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(photo: rutty, flickr)
The 50 state AG settlement, which Peter has suggested is more accurately called a pardon, screws John Q. Public, twice.
First it screws over homeowners by immunizing robo-signing from criminal prosecution or large scale civil suit. Several attempts at class action cases have failed to obtain class status. Therefore, the only way to pursue a claim involving robo-signing is for each individual homeowner to do it on his/her own.
Further, without the imprimatur of Attorneys General making those same arguments, the arguments of the individual homeowners will be of even more diminished weight and the banksters’ claims of “sloppy” paperwork will be spun through their PR machines until the truth is lost.
The robo-signing is the smoking gun that is the key to proving every other part of this criminal conspiracy, which is why the banks had to have robo-singing immunized.
So, homeowners are screwed.
Yet that is not the end of the harm that this deal does to the public. The principal write downs in question are not being funded by the banks. No, they will be funded out from under the bond holders. Well, not ALL the bond holders.
Remember the bailout? And the creation of the “bad banks” to hold the toxic assets? Maiden Lane 1 and Maiden Lane 2? The banks already got bailed out for the RMBS they held themselves. Also, the RMBS held by Fannie and Freddie (about ½ of all mortgages in the US) are not covered in this deal. So, whose bonds are covered?
The bonds held by pension funds, municipalities, hedge funds, and even in the portfolios of individual investors. Yep, John Q. Public is raped at both ends of this deal.
This is the worst of outcomes. You will lose your house and then see your retirement gutted.
And the courts will have been permanently corrupted.
48 Comments
They say it has to get really bad before it gets better. /s
So how about this:
An advocacy group working with the Occupy movement finds a clean-cut family that rings all the right non-alienating political bells and helps them a) file a suit and b) get that suit nationwide publicity?
This should be a RICO case. Per the Wikipedia, such cases have been brought against:
* the Catholic Church
* Major League Baseball
* various pro-life activist groups
* the Key West police department
* Michael Milken.
Yes it should be….but whom in Govt supposedly representing we, “the people” is not corrupt to do anything on behalf of we, “the people”…..not a one.
Yet it won’t be long before many of the “useful idiots” would be haranguing others to vote for either one of the corrupt Corporate political party in Nov.
Look, if folks can’t see whom have screwed ‘em,well it will happen & keep happening until they wake up.
Truly sad.
Homeboyz/girlz (un/deremployed, too): time to join OWSt. (the BERNANK$TER$) at The BARA¢KADE$!
I’m telling you, the take down of Elliot Spitzer still has a chilling effect on every prosecutor out their.
They are all cowed.
BTW Elliot did a little speaking truth to power the other day.
http://on.wsj.com/x2ZpFq
Yves has the state-by-state settlement breakdown and what she calls ‘other propaganda’:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/settlement-breakdown-by-state-plus-other-official-propaganda.html
I do wonder how many real fraud prosecutions will be limited, or impossible now. Just started reading DD’s piece, hard to tell spin from actuality yet, if ever.
Just to be clear, you think Schneiderman knuckled, too? And that this is just far too little given no MERS fraud liability prosecutions or paper trail for further evidence of criminality?
‘In addition, all securitization claims, tax fraud claims, insurance fraud claims, and more will be able to be investigated and prosecuted by individual AGs and the RMBS working group, set up at the Financial Fraud Task Force, with Schneiderman as one of five co-chairs. They will be able to use all findings gathered in multiple investigations into servicing and foreclosures in their investigation.
Check out the Facebook comments attached to this MSNBC piece:
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10363120-what-the-mortgage-settlement-means-to-you
Nobody likes this turkey, aside from the banksters.
I would donate to a specific fund that would help the state AG’s take on the TBTF’s.
Sorry, dear; you can’t afford them. “..their minds rustle with million-dollar bills’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX_AhL2SsUs
I agree with you vis Spitzer & the chilling effect.
Sort of like the take-down of John Edwards. Don’t like what Edwards did at all, but this court case against him is ginned up bogus bullshit. John Ensign was a sitting Senator who did *much worse* in terms of both fooling around & financial fraud. Yes, Ensign finally resigned “in disgrace” (big deal), but where’s the law suit, etc? You won’t see one.
Edwards, like Spitzer, was telling the truth to Power, and both got shot down big-time.
Money talk$. The 99% get fucked. The end.
