AT AN INTERVIEW AT THE
WHITE HOUSE, WHEN OBAMA WAS ASKED WHY HE HAD NOT PROSECUTED HIS CRIMINAL
BANKSTER DONORS, HE CLAIMED IT WAS THE JOB OF HIS CORRUPT DEPT. OF JUSTICE TO
PROSECUTE… WHICH IS WHY THERE WERE NOT PROSECUTIONS. THIS SAME DOJ WAS WORKING
HARD TO EXPAND OBAMA’S LA RAZA AGENDA WITH NO ID’s FOR ILLEGALS TO VOTE,
LAWSUITS AGAINST FOUR (4) SATES ON BEHALF OF HIS LA RAZA BASE!
THIS IS THE MAN THAT
TOLD A LA RAZA CONVENTION THAT “We must fight our enemies (LEGALS)!”
THIS IS THE MAN THAT
LIED TO THE NATION FROM THE SENATE FLOOR THAT ILLEGALS WERE NOT INCLUDED IN HIS
OBAMACARE!
*
OBVIOUSLY WE ALL KNOW WHAT OBAMA’S DONE ABOUT
FORECLOSURES. AS IS ALWAYS THE CASE WITH THIS CLOWN, HE WENT LIMP ON THE TOPIC!
AS SOON AS HE FOUND OUT HIS BANKSTERS WERE MAKING HUGE PROFITS OFF THE VERY
FORECLOSURES THEY CAUSED, HE ASSURE THEM THE PILLAGING WOULD ONLY GET BETTER
WITH HIM IN THE WHITE HOUSE!
WELLS FARGO, AS NOTED BELOW, HAD THEIR CALIFORNIA
MORTGAGE LICENSE REVOKED IN 2003 FOR CORPORATE CORRUPTION AND MALFEASANCE. THE
BANK SIMPLY DECLARED ITSELF ABOVE THE LAW AND WENT ON PILLAGING AN ENTIRE
NATION WITH THE SAME EXPLOITIVE AND CROOKED DEVICES THAT HAD PROVEN SO
PROFITABLE IN THE PAST!
BOTH WELLS FARGO AND BANK OF AMERICA ARE MAJOR
CAUSES OF FORECLOSURE AND THIS NATION’S ECONOMIC MELTDOWN!
“I’M NOT HERE TO PUNISH BANKS!” BARACK OBAMA IN HIS
STATE OF THE UNION IN THE FACES OF A NATION RAPED BY BANKSTERS!
OBAMA WILL RANK AS ONE OF THE MOST LIMP AND CORRUPT
PRESIDENTS IN HISTORY!
*
Obama
administration moves to quash state investigations of Wall Street banks
By
Andre Damon and Barry Grey
24 August 2011
24 August 2011
The Obama administration has
intervened to support a settlement by banks charged with fraudulent practices
in the processing of home foreclosures that would prevent state governments,
New York in particular, from carrying out their own investigations of major
Wall Street firms.
The New York Times reported
Monday that Shaun Donovan, the US secretary of housing and urban development,
together with high-ranking Justice Department personnel, has been “waging an
intensifying campaign” to persuade Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney
general, to drop his opposition to a settlement of the home foreclosure
charges.
Under the proposed settlement, major
banks including JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America,
would pay a combined total of $20 billion, which would supposedly go toward
home loan modifications and homeowner counseling. In return, bank executives
would be shielded from possible civil suits or criminal prosecutions arising
from state probes into their role in fueling the sub-prime mortgage bubble,
whose collapse triggered the financial meltdown of September 2008.
Schneiderman’s office has opened
several inquiries into banking practices during the mortgage boom of the
mid-2000s.
Last year it emerged that banks and
mortgage companies forged documents and paid employees with no knowledge of the
homes in question to sign legal documents that were then used to process
foreclosures.
The amount of the settlement of
charges arising from these practices—$20 billion—represents a financial
wrist-slap for banks that made multiples of this figure from the creation and
sale of securities linked to toxic home loans. These banks have continued to
reap huge profits from speculative bets in the midst of a global economic
crisis of their own making that has destroyed the jobs and living standards of
countless millions in the US and around the world. Nevertheless, the banks have
resisted paying even this token sum.
$20 billion will barely make a dent
in a foreclosure crisis that has already thrown millions of Americans out of
their homes. US homeowners collectively owe the banks $753 billion more than
the market value of their homes.
