Grayson

Alan "Taz" Grayson is back again, and asks some very relevant questions of Fannie's CEO Michael Williams:"Why is Fannie Mae using lawyers that are accused of regularly engaging in fraud to kick people out of their homes? Given that Fannie Mae is at this point a government entity, and it is the policy of the government that foreclosures are a costly situation best avoided if there are any lower cost alternatives, what steps is Fannie Mae taking to avoid the use of foreclosure mills? What additional steps is Fannie Mae going to take to ensure that foreclosures are done only when necessary and only in accordance with recognized law? How do your servicer guidelines take into account the incentives for fraud in the fee structure of foreclosure attorneys and others engage in the foreclosure process? What mechanisms do you employ to monitor legal outsourcing?" He almost asks the correct one: "Is Fannie (and Freddie) a shell operation to willfully and illegally transfer non-existent deeds to servicer banks so they can collect subsequent cash flows associated with misappropriated properties, while receiving tens of billions in taxpayer funding each and every quarter."

GMAC Mortgage has now definitively proven that they are completely unaware that once you are at the bottom of a really deep hole you should, generally, stop digging. In the latest twist in the increasingly more surreal saga of mishandled affidavits and possible outright title fraud, Bloomberg's Dakin Campbell reports that according to Ally spokesman Gina Proia, "the “defect” in affidavits used to support evictions was
“technical” and was discovered by the company. Employees submitted affidavits containing information they didn’t personally know was true and sometimes signed without a notary present, according to the statement. Most cases will be resolved in the next few weeks and those that can’t be fixed will require court intervention." Of course, this assumes a perfect world, in which tens if not hundreds of thousands of foreclosure notice recipients will not get the brilliant idea of hiring a lawyer on retainer and submit a fraudulent foreclosure claim against the servicer and/or mortgage holder (since nobody knows what the difference is anymore, probably both) leading to tens of billions in legal expenses, and the overturn of a like amount of previous eviction orders and rulings. The fact that money may well be owed and due is irrelevant: the fact that someone may have misappropriated billions worth of property that does not belong to them and based on willful fraudulent claims, as Alan Grayson wrote in his letter yesterday, however, very much is.

The key story from this morning was the Bloomberg report that GMAC Bank had halted foreclosures in 23 states, following disturbing news from last week that rekindled the latent debate over whether servicer banks do in fact own deeds to mortgages on which they foreclose on, and whether the entire foreclosure process is in fact fraudulent (one judge found it to be so, creating a massive headache precedent for the banker community). Yet the company which initially agreed with Bloomberg's version of events, is now retracing and claiming that foreclosures are in fact continuing... with a footnote. Reuters reports: "GMAC Mortgage, a unit of Ally
Financial Inc, is continuing with all new residential
foreclosures despite a report it had stopped them, a
spokeswoman said on Monday. But some evictions have been suspended while the company
reviews its internal procedures, the company said." Maybe the company can clarify just what event catalyzed the decision to suspend evictions, and specifically which "internal procedures" are being reviewed. Also, it is about time for the ABA to step in and share some insight on a topic that has millions of Americans suddenly in arms. And since that won't happen, it is up to the one or two politicians who are not in the bankers' (and the Fed's) pockets to raise some noise. Enter Alan Grayson who in a letter just released to a Florida Supreme Court Justice says:"If the reports I am hearing are true, the illegal foreclosures taking
place represent the largest seizure of private property ever attempted
by banks and government entities."

Will the American serfs have to pony up yet again?

Dan Rather chats with Alan "Taz" Grayson in the enclosed clip, over the opportunities that America may glean as part of the historic one-time only audit of the Federal Reserve, which passed in a watered down vote as part of the FinReg. The exact conditions and the applicable disclosure are still rather murky, although we will take the congressman's word that the information obtained will be material. As Rather says: "soon auditors and accountants will comb through he Fed's book, looking at all the lending the Fed engaged in, starting in 2007 and ending in July 2010, a one-time only peek behind the curtain of the secretive institution." Grayson elaborates: "I expect to learn exactly who got what. We have nothing but single line descriptions of hundreds of billions of dollars that have been disseminated by the Fed. We don't even know who got that money. We don't know the terms of that money. We don't know what the Fed got in return. And in particular we don't know why the Fed keeps insisting that none of these deals were deals that exposed it to the risk of loss." Alas, we are convinced that since the Fed did in fact allow politicians to vote unanimously on the one-time deal, that, just like Goldman, it had found a loophole to proper, correct disclosure far in advance: the truth of what happens behind the Marriner Eccles walls will not be disclosed until well after the reset button has been pushed. Importantly, as Alan points out, occasionally the people in this country can make a difference by calling their congressmen and making it clear just what is important to the broader population, and oddly enough transparency at the money printer, especially when the only thing that can keep the economy solvent is printing ever more money (and issuing more debt, but the two are synonymous, just ask the primary dealers).