My father works with the local Occupy group and they are already on the lookout here (Orlando,) for such a family. The plan is to help them continue to “occupy” the home even in the face of an eviction which is quite late in the process, (judgment has already been entered.)
But I am a little concerned about your use of the term “clean-cut”. What does that mean? I represent all types of folks, all of whom are worthy of due process even if they don’t fit someone’s mold of the “deserving,” person. It’s real easy to defend the returning veteran who was wrongfully served while on duty. But what about the guy whose wife was a part time teacher whose job is no longer funded by stimulus money and who lost his construction business and his delivery job. They have less than half the income they had before, so are they deserving? Their home is valued at one third of what it was valued, is that a case that you think is clean cut?
Every one is deserving of due process but that is what is being denied, to everyone, regardless of whether you ring someone’s non-alienating political bells or you don’t ring their alienating bells. Seniors have been caught in the foreclosure trap, families have been caught, the unemployed and the employed, the middle class and the poor. There should not be a litmus test as to who the “perfect” victim is in order to be allowed due process in this country. BTW, Rosa Parks I’m pretty sure did not ring all the right non-alienating political bells. If you piss someone off on the way to getting justice, you’re doing part of the job.
Ah, reading Dday’s strong piece last night, I was also looking forward to your take today.
Got our hopes up for a little while there, didn’t they?
I went to bed in despair last night. We’re fighting about the pill, and letting fraudulent banks and bankers who stole people’s homes off the hook of punishment by as you say, screwing people at both ends.
Thanks for keeping at it.
Checked out the fb comments. Whew. Do they think this is gonna help with voters? They hate it six ways from Sunday there.
I suppose they wanted to get it done now so we’ll all forget about it by November.
http://bit.ly/xq1PVJ
Taibbi has decided he does not like it after all.
‘…Not So Hot After All’…isn’t such a hot mea culpa, but…okay. He’s been so brilliant on so much on our behalf. ;o)
Well, this is 2012. Expect the worst and getit!
I have not seen anything stated — what happens to Schneiderman’s actions against the banks?
I *really* hope this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It feels like we’ve been waiting forever for the anger we feel to break through to the surface.
Have confined my screws to those getting cork out of neck of wine bottle.
Don’t want to mock serious issues, just can’t tolerate them emotionally any more.
They also say it’s darkest just before it goes completely black.
I think you MAY be right. The banksters getting off “scott free” WITH a bailout will likely exceed many voters’ tolerance level. It has mine.
Just remember, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It is the headlamp of an oncoming train.
Hell of a wrap up Mz. Kouril, tween you and Mr. Dayen, this is some seriously gloomy and disheartening shit.
All bought and paid for, every erected offal and appointee.
Top to bottom.
And given the full ownership of our country top to bottom, the corporate fascists likely still have more shit coming the way of the 99%.
Oh well, at some point it’s all unsustainable and will collapse as all empires do, but in the meantime, good and innocent people are dying and losing everything they ever had.
Can’t imagine what this will all be like in 20 years as most of us boomers begin to pass on . . . the gen under us . . . will have it even worse, too.
The U.S. moves from farce to tragedy. How much can the people bear before they have their Tahrir Square momemnt?
And you expected the outcome to be different because…?
On Nov. 21, 1864 President Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Colonel William F. Elkins. He said,
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
We are at war with a Financial Oligarchy that has Always tried to subvert and now have in actaulity Overthrown the Republic. Some 90% of Americans do not approve of what is supposed to be Their Congress. So, who do these Traitors represent if it is not the American People?
We are controlled by this Oligarchy now. Lincoln was a wise man.
Wolff: We should be beyond blaming the poor or the rich. Everybody did his or her part to contribute to this crisis. The bankers did what bankers do; the working people did what working people do. Everyone tried to make this system work for them. Workers couldn’t pay back their debts for understandable reasons. Employers stopped raising wages because the system allowed them to do it.
When a system has everybody playing more or less by the rules and achieves the level of dysfunction we have now, it’s time to stop looking for scapegoats and understand that the problem is the system itself. It’s driving everyone in it — corporations, individuals, banks, businesses on Main Street, whomever — to act in ways that are bad for the economy as a whole. It’s like when your refrigerator is on the fritz, and the repair person says, “Look, I can fix it, but it’s going to cost you fifty dollars for this, and forty-seven dollars for that, and fifty dollars for that. You can pump money into it, but you’ve gotten twenty years out of this fridge. I think it’s time to move on and get a new one.”
