Federal reserve | Livinglies's Weblog

The Fed to sell $20 Billion in Defective Mortgage-Backed Securities

Posted on June 14, 2017 by Neil Garfield

by the LendingLies team

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it plans to slowly sell off the pile of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities trash it accumulated during three asset purchase sessions (aka QE 1, 2 and 3), marking an end to a key strategy in response to the financial crisis. The sale of defective Mortgage-backed securities is the Fed’s “pass the potato” to the next sucker scheme and it will eventually end up badly for someone holding the bag.

The Fed said it will sell off its mortgage-backed “assets” more slowly, at a rate of $4 billion a month, with the caps rising by $4 billion every three months until reaching $20 billion a month. However, who will the buyers be? Unsuspecting foreign governments, foreign banks or American pension funds? It will be fascinating to see who is actually misinformed enough to purchase billions of dollars of nonMortgage-unbacked securities. It is considered fraud to pawn off securities you know are defective and are not backed by anything- not even an empty paper bag.

The Fed said the moves would begin later this year “once normalization of the level of the federal-funds rate is well under way,” but did not specify a date. What is “normalization of the level of the federal funds rate” mean anyways? There is nothing normal or logical about raising interest rates when the job report is poor, the economy sluggish, inflation is in line, and the average American is barely getting by.

The Fed didn’t specify the final size of the balance sheet but said it would be “appreciably below that seen in recent years but larger than before the financial crisis.” The Fed gave themselves an out and stated they reserved the right to halt the balance sheet sale-off if there is an economic downturn, as well as lower interest rates once more if needed. It is obvious the Fed is unable to predict economic changes because never in the history of mankind have fiat currencies ended well and never before has a “bank” “purchased” trillions of debt with money it printed out of thin air.

In a separate move, Fed officials also voted to raise its benchmark federal-funds rate Wednesday to a range of between 1% and 1.25%. A move that will quickly impact America’s working poor and middle class who are barely making ends meet even with record low interest rates. This decision should negatively impact auto and home loans, and create a new wave of defaults on adjustable-rate mortgages.

Three rounds of asset purchases, known as quantitative easing, swelled the Fed’s portfolio to $4.5 trillion in the years following the financial crisis. Since then, officials have been reinvesting securities as they matured in order to keep the balance sheet level. It is mind blowing that the Fed purchased trillions of dollars in unsecured debt, but even more mind blowing that there are people/organizations who are willing to purchase this defective debt with the belief that the securities are backed by real estate.

At some point the Fed’s strategy is not going to work. Then what?

The economy has been on life support since the 2008 financial crisis. The Fed has artificially pumped it up with unprecedented amounts of “stimulus.” This has created enormous distortions and misallocations of capital that need to be flushed.

Meanwhile, with zero and even negative interest rates in many countries, rates are the lowest they’ve been in 5,000 years of recorded human history. This is uncharted territory. (Interest rates were never lower than 6% in ancient Greece and ranged from 4% to over 12% in ancient Rome.)

The too-big-to-fail banks are even bigger than they were in 2008. They have more derivatives, and they’re much more dangerous. Allegedly, the Fed has been taking these actions to save the economy. Right. The Federal Reserve deliberately creates real estate bubbles to strip wealth, maintain control and make money. The actions of the Fed are in direct conflict with the goals of consumers (low inflation, low interest rates, lending availability).

In reality, the Fed is the primary cause of most of the harmful distortions in the economy.

You can blame the Fed for…

✔ Unlimited Fiat money printing

✔ Artificially low interest rates

✔ The boom/bust cycle

✔ Bailout funds to “fix” their errors

✔ The War on Cash

✔ Asset bubbles and Market Manipulation

Today the Fed raised interest rates and it is expected to further bolster the massive bubbles in real estate, stocks and bond markets. The US government currently requires over $400 billion from taxpayers just to pay the interest on its debt. Tax receipts now exceed $2 trillion.

Even more dangerous are the social and political implications of the Fed’s actions as economic classes become more divided and wealth and wage disparity continues to broaden. Remember that EVERYTHING the Federal Reserve does creates larger government, compromised freedom and the overall life quality decreases for EVERYONE but the 1%.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: Federal reserve, mortgage backed securities | 2 Comments »

Fed Up: The Foreclosure Crisis that Caused the 2008 Crash Is Now Ending

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Neil Garfield

Below is another “fake news” report from your friendly St. Louis Federal Reserve. The Foreclosure Crisis isn’t even close to being resolved. Pensions are failing, houses are being foreclosed with fake documents and housing prices have reached unaffordable levels while wages remain flat. This isn’t even close to being the end of the crisis. Until the real issues are resolved America cannot recover.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-foreclosure-crisis-that-caused-the-2008-crash-is-now-ending/5576404

Fed Reserve PDF

The St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank study, “The End Is in Sight for the U.S. Foreclosure Crisis” states:

The Foreclosure Crisis at a National Level

Mortgage Bankers Association data show that the U.S. foreclosure crisis started in the fourth quarter of 2007, when the combined rate reached 2.81 percent, a level that exceeded its five-year moving average by 0.67 percentage points, more than any other previous level. Given that the combined rate stood at 3.2 percent in the third quarter of 2016, this suggests that the nationwide foreclosure crisis has not yet quite ended. However, based on the rate of decline in recent quarters, the data-defined end of the crisis on a national scale is likely to occur as soon as the first quarter of 2017. (See Table 1.) Indeed, comparable data from Lender Processing Services, as shown in the recently released Housing Market Conditions report from the St. Louis Fed, also suggest the foreclosure crisis is nearing its end.

The Foreclosure Crisis in the St. Louis Fed’s Eighth District

Figure 1 displays the share of mortgages that are seriously delinquent or in foreclosure in all seven Eighth District states for the period 1980 through 2016. To determine the duration of state-level foreclosure crises, we examine two thresholds: a nationwide benchmark and a threshold unique to each state.3

Table 1 provides beginning and ending dates for the foreclosure crisis nationwide and for Eighth District states using the nationwide benchmark.

That study, by William Emmons, was dated December 2016, and it predicted that the trendline nationally was that the “end of the crisis on a national scale is likely to occur as soon as the first quarter of 2017. (See Table 1.)”; so, one can reasonably assume that the end of the cause of the ‘recession’ of 2008-2009, is finally being reached, just about now.

However, unfortunately, after mortgage-debt having soared to unprecedented heights right before the 2008 crash, it has remained overall (irrespective of foreclosures) rather stable at or near that peak, and has been slightly rising again since 2013:

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Eric Zuesse, Global Research, 2017

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: fake news, Federal reserve, financial crisis | 8 Comments »

RESCISSION: It’s time for another slap on the wrist for state and federal judges.

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Neil Garfield

50 years ago Congress decided to slap punitive measures on lenders who ignore or attempt to go around (table-funded loans) existing laws on required disclosures — instead of creating a super agency that would review every loan closing before it could be consummated. So it made the punishment so severe that only the stupidest lenders would attempt to violate Federal law. That worked for a while — until the era of securitization fail. (Adam Levitin’s term for illusion under the cloak of false securitization).

Draconian consequences happen when the “lender” violates these laws. They lose the loan, the debt (or part of it), their paper is worthless and the disgorgement of all money ever paid by borrower or received by anyone arising out of the origination of the loan.

But Judges have resisted following the law, leaving the “lenders” with the bounty of ill-gotten gains and no punishment because judges refuse to do it —even after they received a slap on their wrists by the unanimous SCOTUS decision in Jesinoski. Now they will be getting another slap — and it might not be just on the wrists, considering the sarcasm with which Scalia penned the Jesinoski opinion.

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.

THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.

—————-

TILA rescission is mainly a procedural statute under 15 USC §1635. Like Scalia said in the Jesinoski case it specifically states WHEN things happen. It also makes clear, just as the unanimous court in Jesinoski made clear that no further action was required — especially the incorrect decisions in thousands of cases where the judge said that the rescission under TILA is NOT effective until the borrower files a lawsuit. What is clear from the statute and the regulations and the SCOTUS decision is that rescission is effective on the date of notice, which is the date of mailing if the borrower uses US Mail.

There are several defenses that might seem likely to succeed but those defenses (1) must be filed by a creditor (the note and mortgage are void instruments the moment that rescission notice is sent) (2) hence the grounds for objection are not “defenses” but rather potential grounds to vacate a lawful instrument that has already taken effect. Whether the right to have sent the notice had expired, or whether the right to rescind the putative loan is not well-grounded because of other restrictions (e.g. purchase money mortgage) are all POTENTIAL grounds to vacate the rescission — as long as the suit to vacate the rescission is brought by a party with legal standing.

A party does not have legal standing if their only claim to standing is that they once held a note and mortgage that are now void. {NOTE: No party has ever filed an action to vacate the rescission because (1) they have chosen to ignore the rescission for more than 20 days and thus subject to the defense of statute of limitations to their petition to vacate and (2) they would be required to state the rescission was effective in order to get relief and (3) there is a very high probability that there is no formal creditor that was secured by the mortgage encumbrance of record. The latter point about no formal creditor would also mean that the apparent challenge to the rescission based upon the “purchase money mortgage” “exception” would fail.}

The premise to this discussion is that the so-called originator was not the source of funds. This in my opinion means that there never was consummation — despite all appearances to the contrary.

The borrower was induced to sign a note and mortgage settlement statements and acknowledgement of disclosures and right to rescind under the false premise that the originator was the lender, as stated on the note and mortgage.

The resulting execution of documents thus produced the following results: (1) the putative borrower has signed the “closing documents” and (2) the originator neither signs those documents nor lends any money. This results in an executory contract without consideration which means an unenforceable partially completed documentary trail that creates the illusion of a normal residential loan closing.

TILA Rescission is effective at the time that the borrowers notify any one of the players who represent themselves as being servicer, lender, assignee or holder. The effect of rescission is to cancel the loan contract and that in turn makes the note and mortgage void, not voidable. That the note and mortgage become void is expressly set forth in the authorized regulations (Reg Z) promulgated by the Federal Reserve and now the Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB). There is no lawsuit that is required or even possible for the putative borrower to file — i.e., there is no present controversy because the loan “contract” to the extent it exists has already been canceled and the note and mortgage have already been rendered void.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: 15 USC §1635, CFPB, Federal reserve, jesinoski, Reg Z, rescission, Scalia, TILA | 16 Comments »

The US BANK-BOA-LaSalle-CitiGroup Shell Game

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Neil Garfield

‘The bottom line is that the notice of substitution of Plaintiff in judicial states, or notice of substitution of Trustee in non-judicial states should be the first line of battle. Neither one of them is valid and in both cases you have a stranger to the transaction being allowed to name itself as creditor, name its own controlled entity or subsidiary as trustee, and then ignore the realities of the money paid to the real creditor. They are claiming damages from the borrower — all for a debt that in the ordinary course of things has already been paid several times over. But it is true that it wasn’t paid to THEM because THEY were never and are not now the creditor fulfilling the definition of a creditor who could bid at the foreclosure auction. It is not that the borrower doesn’t owe money when he borrows it, it is that he doesn’t owe it to any of the people who are claiming it. And that is what gives rise to liability of law firms to borrowers.” Neil F Garfield, http://www.livinglies.me

If our information can be corroborated through discovery with a corporate representative of US BANK or Chase Bank as the servicer, it is possible that a solid cause of action can be filed against the law firm that brought the action, particularly if the law firm took its instructions from the Desktop system of LPS.

In that system law firms are instructed to file foreclosures without contact with the actual client. We saw several cases where sanctions were levied against lawyers and their alleged clients, but none so stark as the one in Florida where the lawyer for US Bank as Trustee for XXX, when faced with questions he couldn’t answer admitted that he had never spoken with anyone from U.S> Bank and didn’t know who had retained his firm.

The law firm that brought the foreclosure action and especially the law firm that is demanding an assignment of rent to protect a creditor who has already been paid through non stop servicer advances was most likely not authorized to demand the assignment of rents which might be why there was no written demand as required by statute. I am considering the possibility of an actual lawsuit against one such law firm for interference with contract on both the foreclosure and the assignment of rents issue.

The Banks are being very cagey about this system — one which they would never use for their own portfolio loans, which begs the question of why they would have two entirely different system of accounting and legal process. But the long and the short of it is that LPS in Jacksonville, Florida is used much the same way as MERS. It maintains a database service that requires a user name and password and that gives unlimited access to the client folders. Anyone can go in and authorize the foreclosure based upon a default that is invested by the person entering the data. They leave out any servicer advances or other third party payments and arrive at an amount to reinstate that is just plain wrong. So virtually all notices of default are wrong which means that the required notice is defective.

You should know that many judges appear unimpressed that there was no valid assignment of the mortgage. I think that it is clearly reversible error. The assignment frequently is clearly fabricated and back-dated because of references to events that happened a year after the assignment was executed. The assignment clearly did not exist at the time of the lawsuit and the standing issue is clear under Florida law although some courts are balking at the idea that standing cannot be cured after the lawsuit. The reasoning is quite simple — if it were otherwise, you could file suit against a grocery store for a slip and fall, and the go over to the store to have your slip and fall.

