKSTERS’ BANKRUPTCY REFORM” through Congress. (Remember now that the huge SAVINGS & LOAN DEBACLE of the 1980’s there were only two (2) U.S. senators that had not taken bribes from this corrupt sector and has in all massive corporate rapes, the BUSH FAMILY was right in the thick of it! We will not be finished paying off the SAVINGS & LOAN DEBACLE until 2012! That debacle was miniscule compared to the MASSIVE RAPE BY BANKSTERS OF TODAY… ON GOING TO THIS MINUTE) The FEINSTEIN BANKSTERS’ “REFORM”, which the bankster wrote for themselves, as they have OBAMA’S NO REAL REGULATION, made it impossible for victims of banksters’ mortgage fraud to go into OPEN COURT and have their mortgage revised.

BESIDES FEINSTEIN, AND HER SENATE PARTNER-IN-CRIME, BARBARA BOXER, WERE CLINTON, BIDDEN, AND OF COURSE THE BANKSTERS’ BOUGHT BOYS, now heading up “regulation” CHRIS DODD, AND BARNEY FRANK voting for the FEINSTEIN BANKSTER REFORM! OBAMA did NOT vote for this corrupt bit of legislature, and pre-election, promised he would restore consumers’ rights, but alas, as in all things relating not to BANKSTERS’ INTERESTS, or HISPANDERING TO ILLEGALS, Obama went limp, and pushed through all the no-strings, no conditions bailouts his bankster donors demanded!

CRIMINAL BANKSTERS WELLS FARGO and BANK of AMERICA are two of Feinstein’s largest donors! EVEN AT THE TIME FEINSTEIN WAS PUSHING FOR WELLS FARGO’S INTERESTS, THAT BANK ALREADY HAD THEIR CALIFORNIA MORTGAGE LICENSE REVOKED, AS IT IS TO THIS DAY! REVOKED FOR THE VERY CORRUPT BANK PRACTICES WELLS FARGO WENT ON TO EXPLOIT BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF MORTGAGES ON AROUND THE NATION!

WELLS FARGO HAS ALSO BEEN CAUGHT AS BANKSTERS TO THE MEX CARTELS, OPENING BANK ACCOUNTS FOR ILLEGALS, HANDING MORTGAGES TO ILLEGALS WITH FRAUDULENT DOCS, AND I.D’.s…. NO WONDER WELLS FARGO (AS IS BANK of AMERICA) GENEROUS DONORS TO LA RAZA – THE MEX FASCIST PARTY!

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, ALSO ENDORSED BY LA RAZA, IS AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO I.C.E. ENFORCEMENT, NO ENGLISH ONLY, AND OPEN BORDERS. FEINSTEIN, LIKE HER COLLEAGUE, NANCY PELOSI, HIRES ILLEGALS AT HER S.F. HOTEL, JUST MILES FROM HER $16 MILLION DOLLAR WAR PROFITEERING MANSION.



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“Wells Fargo said last month that first-quarter profit jumped 53 percent from a year earlier as borrowers rushed to refinance mortgages amid record-low interest rates.”



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Lou Dobbs Tonight

Monday, November 12, 2007



Mortgage giants Wells Fargo and Bank of America are accused of slapping dubious fees on homeowners struggling to save their homes. With fewer new mortgages being written, these

companies appear to be leaning on these lucrative fees to stay profitable—with devastating consequences for homeowners.

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Few foreclosures, no bank failures: Canada offers lessons

Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: January 11, 2011 04:31:22 PM

TORONTO — Maybe Canada has something to teach the U.S. about housing finance.

One in 4 U.S. homes is thought to be worth less that the mortgage being paid on it. One in every 492 U.S. homes received a foreclosure notice in November. For the fourth year running, analysts are speculating on where the bottom is for U.S. real estate.

No such worries up here in Canada — yet its system of mortgage finance gets little attention in the U.S.

Not a single Canadian bank failed during the Great Depression, and not a single one failed during the recent U.S. crisis now dubbed the Great Recession. Fewer than 1 percent of all Canadian mortgages are in arrears.

That's notable given that the recent U.S. economic turmoil was triggered by a meltdown in mortgage finance, forcing an unprecedented government rescue of Wall Street investment banks and the collapse of more than 300 smaller banks as the housing sector went bust.

How'd Canada avoid all that?