In a response letter sent to Alan Grayson, the Fed chairman has the following brief retort to the question of whether "the Federal Reserve- alone or in concert with the Treasury Department or any part of the government- ever taken any action with the purpose or effect of supporting the stock market or an individual stock": "The Federal Reserve has not intervened to support the stock market or an individual stock." Shocking. And we are confident that the fine people at Liberty 33 just sit all day, twiddling their thumbs now that the Fed is no longer in the MBS and UST monetization business. Furthermore, anyone who reads anything into the fact that the FRBNY is continuously ramping up its hiring of traders, both credit and equity, as posted in assorted public venues, is simply paranoid and does not understand that this is only due to Brian Sack's fascination in being surrounded by 400 traders daily. On the other hand, at this point pretty much everyone is aware of the sad state of FRBNY intervention, whether it is in the FX market or the gold market, and indirectly via the discount window and the repo system, in which banks purchase bonds at auction, using discount window or other zero cost capital, only to repo it back, and to use the proceeds to bid up stocks. Maybe Mr. Grayson can ask the Chairman whether the Fed is actively endorsing primary dealers to bid up risky assets to create the impression that since the market is ramping higher (on no volume, mind you, but who cares) that the economy is doing so as well (we will shortly have something to say that refutes this thesis, compliments of none other than Goldman Sachs). All cynicism aside, Grayson at least still continues to ask the right questions: among these are 1) How does the fed plan on dealing with the $1.7 trillion in MBS on the Fed's balance sheet, 2) Why Greenspan and Bernanke were so wrong in keeping the FF rate for so long, and how does the Chairman plan to reconcile the same bubble creation that blew up the economy last time ZIRP was around, with the deflationary threat to the economy, 3) Why does the Fed think a Tobin tax is bad (and, incidentally, why does the Fed even have an opinion on tax policy), 4) Why is the Fed failing at pushing unemployment lower even with ZIRP and QE, 5) How the Fed is lobbying on behalf of its, and Wall Street's interest, 6) How much gold should the US government own, and many others.

Fresh off his "You own the Red Roof Inn" tour, Alan Grayson gives another svelte performance as he introduces the latest soon-to-be buried-in-committee bill with the help of his trusty easel.

"The Fed has not been chastened. It is bolder and more of a rogue actor than ever. It's clear that without full audit authority going forward, the Fed will continue to give out "foreign aid" without Congressional or even Executive permission.

And it will do so in secret.

So we will be fighting on to get a full audit from the conference committee.

But let's not lose sight of what we have accomplished so far - real independent inquiry into the Fed, and its incestuous relationships with Wall Street banks. For the first time ever." - Alan Grayson

Pickpockets are getting needy again ...

Get ready. Something big is coming our way.

Call your Congress Critters before Ben and Timmeh have a chance to take them out to another really fancy dinner with perks ...

Thanks to Leo for pointing out that the WSJ's Jon Hilsenrath has reported that the Fed is considering reopening swap lines with central banks, likely in conjunction with the rumored rescue package. This is the news that shot the market up in the last 10 minutes of trading as the Fed would never allow the market to close at the days lows, as it was preparing to do. "Apparently New York Fed President Dudley and Vice Chair Don Kohn are in Basel this weekend for an already scheduled meeting with European central bankers. A Sunday announcement seems like a growing possibility." Lehman weekends are back baby. And with that, we are paging Alan Grayson, who personally had a thing or two to tell the Fed lunatic about bailing out the world ever again without getting prior approval first.

When we disclosed that the Fed was getting crammed down last week on Red Roof Inn foreclosures, little did we know that Alan Grayson was going to take the material and make pure comedic poetry out of it. One more reason to applaud the brilliance of our corrupt and moronic Senators for preventing the much needed and long-overdue audit of the Fed.Enjoy.

Alan Grayson storms back to the stage by asking just why is Tim Geithner, who has the biggest conflict of interest when it comes to Fed matters, even be allowed to have an opinion on Fed transparency issues. In today's ABC Top Line, Alan noted, “when Tim Geithner says that he doesn't want to see the Fed audited, what he's really saying is he doesn't want to see Tim Geithner audited,” Grayson said. “He was the head of the New York Fed for years and years. This audit would apply to him. And the actions he took -- which he can now take in secret and, when this bill passes, will no longer be secret -- we'll be able to see and understand the decisions that he made that among other things put huge amounts of bailout money into the hands of private interests.” Grayson added: “It's one of the biggest conflicts of interest I've ever seen.” Keep in mind that this is the same Fed that when it took over Bear via ML1 said it would have no losses on the collateral it assumed, only to see its Red Roof Inn holdings be foreclosed upon last week as Zero Hedge first discussed. How the Fed's opacity is still a topic of discussion simply does not compute. And that Obama is doing all he can to prevent the Fed transparency initiatives by Paul and Grayson from passing at this point certainly means that should the Fed's dirty laundry be made public that the administration would certainly collapse in a smoldering heap of 0% approval.

Why audit the Fed? Let me count the ways ...