In one of my cases involving multiple properties, they have an assignment that was prepared and executed by Shapiro and Fishman supposedly dated in 2007 —- but it refers to Bank of America as successor by merger to LaSalle. it is backdated, fabricated and fictional, which is to say, fraudulent.

The assignment has two problems –— FACIALLY DEFECTIVE FABRICATION OF ASSIGNMENT: the first problem is that the alleged BOA merger with LaSalle could not have happened before 2008 — one year after the assignment was executed. So the 2007 assignment refers to a future event that was not reported by BOA until 2008, and was not approved by the Federal Reserve until 2008. On its face, then, based upon public record, the assignment is void as a total fabrication.

The second problem is that it is unclear as to how the merger could have occurred between BOA and La Salle, to wit:. you might need to read this a few times to understand the complexity of the issues involved — issues that few judges or lawyers are interested enough to master.

LASALLE ABN AMRO ACQUISITION: Since neither entity vanished in the deal it is an acquisition and not a merger. LaSalle and ABN AMRO did a reverse merger in 2007.

That means that while LASalle was technically the acquirer, because it “bought” ABN AMRO, and ABN AMRO became a subsidiary — the reality is that LaSalle issued so many shares for the acquisition of ABN AMRO that the ABN AMRO shareholders received the overwhelming majority of LaSalle Shares compared to the former owners of LaSalle shares.

Hence in substance LaSalle Bank was a subsidiary of ABN AMRO and the consolidated financial statements show it. But in form it appears as the parent.

So if someone, like BOA, was to say they merged with or acquired LaSalle, they would also be saying that included its subsidiary ABN AMRO — and they would have to do the deal with the shareholders of ABN AMRO because those shareholders control LaSalle Bank, which brings us to CitiGroup —-

CITIGROUP MERGER WITH ABN AMRO: Also in 2007, CitiGroup announced and continues to file sworn statements with the SEC that it had merged with ABN AMRO, which means, if you followed the above, that CitiGroup actually owned LaSalle. It looks more like an acquisition than a merger to me but the wording makes it unclear. This would mean that LaSalle still technically exists as a subsidiary of CitiGroup.

ALLEGED BOA MERGER WITH LASALLE: In 2008 the Federal Reserve issued an order approving the merger of BOA and LaSalle, in which case LaSalle vanishes — but ABN AMRO is the one with all the assets. BUT LaSalle is named as Trustee of the asset pool. And the only other allowable trustee would be another bank that merged with LaSalle as a successor without the requirement of filing more papers to be a Trustee and BOA clearly qualifies on all counts for that. Section 8.09 of PSA.

But the Federal Reserve order states that the identities of ABN AMRO and LaSalle are the same and the acquisition of one is the acquisition of the other — thus unintentionally ratifying CitiGroup’s apparent position that it owns ABN AMRO and thus LaSalle.

Findings of fact by an administrative agency are presumptively true although subject to rebuttal.

Here is the kicker: there is no further mention in any SEC filings of a merger between BOA and LaSalle, unless I missed it. There is no reference to the fact that CitiGroup controlled LaSalle and ABN AMRO at the time of the Federal Reserve order approving the BOA merger with LaSalle Bank in 2008.

CitiGroup has not, to my knowledge ever reported the sale or loss or merger of LaSalle. Since Citi made the acquisition before BOA, and since BOA apparently did not buy LaSalle from Citi, how could BOA claim to be a successor by merger with LaSalle?

Hence there are questions of fact as to whether BOA ever consummated any transaction in which it acquired or Merged with LaSalle, which while technically possible, makes no business sense. UNLESS the OBJECTIVE was to transfer the interest of LaSalle as trustee to BOA, as a precursor to a much wider deal in which BOA then sold its position as Trustee to US Bank as a commodity and then filed in the Kalam cases a notice of substitution of Plaintiff without amending the pleadings.

US BANK Notice of Substitution of Plaintiff without Any Motion to Amend Pleadings: The reason they filed it as a notice was that they obviously did not want to allege the purchase of “being a trustee”, which would have been a contested issue in the pleadings. But the amendment is required in my opinion and there should be a motion to strike the notice of substitution of Plaintiff without amendment. The motion to strike should state that no objection to granting the order to amend, but that the circumstances should be pled and we should be able to respond with a denial and affirmative defenses if you choose.

Filed under: CASES, CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, evidence, expert witness, Fannie MAe, foreclosure, foreclosure mill, GARFIELD KELLEY AND WHITE, GTC | Honor, investment banking, Investor, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, Pleading, securities fraud, Servicer, STATUTES, trustee | Tagged: ABN AMRO, Bank of America, BOA, Citi, Federal reserve, judicial foreclosure, LaSalle bank, Motion to Strike Notice of substitution of Plaintiff, non-judicial foreclosure, Notice of Substitution of Plaintiff, trustee, US BANK | 27 Comments »

ALERT: COMMUNITY BANKS AND CREDIT UNIONS AT GRAVE RISK HOLDING $1.5 TRILLION IN MBS

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Neil Garfield

I’ve talked about this before. It is why we offer a Risk Analysis Report to Community Banks and Credit Unions. The report analyzes the potential risk of holding MBS instruments in lieu of Treasury Bonds. And it provides guidance to the bank on making new loans on property where there is a history of assignments, transfers and other indicia of claims of securitization.

The risks include but are not limited to

MBS Instrument issued by New York common law trust that was never funded, and has no assets or expectation of same.
MBS Instrument was issued by NY common law trust on a tranche that appeared safe but was tied by CDS to the most toxic tranche.
Insurance paid to investment bank instead of investors
Credit default swap proceeds paid to investment banks instead of investors
Guarantees paid to investment banks after they have drained all value through excessive fees charged against the investor and the borrowers on loans.
Tier 2 Yield Spread Premiums of as much as 50% of the investment amount.
Intentional low underwriting standards to produce high nominal interest to justify the Tier 2 yield spread premium.
Funding direct from investor funds while creating notes and mortgages that named other parties than the investors or the “trust.”
Forcing foreclosure as the only option on people who could pay far more than the proceeds of foreclosure.
Turning down modifications or settlements on the basis that the investor rejected it when in fact the investor knew nothing about it. This could result in actions against an investor that is charged with violations of federal law.
Making loans on property with a history of “securitization” and realizing later that the intended mortgage lien was junior to other off record transactions in which previous satisfactions of mortgage or even foreclosure sales could be invalidated.

The problem, as these small financial institutions are just beginning to realize, is that the MBS instruments that were supposedly so safe, are not safe and may not be worth anything at all — especially if the trust that issued them was never funded by the investment bank who did the underwriting and sales of the MBS to relatively unsophisticated community banks and credit unions. In a word, these small institutions were sitting ducks and probably, knowing Wall Street the way I do, were lured into the most toxic of the “bonds.”

Unless these small banks get ahead of the curve they face intervention by the FDIC or other regulatory agencies because some part of their assets and required reserves might vanish. These small institutions, unlike the big ones that caused the problem, don’t have agreements with the Federal government to prop them up regardless of whether the bonds were real or worthless.

Most of the small banks and credit unions are carrying these assets at cost, which is to say 100 cents on the dollar when in fact it is doubtful they are worth even half that amount. The question is whether the bank or credit union is at risk and what they can do about it. There are several claims mechanisms that can employed for the bank that finds itself facing a write-off of catastrophic or damaging proportions.

The plain fact is that nearly everyone in government and law enforcement considers what happens to small banks to be “collateral damage,” unworthy of any effort to assist these institutions even though the government was complicit in the fraud that has resulted in jury verdicts, settlements, fines and sanctions totaling into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

This is a ticking time bomb for many institutions that put their money into higher yielding MBS instruments believing they were about as safe as US Treasury bonds. They were wrong but not because of any fault of anyone at the bank. They were lied to by experts who covered their lies with false promises of ratings, insurance, hedges and guarantees.

Those small institutions who have opted to take the bank public, may face even worse problems with the SEC and shareholders if they don’t report properly on the balance sheet as it is effected by the downgrade of MBS securities. The problem is that most auditing firms are not familiar with the actual facts behind these securities and are likely a this point to disclaim any responsibility for the accounting that produces the financial statements of the bank.

I have seen this play out before. The big investment banks are going to throw the small institutions under the bus and call it unavoidable damage that isn’t their problem. despite the hard-headed insistence on autonomy and devotion to customer service at each bank, considerable thought should be given to banding together into associations that are not controlled by regional banks are are part of the problem and will most likely block any solution. Traditional community bank associations and traditional credit unions might not be the best place to go if you are looking to a real solution.

Community Banks and Credit Unions MUST protect themselves and make claims as fast as possible to stay ahead of the curve. They must be proactive in getting a credible report that will stand up in court, if necessary, and make claims for the balance. Current suits by investors are producing large returns for the lawyers and poor returns to the investors. Our entire team stands ready to assist small institutions achieve parity and restitution.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO SCHEDULE CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN NEIL GARFIELD AND THE BANK OFFICERS (WITH THE BANK’S LAWYER) ON THE LINE, EXECUTIVES FOR SMALL COMMUNITY BANKS AND CREDIT UNIONS SHOULD CALL OUR TALLAHASSEE NUMBER 850-765-1236 or OUR WEST COAST NUMBER AT 520-405-1688.

BLK | Thu, Nov 14

BlackRock with ETF push to smaller banks • The roughly 7K regional and community banks in the U.S. have securities portfolios totaling $1.5T, the majority of which is in MBS, putting them at a particularly high interest rate risk, and on the screens of regulators who would like to see banks diversify their holdings. • “This is going to be a multiple-year trend and dialogue,” says BlackRock’s (BLK) Jared Murphy who is overseeing the iSharesBonds ETFs campaign. • The funds come with an expense ratio of 0.1% and the holdings are designed to limit interest rate risk. BlackRock scored its first big sale in Q3 when a west coast regional invested $100M in one of the funds. • At issue are years of bank habits – when they want to reduce mortgage exposure, they typically turn to Treasurys. For more credit exposure, they habitually turn to municipal bonds. “Community bankers feel like they’re going to be the last in the food chain to know if there are any problems with a corporate issuer,” says a community bank consultant.

Full Story: http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1412712?source=ipadportfolioapp

Filed under: AMGAR, community banks, CORRUPTION, credit unions, currency, evidence, expert witness, Fannie MAe, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, investment banking, Investor, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, Motions, Pleading, securities fraud, Servicer, trustee | Tagged: BANK REGULATION, community banks, credit unions, FDIC, Federal reserve, insurance, MBS, OCC, OTS, reserves at small institutions, risk analysis report, SEC | 112 Comments »

Bailout Treachery Sequel?

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Neil Garfield

BUSINESS DAY | Five Years Later, Poll Finds Disapproval of Bailout

The simple answer is yes, there will be another bailout attempt and it appears likely that the Banks will continue to confuse things enough so that it again happens only “this time” there will be some “stern regulations”. The reason is not some esoteric financial mumbo jumbo, nor does it take brilliant economic insight — and shame on Democrats who “concede” the bailout was necessary. A little realism from my fellow Democrats in joining with Republicans on this pervasive issue might just be the stepping stone to loosening the idiotic gridlock being engineered by Republicans, who are dead right about the last bailout, and dead right about the next one.

The reason the attempt will be made is because the last one worked. The banks got trillions of dollars as compensation for creating the illusion that they had lost the entire economy. It was a lie then, it is a lie now and it will be a lie when they try it again. I agree that magicians as entertainers are worth whatever the market will bear. But I don’t agree that Wall Street bankers are entertainers and I agree with the vast majority of Americans who say the bankers or gangsters. They belong in jail. They won’t go to jail because of agreements made by law enforcement under Political pressure.

The last bailout worked because nobody understood securitization other than the investment bank collateral debt obligation (CDO) managers. If your sole source of information, analysis and interpretation is the perpetrator, it should come as no surprise that they lead you down a path that belongs in fiction, not reality. The result was we turned over the control of our currency to the bankers and we have never retrieved it. We gave them the country and indeed the world because our leaders were ignorant of the true facts and failed to ferret out the real ones, and therefore never had a chance to refute or corroborate the narrative from Wall Street.

Things haven’t changed much. Even the witnesses and lawyers for the banks in Foreclosures don’t understand securitization. When they say this is a Fannie Mae loan, everyone but me thinks that is the end of it. Nobody can answer my questions because they don’t understand them. Fannie is not a lender. If the statement is that “this is a Fannie Mae loan”, the question is how did it get that way? There are only one of two possibilities: (1) it was guaranteed by Fannie and then sold into the secondary market to a REMIC pool where in the master Trustee is Fannie and the individual trustee is the manager of the asset pool or (2) Fannie paid the loan or the loss off and is considered to own the loan even though the documents are absent showing the transfer. Either way you want to see reality — the movement of money to determine who is the lender, and to determine the real balance owed rather than the fabricated story of the subservicer.

