Mortgage Bankers Association

The diminishing returns of the Fed's quantitative easing are very evident in the latest WFC results.  

Cost reductions and layoffs are the drivers for bank earnings... Watch those ski tips.  

What if the businesses were fully aware that interest rates were being manipulated? What if they knew exactly how and why this was happening? Would they still misallocate their investments?

There are no ramifications if you get caught defrauding the court. Just take a voluntary dismissal and start over. We now have a court system, an entire judicial system, that supports fraud...

Church of England - and Religious Leaders Worldwide - Say Bankers Should Repent and Change Their Ways

All you need to read and some more.

The real world revolves around cash flow. Families across the land understand this basic concept. Cash flows in from wages, investments and these days from the government. Cash flows out for food, gasoline, utilities, cable, cell phones, real estate taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, clothing, mortgage payments, car payments, insurance payments, medical bills, auto repairs, home repairs, appliances, electronic gadgets, education, alcohol (necessary in this economy) and a countless other everyday expenses. If the outflow exceeds the inflow a family may be able to fund the deficit with credit cards for awhile, but ultimately running a cash flow deficit will result in debt default and loss of your home and assets. Ask the millions of Americans that have experienced this exact outcome since 2008 if you believe this is only a theoretical exercise. The Federal government, Federal Reserve, Wall Street banks, regulatory agencies and commercial real estate debtors have colluded since 2008 to pretend cash flow doesn’t matter. Their plan has been to “extend and pretend”, praying for an economic recovery that would save them from their greedy and foolish risk taking during the 2003 – 2007 Caligula-like debauchery.

Debt default means huge losses for the Wall Street criminal banks. Of course the banksters will just demand another taxpayer bailout from the puppet politicians. This repeat scenario gives new meaning to the term shop until you drop. Extending and pretending can work for awhile as accounting obfuscation, rolling over bad debts, and praying for a revival of the glory days can put off the day of reckoning for a couple years. Ultimately it comes down to cash flow, whether you’re a household, retailer, developer, bank or government. America is running on empty and extending and pretending is coming to an end.

All you need to read.

You can't handle it. 

The suit seeks a civil penalty against MERS of up to $10,000 for each willful violation of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as well as restitution to borrowers who were harmed by these violations.

We're always more interested in the trend, and whether that trend is showing signs of change.

Gleacher's head of rates submits: "Last Thursday I walked from Town Hall in N.Y.C to Wall St. wearing my navy blue pin-stripped suit, asking for directions to the NYSE from PROTESTERS and ORGANIZERS. You should have seen the look on their faces. Kill em with kindness and a smile. Everyone was there. SEIU, ACORN, Longshoremen and other organizers, faceless, unemployed, faceless employed, moms, dads, and lost souls. I felt like a lost soul during a slow motion walk near frozen in time. There were almost more press corps than protestors but they achieved one of their goals, virtually shutting down a major grid of commerce in one of the most travelled corners of the nation, Wall Street. Ironically, I was on my way to a conduit in support of affordable housing goals aided by a bunch of bankers in the iconic figment of capitalism, the NYSE. It was a surreal walk accentuated by Contrast and Conflict, my own and others For me there was a conflict of the realization of a mis-understood marriage and divorce of catalyst Congressional public policy initiatives and government sponsored support, in which I was in route meeting, and with private partner capitalist mandates of mortgage finance, me. I’ve been asked often in my own community recently, “What is Occupy Wall St.?” I sense the answer is different for different people. A dis-organized expression for many. But a highly organized expression for others from the likes of quotes from organizers above. Caroline Baum asked demonstrators AND HERSELF the question recently. Just as I side-stepped the blitz with a silhouette of a Bull in the distance. An organizer?!$!$% I ask what is a banker? Who are these evil people? Is it loan officer? FX trader, teller, IG trader, taxable fixed income salesperson, middle office operations employee?"

Wake up as many people as you can.

With the US economy in free fall, European liquidity imploding, NASA on beneficially inclined and extremely solvent extraterrestrial life alert (someone has to bailout the world after all), at least we have political circuses, if not so much bread... or cake. Here is what DC has in store for us over the next five days. Luckily, we can forget our trials and tribulations tonight when 8 pm brings with it the second Republican presidential address in which Ron Paul will once again be the undisputed winner and will be largely ignored by everyone in the mainstream, financially-funded media.

Sales must increase. That is largely dependent on household formation, which in turn is dependent on growth in full time jobs. And that's not happening.