"This sounds very simple, but one of our CEOs has said we are in the business of making loans to people who will pay them back," said Terry Campbell, vice president of policy for the Canadian Bankers Association in Ottawa.

There's a certain amount of apples to oranges when comparing the two systems of mortgage finance. Canada's population last year was estimated at 34.3 million, while the U.S. population now exceeds 307 million. The U.S. economy is the world's biggest; Canada ranks ninth.

Canadian banks were recently named the best in the world by the World Economic Forum, but they're a much smaller universe of lenders — 71 that are federally regulated, compared with more than 8,000-plus U.S. lenders insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Even so, there's plenty to learn from Canada's conservative — yes, conservative — regulatory regime. It requires more rigorous loan underwriting standards and much bigger set-asides by banks for potential losses during market downturns.

Canada also lacks a big tax write-off for the interest that borrowers pay on their mortgages. They get a capital gains tax exemption on any profits on the sale of their primary residence, and that's it. Yet the rate of home ownership in Canada is equal to, or greater than the U.S. rate, and the lack of mortgage-interest deductions leads Canadians to swiftly pay down their mortgage debt.

"I'm not aware of any disparagement of the Canadian model or dismissal of the Canadian model. There are some interesting features to it," said Stuart Gabriel, a finance professor in the Anderson School of Management at the University of California-Los Angeles. "They've insisted all along on the more rigorous mortgage underwriting, and because of that never found themselves originating subprime and no-doc mortgages . . . some very basic items such as stringency of underwriting seem to go a long way."

Canada doesn't have an equivalent to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which purchase mortgages from banks and pool them into bonds. The argument for Fannie and Freddie is that they take loans off of a bank's books, freeing them to lend more.

Canada has no such secondary market for mortgages, yet it hasn't hurt the ability of its banks to lend or significantly raised the cost for borrowers.

Canadian mortgages aren't non-recourse loans, meaning homeowners can't simply walk away from their mortgages. Even if they lose their home, they still owe their mortgage debt.

"You mail your keys into the bank here and guess what, you are not off the hook," said Gregory Klump, the chief economist in Ottawa for the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Lessons from Canada could prove useful. In the next few weeks, the Obama administration must, by law, outline its vision for what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They've been in government conservatorship since the summer of 2008. The administration must unveil its roadmap for how and when they're to be changed and moved out of government control.

By July, the administration must establish the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose chief functions will include policing mortgage lending and defining suitable mortgages.

The issue of mortgage-interest deductions probably will come up this year when Congress debates deficit reduction. A blue-ribbon National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform late last year recommended a serious scaling back of the U.S. mortgage-interest deduction as a means of raising more revenue and lowering deficits and debt.

Defenders of the popular U.S. mortgage-interest deduction call it a big driver of U.S. home ownership, which peaked in 2005 at 69.1 percent. (It fell to 66.9 percent late last year.)

But even without a mortgage-interest deduction, Canada's percentage of home ownership_ at 68.4 percent, according to the most recent Canadian census in 2006 and now thought to be higher — is comparable to U.S. home ownership rates.

"There's an incentive for them to pay off their houses relatively quickly, but the home ownership rates in Canada and the U.S. are comparable. The fraction of people who own their houses free and clear in Canada is much bigger," said William Strange, a professor of real estate at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

Added Klump: "The sooner you can get out of debt, the faster you can amass retirement savings."

Canadian banks generally provide 25-year mortgages, with 20 percent down payment. The first five years of the loan is a fixed rate, after which it adjusts to current market rates in five-year increments until the loan is paid off.

Should a borrower opt not to put down 20 percent on a home purchase, they must purchase mortgage insurance to cover the debt in the case of default.

U.S. borrowers are accustomed to fixed-rate loans of 15 years or 30 years, and U.S. mortgage bankers warn that the Canadian model of adjusting interest rates every five years may soon be less attractive.

"There is a lot of interest-rate risk that is being put on Canadian buyers. That has worked over the past couple of decades. Now that we're looking at increased borrowing demands by national governments, everyone is projecting interest rates going back up," said Jay Brinkmann, the chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. "As these Canadian mortgages reset, (borrowers) might start looking longingly at a U.S. system" that provides longer fixed interest rates on mortgages.

In some ways, the U.S. is already adopting big parts of the Canadian model.

"I think the U.S. system may be eliminating certain types of loans . . . I think we're seeing greater emphasis on down payments," said Brinkmann, who's careful to call it a return to past practices and not the Canadian model.

