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JPMorgan Sued By NY AG Over "Shit-Breathing" Bear Stearns RMBS Fraud
NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is suing JPMorgan over "multiple fraudulent and deceptive acts" in selling mortgage-backed securities causing losses of over $20bn. The suit appears to be related to conduct at Bear Stearns and is on the back of the monoline insurer lawsuits, and whistleblower affidavits such as the following:
In connection with the Bear Stearns Second Lien Trust 2007-1 (“BSSLT 2007- 1”) securitization, for example, one Bear Stearns executive asked whether the securitization was a “going out of business sale” and expressed a desire to “close this dog.” In another internal email, the SACO 2006-8 securitization was referred to as a “SACK OF SHIT” and a “shit breather.”
While we hope this would effectuate some real change, the likelihood is that it will at best result in a $300mm civil-lawsuit slap-on-the-wrists and brownie points for Schneiderman while nothing changes.
JPMorgan is of course contesting the shocking allegations.
- *JPMORGAN DISAPPOINTED NYAG PURSUING `RECYCLED' PLAINTIFF CLAIMS à NY AG MIRRORS BOND INSURER LAWSUITS
- *JPMORGAN TO STILL COOPERATE WITH PRESIDENT'S RMBS WORKING GROUP
- *JPMORGAN COMMENTS ON NYAG CLAIMS IN E-MAILED STATEMENT :JPM US
- *JPMORGAN SAYS IT INTENDS TO CONTEST NYAG ALLEGATIONS :JPM US
Via NY Times:
The complaint contends that Bear Stearns and its lending unit EMC Mortgage defrauded investors who purchased mortgage securities packaged by the companies from 2005 through 2007. The firms made material misrepresentations about the quality of the loans in the securities, the lawsuit said, and ignored evidence of broad defects among the loans that they pooled and sold to investors.
Moreover, when Bear Stearns identified problematic loans that it had agreed to purchase from a lender, it was required to make the originator buy them back. But Bear Stearns demanded cash payments from the lenders and kept the money, rather than passing it on to investors, the suit contends.
Unlike many of the other mortgage crisis cases brought by regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the action does not focus on a particular deal that harmed investors or an individual who was central to a specific transaction. Rather, the suit contends that the improper practices were institution-wide and affected numerous deals during the period.
Affidavit of Whistleblower from Clayton + Watterson Prime (Mortgage Due Diligence Firm) in Ambac vs. EMC:
...Many of my colleagues at Clayton also lacked underwriting experience and a number of them had held no previous positions in the mortgage industry. I noticed that many senior Clayton employees, such as Deb Medina, hired many of their family members to work as due diligence underwriters, even when they had no experience in the mortgage industry.
...Because of the time pressures, however, many due diligence underwriters at both Clayton and Watterson entered information directly from the loan application (also known as the "1003 form") or underwriting worksheet (the "1008 form") without verifying the information by examining supporting documentation. This was known as "1008 underwriting." In addition to the time pressures, another reason that many Clayton and Watterson due diligence underwriters engaged in 1008 underwriting was because they lacked the experience to question the information on these forms.
In fact, Clayton leads instructed us not to question what was on the 1008 form: "The loan’s already closed. You can’t do anything about it at this point." I received similar instructions from leads at Watterson, who often told us: "It’s closed. Just approve it and move on, They’re already in the house." From these instructions, I understood that Clayton and Watterson supervisors wanted me to approve loans without questioning any inaccuracies or departures from the underwriting guidelines.
As a result, due diligence underwriters like me knew that we could avoid having supervisors examine our work so long as we graded the loans as 1s. If we graded loans as 2s or 3s, quality control personnel and leads scrutinized our work and, oftentimes, publicly berated us for assigning that grade. Deb Medina, a Clayton lead, frequently yelled at due diligence underwriters for grading loans as 3s in public. Watterson leads instructed us, "Pass the loan and keep it moving." By this I understood that I was supposed to approve loans and could quickly move on to the next loan.
Clayton and Watterson leads instructed us to avoid grading loans as 3s. This was true for numerous clients, but especially true on Bear Stearns jobs... due diligence underwriters at both Clayton and Watterson often used the phrase "Bear don’t care."
...I frequently reviewed loan files that contained documents that appeared to be fraudulent. For example, I reviewed many pay stubs that I believed were fraudulent because they were obviously altered. When I raised this issue to leads at Clayton, they instructed me: "This is not fraud review. Just take it from there."
Exhibit 15 -- Whistleblower Affidavit (Redacted)
(h/t Manal Mehta)
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Real change? What's that?
Crime is the logical extension of the sort of behavior that is often considered
perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
JPIG in the news for more fraud and theft? Huh.... who would have guessed that?
So, we can expect a prostitution scandal then? Followed by a prompt resignation? Client number 9?
Nah, more likely a settlement, fines, no admission of wrongdoing. Standard operating procedure.