So as long as ignorance prevails in government, there will be yet another bailout for losses that never happened on fictional transactions. Regulators will see no choice because they see no facts and have learned nothing from the last round of securitization. The new round is already underway and the stealing, lying, and treachery continues while pensioners’ money is flushed down the toilet for processing at the Wall Street money conversion plant where losses are turned into pure profit.

Filed under: AMGAR, bubble, CORRUPTION, evidence, expert witness, Fannie MAe, foreclosure, GARFIELD GWALTNEY KELLEY AND WHITE, investment banking, Investor, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, Pleading, securities fraud, Servicer | Tagged: bailout, Fannie MAe, Federal reserve, Freddie Mac, U.S. Treasury | 10 Comments »

Reuters: Mortgage Bonds Were “Rotten from the Start.”

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Neil Garfield

We have come a long way in six years. Back in 2007 almost everyone thought that the mortgage bonds were valid instruments issued by a valid entity that owned valid mortgages.

Now we have Reuters news service reporting that “home loans underlying securities were rotten from the start.” Thus we are crossing that line where the critical mass of thinking is changing the assumptions and presumptions about whether the mortgage bonds were real and about whether the mortgage loans were real. It is becoming increasingly apparent that neither the mortgage bonds nor the mortgage loans had any basis in reality.

Paperwork was all fabricated for the purpose of allowing the banks to pretend ownership over the bonds and the underlying loans plus justifying the purchase of insurance and other hedge products and justifying the claim of a loss on investments the banks never made. The government rescued the banks from a loss they never incurred — basically money that should have been refunded to the investors and lowering or negating the balance due on any loans made to homeowners. Currently the banks are selling these nonexistent investments consisting of nonexistent mortgage bonds issued by nonexistent trusts with nonexistent assets based upon nonexistent loans.

The largest buyer of this crap is the Federal Reserve. This would be the same agency that declared that the collapse in the mortgage markets was “contained.” That was in 2007. The question could legitimately be asked whether the government officials were stupid or simply lying. And the same question could be asked now.

So we really have several issues that are now due to go in reverse despite the apparent drumbeat of foreclosures that continue to be rubberstamped by judges who don’t know or don’t care to know the truth about mortgage loans today. The two main issues are ownership of the alleged loan and the actual balance of the unpaid account receivable.

Regulators and officers of law enforcement are just on the cusp of understanding that the money that showed up at the time of the closing with the borrower/homeowner was stolen and that the theft was covered up under layers of paperwork. Alan Greenspan, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time the banks were on a spree of highway robbery, admitted that neither he nor the 100 economists employed by the Federal Reserve understood one word of the so-called securitization instruments. It was his opinion that the “free market” would correct whatever was wrong. He now concedes that he was wrong to conclude that the market was “free” and he was wrong to conclude that any self correction mechanism could or would work.

As the stench rises from the mortgage bonds and the details are revealed as to how the banks handled the money one might be convinced that this awareness will “trickle down” to the homeowners and borrowers. Don’t hold your breath. Most people in the marketplace and most judges have somehow reached the conclusion that they can lift a stick that is burning on one end and still say “the stick is not burning” because they are holding the end that is not burning.

It may be years yet before there is general consensus that the entire mortgage process was rotten from top to bottom. Thus it is an absolute requirement to litigate, admit nothing, and seek discovery from each key point in the illusion that was called the “securitization chain.” On nearly all “self evident” points there is a lack of corroboration, evidence or truth despite all appearances to the contrary that were carefully constructed by the banks. This illusion is what keeps lawyers from feeling comfortable about denying the documents that were apparently signed, about the default on a loan that was apparently made, and consigning themselves and their clients to the inevitability of the foreclosure.

In the end, when the accounting is done in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, it will be understood that millions of people were forced out of homes they owned based upon loans with no balance due — documented by loan documents with no validity possessed by strawmen who were covering for the Wall Street banks as they diverted investor money from mortgages to insurance and from loans to credit default swaps. These strawmen were covering for the Wall Street banks as they diverted the loan documents from the investors to the banks themselves, enabling the banks to sell counterfeit bonds based on counterfeit mortgages securing counterfeit notes referencing counterfeit account receivables — all for 100 cents on the dollar and then another hundred cents on the dollar and then another hundred cents on the dollar.

With Wall Street banks sucking up all the money existence somebody had to lose a lot of money. The answer was of course the investors who were tricked and deceived into buying investments that the investment bank would never buy for its own account, based on loans that the investment bank would never have approved if they were using their own money. In fact, the investment bank would never have approved the loans even if they were not using their own money — but for the fact that they were making 100 cents on the dollar several times over on each loan regardless of whether it was a good loan or a bad loan.

And the investment banks knew for a fact that the fund managers of pension funds and other investors would not and indeed could not invest in high risk securities. So they it look like these were low risk securities exempt from securities regulation when in fact they were running a PONZI scheme that diverted the money from the investment vehicle to the pockets of the bankers.

In the end it is the little guy, the common man, who suffers the consequences. If he owns a house he’s going to lose it even though there is no balance due on the loan he received. If he manages to keep the house he’s going to pay a loan that does not exist to a creditor that never loaned him the money but who received payment on the fictitious loan several times over. It is not just the taxpayers who are getting hit and who are entitled to restitution from the financial services industry. It is everyone who lives and works (or who wants to work) who pays the price. It is a society based upon freedom and fair play that has turned into debt bondage and foul play.

ROTTEN FROM THE START: REUTERS

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-07/bofa-put-toxic-debt-in-bond-as-staff-resisted-u-s-says.html

AG: Lawyer e-mails indicate collusion to control foreclosure billing
http://www.denverpost.com/realestatenews/ci_23833815/ag-lawyer-e-mails-indicate-collusion-control-foreclosure

BANKS NOW OWNERS IN COMMODITIES BUSINESSES JUST LIKE THE OWNERS OF REAL PROPERTY CHANGED

Federal Reserve Board Announces Additional Foreclosure Review Settlement
http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/federal-reserve-board-announces-addition-78136/

You Will Survive! How to Overcome the Emotional Trauma of Foreclosure
http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20130812_traumaofforeclosure.htm

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, evidence, foreclosure, GARFIELD GWALTNEY KELLEY AND WHITE, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, Servicer | Tagged: account receivable, appraisal fraud, auction fraud, bailout, Bank of America, Bloomberg, Chase Bank, commodities, disclosure, Federal reserve, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, Reuters, securitization | 24 Comments »

Will the Findings from the Brief “Foreclosure Review” Process Be Released?

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Neil Garfield

“The truth is that they stopped the review process and “Settled” because the regulators were under a mandate to protect the banks. They were finding far too many wrongful and illegal foreclosures. The investigator testified that the small sampling they used was not random but rather designed to show how few foreclosures were illegal. But even that showed that at least 6500 homeowners had been illegally foreclosed and evicted. The banks and regulators were sitting on a time bomb so they swept it under the rug with “settlements” to cover up the widespread pandemic rush to illegal, wrongful foreclosures where strangers to the transaction took title to property at a foreclosure sale by submitting a “Credit bid” in which they had absolutely no interest or authority.” —- Neil F Garfield Livinglies.me

Not long ago, if someone told you that the government would review the foreclosure process, find that many people were foreclosed illegally and wrongfully — perhaps up to 90% — and then step in to protect the banks with a pennies on the dollar settlement WITHOUT TELLING THE FAMILIES THAT WERE WRONGFULLY FORECLOSED THAT IT HAD BEEN DETERMINED THAT THEY WERE ILLEGALLY AND WRONGFULLY FORECLOSED — you might have said, it can’t be true — things are not that bad.

Besides, you might say, how could the foreclosures have been illegal and wrongful to the point that the banks would agree to pay any settlement, even if it was pennies on the dollar. After all, as Judges are want to say “You took the loan, you didn’t pay, you lose your house.”

But in open session sworn testimony before the Senate Committee on banking and finance, under questioning from Senator Warren (see recent post for the video) that is exactly what the investigator admitted. In fact, it gets worse — they entered into the settlement to get this out of the way fast and sweep it under the rug. And, the investigator admitted that they had not yet notified those whom the agency had already found had definitely been illegally and wrongfully foreclosed and evicted from their homes. Worse, the investigator admitted that no decision had been made when or if those families would be notified.

So here we have the government withholding information of civil and perhaps criminal wrongdoing, not informing the victims that they not only have a cause of action for damages, but that the proof is already in the hands of the regulatory agencies. And perhaps worse, this admission comes AFTER Bernanke assured Senator Warren that the victims would be notified.

So Judges, lawyers, borrowers and investors across the land and indeed across the world are still laboring under the misapprehension that when the dust settles the home will still be foreclosed. Not so.

If the real creditor has not stepped up to enforce the debt there can only be one reason — they have already been paid. And if they have already been paid, then the balance due from the borrower to that creditor is zero. And if someone else paid it, the most they COULD have is an action in contribution or unjust enrichment against the borrower; but they don’t have that right because they expressly waived it. Nonetheless, the Federal reserve is “buying” these mortgage bonds, supposedly backed by mortgage loans that we have now seen were paid or unenforceable at the rate of $85 Billion per month.

The presumption ought to be, based upon the filings of the regulatory agencies, the settlements and the sworn testimony before Congress, that the foreclosure is suspect and Judges should stop ramming these wrongful foreclosures down the throat of lawyers whose objections and arguments are dismissed without a thought. We don’t have to wait for the evidence before we decide. The time to decide is now because the evidence IS in.

And even if you can’t get the information from the regulatory agencies who claim the results to be confidential even though they admit what is in them, aggressive lawsuits against the pretender lenders should lead to huge awards to borrowers and their attorneys. What are you waiting for? Stop wasting time by delaying the cases so that the client gets another month of free rent and start being the aggressor in discovery, pleading and litigating.

Watch Elizabeth Warren Grill Regulators Over Illegal Foreclosures

A Brief Refresher on Glass Stegal From Barry Ritholtz

http://www.housingwire.com/fastnews/2013/07/18/bernanke-regulators-will-release-some-details-foreclosure-reviews

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: bank regulators, bank settlements, Barry Ritholtz, Bernanke, damages for wrongful foreclosure, Elizabeth Warren, Federal reserve, Glass-Steagall, illegal foreclosure, wrongful foreclosure | 86 Comments »

The Notice Letters and Legal Strategies

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Neil Garfield

Now that I am actively practicing law I see the reasons for the anger and recriminations regarding the conduct of proceedings involving foreclosure. But whether the judge likes it or not the law is very clear regarding a condition precedent to the filing of foreclosure action. The borrower must receive notice. The notice must state that the borrower is in default and must also state the conditions for reinstatement to cure the default. The law is very clear that failure to give proper notice is reason enough to deny the foreclosure. It doesn’t stop the bank from coming back later after giving proper notice, but it does stop the current foreclosure proceeding.

Generally speaking you’ll find the required language in the mortgage in paragraph 22. There are other paragraphs that speak to default have the right to reinstatement — usually in the preceding paragraphs to the paragraph 22.

Notwithstanding the law, I am finding that there are many judges who consider it to be their political mandate to push the foreclosures through to sale. They may be right as to the political mandate but they are wrong to use it in a court of law. Failure to give proper notice or any other material fact that might be in issue is sufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment as long as it is clearly in the record at the time the order on summary judgment is entered. In Florida at least I detect an attitude from the bench which disregards the facts of the case in favor of entering judgment for the banks.

Having the facts and law on your side does not mean that you will be able to stop the foreclosure. This does not stop judges from blaming borrowers for delays in the proceedings despite the fact that it is the obligation of the foreclosing party to prosecute the action. And yesterday I saw a judge enter an order granting summary judgment despite the fact that there were dozens of facts in dispute. His reason appeared to be that the case had been hanging around for four or five years — during which time the homeowner could have filed a motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute the action at least twice.

Of course homeowners do not know the Rules of Civil Procedure which is why I have stated so strongly and so often why they should retain counsel if they really want to keep their home.

In the course of my research on a related topic I uncovered the information shown below. It is obvious that under federal and Florida law the notice must contain information concerning the right to reinstate the loan and a demand for a specific amount of money required for reinstatement. Some banks have chosen to ignore the right to reinstatement because of their enthusiasm for obtaining a foreclosure judgment. And there are judges that will ignore the issue of notice and enter judgment for the bank. But on appeal there seems to be little doubt that the judges order will be reversed, the sale will be reversed, and the foreclosure action will be dismissed (without prejudice to refile).

Most judges appeared to approach a foreclosure case as a fairly simple matter that is very annoying to them. Instead of asking the attorney for the bank to present his/her case there are several judges who are announcing that everything seems to be in order and so judgment will be entered. While this is wrong I would caution the reader not to draw the further conclusion that the judge is corrupt or has an agenda designed to hurt homeowners. In the eyes of the judge, based upon actual experience for several years, most defenses that have been presented to judges have been for the purposes of delay. In part this was allowed and even encouraged by the banks who were unready to fully prosecute the foreclosure action because of the potential liability for taxes, insurance and maintenance.

