OBAMA IMMEDIATELY WENT TO WORK
PULLING THE MOST CORRUPT OF BUSH’S WALL ST BANKSTERS TOGETHER, LIKE BUSH’S
ARCHITECT FOR BANKSTER BAILOUTS, TIM GEITHNER, TO WRITE THE BANKSTERS’
NO-STRING BAILOUTS AS DICTATED BY HIS DONORS!
THEN OBAMA BROUGHT IN TWO OF THE
MOST CORRUPT AND BANKSTER-OWNED POLITICIANS, CHRIS DODD AND BARNEY FRANK TO
HAMMER OUT A BANKSTER APPROVED “REGULATION”, WHICH WAS UTTERLY AS WORTHLESS TO
CONSUMERS AS THESE BANKSTERS COULD BUY. THE BANKSTERS ARE ALREADY BUYING
POLITICIANS TO UNWIND THE LIMP REFORMS!
EVEN AS A NATION GRAPPLES WITH
ECONOMIC MELTDOWN, AND MILLIONS OF AMERICANS HAVE LOST THEIR LIFE SAVINGS DUE
TO THE CRIMES OF THESE BANKSTERS, THEIR PROFITS HAVE SOARED!!!!!!!!
BANKSTERS’ PROFITS UNDER THEIR BOY
OBAMA ARE GREATER IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF HIS CORRUPT ADMIN ARE GREATER THAN
ALL EIGHT YEARS OF BANKSTERS’ PILLAGE UNDER BUSH!
The terms of the agreement
are entirely favorable to the banks, while doing little or nothing to aid the
millions of people who have been devastated by the collapse of the US housing
market.
Obama administration brokers
pro-bank mortgage fraud settlement
By Joseph Kishore
10 February 2012
10 February 2012
The
Obama administration announced on Thursday a settlement between five major
banks and federal and state governments over massive fraud relating to home
foreclosures. The terms of the agreement
are entirely favorable to the banks, while doing little or nothing to aid the
millions of people who have been devastated by the collapse of the US housing
market.
Government officials reported
that the final deal is valued at about $25 billion spread out over a multi-year
period. This is a paltry sum in relationship to the extent of the housing
crisis, the profits of the banks and the scale of corporate criminality.
However, only a small portion of this would come from direct financial
sanctions on the banks.
Forty-nine
of the 50 US states signed on to the settlement with the five banks—JPMorgan
Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America (which bought mortgage firm
Countrywide), and Ally Financial Inc. (formerly GMAC, the financial arm of
General Motors). These five banks
involved had net profits of $46 billion last year alone.
In exchange for the
settlement, the banks will be released from liability for fraudulent and likely
criminal activities. This
includes “robo-signing,” in which the banks had employees sign hundreds of
thousands of legal foreclosure documents without any knowledge of the
underlying mortgages. Banks were also involved in forging documents. The
true extent of the illegal operations is not known, and keeping this
information secret is one of the aims of the settlement.
Evidence
of these actions first emerged in 2010. States launched investigations in
response, and the Obama administration stepped in to package these
investigations and lead them to a settlement favorable to the banks. Over
the past several weeks, the administration has placed heavy pressure on several
state holdouts to sign on to the deal.
Of
particular importance for Bank of America is the fact that the settlement will
end a lawsuit filed by Nevada and Arizona over allegations that the bank has
been deceiving homeowners seeking to participate in a refinancing program.
Only
about $5 billion of the settlement will take the form of direct payments,
including, according to government officials, a payment of about $2,000 to some
individuals who had their homes foreclosed between September 2008 and December
2011.
Despite the evidence of fraud, no one will get their home back. Since
2007, there have been some 4 million home foreclosures.
About
$17 billion will come from the modification of existing loans, spaced over a
three-year time period. Details are still emerging, but it is evident that
decisions on what loans to modify will be left to the banks themselves. Many of
the loans have already been packaged off and sold to investors (“securitized”),
thus minimizing the impact on bank assets.
The
$17 billion in loan modifications is a tiny fraction of the total negative
equity (the value of loans in relation to the value of the underling houses) of
$700 billion to $750 billion. The deal will affect less than 10 percent of US
homeowners who are “under water.”
An
additional $3 billion is to come in the form of mortgage refinancing, again
left to the discretion of the banks.
The
banks will be tasked with self-reporting their actions. The industry and the
state attorneys general selected North Carolina banking commissioner Joseph Smith to “oversee” the agreement and
determine whether the banks are in compliance based on the bank reports. Smith
is a former bank lawyer with close ties to the industry.
Markets
reacted enthusiastically to the terms, and bank stocks rose Thursday. The banks
involved already have set aside funds that cover the amount of the agreement.
Indeed, since many banks have written down the value of their existing loans,
the agreement could have a positive net impact on their balance sheets.
“I
wouldn’t say it’s a panacea for the housing industry,” commented Barclays
analyst Jason Goldberg, “but it is good for the banks to get this behind them.”
Perversely,
the deal will likely lead to a surge in home foreclosures, with banks now
confident that they can proceed with business as usual. Bloomberg News
commented, “Lenders slowed the pace of foreclosures as they negotiated with
attorneys general in all 50 states for more than a year… With today’s
agreement, banks are likely to resume property seizures.” Increased
foreclosures will also lead to a further fall in home prices.
In
hailing the deal, Obama said that it would “speed relief to the hardest-hit
homeowners, end some of the most abusive practices of the mortgage industry,
and begin to turn the page on an era of recklessness that has left so much
damage in its wake.”
In fact, as with every
component of the administration’s policy, the agreement will leave things
entirely as they are, while giving a free pass to corporate criminals
responsible for the economic crisis.
ISN’T
OBAMA SIMPLY BUSH’S THIRD TERM, BUT EVEN MORE CORRUPT???
*
“There is, however, nothing
paradoxical about this. The crash of 2008 was set off by the collapse of an
enormous speculative bubble. Since that time, world governments, led by
Washington, have scrambled to ensure the wealth of the very financial
aristocracy that created the crisis, at the direct expense of the vast majority
of the population.”
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