Hearing Witness: Treasury Directive Is 'Protect The Banks'
It's very depressing to see the un-American tiered "justice" system in action during this foreclosure fraud crisis. David Dayen on Thursday:
Georgetown U.’s Adam Levitin has become something of a rock star during the foreclosure fraud crisis. He had some of the best and most biting commentary in the Senate Banking Committee hearings on the issue, and he also appeared today at the House Financial Services Committee hearings. And under questioning from Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), he let loose, and said what everyone has been thinking about the foreclosure crisis.
First off, he lamented the fact that we have been holding hearings like this since 2007. “Every year we have another set of hearings, and you can add 2 million foreclosures” to the bottom line. Nothing gets fixed, despite all kinds of documented evidence that the banks and servicers have committed fraud. Levitin’s position is that the servicers should be banned from the loan modification business entirely, because they don’t have any interest in it except as a profit-maximization scheme, and they have massive conflicts of interest that cut against doing right by the borrowers (and even the investors for whom they work).
But this was the key moment. Levitin said that we don’t have the full data sets from the servicers, or any comprehensive data to see whether there is a full-on crisis of unclear title and improper mortgage assignment. In other words, we don’t quite know the full extent of the problem. Levitin said, essentially, “The federal regulators don’t want to get info from servicers, because then they’d have to do something about it.” They don’t want to recognize the scope of the problem because it would require them to act.
And Levitin in particular singled out the Treasury Department. “The prime directive coming out of Treasury is ‘protect the banks’ and don’t force them to recognize their losses.” That says it in a nutshell, and it was said in open testimony in Congress.
“The prime directive coming out of Treasury is ‘protect the banks’ and don’t force them to recognize their losses.”
Yes, that's the supposedly Democratic Obama administrations Treasury Department.
offered two solutions, both of which, according to Brad Miller, the congressman asking him the question, could lead to the insolvency of the banking system.
I believe one of the prime goals of FDR was also to save, not destroy, the banking system.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Your kidding, right? Obama and his banking and Wall Street hacks Geithner and Summers names shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath with FDR's.
You are correct about FDR did saving the banking system. You don't mention he did so with strong financial regulations as opposed to the weak, watery reforms and get-out-of-jail-free cards Obama has championed for the banks.
And you better get some new excuses ready for when Obama does what no Republican could have done and goes after Social Security and Medicare.
I believe one of the prime goals of FDR was also to save, not destroy, the banking system.
Yes, but if you're trying to set up some kind of false equivalency I suggest you read this.
http://www.amazon.com/Freefall-America-Market...
It's covered in Chapter 3.
"Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you." --Mr. Burns
http://www.realecontv.com/videos/banking-malf...
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j-Tji1DueU
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
There is a barely legitimate reason to "protect the banks" - if they were forced to mark their real estate "assets" to actual market value, they'd nearly all be insolvent. "Protecting" them would be in the public interest *IF* the banks were actually using their liquid funds to put towards their reserves, instead of paying them out in bonuses.
The whole charade now is geared towards allowing the bonuses to keep flowing, there is absolutely no interest in actually making the banks solvent.
I kept repeatedly asking my boss to get after Tim Geithner about his hiring practices and diversity, because a more diverse work staff in banking and finance would have caught this shyt early and, as Leviten said, the government would have to "do something about it."
That "something" is ENFORCEMENT OF THE GAD DAMNED LAW!
The Code of Federal Regulations (every Government Agency has its own set) as far as I know, are still in effect and on the books. Reagan might have ushered in the concept and spirit of deregulation, but he did not cut out all of regulatory requirements for every industry, including the banking and finance industry.
When I pointed this out to my boss, I was told that our office couldn't tell the Bank Presidents (at the time, Geithner was President of the New York Fed) what to do about how they operated, even if it violated existing Federal law, because the Federal Reserve is not beholden to any type of Government oversight or regulation.
Why the hell does the Fed fight against being put under the auspices of a Federal Agency like Labor, Transportation, Education and the rest? Because Congress would have to do "something" and that "something" might require Congress demanding resignations, if not outright firing of key people like Tim Geithner. Because Geithner's Treasury Secy, Obama CAN fire him.