In my firm we generally refer clients who are simply looking for delays to other attorneys whose down payment and monthly payment is far less than what we charge. After years of writing about it I have reentered the practice of law and I am attempting to set a standard of vigorous and aggressive prosecution of the case against the bank. This of course is only possible if the bank has done something wrong. But you are not going to know that without someone going through the entire process starting with the application for mortgage and going through the present time. It also requires discovery in the form of interrogatories, requests for admission, requests to produce, and subpoenas issued to appropriate witnesses requiring them to bring documents with them.

In my opinion the more lawyers that aggressively pursue the case, the more judges will start questioning why the bank is backpedaling. Once you get a judge thinking that you are the aggressor, you have succeeded in taking control of the narrative. Once you have taken control of the narrative you can raise questions in the judge’s mind as to whether or not there might actually be something wrong with this particular foreclosure action.

I don’t deny that there is a value to any homeowner in getting free rent or no mortgage payment and that an attorney might be useful in maximizing the length of time in which the homeowner is not required to pay anything. It might be the only way that the homeowner can recover part of his or her investment. But delay tactics seem to dominate the litigation landscape. So it should come as no surprise that any judge would approach a foreclosure case with the assumption that the debt is valid and that the documents are in order; the only question left is when will the sale take place.

My mission, as I conceive it, is to make some changes in the litigation landscape. Specifically, I think that with proper pleading and discovery, it may be revealed that the party seeking the foreclosure lacks any ownership interest in the loan and lacks any authority to represent anyone with an ownership interest in the loan. I also think that the amount demanded for reinstatement or redemption is also misstated in that the borrower is not getting the benefit of offset from third-party payments that should be credited to the account in which the loan receivable is held. In short, I still believe what I said six years ago, to wit: as crazy as it might seem, the loan was prepaid at the time of origination and then repaid several times over after which it was then sold to the Federal Reserve probably multiple times and sold two government-sponsored entities multiple times. If the loan is paid (several times over, no less) then there can be action to collect on it, least of all foreclosure.

While the presumption is on preventing a homeowner from getting a free ride, courts have been giving the financial industry the equivalent of corporate welfare with each foreclosure sale. And in doing so they have actually stripped the true creditor from any collateralized claim and further stripped the true creditor from making any claim at all. The beneficiaries of this idiotic system are obviously the banks. The victims include everyone else including the investors, insurers, taxpayers, borrowers, and the Federal Reserve. Of course in the case of the Federal Reserve, it knows that it is a victim and that it is buying completely worthless paper from the banks who have previously sold the same paper to others. That doesn’t seem to matter to the federal reserve and so far it doesn’t seem to matter to any of the judges sitting on the bench.

http://www.credit.com/credit_information/credit_law/Understanding-Your-Foreclosure-Rights.jsp

http://floridaforeclosurefraud.com/2010/03/notice-of-default-prior-to-acceleration-whats-in-your-mortgage/

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2011/06/09/fl-2dca-reverses-sj-acceleration-letter-failed-to-state-the-default-as-required-by-the-mortgage-terms-konsulian-v-busey-bank-na/

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, foreclosure, GARFIELD GWALTNEY KELLEY AND WHITE, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, Servicer | Tagged: delay tactics, Federal reserve, Florida LAw, motion for summary judgment, my mission, Notice of Default, notice of right to reinstatement, rules of civil procedure | 52 Comments »

Lies of the Banks Coming Back to Haunt Them

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Neil Garfield

Now that Federal Reserve is nearly done buying the worthless mortgage bonds, the banks have shown that they are in fact making money hand over fist and the government is feeling less fearful about toppling the financial system with financial regulation.

Based upon my interview with a highly placed well-informed source who prefers to remain anonymous, it appears as though the playing field and the goal posts have been moved.

The starting point is the sale of worthless mortgage bonds to investors under false pretenses. It isn’t just that the underwriting standards that were to be applied to the mortgages were not followed; the problem is really that the money from the investors was never deposited into an account that was legally or even apparently owned by the investors or the asset pool shares that they thought they were buying.

The banks were claiming the investment shares (mortgage-backed securities) to be their own despite the clear money trail and paper trail showing that at no time were the investors informed that they were lending their money or their right to the mortgage loans to the banks and their co-venturers.

Then the banks claimed losses on those investment shares and collected from insurance, credit default swaps, other hedge products, and the taxpayers.

Then the banks claimed insolvency that threatened the entire financial system despite having received money from investors, part of which was never invested in anything related to mortgages or mortgage bonds. The threat of insolvency and the threat to the entire financial system was taken seriously by people in government that should have known better and perhaps did know better.

Then it was decided that the Federal Reserve would cure the insolvency issue by purchasing the worthless mortgage bonds at full value. They purchased it from the banks who at no time actually owned close bonds nor did the banks own any of the loans that supposedly “backed” the mortgage-backed bonds.

Then it was revealed that the banks were making a lot of money while the rest of the economy went into a nosedive. Any economist who is questioned on this subject will respond that it is very unlikely for intermediaries who act as conduits for transactions to make money when economic activity is on the decline.

If they are reporting profits it is from fictitious transactions. In this case fictitious transactions are “trading profits.” In reality the banks are feeding part of their ill-gotten gains back into the bank, and claiming it as profits. When the chips were down and the banks had to show that they were strong enough to exist at their mega size, they came up with the capital without any problem.

Now that they came up with the capital and the profits, they have demonstrated that the extra restrictions that regulators want to put on the banks will neither damage the bank’s profitability nor threaten the financial system.

But the Banks know that their ability to come up with money all stems from the fact that they lied to everyone and stole trillions of dollars and that it did not come from ordinary banking activities. SO they are currently in a bed they made for themselves: they don’t want the restrictions to be too restrictive because it might have a negative effect on their legal earnings, but they have proven the opposite with their illegal earnings — which is precisely what the regulators were waiting for.

Hence the banks are stuck with whatever regulations are put on banks — especially those who claim ownership over transactions in which they acted only as intermediaries — or they must say that the regulations would be harmful because the truth is they didn’t really make the money that they reported as net income.

This doesn’t come as news to the Federal Reserve who knows that it is purchasing worthless bonds. But the Federal Reserve cannot say that the bonds are worthless because it would then be seen as quantitative easing which is inflationary. The whole reason the money supply was expanded so much without inflation going wild is that the Federal Reserve was merely “buying bonds” and not just giving out money. But the bonds were completely worthless. So the truth is that the Federal Reserve was and still is giving out money in quantitative easing.

This chain of events served to undercut the middle class portion of the economy completely, denuding them of jobs, houses and even prospects, creating blighted neighborhoods, declining tax revenues for municipalities and thus bankruptcies like the City of Detroit. If the law was applied as it is applied to everyone except the big banks, then they would be charged with mortgage fraud, securities fraud (because the exemption does not apply if you don’t follow the rules of issuance of a mortgage bond) and compensatory damages would be due to the following people with percentages of the total money advanced for each $1 of mortgage:

Investors: 125%
Insurers: 85%
Credit default swaps: 400%
Miscellaneous hedge products: 25%
Borrowers: 15% (100% of the payments and down payment)
Taxpayers: 5%
Federal reserve: 100%

Thus the situation was likened by my source to an old joke about lawyers, the punch line of which is that the dog screws everyone in the room and runs away with the steak.But the real problem is that by participating in this deceptive scheme, the Federal Reserve, put the burden of the loss on homeowners whose mortgages were paid in whole or in part by the financial sector including the Federal Reserve.

It isn’t just that the ownership of the loan has become completely convoluted; the real issue is money, to wit: the credit transaction with borrower has been long since extinguished by these devices used by the banks and the Federal Reserve, and vehicles like the Maiden Lane entities.

The amount of money owed on those mortgages is in reality far less than the the amount demanded by the banks — which means that modification is possible for nearly every loan, whether delinquent or not, because the principal has already been reduced by payment. THIS IS WHY I SAY FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL BEFORE YOU FOLLOW THE PAPER TRAIL. THE PAPER TRAIL IS ONLY RELEVANT IF IT MATCHES THE MONEY TRAIL. OTHERWISE IT IS IRRELEVANT.

In the marketplace where loans are being refinanced and where mortgages are being foreclosed, these facts are carefully kept out of the mainstream conversation. But more and more judges are starting to ask questions because the behavior of the banks is just not consistent with a creditor who wants their money.

They seem to want the foreclosure judgment or sale but they are not so interested in the property. AND THAT is because the foreclosure puts the seal of approval from the state on a bunch of lies that were proffered to the courts and to the recording offices. It is the foreclosure judgment and sale that starts the clock ticking on wrongful foreclosures. Once time has run out on those actions, the banks are home free and the Federal Reserve, the unwitting or witting accomplice goes on their merry way while more than ten million families lose their homes, jobs and prospects.

If the Courts start finding that the mortgages are invalid, that their enforcement is defective or impossible, and that the debt is in doubt because there is no proof of the account receivable and the loss must belong to SOMEBODY, the current plan collapses. As I stated in 2007 based upon my own direct knowledge and the knowledge of industry sources who were active in the bundling, selling and trading activity associated with mortgage loans, the entire crisis would have been averted if the banks were held to account because the accounts due from the borrowers had been reduced without their knowing it just as the account due to the investors had been reduced without them knowing it.

This brings us back to what seems like a quaint solution now. I said we should forget blame and just let bring everyone to the table and share the losses and risks. People get to stay in their homes, the investors get a return on their investment, the banks earn fees, and companies like AIG won’t be in danger of toppling. But then, the catastrophic shift in wealth inequality would also never have happened. And the super rich would have been revealed, if they were bankers, as common thieves with keys to the vault.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/big-banks-flooded-in-profits-fear-flurry-of-new-safeguards/?src=dlbksb

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage | Tagged: account receivable, borrowers, credit default swaps, Federal reserve, foreclosure sale, investors, mortgage bond insurance, mortgage bonds | 48 Comments »

BOA Seeks to Seal Damaging Testimony from Urban Lending

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Neil Garfield

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

WHY ARE THE BANKS FIGHTING TO GET AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE FROM EACH “FAILED” LOAN?

A drama is playing out in the state of Massachusetts. Bank of America is pretending to be the lender or the authorized servicer or both. But it outsourced the task of dealing with borrowers seeking modification. The company that was used is Urban Lending Solutions (ULS). A deposition was taken from a knowledgeable source from within ULS. The attorney taking the deposition was merely looking for evidence of a script prepared by Bank of America that ULS employees were to follow. Not only was the script uncovered but considerable other evidence suggested institutional policies at Bank of America that were in direct conflict with the requirements of law, and in direct violation of the settlements with the Department of Justice and the banking regulators.

The transcript of the deposition was sealed at the request of Bank of America, which the borrower did not interpose any objection. Now there are a lot of people who want to see that deposition and who want to take the deposition of the same witness and other witnesses at ULS who might reveal the real intent of Bank of America. The question which is sought to be answered is why the mega banks are fighting so hard to take less money in a foreclosure sale then they would get in a modification or even a short sale. The policy is obvious. Borrowers are lured into a hole that gets deeper and deeper so that foreclosure seems inevitable and indefensible. Even after a successful trial modification the banks are turning down the permanent modification, as though they had the power to do so.

Now a number of attorneys are preparing motions to the trial court in Massachusetts to unseal the transcript of the ULS employee. Bank of America is opposing these efforts on the grounds of “confidentiality” which from my perspective makes absolutely no sense. Why would Bank of America share confidential information or trade secrets with a vendor whose only purpose was to interfere with the modification process? My opinion is that the only information that Bank of America wishes to keep secret is that the instructions they gave to ULS clearly show that Bank of America was not interested in anything other than achieving a foreclosure sale in as many cases as possible.

In nearly all cases the modification of the loan more than doubles the prospect of proceeds from the loan and in some cases approaches 100%. Thus the full-court press from the megabanks to go to foreclosure is a mystery that will be solved. My sources from inside the industry together with my own analysis indicates that the reason is very simple. The banks took in money from investors, insurers, counterparties in credit default swaps, the Federal Reserve, the Department of the Treasury and other parties based on the representation of the banks that (A) the banks owned the mortgage bonds and therefore on the loans and (B) there was a loss resulting from widespread defaults on mortgages. Under the terms of the various contracts within the false chain of securitization and the Master servicer had sole discretion as to whether or not the value of the mortgage bonds and the asset pools had declined and had sole discretion as to the amount of the loss caused by the defaults. Both representations were false — the Banks did not own the bonds or the loans and the loss was not even close to what was represented to insurers and other third parties.

As a general rule of thumb, the banks computed value of the collateral at around 25% and therefore received payment to compensate the banks for a 75% loss. They received the payment several times over and then sold the mortgage bonds to the Federal Reserve for 100% of the face value of the bonds. It can be fairly estimated that they received no less than 250% of the principal amount due on each of the loans contained within the asset pool that had issued each mortgage bond. While they had to create the appearance of objectivity by showing a number of the loans as performing, they intentionally overestimated the number of loans that were in default or were in the process of going into default.