We’re at that stage with capitalism as a system. We need to decide whether it can be fixed or whether we need a new refrigerator.
Any D. Compradors have objections?
Cynthia, if you are around, in YK’s piece, the table says in the first two columns, “with California.” What does that mean?
Also, what about a person like me, who did a refinance and has a mortgage in MERS? Could I sue because my chain of title is damaged or undone? I am not in foreclosure, what about a class action by those who are not in foreclosure but lost our chain of title?
Assumes facts not in evidence.
I heard on-line orders of three-cornered hats has risen 350%.
That should be YS at Naked Capitalism. Those charts.
Today’s fun fact: The settlement with the banks is for approximately one-sixth the amount of the settlement the tobacco companies reached with the nation’s attorneys general in 1998.
Cynthia – Cenk Uygur just quoted a paragraph of your writing on tonight’s Young Turks. Nice
Re Spitzer and Edwards being taken out. They didn’t realize that it first happened to Bill Clinton when it was a proof of concept.
So it isn’t ‘kabuki’ we have to endure, it’s mutually assured destruction, and none of us mean anything. Nothing.
Maybe we could hire a lobbyist to represent our interest?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/american-people-hire-highpowered-lobbyist-to-push,18204/
Crime pays.
More than a lawmaking?
At my other blogging home, my friend Obey in Geneva had this more international/European perspective to offer just now:
“Just for a bit of local color. The most depressing part of my day – at the end of the day I stopped by Les Halles, the hangout for the genevan banker boys, to have drinks with a friend. And it was like V-day at the end of WWII, New Years, and bonus payout day all wrapped up in one. There was champagne on ice on every table and twinkle in every trader’s eye. I hadn’t seen that before.
These guys have been wrong before, but for them this is basically the end of the crisis, the end of years of gloom and foreboding. Now they see that no one can touch them, and no one will try. You could smell the optimism in the air. It was like nothing could ever go wrong for them again. Just total victory. Which was nice, but given that they’re mostly assholes, a joy somewhat hard to share in…”
That…just about says it all, IMO. Can’t help but laugh at this point.
The discussion over there also includes how Romney will undoubtedly use this against Obummer; (kgb writes):
“You know. Obama’s got a pretty big problem … I don’t think their reliance on the ability to cast Romney with the “1%” is going to yield the results they are hoping.
When we hit the general, I bet you Romney’s line of attack will essentially be:
“Obama is just getting played by the people he’s supposed to be regulating; to truly hold the lords of finance accountable will require the leadership of someone who knows their games, has their respect and has a history of winning in a pitched toe-to-toe battle with America’s billionaires.
Who do you want? Someone who’s always begging for a “deal” and scared to fight – or someone who has a history of grabbing the bull by the horns and getting the favorable outcomes they set out to achieve across the table from these same people Obama is always trying to coerce by wheedling?”
Sounds about right, though I first thought Obama could spin his way out of it; there just may not be enough time…
“given that they’re mostly assholes …”
That’s it! Capitalism’s greatest product!
Lincoln was duped by the corporations into engaging in the bloody war against the Confederacy. After the corporations becamed “enthroned” as a result of the war, Lincoln was dispensed with because he was no longer useful.
” The 50 state AG settlement, which Peter has suggested is more accurately called a pardon, screws John Q. Public, twice. ”
Even more accurately, it should be called Barry’s Bank Amnesty Program.
Such a pardon is unconstitutional:
“No Ex Post Facto Law shall be passed”
– US Constitution, Article One, Section 8
(Long before the Bill of Rights)
Ex Post Facto means “after the fact”:
That means that protection granted after the fact for crimes already committed is bogus,
and that the law was passed by criminal legislators ignoring their responsibility and mandate to obey the law.
This should not be too difficult. Focus on the Re-Fi deals and pay attention to the text entered in the MERS references, as compared with the actual contract that was signed.
Countrywide and others had their thugs enter incorrect text.
The result was that interest rates were exploded/ballooned beyond all supportable calculations.
RICO-eligible ??? Of course. And there is a civil section to RICO that the individual homeowner can surely invoke in Federal Court.
RICO is correct.
Federal Court with civil actions.