Schneiderman has based his
opposition to the deal on provisions barring future litigation against the
banks. The Times quoted Danny Kanner, a spokesman for Schneiderman, as
saying, “The attorney general remains concerned by any attempt at a global
settlement that would shut down ongoing investigations of wrongdoing related to
the mortgage crisis.”
Schneiderman is only the most
prominent of several state attorneys general, including Catherine Cortez Masto
of Nevada and Beau Biden of Delaware, who have refused to support the proposed
settlement.
In pressuring Schneiderman to drop
his opposition to the deal, the Obama administration claims to be motivated by
a desire for a quick resolution that would funnel $20 billion in aid to
hard-pressed homeowners. “Our view is we have the immediate opportunity to help
a huge number of borrowers to stay in their homes, to help their neighborhoods
and the housing market,” Donovan told the Times.
A spokeswoman for the Justice
Department echoed this line, telling the newspaper, “The Justice Department,
along with our federal agency partners and state attorneys general, are
committed to... bring relief swiftly because homeowners continue to suffer more
each day that these issues are not resolved.”
This pretense of humanitarian
concern for the plight of distressed homeowners is utterly cynical and
dishonest. Since the mortgage crisis began more than four years ago, the
government, first under Bush and then under Obama, has done virtually nothing
to help homeowners stay in their homes.
Under Obama, the major cause of
mortgage delinquencies and defaults has shifted from predatory loan practices
to the impact of prolonged unemployment. But the administration has refused to
take any serious steps to halt foreclosures in deference to the banks, which
fiercely oppose any measures that would negatively impact their balance sheets
or profits.
The White House would have the
public believe it a mere coincidence that its newfound urgency in regard to the
foreclosure crisis coincides with a campaign by the banks to block legal action
against them.
Executives of the major banks are
meeting with law enforcement officials Thursday, the Financial Times
reported, to continue negotiations over the settlement, which the newspaper
said remains several weeks from completion. Representatives of Citigroup, JP
Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America have remained in “frequent
dialog” with state attorneys general and prosecutors, the newspaper said.
The Times article noted that
Schneiderman has also come under criticism from the Obama administration for
suing to block a separate deal reached earlier this year that would settle
civil actions filed by 22 institutional investors against Bank of America.
Investors, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the giant asset
managing firm BlackRock, and Pimco, the world’s largest bond fund, sued Bank of
American over 530 mortgage-backed securities which the claimants say were sold
on the basis of false information.
The deal, brokered by Bank of New
York Mellon, would require Bank of America to pay $8.5 billion to the investors
holding these securities. Schneiderman intervened to block the settlement on
the grounds that the $8.5 billion represents a mere fraction of investors’
losses and that the deal was worked out behind the backs of many holders of the
securities.
The Times article reports a
recent public altercation between Schneiderman and Kathryn S. Wylde, the chief
executive of the Partnership for New York City and a member of the board of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which supports the settlement. Speaking to
the newspaper about her argument with the attorney general, Wylde gives voice
to the attitude of subservience to Wall Street that characterizes the Obama
administration and the political establishment as a whole.
“Wall Street is our Main Street—love
‘em or hate ‘em,” she tells the Times. “They are important and we have
to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are
doing something indefensible.”
Evidently, the threshold in official
circles for what is “indefensible” is infinitely high when it comes to Wall
Street. Under Obama, the federal government has failed to file a single
criminal charge against a high-level banker or even bring a civil case to trial
in connection with the fraud and lawlessness that pervaded the dealings of the
banks during the sub-prime mortgage boom and its catastrophic aftermath.
This is not for lack of evidence.
Last April, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a
650-page report on the financial crisis that provided a detailed factual
account of banking fraud as well as the collusion of federal regulatory
agencies and the credit rating firms. The report concluded with a list of
federal securities statutes that it suggested had been violated by major Wall
Street firms.
The Obama administration has ignored
this report as part of its efforts to shield the financial elite from being
held to account for its actions.
Now, having blocked any federal
prosecution of senior bank officials, the administration is intervening to
quash investigations at the state level. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate
its role as a tool of the US financial oligarchy.
*
OBAMA
DEMANDS HIS BANKSTER DONORS BE ABOVE LAW
An
initial term sheet outlining a possible settlement emerged in March, with
institutions including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells
Fargo being asked to pay about $20 billion that would go toward loan modifications and possibly counseling
for homeowners.