The solution is to enforce the LAW and collect fines and penalities, and send people to jail if they are found to have broken the LAW. The question is: "How willing is the Federal Government to enforce it's own DAMNED LAW?"
And I would really be curious to see examples of how a more diverse workforce
has ever "caught this shyt early."
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
and a diverse workforce encourages that, but I never expect you to understand anything but the white man's ways, Ricky.
from the people who print money? Okay, how much would you like? The idea of government departments fining each other strikes me as ludicrous. It's not their money. Transferring money from dept. to dept. by way of fines achieves nothing, corrects nothing.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/173...
He talks about the bankers and a special foreclosure court that's been set up in FL - as only Taibbi can!
After reading this, I want everyone on the side of the banks and the courts to be smeared in bacon fat and pig blood, tied up, and thrown into alligator pits.
What if the alligators keep kosher?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I hadn't thought of that!!!
OK, in the ocean with the flounder and crabs. They'll eat and digest anything. Even the crabs on these vermin...
I thought even shell fish wasn't kosher.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
It's because they might eat YOU, that you can't eat THEM!
The shell fish can eat whatever the Hell they want. Kind of like me. Though I'd stop at eating these 'people.' They probably have vermin in those vermin. OK, if forced to, well-done.
WTF. There are more working class Americans out there than assholes like this one who would (and has) kicked working class people out of there homes for bullshit. BUT, its one thing or another that the American just Do not see just what is going on. Look at the health insurance assholes, they have spent millions to make sure health insurance STAYS THE SAME, BIG MONEY FOR THEM. Look at the banking home loans, Hell they have made sure YOU never ever Own your home for the past 50 years. Still people, most of them say nothing. Untill we get a person IN the W/H who has big Balls and puts these people who have fucked over the American people and are sent to Prision, ENDS the Federal Reserve Act and Puts the Goverment back where it was befor the bullshit that happned in 1914. The goverment, makes the money, LOANS it TO the banks and the Banks Pays back to the Goverment with Interest, Not the way they have it today. We know the system now is fucked up. The federal goverment AND the Anerican WORKER will NEVER EVER get out of the hole if we let the Banks loan the US money With Interest. Any one can tell me just what is a good deal with a Bank when your home loan is $1000.00 and $800.00 is interest and all that goes on your loan is $200.00 yes the banks are hurting, all the way to the Bank!!! with your house.....
delete my own comment here and save the SM the trouble.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
'p l u t o c r a c y' ?
I found out a couple of days ago that 'insider trading' is perfectly legal for the members of Congress. If that's true, how come other people go to jail for it?
Government + the Federal Reserve = organized crime
would have been to let the banks fail due to a liquidity crisis shutting down finance across the country and turning a recession into a depression. Now that's progress!
Hasa Diga Eebowai
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwzJ0Y47sKc
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
the same anxious women appeared in the Canadian ad for the same stuff. Different voice over though. Weak bladders of the world unite!
Hasa Diga Eebowai
they can squeeze every single penny out of the country for themselves.
They wouldn't fail. They would just be taken over by more responsible individuals.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
Not that I'm disagreeing with you about some of the complete assholes involved in the whole fiasco but I think a lot of people do not understand how the banking system works. They see the fiasco and the bad decisions that led to the very existence of credit default swaps and collateralized bundles of mortgages and think no loss there if that fails but that isn't all they do.. The problem is that they would fail. There's no way around it if their cash reserves fall below a certain level they are toast. Which means that any firm relying on a line of credit with such an institution can no longer make payroll or pay their suppliers. All these financial institutions are so intertwined that they tumble like a house of cards if the foundations get shaky. Credit would freeze.The problem comes down to short term financing for small businesses, medium businesses even farms. They damn well couldn't take a few months off of activity while the banking mess was sorted out. They too would have gone bankrupt. That's what a liquidity crisis is.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
"too big to fail." Problem defined. Now fix it. All this investigation amounts to is mere lip service. Throwing a bone to those who are pissed. You can rely on the fact that they pissed on the bone before they threw it. For some, a few months at a Club Fed and being allowed to keep all the money they stole is just part of their retirement packages. Taking one for the team. The "good old boy network" at play.
