Robo-signing Mortgage Document for Banks, Part 3 of Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Care

You remember several months ago, CBS 60 minutes television magazine featured a lady whose house was been foreclosed at that time and it turned out that the document to attest to bank’s ownership was a forged document. From that magazine, we learned that she was not alone that the documents of ownership being held by these banks were bogus. So many mortgage lenders were engaging in illegal foreclosures. Most evidently “robo-signers” were attesting that banks had the required documentation to seize homes without checking to see whether they actually had the right to do so — and in many cases they did not, they even changed locks in occupied homes. Since the fed is not visibly doing any investigation on this and most states are too poor to engage in their own investigation, we cannot say how widespread this practice was or is.
Instead our govts are pushing for settlement with the bankers that would adsorb them of any wrongdoings and pay a penalty of $30 billion and assurance that they will behave themselves in the future just like the Citigroup corporate governance and priorities of 2011. It seems like the govt. is going easy on the banks, remember, they are too “Big to Fail and too Big to Care,” judging from that large bailout without serious strings attached and failure of govt to change our bankruptcy laws to make it easier for families to stay in their homes. It never happened. Those that support settlement with the banks claimed that resolving the mortgage palaver expediently is the recipe to getting the housing market back on its feet and that getting tough with the banks would undermine broader prospects for recovery. Economic 101, putting more houses in the market would depress the market not increase it.
When will the govt realize that what is go for the Main Street is indeed good for Wall Street? According to Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, “[t]he big drag on the economy now is the overhang of household debt, largely created by the $5.6 trillion in mortgage debt that households took on during the bubble years. Serious mortgage relief could make a dent in that problem; a $30 billion settlement from the banks, even if it proved more effective than the government’s modification program, would not.

Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Care, Part 2

Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Care, Part 2.

Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Care, Part 2

If the US Govt. had told them, it was its right not to help.
For Part 1: http://storify.com/dentalwellness/too-big-to-fail-and-too-big-to-care
The interesting thing is that some of these lenders/banks can be so off the wall that they do not think that to whom much is given, much is expected. I remember one of them saying that it was within its right to make derogatory report on one of its customers’ credit file. Remember when it was the banks that needed assistance from the government of the United States, the government was within its right not to help but it did. It gave them the fattest checks to help them overcome their financial difficulties without any condition in the beginning and also went further to protect them in two crucial ways: allowed them to honor their outstanding contracts with others (unless teachers and public workers in Wisconsin that republican governor changed to the detriment of fair play and the workers); and our government insisted that the healthy banks should take the money as well so as to avoid stigmatization of such banks as CitiGroup, JP Morgan, Goldman Sach. The government did not make any bad entries on these bankers’ credit record instead tried to work with them to make them better. You will think that CitiGroup would do the same to its customers, I’d say you are wrong, it’s subsidiary, Citimortgage would not help, it would be too eager to report derogatory entries, it would not write letter to you to explain the problem instead would send you letters so incomprehensible that an English professor would not be able to make a sense of it and when you write for clarification, it would ignore that until you get the big guns like BBB, the U.S. Office of Comptroller of Currency that they suddenly recognize you as a human being like people who work for the company. In the area where government could make a big difference — help for troubled homeowners — almost nothing has been done. Thanks to politicians, Wall Street and their friends at CNBC. The Obama administration’s program of mortgage relief has gone nowhere: of $46 billion allotted to help families stay in their homes, less than $2 billion has actually been spent.

Too Big to Fail and Too Big to Care part 1

Does anyone remember the summer of 2008 when Senator Chris Dodd stood in front of the nation telling us the urgency of averting a financial meltdown and that we had to infuse our banks with taxpayers’ money? That was over $800 billion of our money to help the Wall Street, the perpetrators of the disaster and a four-page document to secure this bailout money aka TARP. The first batch of funds from government came with no condition to all the banks including the weak, the strong, the anemic and the healthy ones because the government did not want to stigmatize banks like CitiGroup, J.P. Morgan/Chase. You will be pleased to know that these banks including Bank of America are now making money judging from the dividends and bonuses distributed by them in the past two years or so.
Does anyone remember what was said then about mortgage under water, never mind that CNBC reporter who suddenly felt it was bad for government to help those with mortgages under water because he righteously claimed that it was not fair to those who were paying their mortgages on time? The same argument recently proffered by Bank of America’s chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, who told the attorneys general in April 2011 that cutting principal for current borrowers would send the wrong message to all those who have struggled to pay their bills. His counterpart at J.P. Morgan/Chase, Jamie Dimon, bluntly said it was “off the table.” But I did not hear the same argument about helping these banks in 2008; after all there were those healthy banks. Was it fair for government to help these banks at their hour of needs?