In
exchange, the attorneys general participating in the deal would have agreed to
sign broad releases preventing them from bringing further litigation on matters
relating to the improper bank practices.
*
OBAMA AND HIS WALL ST CABINET
OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM, A LOVE STORY BETWEEN THE
ACTOR PRESIDENT, AND HIS BANKSTER DONORS!
Records show that four out of Obama's top five
contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs
($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup
($358,054).
*
Obama’s Economic Advisers: International Socialists, Union
Thugs, NBC Execs, Soros Scholars, Subprime Lenders, Amnesty Shills, and
Campaign Cronies
Posted on February 24, 2011 by Ben Johnson
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/08/barack-obama-one-of-greatest-tragedies.html
As part of the bank bailout, the Treasury
Department was given $46 billion to spend on keeping homeowners in their
houses; to date, the agency has spent about $1.85 billion.
*
They
also say programs to curb foreclosure are voluntary, so they are limited in how
far they can push mortgage servicers and investors, who often make more from
foreclosures than from offering aid.
*
NEW YORK TIMES
June 4, 2011
For
the Jobless, Little U.S. Help on Foreclosure
The Obama administration’s main program to keep
distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure has been aimed at those who
took out subprime loans or other risky mortgages during the heady days of the
housing boom. But these days, the primary cause of foreclosures is
unemployment.
As a result, there is a mismatch between the
homeowner program’s design and the country’s economic realities — and a new
round of finger-pointing about how best to fix it.
The administration’s housing effort does include
programs to help unemployed homeowners, but they have been plagued by delays,
dubious benefits and abysmal participation. For example, a Treasury Department
effort started in early 2010 allows the jobless to postpone mortgage payments
for three months, but the average length of unemployment is now nine months. As
of March 31, there were only 7,397 participants.
“So far, I think the public record will show
that programs to help unemployed homeowners have not been very successful,”
said Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, an executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank
of Boston.
Data released last week suggests that the
administration’s task is only growing more difficult as the problems created by
unemployment and housing persist. New job growth in May was anemic, and
unemployment inched up to 9.1 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Earlier in the week, a widely watched index
found that housing prices had dropped to their lowest level in nearly a decade.
And while the rate of homes falling into foreclosure has slowed, the reason is
delays in processing foreclosures, not a housing recovery, according to
RealtyTrac, a company that tracks foreclosures. There were 219,258 foreclosure
filings in April, the latest month available.
Critics of the Obama administration’s approach
to preventing foreclosures have pressed for two years to get officials to focus
more of their attention on unemployed homeowners, with meager results. As part
of the bank bailout, the Treasury Department was given $46 billion to spend on
keeping homeowners in their houses; to date, the agency has spent about $1.85
billion.
Morris A. Davis, a former Federal Reserve
economist, estimates that as many as a million homeowners slipped into
foreclosure because of insufficient help for the unemployed.
“The money was there and they didn’t spend it,”
said Mr. Davis, an associate real estate professor at the University of
Wisconsin. “I don’t mean to sound outraged, but I am pretty outraged.”
Administration officials said their programs
have had a positive impact, albeit not as large as they had hoped. But they say
that the problems of unemployment and negative equity on homes are not easily
solved. They also say programs to curb
foreclosure are voluntary, so they are limited in how far they can push
mortgage servicers and investors, who often make more from foreclosures than
from offering aid.
“We are trying to be careful in designing
programs that at the end of the day aren’t just about spending money but
getting people back on their feet,” said James Parrott, a senior adviser at the
White House’s National Economic Council.
President Obama has been scrambling to curb the
number of foreclosures ever since he arrived at the White House.
At the start of 2009, the administration
announced its primary foreclosure prevention initiative, the Home Affordable
Modification Program. It provides incentives to banks to modify mortgages,
reducing monthly payments for eligible homeowners.
The administration said the program would help
three million to four million homeowners, but so far, only 670,000 homeowners
have received permanent modifications. In addition, the program was primarily
meant for homeowners with risky mortgages; jobless owners are often ineligible
because some payment, albeit reduced, is required.
Administration officials said the program was
helping homeowners whose income had been reduced. Sixty-one percent of
homeowners who received permanent modifications listed “curtailment of income”
as their reason for applying, though it is not known how many of them are
unemployed or simply had their hours or pay reduced.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development
received $1 billion as part of the financial regulatory reforms that passed
last year to help unemployed homeowners. That money will be used to provide
government loans to unemployed homeowners for up to 24 months.