Lenders, he said, are shying away from second mortgages. And there are greater demands for private mortgage insurance, even on refinanced mortgages



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The economic crisis was an 'inside job'

By Kathleen Parker

Wednesday, October 13, 2010; A19

If you haven't been humming tunes from "Les Misérables," you haven't seen "Inside Job," the new documentary about how our economic crisis evolved.

The most forgiving American will want to seize a pitchfork and march on Wall Street. Or Harvard Square. Or in front of the White House. There are so many despicable parties, it's hard to pick a favorite. Is it time to reconsider the Axis of Evil?

The film, written and directed by Charles Ferguson (and narrated by Matt Damon), will be opening in select cities this week. Although much of the story is familiar, Ferguson manages to weave together decades of bits and pieces into a dramatic narrative that plays like a whodunit. Names have faces, and storytelling combined with graphic illustrations helps explain the complex series of events that led to the global meltdown. Here are a few takeaways:

One, trying to assign blame to either Democrats or Republicans is pointless. Everyone is culpable. From the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan deregulated banks, through the two Bushes, Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama, each administration has endorsed -- and each Congress has helped tweak -- laws and rules that made systemic abuses and the meltdown not only possible but, looking back, inevitable.

Two, many investment bankers knew the mortgage loans they were packaging and selling were junk. They knew because their own analysts told them so. Tens of thousands of loans failed to meet basic underwriting standards, according to recent testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a bipartisan group created to examine the causes of the meltdown. Not only that, Wall Street insiders were betting against their own customers and institutions.

Throughout the system, from the lending institutions to federal regulators to congressional overseers, those charged with protecting consumers averted their eyes.

Three, the cozy relationship between Wall Street and Ivy League academia, wherein economists push policies that benefit them financially, is eye-opening. In some cases, business professors and economists at America's top schools were shown to have conflicts of interest as they advanced policies for which they had been paid directly or that otherwise benefited them.

In other instances, we see that the same people who created policies that ultimately led to these abuses are still -- or were until recently -- running the show. Notably missing from the film, declining to be interviewed, are Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson, Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin.

This is not to say that what benefits Wall Street necessarily hurts average Americans or that all bankers are corrupt, but the system clearly enabled the abuses that have led to current circumstances. The attitude seemed to be that everyone was doing it.

When the big banks failed, of course, taxpayers were left holding the bag. Even though there was wide consensus that the bailouts were necessary to get credit moving again, there is simply no justification for the bonuses and golden parachutes that went to the very people who drove their institutions -- and us -- off a cliff. Reward for failure was the best gig in town.

Although most of what the movie highlights is familiar, there's something jarring about seeing the culprits up close in all their taxpayer-subsidized, suntanned splendor -- their multiple estates and private jets juxtaposed against shuttered homes and unemployed Americans living in tents. Obscene is the word that comes to mind.

I'm not one to advance class warfare, and most Americans still want to preserve a market system that leaves open the possibility that they, too, can work hard and achieve wealth. But it's clear from "Inside Job" that the game has been rigged so that only a few were in positions to get rich at the expense of the middle class, not just here but globally.

The movie isn't perfect. One wonders what was left on the editing floor. Some of those interviewed, who dodged questions or gave unacceptable answers, also looked stupid. None of these guys is stupid.

And, at the end, Ferguson couldn't resist making an editorial comment as the camera panned the Statue of Liberty. "Some things are worth fighting for."

We get it. The film is so well done and presented so factually that no Hollywood prodding was needed. Anyone who sees this movie will be furious. Thus, the only remaining question is why some of these people aren't being prosecuted for fraud or at least shirking fiduciary duty.

It would seem as never before that the White House should hire a special prosecutor. Ferguson's movie, which the president and his economic team had best watch -- and soon -- could use a sequel: "The Perp Walk."



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“Wells Fargo, for instance, which has leeched $25 billion in bailout money, bought an inadvertently hilarious full-page ad in The Times to whine about the junkets to Las Vegas and elsewhere it was forced to cancel because of public outrage.” --- Maureen Dowd, NYTimes



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US foreclosures soar, housing prices slump

By Patrick Martin

31 December 2010

The number of completed home foreclosures rose to 245,000 in the third quarter, according to a report from bank regulators that covers only two thirds of all US home mortgages, those held by national banks and savings & loan institutions.