Let us not forget that while nobody was looking the Federal Reserve has been “purchasing” the worthless mortgage bonds at the rate of $85 billion per month for a long time and doesn’t appear to have any intention of stopping that flow of money to banks that have already received more than 100% of the principal due on the notes. And lest you be confused, the money the banks received should have gone to the investors and should never have been kept by the banks. The purchases by the Federal Reserve at 100% of face value despite a market value of zero is merely a way for the Federal Reserve to keep the mega banks floating on an illusion.

Since the banks received 250% of the principal amount due on the loan, an actual recovery from the borrower of 100% (for example) on the loan would leave the banks with a liability to all of the third parties that paid the banks. The refund liability would obviously be 150% of the principal amount due on the loan and the banks would be required to turn over the hundred percent recovery from the borrower to the investors adding to their liability. THIS IS WHY I SAY CALL THEIR BLUFF AND OFFER THEM ALL THE MONEY DEMANDED ON CONDITION THAT THEY PROVE OWNERSHIP AND PROVE THE LOSS IS ACTUALLY THE LOSS OF THE BANK AND NOT OF THE INVESTORS.

But if the case goes through a foreclosure sale, the banks can take a comfortable position that the number of defaults and the depth of the loss was as great as they represented when they took payment from insurers and other third parties. The liability of 250% is completely eliminated. Thus while it might appear to be in the bank’s interest to take a 60% recovery from the borrower instead of a 25% recovery from a foreclosure sale, the liability that would be created each time alone was modified or settled would dwarf the apparent savings to the pretender lender or actual creditor.

The net result is that on a $100,000 loan, the investor takes an extra $35,000 loss over and above what would normally apply in a workout and the bank avoids $250,000 in liabilities to third parties who paid based upon false representations of losses.

The mere fact that they went to great lengths to seal the transcript indicates how vulnerable they feel.

PRACTICE MEMO TO FORECLOSURE DEFENSE LAWYERS

As a condition precedent I would suggest that in all cases where we feel the deposition transcript would be helpful I think it would create more credibility if you issued a subpoena duces tecum directed at Urban to produce the witness whose deposition was sealed in the existing case and to bring those records that were requested or demanded at that deposition. One of the questions that needs to be answered is whether the witness witness is still working for Urban, whether the witness has “disappeared”, and whether his testimony has changed — thus we would need the other deposition to test credibility and perhaps get exhibits that BANA either didn’t object to, which means they waived confidentiality. If they do not move to quash the subpoena then they might also be arguably waiving the confidentiality objection.

If they do object, you have two bites of the apple — if they move to quash they must state the grounds other than than it will damage their chances in litigation. The trial court would then hear the objections and of course each if the cases that could benefit from unsealing the deposition results in a hearing, then several judges would hear the same objection. The likelihood is that the objection would attempt to bootstrap the order sealing the deposition as reason enough to quash the subpoena. That in turn puts pressure on the Massachusetts judge to release the transcript.

The more Motions filed the better. So I would suggest that we reach out through media to get as many people as possible with separate motions saying that sealing the deposition is causing a disruption in due process. Since Urban reached out on behalf of BANA — an allegation that should be made in opposition test the motion to quash the subpoena in each case — exactly what confidential information needs to be protected? Has the Massachusetts court heard a motion in liming preventing the use of the deposition at trial? If not, then the objection is waived since the Plaintiff will clearly use the deposition at trial, if there is one.

The other issue is that BOA can’t simply allege confidentiality rather than strategy in litigation. They must state with particularity what could be possibly confidential. There is no attorney-client privilege, there is no attorney work product privilege. At first Bank of America disclaimed any knowledge or relationship with ULS. When it became obvious that the relationship existed and that ULS was using Bank of America letterhead to communicate with borrowers they finally admitted that the relationship existed and then went one step further by alleging confidentiality and trade secrets so that the contract and instructions between Bank of America and ULS would never see the light of day., For a company that BOA disclaimed any knowledge but who used BOA stationery they were clearly an agent of BANA. What exactly could Urban have other than information about modification and foreclosure? I would also notice or subpoena BANA to produce the person who signed the contract with Urban and to bring the contract with him or her. Who received instructions from BOA? Where are those instructions? Were they produced at the sealed deposition.

If the Massachusetts court does not unseal the transcript, doesn’t this give BOA an opportunity for a do-over where they fabricate documents that are different from those produced in the sealed deposition?

What were the instructions to Urban? What was the goal of the relationship between BOA and URban? Where are the scripts now that we’re produced in the sealed deposition?

Were the instructions to Urban the same as the instructions to all vendors assisting in the foreclosure process? Why did BOA even need Urban if it had proof of payment, proof of loss, proof of ownership of the loan? We want to know what scripts were used by Urban and whether the same scripts were distributed to other vendors whose behavior could be plausibly denied. Discovery is a process by which the party seeking it must only show that it might lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. THE POINT MUST BE MADE THAT THE DEFENSE FOR WHICH WE ARE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT AND CORROBORATION IS THAT THE DELIBERATE POLICY AND PRACTICE OF BOA WAS TO MOVE PEOPLE INTO DEFAULT BY TELLING THEM TO STOP MAKING PAYMENTS. WE WANT TO SHOW THAT THEIR GOAL WAS FORECLOSURE NOT MODIFICATION CONTRARY TO THE REQUIREMENTS UNDER HAMP AND HARP AND THAT RATHER THAN PROCESS MODIFICATION OR SETTLEMENTS THE POLICY WAS TO DERAIL AS MANY AS POSSIBLE TO GET THE FORECLOSURE EVEN IF IT MEANT THAT THE INVESTORS WOULD GET LESS MONEY? Why?

The instruction was to use the promise or carrot of modification to trick the homeowner into (a) acknowledging BOA as the right party (b) stop making payments causing an apparent default and causing an escrow shortage (c) thus assuring the foreclosure sale despite the fact that BOA never acquired and (d) thus assuring that claims against them from investors (see dozens of law suits against BOA) and from insurers and counter parties on credit default swaps and payments from co-obligors based on the “default” that BOA fabricated — payments that involved more than the loan itself in multiples of the supposed loan balance.

This is an important battle. Let’s win it. There is strength in numbers. We might find the scripts were prepared by someone who used scripts from other banks and that the banks were in agreement that despite the obligations under HAMP and HARP and despite their ,rinses in the AG and OCC settlement, their goal is to foreclose at all costs because if the general pattern of conduct is to settle these loans and make them “performing” loans again it is highly probable that for each dollar of principal that gets taken of the table there is a liability or claim for $10. This would establish that the requirements of HAMP and HARP has resulted in negotiating with the fox while the fox is in the henhouse getting fat.

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GARFIELD GWALTNEY KELLEY AND WHITE, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage | Tagged: Bank of America, credit default swaps, Department of the Treasury, Federal reserve, HAMP, HARP, insurance, Master Servicer, of deposition, sub servicer, TARP, taxpayers, transcript, Urban Lending Solutions | 690 Comments »

Wells Fargo and Chase Quietly Prepare to Take Over BOA and Citi as They Collapse

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Neil Garfield

Major banks [WELLS AND CITI] have reportedly made proposals to the Fed on how to pay for the restructuring of large financial institutions that collapse, with the idea being to avoid the chaos that followed Lehman’s bankruptcy. Among the suggestions, the largest financial-services holding companies would maintain combined debt and equity equal to 14% of their risk-weighted assets, which would be used to support any failed bank unit seized by regulators. Full Story: http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1100632?source=ipadportfolioapp

Editor’s Analysis: This is why I keep insisting on following the money trail rather than the paper trail. The paper trail is full of lies. The money trail cannot be faked. Or to put it more succinctly anyone who tries to fake the money trail will probably end up in jail. Checks, wire transfers, ACH transfers leave footprints throughout the electronic funds transfer infrastructure. In the paper trail there are documents that describe transactions as if they had occurred. It is the money trail that will tell you whether or not any transaction in fact did occur and if so, when and under what terms.

PRACTICE HINT: the money trail (Canceled checks, wire transfer receipts) is the main point. The paper trail should only be used to corroborate your allegations concerning the reality of the transactions after you have shown that the money trail reveals an entirely different story — or that the banks are stonewalling access to the money trail because it will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that everything they have said in the creation of the mortgage, transfers of the mortgage, defaults and the mortgage, foreclosures, auction sales, credit bids and attempts for modification is a complete lie.

Bank of America has approximately $300 billion on its balance sheet which are composed mainly of mortgage bonds (unsupported by any transaction in which money exchanged hands or any other consideration; and not backed by any loans which never made it into the asset pools that issued the mortgage bonds). It is one thing when people like me saying that the bonds are worthless and that Bank of America is broke. It is quite another when investors and traders arrive at the same conclusion. Recent trading activity indicates that a number of investors and traders are betting that Bank of America will collapse. They have arrived at the conclusion that the mortgage bonds are either worthless or not worth anything near what is reported by Bank of America. As rates go up the treasury bonds bought by Bank of America in exchange for free money at the Federal Reserve window, will drop like stones. This will leave Bank of America with insufficient capital to operate at its current levels.

What is interesting is that two banks submitted a proposal for resolution of a bank that had been too big to fail. The two banks that submitted the proposal were Wells Fargo and Chase. Notably absent was Bank of America and Citibank. I take that to mean that the government and the financial community are expecting Bank of America and possibly Citibank to collapse and that it might be very soon. The timing of the Wells Fargo and Chase proposal might well be their assessment that the time is near and that if their proposal is the only one on the table it will be the one that is used by the government.

FALLING BOND PRICES AND RISING YIELDS ARE THREATENING THE RECOVERY IN THE BALANCE SHEETS OF GLOBAL BANKS: Falling bond prices and rising yields are threatening the recovery in the balance sheets of global banks, which have built up huge portfolios of liquid securities to comply with regulatory requirements and due to a lack of better investments. For example, 90% of Bank of America’s (BAC) $315B portfolio comprises mortgage bonds and Treasurys. Some analysts, though, believe that QE tapering should increase interest margins and offset the one-time hit to book values because of rising bond yields. Full Story: http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1105882?source=ipadportfolioapp

THE FUTILITY OF OF BANKS FIGHTING REPRESENTATION AND WARRANTIES LAWSUITS OVER MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES: Flagstar Bancorp’s (FBC +2.7%) weekend settlement with Assured Guaranty (AGO -3.3%) for $105M (vs. the $106.5M court verdict) shows the futility of banks fighting representation and warranties lawsuits over MBS, writes Mark Palmer. Next up is BofA (BAC) which has already settled with Assured and MBIA (MBI), but is still tussling with Ambac (AMBC). Credit Suisse (CS) and JPMorgan (JPM) have also been reluctant to settle with the monolines. Flagstar is sharply higher in a bright red market as the settlement removes a big overhang on the stock. Full Story: http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1101932?source=ipadportfolioapp

[Editor: If the loans were real and the bonds were real, why would this be necessary?) BOA Caught Gesturing to Witness Coaching Answers: Bank of America’s (BAC) Article 77 hearing is on hiatus until July 8 to allow the presiding judge time on other cases. Day 8 of the hearing was an uneventful one, reports Mark Palmer, notable mostly for the judge admonishing an attorney representing the supporters to quit coaching (through gestures) a witness on the stand. Full Story: http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1087682?source=ipadportfolioapp

One way to profit from the false values of loans and the false representations of ownership is to buy them up as though they were real. The buyers have real bargaining power with the mere threat of revealing the bonds to be worthless and the ownership unknown. [I propose to put together a fund that offers the payment if ownership can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt]: Deutsche Bank (DB) is leading a wave of big banks ramping up exposure to single-family housing by extending credit to Wall Street firms so they can buy up homes to turn them into rentals. The bank reportedly just lent another $1.5B to Blackstone (BX) after an earlier $2.1B line got used up. Wayne Hughes’ American Homes 4 Rent has as much as a $1B line from Wells Fargo (WFC), and SilverBay Realty (SBY) just inked a $200M facility from Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan (JPM) Full Story: http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1087962?source=ipadportfolioapp

Traders betting big on BOA collapse: The purchase of 50K January $11 puts on Bank of America (BAC) yesterday was indeed a the initiation of a position, writes Steven Sears, noting this morning’s open interest shows a 50K rise to 116,958 contracts. Rather than an outright bearish position, the purchase could just as easily be a BofA long hedging his/her bet (though the recent uptick in volatility has made this a more expensive move).
Full Story: http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1111972?source=ipadportfolioapp

JPMorgan Looks Like A Winner to Traders — probably because the U.S. government will look to Chase and Wells Fargo when BOA and Citi collapse: Full Story: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1526362?source=ipadportfolioapp