Though the program was announced last fall, so
far applications are being accepted in only five states; the others are delayed
because of “implementation challenges,” a HUD spokeswoman said.
Critics do acknowledge one bright spot — the
Hardest Hit Fund, a federal program that will provide $7.6 billion so that some
states can administer their own programs for struggling homeowners. Of that, 70
percent will be directed to unemployed homeowners, said Andrea Risotto, a
Treasury spokeswoman.
So far, $455 million has been spent. Over the
last several years, academics, housing groups and government economists offered
proposals to Treasury officials to help the unemployed avoid foreclosure.
One, which Mr. Fuhrer of the Boston Fed helped
write, called on the government to provide loans, or grants, to unemployed or
underemployed homeowners to make up for the amount of income they lost. The
loan would have to be repaid once the homeowner found a new job.
Another proposal, by a non-profit group called
the PICO National Network, a coalition of faith-based community organizations,
would have allowed unemployed homeowners to postpone much or all of their
mortgage payments for a year or more.
But administration officials have balked,
arguing that regulators and “other industry stakeholders expressed strong
reservations” about allowing unemployed homeowners to extend payments for
longer terms, according to a Dec. 23 letter that Treasury Secretary Timothy F.
Geithner sent to Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who
had pressed for measures that would more directly aid the unemployed.
The debate is playing out on the sidelines of
partisan Washington politics, since Republican lawmakers have made clear they
would like to get rid of anti-foreclosure programs altogether, and would block
any new programs. Instead, it is setting homeowner advocates against
administration officials over how to spend money already appropriated.
Administration officials maintain that the
decision on whether to offer mortgage relief to homeowners ultimately was up to
mortgage servicers and investors, not the government, which can provide
incentives but not compel action.
“We as an administration have limited levers,”
Mr. Parrot said. “We can push them on the margins.”
But Lewis Finfer, a PICO organizer, said he
could not understand why the administration had not been more receptive given
the extent of unemployment.
“We have a program to deal with this,” he said.
Many unemployed or underemployed homeowners said
they would welcome an extended break in mortgage payments.
Mary Ernest, 51, of Blackstone, Mass., lost her
job as a school aide and said she had been “reduced to begging, more or less,”
to keep her home. Adam Heyman, 41, of Chelsea, Mass., scraped together enough
money to pay the mortgage on his condominium for about 18 months. Though he
finally got another full-time job, his bank had already foreclosed on his
condo.
“If I had a way to slow down the process or stop
it for a while, that would have been nice,” Mr. Heyman said, adding, “Now I can
certainly afford to pay.”
*
OBAMA’S BANKSTER DONORS DOIN’ GOOD! PROFITS UP!
FORECLOSURES UP! BANK NO REGULATION GUARANTEED! BAILOUTS FOR BUYOUTS…. And not
a single bankster donor in prison!
WHAT DID THE BANKSTERS KNOW ABOUT OUR ACTOR OBAMA
THAT WE DIDN’T KNOW?
Records show that four out of Obama's top five
contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs
($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup
($358,054).
*
“Obama's
rhetoric covered the whole financial industry, but the key changes will affect
only a few high-profile players, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., while
sparing investment banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc.”
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Thursday, July 9, 2009
And Harvard economics professor JEFFREY MIRON will
weigh in on the state of the U.S. economy—and why the only plausible argument
for bailing out banks crumbles on close examination.
*
"There
is a populist and conservative revolt against Wall Street and financial elites,
Congress and government," Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg warned in
an analysis this week. "Democrats and President Obama are seen as more
interested in bailing out Wall Street than helping Main Street."
*
*
August 21, 2010
Janet
Tavakoli.President, Tavakoli Structured Finance
August 15, 2010
How to Thwart the Assassins of the American Dream
Arianna Huffington's new book, Third World America:
How Our Politicians are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American
Dream, paints a grim picture of the State of the Union:
"Every day, Americans, faced with layoffs and
tough economic times, are forced to use their credit cards to pay for
essentials such as food, housing, and medical care -- the costs of which
continue to escalate. But, as their debt rises, they find it harder to keep up
with their payments. When they don't, banks, trying to offset losses in other
areas, turn around, hike interest rates, and impose all manner of fees and
penalties..."
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