So why not keep the banks alive, but throw some of the bank criminals in JAIL at the same time? That would be incentive for them to clean up their act. When they're at work they can think about continuing their life in a $10 million home or an 8X10 cell. That's some incentive to follow the current laws and regulations.
far left loon >.<
weekends. Like they do to many of those who don't pay their child support. That way, they can earn, pay their fines, and serve their jail time all together.
And IMO treating them as such would send an unmistakeable message to their replacements.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
But do you support a coroporate branch of government? That is the question...
The banks always, always, alway, always--have I said always enough?--ALWAYS get their money. Those who are arguing about "saving" the banks might consider reading Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins, or any of a number of other economic anthropology books. Perhaps an understanding of how our current economic behavior has evolved over time will render these emotionally-charged arguments moot.
Reagan's reign of terror and fiscal irresponsibility brought a new and heretofore unforeseen level of economic disaster into our lives. Reagan's two terms of 'administration' resulted in a tidal wave of government spending (remember, please, these were OUR tax dollars) that eclipsed all the prior presidents' spending, combined! This unfettered hedonism has continued--virtually unabated, despite Clinton's feeble efforts--for the two decades since the Corporate Megalomaniacs installed their vaunted St. Ronnie. Meanwhile, the vast 'unwashed masses' continue to resist the cognitive dissonance of admitting that our economic behaviors are a threat to our entire planet.
Our nation can blame the hedonists at the top of the Ponzi pyramid for the ongoing disintegration of our global economy, but we've (almost) all been drinking the "I can be rich, too!" koolaid.
.
ought to consider reading about just how short and brutal life was for their anthropological samples. While they're at it they could throw in a little light reading about how an industrial economy works and why a functional and well regulated banking system is essential. You can certainly argue about what those regulations should be but you can't argue against the existence of a banking system.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Since your post appears to be in response to mine (although, because you're on my IL, I cannot see the text), I would have to wonder if you've actually read Sahlins, or ANY anthropological text like it. Judging from the one sentence I can see, probably not.
Nowhere in my post was I arguing against saving the banks. My intent is strictly to facilitate an understanding of why our species has elevated economic behaviors to a sacrosanct raison d'etre, with an unhealthy dose of hierarchy providing a framework which renders the vast majority of us members of the unwashed masses so frequently denigrated by the wealthy elite.
One can certainly hope that our species will get a clue about the dangers of radical income inequity before the hoi polloi resorts to extreme measures to effect income redistribution.
If you require assistance in understanding why our species has elevated economic behaviors (more properly activity) to a sacrosanct raison d'etre it is because they closed the Garden of Eden.I seriously doubt that any text on economic anthropology would have anything useful to add to a policy debate on a modern banking system or render such a debate moot. You may or may not have noticed that income distribution varies widely by nation, Sweden being an interesting example, and shocking as this might be to you, they are members of the same species as you and I. You'd better hope the hoi polloi, for whom you have such studied contempt, decides to include you in the distribution scheme comes the revolution. How's the weather on Olympus by the way?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Chances of storm
And
Lightening.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Your subject line and the fact that you were replying to my post certainly doesn't constitute 'replying blind.' I saw enough of your posts before I put you on IL to know that I could wade through the depths of your intellect without getting the tops of my toes wet.
Don't you think?
It certainly has been for me. Thank you for your post hereinabove.
During Reagan's presidency the upward flow of money was unprecedented in world history, until bu$h came along, I think.
far left loon >.<
"More and more, it’s becoming clear that progressives who had their hearts set on Obama were engaged in a huge act of self-delusion. Once you got past the soaring rhetoric you noticed, if you actually paid attention to what he said, that he largely accepted the conservative storyline, a view of the world, including a mythological history, that bears little resemblance to the facts."
Duh
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
say it ain't so, joe......
duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..................................................
Japan did this from 1991 to 1994. They've been in a "recession" since and there's no way out.
so much money? I think we owe them more than we owe any other country. What's up with that?
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