BOND MARKET LIQUIDATION: Bond Funds Hit With Biggest Outflows Ever This Week
http://www.businessinsider.com/weekly-epfr-fund-flows-data-june-26-2013-6

[Editor: When mortgage rates rise the price of older bonds with lower interest falls. Most people agree rate increases are inevitable which means that the value of Treasuries and other bonds offering tiny returns are going to fall like stones. The ripple effect is going to be on going for years] Mortgage rates jump to highest in 2 years [Some novices are trying to make the case that if rates double bond prices will fall by half. That is not true and never has been true. Despite the value of the bond on the market the face value remains the same so the GAIN between the purchase price and the Face Amount (Principal) of the Bond must be factored in by using the present value of the that gain over the remaining term of the loan]
http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/blog/morning_call/2013/06/mortgage-rates-jump-highest-in-2-years.html

[Editor: This is a disaster waiting to happen for the banks. When those modifications are done they will face trillions in liability for insurance and credit default swap proceeds and probably claims from the Federal Reserve because the true value of the bonds will be marked down to market contrary to the representations of the banks when they sell the bonds to the FED] Regulations are now in effect that will prohibit Mass. foreclosures if loan modifications cost less
http://www.boston.com/businessupdates/2013/06/26/regulations-are-now-effect-that-will-prohibit-mass-foreclosures-loan-modifications-cost-less/4W2NEXiN7w9xvNruGBxpXL/story.html

Foreclosure documentation issues trap investors, creating litigation risk
http://www.housingwire.com/fastnews/2013/06/21/foreclosure-documentation-issues-trap-investors-creating-litigation-risk

Must See Video: Arizona Homeowners Losing their Homes to Foreclosure Through Forged Documents
http://4closurefraud.org/2013/06/21/must-see-video-arizona-homeowners-losing-their-homes-to-foreclosure-through-forged-documents/

Lawsuit: Bank of America Gave Employees Gift Cards for Hitting Foreclosure Quotas
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/24/Lawsuit-Bank-of-America-Gave-Employees-Gift-Cards-For-Foreclosures

[Editor: This is BOA putting distance between itself and policies and procedures that produce an illegal result] Bank of America Said to Send Property Reviews to India
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-27/bank-of-america-said-to-send-property-reviews-to-india.html

[Editor: I doubt if this tactic applies to most people] Illinois Attorney Saves Homes from Foreclosure Using Reverse Mortgages
http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/2013/06/illinois-attorney-saves-homes-from-foreclosure-using-reverse-mortgages/

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, foreclosure, GARFIELD GWALTNEY KELLEY AND WHITE, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: Bank of America, bond funds, buyer beware of foreclosure property, Citicorp, currency, falling bond prices, Federal reserve, forged documentation, global banks, J.P. Morgan Chase, liability to insurers, modifications of loans, mortgage bonds, rising yields, treasuries, Wells Fargo | 199 Comments »

Federal Reserve Continues Welfare Payments to Banks

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Neil Garfield

If the bond buying program had been directed at direct assistance to investors and homeowners, the crisis would already be over and GDP would be rising by at least 3.5%, unemployment at 5% or less, and the deficit would be eliminated on an annual basis and vastly reduced long term. Debt would cease to be a problem which means that Banks would lose their position of complete dominance.

As Iceland shows all day and all month and all year, even the banks would be prospering and litigation would be virtually eliminated with respect to the validity and enforcement of mortgages and assignments. The cleanup would become the cure. The corruption of title is not problem in several countries because the county recorders wouldn’t accept the garbage that the banks were filing here. We have toxic title and the illusion of a healthy economy. Others do not have toxic title and are dealing with reality, warts and all.

Fed Announces Continued Bond Purchases, Mortgage Rates Fall
http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20130626_bondpurchases.htm

It’s Official: Bank of America Has the Worst Reputation in the Banking Industry
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/06/25/its-official-bank-of-america-has-the-worst-reputat.aspx

17 Signs That Most Americans Will Be Wiped Out By The Coming Economic Collapse
http://www.zerohedge.com/node/475692

Meet the Nation’s Toughest New Foreclosure Protection Law
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/06/meet-nations-toughest-new-foreclosure-protection-law/5952/

BUYING A HOUSE, BUYER BEWARE! Foreclosure documentation issues trap investors, creating litigation risk
http://www.housingwire.com/fastnews/2013/06/21/foreclosure-documentation-issues-trap-investors-creating-litigation-risk

Bank Of America Allegedly Gave Cash Bonuses To Workers Pushing Homeowners Into Foreclosure
http://www.businessinsider.com/bofa-sued-over-foreclosure-practices-2013-6

WHY WOULD A BANK BE SO ANXIOUS TO FORECLOSE IF IT WAS GOING TO ABANDON THE PROPERTY? Nearly 3 in 10 Oregon homes in foreclosure vacant
http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2013/06/28_of_oregon_homes_in_foreclos.html

Foreclosures Are Still a Concern
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324520904578553660440428142.html

Florida puts a limit on deficiency Judgments but what happens when the real creditor shows up? Banks Go after Homeowners Years after Foreclosure
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/banks-go-after-homeowners-years-after-foreclosure-130623?news=850369

Conflict for the big accounting firms? They did the audits and certified the balance sheets of both the investment banking companies and the ratings companies. A bad report card would put them at risk: Another Conflicted Foreclosure Review: PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ally/ResCap
http://www.forbes.com/sites/francinemckenna/2013/06/25/another-conflicted-foreclosure-review-pricewaterhousecoopers-and-allyrescap/

Regulatory Looting, Promontory-Style: Botched Foreclosure Reviews Alone Generate More than Double Goldman’s Revenues per Employee
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/06/regulatory-looting-promontory-style-botched-foreclosure-reviews-alone-generate-more-than-double-goldmans-revenues-per-employees.html

Promontory Financial Group Paid More Than $900 Million for Independent Foreclosure Review
http://4closurefraud.org/2013/06/24/promontory-financial-group-paid-more-than-900-million-for-independent-foreclosure-review/

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: abandonment by the bank, Bank of America, buyer beware, deficiency judgments, economic collapse, Federal reserve, Federal Reserve bond buying program, foreclosure, Goldman Sachs, ICELAND, promontory financial group, welfare for the banks | 132 Comments »

Monday Livinglies Magazine: Crime and Punishment

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Neil Garfield

Steal this Massachusetts Town’s Toughest New Foreclosure Prevention Ideas
http://www.keystonepolitics.com/2013/06/steal-this-massachusetts-towns-toughest-new-foreclosure-prevention-ideas/

Florida leads nation in vacated foreclosures — and it’s not even close http://www.thefloridacurrent.com/article.cfm?id=33330748

Editor’s Note: it is only common sense. There are several things that are known with complete certainty in connection with the mortgage mess.

We know that the banks found it necessary to forge, fabricate and alter legal documents illegally in order to create the illusion that foreclosure was proper.

We know that the banks manipulated the published rates on which adjustable mortgages changed their payments.

We know that the banks typically abandon any property that the bank has deemed to be undesirable (then why did they foreclose, when they had a perfectly good homeowner who was willing to pay something including the maintenance and insurance of the house?).

And we can conclude that it is far more important to the banks that they be able to foreclose and have the deed issued then to actually take possession of the property for sale or rental.

And so we know that the mortgage and foreclosure markets have been turned on their heads. Lynn, Massachusetts has adopted a series of regulations which appeared to be constitutional and which make it very difficult for the banks to turn neighborhoods that were thriving into blight. The actions of this city and others who are taking similar actions will continue to reveal the true nature of the mortgage encumbrances (the lanes were never perfected because the loan was never made by the party that is claiming to be secured) and the true nature of foreclosures (the cover-up to a Ponzi scheme and an illegal securities scam that does not and never did fall within the exemptions of the 1998 law claimed by the banks).

The Bank Of International Settlements Warns The Monetary Kool-Aid Party Is Over
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-23/bank-international-settlements-warns-monetary-kool-aid-party-over

Wells Fargo Sells Woman’s House In Foreclosure After She Reinstates Loan for $141,441.81
http://4closurefraud.org/2013/06/20/wells-fargo-sells-womans-house-in-foreclosure-after-she-reinstates-loan-for-141441-81/

Editor’s Note: In all of these cases you need to start with the premise that the bank has a gargantuan liability in the event that it took insurance, credit default swap proceeds, federal bailouts, or the proceeds of sales of mortgage bonds to the Federal Reserve. Most experts in finance and economics agree that if the Federal Reserve stops making payments on the “purchase” of mortgage bonds the entire housing market will collapse. I don’t agree.

It is the banks that will collapse in the housing market will finally recover bringing the economy back up with it. The problem for the Federal Reserve and the economy is that most likely they are buying worthless paper issued by a trust that was never funded and that therefore could never have purchased any loan. Thus the income and the collateral of the mortgage bond is nonexistent.

Many people in the financial world completely understand this and are terrified at the prospect of the largest banks being required to mark down their reserve capital; if this happens, and it should, these banks will lack the capital to continue functioning as a mega-bank.

So why would a bank foreclose on house on which there was no mortgage and/or no default? The answer lies in the fact that they have accepted money from third parties on the premise that they lost money on these mortgages. If that turns out not to be true (which it isn’t) then they most probably owe a lot of money back to those third parties.

My estimate is that in the average case they owe anywhere from 7 to 40 times the amount of the mortgage loan. It is simply cheaper to settle with the aggrieved homeowner even if they pay damages for emotional distress (which is permitted in California and perhaps some other states); it is even cheaper and far more effective for the bank to give the house back without any encumbrance to the homeowner. Without the foreclosure becoming final or worse yet, as the recent revelations from Bank of America clearly show, if the loan is modified and becomes a performing loan all of that money is due back to all of those third parties.

“Deed-In-Lieu” of Foreclosure and Other Things
http://www.fxstreet.com/education/related-markets/lessons-from-the-pros-real-estate/2013/06/20/

Editor’s Note: This has come up many times in questions and discussions regarding dealing with the Wall Street banks. It seems that the banks have borrowers thinking that in order to file a deed in lieu of foreclosure they need the permission of the bank. I know of no such provision in the law of any state preventing the owner of the property from deeding the property to anyone. Several lawyers are seeing an opportunity, to wit: once the homeowner deeds the properties to the party pretending to foreclose on the property, the foreclosure action against the homeowner must be dismissed. That leaves the question of a deficiency judgment.

The advantages to the homeowner appears to be that any lawsuit seeking to recover a deficiency judgment would be strictly about money and would require the allegation of a monetary loss and proof of the monetary loss which would enable the homeowner, for the first time, to pursue discovery on the money trail because there is no other issue in dispute.

In the course of that litigation the discovery may reveal the fact that the party who filed the foreclosure and misrepresented their right to the collateral would be subject to various causes of action for damages as a counterclaim; but the counterclaim would not be filed until after discovery revealed the problem for the “lender.” Therefore several lawyers are advising their clients to simply file the deed in favor of the party seeking foreclosure based upon the representation that they are in fact the right party to obtain a sale of the property.

The lawyers who are using this tactic obviously caution their clients against using it unless they are already out of the house or are planning to move. Homeowners who are looking to employ this tactic should check with a licensed attorney in the jurisdiction in which their property is located.

Monitor Finds Mortgage Lenders Still Falling Short of Settlement’s Terms

By SHAILA DEWAN

The biggest mortgage lenders in the United States have not met all of the terms of the $25 billion settlement over abuses, an independent monitor found.

British Commission Calls for New Laws to Prosecute Bankers for Fraud

By MARK SCOTT

As part of a 600-page report, the British parliamentary commission on banking standards is urging new laws that would make it a criminal offense to recklessly mismanage local financial institutions.

A Fit of Pique on Wall Street

By PETER EAVIS

Perhaps more than at any time since the financial crisis, Wall Street knows it must prepare for a world without the Federal Reserve’s largess.

S.E.C. Has a Message for Firms Not Used to Admitting Guilt

By JAMES B. STEWART

By requiring an admission of guilt in some cases, the S.E.C.’s new chairwoman is pressing for more accountability at financial firms.

Bank of America’s Foreclosure Frenzy
http://ml-implode.com/staticnews/2013-06-24_BankofAmericasForeclosureFrenzy.html

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: Bank of America, Bank of international settlements, counterclaim, credit default swaps, deed in lieu of foreclosure, federal bailouts, Federal reserve, Federal Reserve bond buying program, forgery, insurance, lenders breaching settlement agreement, Lynn, Massachusetts, money trail, perjury, prosecution of bankers for fraud, robosigning, SEC | 296 Comments »

U.S. v BofA: Countrywide Eliminated Underwriting Standards

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Neil Garfield

EDITOR’S NOTE: The complaint below is from the United States Atty. for the Southern District of New York gives us a clear picture of the processing of loans without any underwriting standards at Countrywide and other aggregators across the country. The complaint is not authority, but it is a guide for what you can allege and what you can ask about in discovery.