The figure was reported in the quarterly mortgage report filed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulate banks and S&Ls respectively.

The overall number of foreclosures completed in the July-September period is likely well over 300,000, making it virtually certain that total foreclosures will top one million in 2010. The total number of foreclosures in process increased to 1.2 million, up 4.5 percent from the second quarter and up 10.1 percent from the third quarter of 2009.

Newly initiated foreclosures jumped to 382,000 in the third quarter, a rise of 31.2 percent compared to the second quarter and 3.7 percent above the third quarter of 2009. The larger number of initiated foreclosures compared to completed foreclosures means that the number of foreclosures can be expected to rise sharply in the coming year.

Other figures in the OCC and OTS report showed widespread distress among homeowners. Slightly more than one in eight homeowners with a mortgage was behind in payments or in foreclosure, 12.6 percent, compared to 12.8 percent one year ago. About half of these, or 5.8 percent of the total, were at least 90 days behind in payments, while 3.6 percent were actually in foreclosure.

The glut of foreclosed homes continues to depress the housing market, with home prices falling 1.3 percent in October, according to the widely followed Case-Shiller index, and home prices in several major cities falling 20 percent or more.

Distressed sales—where the homeowner is either in foreclosure or behind on payments—account for about one-third of all US home sales according to RealtyTrac, and these sales were only made based on an average drop of 27 percent in the purchase price.

At least one published estimate, from Moody’s Analytics, said that total foreclosures would reach 1.8 million for this year, bringing the total number of foreclosures since the subprime mortgage crisis exploded in 2007 to more than 5.5 million.

Moody’s estimated that 2.1 million families would be foreclosed in 2011, and the Mortgage Bankers Association, the industry trade group, said that the total number threatened with losing their homes is four million.

That would bring the total number who lost or will lose their homes over the five-year period, 2007-2011, under the combined impact of financial collapse and economic slump, to a staggering nine million families.

An additional 10.9 million families are “under water” on their homes, meaning that they owe more in mortgage debt than the home can be sold for in the current depressed market.

Adding to the potential financial impact is the $426 billion in second mortgages on the balance sheets of just four banks: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.

In a single California county, Contra Costa County in the Bay Area, the number of foreclosures has exploded from 777 in 2000 to more than 12,200 in 2010, according to a profile this week in the New York Times. The city of Richmond, the poorest in Contra Costa County, reported in April that more than 2,000 homes and apartments were in foreclosure. In a single ZIP code, 94801, almost half of all homes were “in foreclosure or financed with subprime mortgages and thus at risk for foreclosure.”

In the face of this colossal social crisis, the Obama administration program to assist distressed homeowners is a complete failure. According to the bank regulators’ report, only 470,000 homeowners received loan assistance under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) during the third quarter. The total number aided through the life of the program is now estimated at 700,000 to 800,000, less than one in ten of those threatened with foreclosure.

The actual shortfall is much greater, since, perversely, only homeowners with the smallest gap between mortgage debt and ability to pay have received any support. The Obama administration initially pledged $75 billion for the loan modification program, but the Treasury has paid out less than $800 million and the total cost is now estimated at $4 billion.

The stinginess towards families facing foreclosure and eviction is in sharp contrast to the hundreds of billions lavished on the banks and other financial institutions that benefited from the Wall Street bailout.

The Obama administration intervened aggressively on only one mortgage-related issue: the widespread calls for a moratorium on foreclosures in early October, when Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Ally Financial and other big mortgage lenders admitted that they had falsified hundreds of thousands of foreclosure documents filed with state courts around the country.

Numerous congressional Democrats, and many state officials of both parties, called for a temporary halt to foreclosures, and the sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, suspended enforcement of eviction orders.

Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, opposed a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions, saying it would “do more harm than good.” He and other top officials warned that the result would be a loss of confidence in the US mortgage market on the part of Wall Street and international investors.

The major banks resumed foreclosure proceedings after a brief halt and are on course to accelerate their efforts in the new year.



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Obama’s phony banking “reform”

27 April 2010

Debate on the Senate version of the Obama administration’s bank regulatory overhaul is expected to begin shortly. The House of Representatives passed its banking bill last December.