It is time to ask the nuclear question, to wit: in light of the revelations that are already in the public domain with dozens of whistleblowers, is it not reasonable to assume that the aggregators not only knew about fabricated, forged and inaccurate loan applications, but actually intended that result. I ask that question because of the number of attempted prosecutions of people for mortgage fraud, when mortgage fraud was exactly what Countrywide wanted. They clearly wanted the highest possible volume of loans approved under circumstances where it can only be assumed that they wanted those loans to fail, in order to be paid by insurers, counterparties on credit default swaps, the federal government in bailouts and now the Federal Reserve which appears to be buying $85 billion in worthless mortgage bonds from the financial industry every month.

Thus Wall Street collected money from the investors (and took a share of that and put it in their pocket), collected money from borrowers (and took a share of that and put it in their pocket), collected money from insurers which went only into their pockets, collected money from the proceeds of credit default swaps which went only into their pockets, collected money from the government in the bank bailouts, collected money from the government sponsored entities who guarantee the loans, and are collecting money from the Federal Reserve who are buying worthless mortgage bonds which have little or no interest in any secured loan, residential or otherwise. On top of all of that Wall Street has taken the homes of more than 5 million families and is expected to take the homes of another 5 million families — supposedly to cover the “loss” on mortgage bonds they never owned and mortgage loans they never owned.

And then you have the real question, to wit: why would banks create a scheme that originated loans, most of which were destined to fail in one fashion or another? And the answer is unavoidable and incontestable: they did it because that was the way they could make the most money.

And then the second real question, to wit: why would banks want foreclosures but not want the property? And the related question is why would they want a foreclosure under circumstances where a modification would produce far greater proceeds to mitigate the loss on a loan that a foreclosure? And the related question to that is why would the largest bank in the world adopt a policy of fraud in order to guide people into foreclosure deceiving them into thinking that they were getting a modification? And the final question related to all of that is why with the modification not become permanent after the borrower has done everything correctly during the trial period? The answer is extremely simple: the foreclosure process is the largest cover-up in history for the largest economic crime in history; it provides cover for all of the defects, multiple payments that were already received and never disclosed, and the diversion of money and property from investors and homeowners.

Here are some relevant allegations in the complaint:

HUSTLE: A PLAN TO DESTROY HOMEOWNERS AND DEFRAUD INVESTORS: The U.S. Government in its complaint filed against Bank of America details the specific ways in which Countrywide was operating when loans were originated.

“Countrywide rolled out a new streamlined loan origination model is called the “hustle.”

In order to increase the speed at which it originated and sold loans to the GSES, countrywide eliminated every significant checkpoint on loan quality and compensated its employees solely based on the volume of loans originated, leading to rampant instances of fraud and other serious lung defects all while countrywide was informing the GSES that it had tightened its underwriting guidelines.”

Countrywide eliminated underwriter review even from many high risk loans. In lieu of underwriter review, countrywide assigned critical underwriting tasks to loan processors who were previously considered unqualified even to answer borrower questions. At the same time, countrywide or eliminated previously mandatory checklists that provided instructions on how to perform these underwriting tasks. Under the Hustle, such instructions on proper underwriting were considered nothing more than unnecessary forms that would slow the swim lane down.

Countrywide also eliminated the position of compliance specialist, an individual previously responsible for conducting a final, independent check on alone to ensure that all conditions on the loans approval were satisfied prior to funding.

The Hustle began in full force in approximately August 2007.

Countrywide also concealed the quality control reports on Hustle loans demonstrating that instances of fraud and other material defects (i.e. defects making the loans in eligible for investors sell) were legion. Countrywide’s own quality control reports identified material defect rate of nearly 40% in certain months, rates that were nearly 10 times the industry-standard defect rate of approximately 4%.

U.S. v. BOA False Claims Act complaint, SDNY 10-25-2012

ENCORE BANK v. BOA, NA (2013) Effective as of July 1, 2008, the parent company of BofA, Bank of America Corporation, acquired the parent corporation of Countrywide, Countrywide Financial Corporatio

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: aggregators, Bank of America, countrywide, Federal reserve, government-sponsored entities, hustle, mortgage fraud, Wall Street, WHISTLEBLOWERS | 397 Comments »

Elizabeth Warren Has It Right

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Neil Garfield

Carmen Reinhart: “No Doubt. Our Pensions Are Screwed.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-11/carmen-reinhart-no-doubt-our-pensions-are-screwed

Editor’s Comment: It is nothing less than an insult to our intelligence. As the walls crumble around the myth of securitization, the banks are stepping up efforts — in concert with the agencies that are supposed to regulate them — to prevent people from doing simple math. The truth is out. The attempt to sweep illegal mortgages under the t able failed with the foreclosure reviews and now they are trying to do it with a settlement that says if you lost your house and possessions and it was taken illegally you can have an average of $1,000 in damages.

In appearing before Congressional committees the Federal Reserve and the OCC admitted that most of the foreclosures were illegal — which means they never should have happened. Elizabeth Warren asked a simple question. If you found all this illegal activity and you have an actual list with actual homes and actual names on them why won’t you notify the homeowners of your findings. After all you are a public agency. And the AGENCY invoked claims of privacy on behalf of the banks.

If that doesn’t turn everything we know about our constitution and our laws on its head, I don’t know what would. We have a right to this information especially if we are the homeowners who were victims of the false scheme of securitization. But even even if we didn’t lose a home and we “only” paid TARP and other bailout dollars giving banks 100 cents on the dollar despite their obvious culpability in selling crap to institutional investors, undermining our pension and retirement system, and sticking the homeowners with homes worth less than half of the appraised value used at the so-called loan closing.

I think lawyers should file an action under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and get those reports and contact the homeowners to tell them that their lives were turned upside down by a foreclosure that was illegal, performed by an actor who merely pretended to be the creditor on a debt that no longer existed, in which the pretender received a free house on a false”Credit bid” without ever investing a penny into the house or the loan.

The damage claims from the existing list, which was cut short by the “Settlement” for $1,000 for each homeowner, are not curtailed at all by the actions of the OCC and the Federal Reserve. It is like a vein of gold miles wide and hundreds of feet thick sitting on the surface of the earth. Any PI or malpractice attorney would make ten times their current income if they investigated this opportunity. This is easy money once you start digging — which is exactly what stopped the OCC review and other programs like it.

Fed Argues that Mortgage Abuses are Trade Secrets, Meaning Institutionalized Fraud
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/fed-argues-that-mortgage-abuses-are-trade-secrets-meaning-institutionalized-fraud.html

Foreclosure Review Program’s Regulators Take Pounding From Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/11/foreclosure-review-program-warren-brown_n_3062126.html

Warren grills bank regulators over bungled foreclosure review
http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/11/news/economy/warren-foreclosure-hearing/

Foreclosure Review Report Shows That the OCC Continues to Bury Wall Street’s Bodies
http://www.thenation.com/article/173749/foreclosure-review-report-shows-occ-continues-bury-wall-streets-bodies

—1 in 3 Foreclosures Have Bank Errors to Blame — AOL Real Estate
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/04/11/bank-errors-foreclosures/

14 American Cities Getting Buried By Foreclosures
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-cities-with-most-foreclosures-2013-4

Filed under: CDO, Eviction, foreclosure, GARFIELD GWALTNEY KELLEY AND WHITE, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: attorneys, damages, Elizabeth Warren, Federal reserve, FORECLOSURE REVIEW, OCC REVIEW, Privacy, sherrod brown | 54 Comments »

WHAT IS THE FED BUYING?

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Neil Garfield

CHECK OUT OUR EXTENDED DECEMBER SPECIAL!

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For assistance with presenting a case for wrongful foreclosure, please call 520-405-1688, customer service, who will put you in touch with an attorney in the states of Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, California, Ohio, and Nevada. (NOTE: Chapter 11 may be easier than you think).

EDITOR’S NOTE:

WHAT IS THE FED BUYING? IF THE LOANS WERE ORIGINATED CONTRARY TO INDUSTRY PRACTICE, IF THE MONEY USED TO FUND THE LOANS CAME FROM INVESTORS, WHAT COULD THE FED BE BUYING FROM THE BANKS WHO ARE ONLY INTERMEDIARIES. AND IF THE FED IS BUYING THESE SECURITIES THEN WHY ARE THEY NOT THE PRINCIPAL NAMED IN FORECLOSURES? ANSWER: THE FEDS BOUGHT NOTHING AND THEY KNOW IT. IT IS MERELY A RUSE TO GIVE THE BANKS MORE MONEY.

AND let’s assume that the Fed is really buying bona fide mortgage backed securities (MBS) issued from a well-funded pool into which investor money was contributed and used to purchase loans. Which loans? Where is the transparency here? Are these actual purchase with schedules of loans attached? Why can’t we see all the loans that are “owned” by investment pools that issued mortgage backed securities.

One more question: If the mortgage bonds were issued to investors in exchange for money, then how the investment bank become the seller? Are the investors joining in on the sale? If so, what happens to the SPV, REMIC, Trust or whatever you want to call the investment pool?

Does the transfer of an invalid note issued without consideration and a mortgage securing the note give anything more to the Fed than the banks which is nothing on top of nothing?

The obvious scenario here is a shell game designed to confuse investors, borrowers, regulators, lawyers and judges. And it is working — except in those cases where we employ the Deny and Discover strategy.

Fed likely to continue MBS purchases to secure housing recovery
http://www.housingwire.com/news/2013/01/30/fed-likely-continue-mbs-purchases-secure-housing-recovery

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: buying MBS, Federal reserve, loans, mortgage backed securities | 104 Comments »

Deny and Discover — Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Neil Garfield

CHECK OUT OUR DECEMBER SPECIAL!

What’s the Next Step? Consult with Neil Garfield

For assistance with presenting a case for wrongful foreclosure, please call 520-405-1688, customer service, who will put you in touch with an attorney in the states of Florida, California, Ohio, and Nevada. (NOTE: Chapter 11 may be easier than you think).

Editor’s Analysis: The banks are broke and this rule properly applied will reveal exactly how badly they fall short of capital requirements. It can be found at Volume 77, No. 169 of the Federal Register dated, Thursday, August 30, 2012 2012-16759 Capital Risk Disclosure Requirements Under Dodd Frank.

Admittedly this is not for the feint of heart or those with limited literacy in economics, accounting and finance; but if you find yourself in the position of not understanding, then go to any economist or banker or finance specialist or accountant and they will explain it to you.

Lewtan which produces ABSnet is offering a service to banks that will give the banks and plausible deniability when the figures come up all rosy for the banks. Lewtan should be careful in view of the action being taken against the ratings companies, which is the start of an assault on the citadel of evil intent on Wall Street.

The fundamental aspect of these new rules are that the bank must report on the degree of risk it has taken on in any activity or holding. They must also show how they arrived at that assessment and under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) you might be able to get copies of their filing whether they do it themselves (doubtful) or hire someone like Lewtan which is obviously going to do the bidding of its paying clients.

The main problem for the banks is that they are holding overvalued assets and some non-existent assets on their balance sheet. A review to assess risk if properly conducted, will definitely turn up both kinds of assets reported on the balance sheet of the banks, which in turn will reduce their reported capital reserves, which in turn will result in changing the ratio between capital and risk.

This might sound like gumbo to you. But here is the bottom line: the banks were using investor money. We all know that. In baby language, the question is if they were using someone else’s money how did the banks lose any money?

They did receive the money from investors like pension funds, and other managed funds for retirement or contingencies. But they diverted the money and the documents to make it appear that the bank owned the assets that were intended to be purchased for the REMIC trusts. The Banks then purchased and claimed to be an insured or a party who had sustained a loss when in fact the loss was incurred by the investors and the mortgage bonds and loans were owned collectively by the investors.

By doing that the insurance proceeds were paid to the banks creating an instant liability to the investors to whom they owed a common law and contractual duty to provide an accounting and distribution based upon the insurance recovery. At no time did the banks ever have a risk of loss nor an insurable interest in their own name. And at not time were they bound by the REMIC documents because they ignored the REMICs and conducted transactions through an entirely different superstructure.

As agents of the investors they should have followed the REMIC documents and purchased the insurance and CDS protection for the benefit of the investors. But they didn’t do that. They kept the money for the bank who never had any proof of loss, proof of payment and was a mere intermediary claiming the rights of the principal. The same thing happened with Credit Default Swaps and Federal bailouts.

That is why the definition of toxic assets changed over a weekend when TARP was started. It was thought that the mortgages had gone bad for the banks.

Then they realized that the mortgages weren’t going bad to the extent reported and that the bank was suffering no loss because they were using investor money to create the funding of loans and the funding of proprietary trading in which they masked the theft of trillions from investors.

So the government quietly changed the definition of toxic assets to mortgage bonds — but that ran into the same problem, to wit: the mortgage bonds were underwritten by the banks but purchased by the investors (pension funds etc.).

Now the rubber meets the road. The claim that somehow the banks got stuck with mortgage bonds is patently absurd. If they have mortgage bonds it is not because they bought them, it is because they created them but were unable to sell them because the market collapsed and the PONZI scheme fails whenever the suckers stop buying.

The actual proceeds from theft from the investors and the borrowers is parked off shore around the world. The Banks having been feeding the money back in very slowly because they want to create the appearance of an increasingly profitable bank, when in fact, their revenues sand earnings are slipping away quickly — except for the bolstering they get from repatriating stolen money from investors and borrowers and calling them “proprietary trades.”

Nobody on Wall Street is making that kind of money on trades, proprietary or otherwise, but the banks are claiming ever increasing profits, raising their stock price, defrauding their stockholders. So against each overvalued and non-existent asset claimed by the mega banks on their balance sheet is a liability of far exceeding the assets or even the combined assets of the banks. Treasury knows, this, the Fed knows this and central bankers around the world know it. But they have been drinking the Kool-Aid believing that if they call out the mega banks on this fake accounting, the entire financial system will collapse.

So yes there is a consensus between those who pull the levers of power that they will allow the banks to pretend to have assets, that their liabilities are fairly low, and that the risks associated with their business activities, assets and liabilities are minimal even while knowing the converse is true. The system’s foundation is a loose amalgamation of lies that will eventually collapse anyway but everyone likes to kick the can down the road.

You are getting in this article a sneak peek into why the banks all rushed to foreclose rather than modify or settle on better terms. What is important from the practice point of view is that (1) the “Consideration” mandated by HAMP is not happening and you can prove it with the right allegations and discovery and (2) the reports tendered to OCC and the Fed under this rule will reveal that the issue of proof of loss, risk of loss, proof of payment and ownership is completely muddled — unless you follow the money trail (see yesterday’s article). You can subpoena the reports given by the banks from both the bank itself or the agency. My opinion is that you fill find a treasure trove of information very damaging to the banks and the Treasury Department.

There will be caveats in the notes that express the risk of inaccuracy and which reveal the possibility that the banks neither own nor control the mortgages except as agents for the investors, that the liability to the investors is equal to the money received from insurance, CDS, and bailouts, and that the borrower’s loan payable balance was corresponding reduced as to the investor and increased to entities that are not or cannot press any claims against the borrowers. Educate yourself and persist — the tide is turning.

Excerpt from attached section of Federal Register:

The bank’s primary federal supervisor may rescind its approval, in whole or in part, of the use of any internal model and determine an appropriate regulatory capital requirement for the covered positions to which the model would apply, if it determines that the model no longer

complies with the market risk capital rule or fails to reflect accurately the risks of the bank’s covered positions. For example, if adverse market events or other developments reveal that a material assumption in an approved model is flawed, the bank’s primary federal supervisor may require the bank to revise its model assumptions and resubmit the model specifications for review. In the final rule, the agencies made minor modifications to this provision in section 3(c)(3) to improve clarity and correct a cross-reference.

Financial markets evolve rapidly, and internal models that were state-of-the- art at the time they were approved for use in risk-based capital calculations can become less effective as the risks of covered positions evolve and as the industry develops more sophisticated modeling techniques that better capture material risks. Therefore, under the final rule, as under the January 2011 proposal, a bank must review its internal models periodically, but no less frequently than annually, in light of developments in financial markets and modeling technologies, and to enhance those models as appropriate to ensure that they continue to meet the agencies’ standards for model approval and employ risk measurement methodologies that are, in the bank’s judgment, most appropriate for the bank’s covered positions. It is essential that a bank continually review, and as appropriate, make adjustments to its models to help ensure that its market risk capital requirement reflects the risk of the bank’s covered positions. A bank’s primary federal supervisor will closely review the bank’s model review practices as a matter of safety and soundness. The agencies are adopting these requirements in the final rule.

Risks Reflected in Models. The final rule requires a bank to incorporate its internal models into its risk management process and integrate the internal models used for calculating its VaR-based measure into its daily risk management process. The level of sophistication of a bank’s models must be commensurate with the complexity and amount of its covered positions.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: 2012-16759 Capital Risk Disclosure Requirements Under Dodd Frank., CDS, Federal reserve, insurance, Lewtan, OCC, proof of loss, proof of payment, risk of loss, TARP, Treasury Departnemnt | 21 Comments »

Foreclosure Review Process Handed Over to the Banks

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Neil Garfield

CHECK OUT OUR DECEMBER SPECIAL!

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Editor’s Comment: Along with members of Congress and millions of homeowners I remain deeply disappointed in the failure of the Obama administration to grapple with the mortgage meltdown. The current path will lead to more of the same and it never does anything but escalate when somebody gets away with theft, fraud and PONZI schemes.

The prior so-called “review” process involved people who were neither independent nor skilled nor trained to find wrongful practices and the damage caused by those wrongful practices. They were given inadequate information by the banks who continue to hide the fake securitization scheme and PONZI scheme.

The agencies are complaining that it takes too long to process the review. Let’s see. If John Jones was foreclosed by somebody who had no right to do so on a loan that was unsecured and paid down to zero, and then he was evicted, just how long is too long for the agency to slam the offending bank? Are you kidding? What kind of double-standard are we setting up here? If I do it, I go to jail. But if a bank does it then it is an error and here is $2,000 for your trouble. Now under the new settlement agreement, if I do it, the agency is telling me to determine whether I committed a crime or civil theft. Yeah, I’ll get right back to you on that.

Obama and his administration continue to buy into the bank myth that these were bad lending practices instead of being intentional acts of fraud, theft, forgery and fabrication. They still think the loan receivables are “out there” somewhere but they have no evidence to substantiate that belief because there isn’t any. Those loan balances were paid down long ago.

The plain truth is right in front of them and there is no good reason to say that this task is too onerous for the regulators so we are just going to turn it over to the banks that were guilty of the wrong-doing. Does ANYONE really think that a bank is going to review its files and declare that a terrible injustice has been done?

Everything is tied to this mortgage mess. Consumers have been slammed with most of their wealth siphoned off by banks who were acting intentionally to screw the pension funds and the people who rely on those pension funds. The loan balances, if adjusted to reflect payments by insurance, credit default swaps and bailouts — all promised to the investors — are far less than anything demanded and in many cases are zero.

Nobody wants to give a windfall to the homeowner and nobody wants to give a windfall to the banks. But our government has decided that between the two, the banks ought to get it in order to preserve stability in the financial system. The stability of the financial system is, in my opinion, secondary to the stability of our economy. Our debt and deficits collectively and individually are all tied to the wrongdoing of about 2 dozen banks.

And I strongly disagree with the notion that the break-up of the mega banks will destabilize the financial system. When the dust clears, we simply won’t have banks that are too big to regulate, as shown in this review process. There is no evidence that clawing back the money for the pension funds that invested in fake mortgage bonds issued by fake investment pools will destabilize anything except the lives of some people who really need to go to jail.

Quite the contrary, putting the money back where it belongs with the pension funds and doing an accounting for the money in and the money out related to these mortgages will produce mortgage balances, without “forgiveness” that are far lower than demanded in foreclosure or end of month statements. Underwater homes will be a thing of the past, and mortgage payments can be adjusted to the real balances enabling the consumers in a consumer driven economy to spend.

Justice is more in this case than simply doing the right thing. It is a fiscal stimulus that does not cost one dime. If we can spend a trillion dollars on a war for the security interests of our country, then why can’t we spend 1/10 of 1% of that amount on following the money trail and determining the identity of the stakeholders, the amount of their stake and the terms of repayment?

The precedent here is dangerous. If “I am too important to go to jail” actually works as a defense, then we have changed the rule of law in ways that will haunt us for hundreds of years.

Agencies Give Up and hand the Mortgage Mess Over to the Banks to Resolve

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: accounting, Federal reserve, FORECLOSURE REVIEW, Obama, OCC, wrongful foreclosure | 98 Comments »

Why the Fed Can’t Get it Right

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Neil Garfield

CHECK OUT OUR DECEMBER SPECIAL!

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Editor’s Analysis and Comments: Bloomberg reports this morning that “Fed Flummoxed by Mortgage Yield Gap Refusing to Shrink.” (see link below)

In normal times lowering the Fed Funds rate and providing other incentives to banks always produced more lending and more economic activity. Bernanke doesn’t seem to understand the answer: these are not normal times and the cancerous fake securitization scheme that served as the platform for the largest PONZI scheme in human history is still metastasizing.

Why wouldn’t banks take advantage of a larger spread in the Fed funds rate versus the mortgage lending rates. Under the old school times that would automatically go to the bottom line of lending banks as increased profits. If we put aside the conspiracy theories that the banks are attempting to take down the country we are left with one inevitable conclusion: in the “new financial system” (sounds like the “new economy” of the 1990’s) the banks have concluded there would be no increase in profit. In fact one would be left to the probable conclusion that somehow they would face a loss or risk of loss that wasn’t present in the good old days.

Using conventional economic theory Bernanke is arriving at the conclusion that the spread is not large enough for banks to take on the business of lending in a dubious economic environment. But that is the point — conventional economic theory doesn’t work in the current financial environment. With housing prices at very low levels and the probability that they probably won’t decline much more, conventional risk management would provide more than enough profit for lending to be robust.

When Bernanke takes off the blinders, he will see that the markets are so interwoven with the false assumptions that the mortgage loans were securitized, that there is nothing the Fed can do in terms of fiscal policy that would even make a dent in our problems. $700 trillion+ in nominal derivatives are “out there” probably having no value at all if one were the legally trace the transactions. The real money in the U.S. (as opposed to these “cash equivalent” derivatives) is less than 5% of the total nominal value of the shadow banking system which out of sheer apparent size dwarfs the world banks including the Fed.

As early as October of 2007 I said on these pages that this was outside the control of Fed fiscal policy because the amount of money affected by the Fed is a tiny fraction of the amount of apparent money generated by shadow banking.

Oddly the only place where this is going to be addressed is in the court system where people bear down on Deny and Discover and demand an accounting from the Master Servicer, Trustee and all related parties for all transactions affecting the loan receivable due to the investors (pension funds). The banks know full well that many or most of the assets they are reporting for reserve and capital requirements or completely false.

Just look at any investor lawsuit that says you promised us a mortgage backed bond that was triple A rated and insured. What you have given us are lies. We have no bonds that are worth anything because the bonds are not truly mortgage backed. The insurance and hedges you purchased with our money were made payable to you, Mr. Wall Street banker, instead of us. The market values and loan viability were completely false as reported, and even if you gave us the mortgages they are unenforceable.

The Banks are responding with “we are enforcing them, what are you talking about.” But the lawyers for most of the investors and some of the borrowers are beginning to see through this morass of lies. They know the notes and mortgages are not enforceable except by brute force and intimidation in and out of the courtroom.

If the deals were done straight up, the investor would have received a mortgage backed bond. The bond, issued by a pool of assets usually organized into a “trust” would have been the payee on the notes at origination and the secured party in the mortgages and deeds of trust. If the loan was acquired after origination by a real lender (not a table funded loan) then an assignment would have been immediately recorded with notice to the borrower that the pool owned his loan.

In a real securitization deal, the transaction in which the pool funded the origination or purchase of the loan would be able to to show proof of payment very easily — but in court, we find that when the Judge enters an order requiring the Banks to open up their books the cases settle “confidentially” for pennies on the dollar.

The entire TBTF (Too Big to Fail) doctrine is a false doctrine but nonetheless driving fiscal and economic policy in this country. Those banks are only too big if they are continued to be allowed to falsely report their assets as if they owned the bonds or loans.

Reinstate generally accepted accounting principles and the shadow banking assets deflate like a balloon with the air let out of it. $700 trillion becomes more like $13 trillion — and then the crap hits the fan for the big banks who are inundated with claims. 7,000 community banks, savings banks and credit union with the same access to electronic funds transfer and internet banking as any other bank, large or small, stand ready to pick up the pieces.

Homeowner relief through reduction of household debt would provide a gigantic financial stimulus to the economy bring back tax revenue that would completely alter the landscape of the deficit debate. The financial markets would return to free trading markets freed from the corner on “money” and corner on banking that the mega banks achieved only through lies, smoke and mirrors.

The fallout from the great recession will be with us for years to come no matter what we do. But the recovery will be far more robust if we dealt with the truth about the shadow banking system created out of exotic instruments based upon consumer debt that was falsified, illegally closed, deftly covered up with false assignments and endorsements.

While we wait for the shoe to drop when Bernanke and his associates can no longer ignore the short plain facts of this monster storm, we have no choice but to save homes, one home at a time, still fighting a battle in which the borrower is more often the losing party because of bad pleading, bad lawyering and bad judging. If you admit the debt, the note and the mortgage and then admit the default, no amount of crafty arguments are going to give you the relief you need and to which you are entitled.

Fed Confused by Lack of Response from Banks on Yield Spread Offered

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: assiignments, Bernanke, Deny and Discover, endrosements, false securitization, Fed, Federal reserve, mortgage bonds, origination of loans, Payee, SECURED PARTY, shadow banking, TBTF, too big to fail | 64 Comments »

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