Neither bill does anything to curb the power of the banks or limit their parasitic and socially destructive activities. What the media is calling the “most sweeping overhaul” of the banking system since the Great Depression in reality sanctions the ever greater monopolization of the financial system by a handful of Wall Street giants, imposes no limits on executive pay, and allows the banks and hedge funds to continue gambling on exotic and largely unregulated securities such as collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps.

The so-called bank “reform” is an exercise in mass deception—an attempt to placate popular hostility to the banks and provide the government with political cover while it continues to do the bidding of Wall Street.

The bills have been drawn up in the closest consultation with bankers and bank lobbyists. This collusion has been widely reported in the press and presented as a perfectly normal and acceptable fact of political life. The front-page lead article in Monday’s Wall Street Journal describes the intensive lobbying being carried out by billionaire investor Warren Buffet to alter the Senate bill’s provisions on derivatives.

Buffet, an Obama supporter, wants to exempt existing derivatives deals from collateral requirements in the current language of the bill—a change that would save him billions on his $63 billion derivatives portfolio. Both senators from his home state of Nebraska, one Democrat and one Republican, are championing his cause.

This is just one example of the web of corruption and bribery that extends from Wall Street to the White House and Capitol Hill. The banks have thus far spent $455 million lobbying Congress on the overhaul and handed out $34 million in 2010 election campaign donations, most of it to Democrats.

The circle of corruption includes the ratings companies such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, which blessed toxic subprime mortgage-backed securities with triple-A ratings in return for fees from the banks they were rating, and government regulators who move seamlessly from regulatory offices to lucrative posts at the banks they were supposedly overseeing.

The colossuses of Wall Street amass their huge profits by means of fraud and swindling. Over the past few weeks systematic accounting fraud at Lehman Brothers has been exposed and the Securities and Exchange Commission has indicted Goldman Sachs for defrauding its clients in the run-up to the subprime mortgage crash. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Obama’s so-called reform will do nothing to hold accountable the criminals at the head of the banks and hedge funds or break up the financial behemoths that exert a stranglehold on the economy. Instead, it will set up a mechanism to institutionalize government rescue operations of big financial firms to protect the interests of bank executives, shareholders and creditors, ultimately at public expense.

The lawless and reckless actions of Wall Street CEOs have had devastating consequences for tens of millions of people in the US and around the world. The wreckage left in the wake of the financial tsunami of 2008 is registered in millions of lost jobs, home foreclosures, utility shutoffs, and rising hunger, disease and poverty.

With the help of trillions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts, the bankers are making more money today than ever, even as schools are closed, libraries disappear and museums and opera houses are shuttered. There is, the people are told, “no money” for jobs or basic social services.

There is plenty of money. The problem is that it is concentrated in the hands of a financial aristocracy. The immense concentration of wealth among these individuals is not only morally repugnant, it is a menace to society. It is the result of the plundering of the social wealth to feed criminal appetites, at the direct cost of the productive forces.

During the rise of American capitalism as an industrial power, the vast fortunes of the corporate elite, while achieved through ruthless exploitation of the working class, were associated with the expansion of industry and the production of useful products. That is not the case with today’s financial elite. Its wealth is amassed on the basis of financial manipulation and outright fraud, linked to the destruction of the social infrastructure and industry.

The Socialist Equality Party advocates a policy that proceeds from the needs of the people and society as a whole, not the personal fortunes of the bankers and big investors. We call for:

• The criminal prosecution of bankers and speculators whose illegal actions contributed to the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. They must be held legally accountable and given appropriate sentences to prevent a recurrence of such practices.

• The expropriation of the wealth of the top bankers, hedge fund managers, traders and speculators. This would immediately free up several trillion dollars, money that could go to a public works program to provide jobs and rebuild the social infrastructure—schools, housing, clinics, libraries, cultural facilities, the energy system. This money could also be used to help provide relief to the victims of the economic crisis—to maintain full wages for those laid off, put a stop to foreclosures and utility shutoffs, provide full medical coverage.

• The nationalization of the banks and major financial institutions and their transformation into public utilities under the democratic control of the working population. This is a prerequisite for the rational and planned development of the economy and the allocation of resources to rebuild the social infrastructure, end poverty, raise living standards and overcome social inequality.

Only such a socialist program can break the grip of the financial aristocracy and liberate the productive forces for the benefit of society as a whole. It can be achieved only through the independent political mobilization of the working class against Obama, the two parties and big business, and the capitalist system that they defend.

Barry Grey

WSWS.org

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