Nothing to see here, just the cost of doing business.
Free John Corzine!
s**t breather -- Hey cool term, thats the kind of creative thinking you get from a top school grad. I knew they got the big bucks for something!
The term is...PROTECTION RACKET. Banksters pay over a few % of each looting operation to the "regulators", then go back and do more of same. At intervals, WashSoakRinseRepeat.
When you go from a trolling to mooching
A myth in the USA.
Big Banks 'get out of jail free' cards for sale !! ...buy before November 6 and save big.
Squirm and pay, you JPM fucktards.
It'll be a drop in the bucket for JPM. Small fine, enough to keep the NY state pension fund solvent for a little bit longer.
they may sqirm but the jp gov morgue wont pay much.
Could the AG at least get every culprit at JPM to eat shit.
Would this be the straw that broke the Dimon's back? Will he survive this scandal as well? He might be more untouchable than Barry...
Hey now, be respectful to our future treasury secretary.
Barry's the only thing standing protecting JP Morgan from citizens with pitchforks he said so himself
JP Morgan’s Food Stamp Empire
thieving pricks...
JP MORGAN MAKES OVER HALF A BILLION DOLLARS OFF FOOD STAMPShttp://www.bloomberg.com/video/57038578-jpmorgan-s-paton-discusses-u-s-food-stamp-use.html
Thieves "calling out" other thieves. Execute them all.
So the buyer doesn't get sued, just the seller?
Why doesn't he sue the buyer(s) for inhaling shit breath and being dumb as fuck?
yup...a slap on the wrist in the form of a fine that represents about .005% of the ill-gotten gains is about all we can expect to see here...if that.
what a pathetic farce this financial system/market has become.
One can safely expect Eric Schneiderman's career to be ending shortly in a barrage of drug dealer and call-girl confessions.
Client #10?
And violating the soda ban.
stay outta hot tubs Eric
...and one moving violation.
Now that the election is close at hand, all political "deals" are off. Fasten your seatbelts and grab some popcorn. This is going to be fun.
Piss and wind civil.To be quickly dropped post election .
Got to stall all this another 12 months to get past the criminal statute of limitations.
Q: What do you get when you cross a Brian with a Barry?
A: Sach of Shiite
Interesting... Didn't AG get the memo that JPMourge is untouchable?
Let's see what kind of a useless slap on the wrist they will get
Bunch of Fucking Crooks. Why in the fuck would you EVER give them any of your money???
Oh the horror of it all! All for "show," while the next mega-fleecing is being planned. Stay tuned.
The next mega fleecing will be the bond market collapse. They are doing a good job herding retail right into the trap.
Hey Tyler correct me if I am wrong but isn't $300,000,000 really worth about $300,000 in "before the federal reserve was shit out of Cogresses asshole" dollars?
great fcking pedigree this ahole has
his family roots run long and deep through the bowels of Wall Street
http://www.vosizneias.com/73519/2011/01/15/new-york-eric-schneiderman-is...
and then there was the hit and run back on July 13, 2010
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2010/07/ag-hopeful-eric-s...
His pedigree what about jamie dimon's pedigree
President Obama's Favorite Banker
snip more at link
I knew something was up but, I couldn't figure the connection. Now, in retrospect, it should have been obvious. JPMorgan Chase is at its core Chicago-based Bank One. Dimon moved to Chicago when he became head of Bank One. In record time, Dimon weaseled his way into the Chicago's old boys network that launched Obama's presidential campaign.
The Gifting of Washington Mutual to President Obama's Favorite Banker
More on the Gifting
There needs to be new "boxes" on the US DebtClock page.
1. The number of lawsuits brought against the Morgue
2. How many 'clown-bux' they've stolen from others and weasel'd outta paying
as long as they remain a branch of government....they may as well get some pretty red and green Christmassy numbers of their own
The dearly departed Gore Vidal grew up in the lap of luxury. Years ago in an interview, he said that if you heard the way the wealthy talked among themselves about the common man, you would never vote for one of them. Some things never change. The White-Shoe Boys are like the Honey Badger, they don't give a shit because the law DOES NOT apply to them. What don't you understand about that?
Too bad Romney was wrong. If corporations really were people, maybe we could put some of THEM in jail. We obviously can't lock up any real walking and talking bankers, and the fines just get paid by the stock holders.
Fed and state have no problem locking up small company officers for criminal matters.
Size(of donations) does matter.
Who gives a shit?
Wake me when JPM is no longer disappointed but SHOCKED that legions of American taxpayers are standing at their doors with pitch forks in hand.
Disappointment is a privileged sentiment that these fuckers do not deserve.
Who bailed out WS?
Politicians signed the bailout check for WS on your behalf.
I think your anger is midirected.
Perhaps if you are looking to cast blame you should look into the mirror and ask yourself why you allow your politicians to trample on you.
Perhaps you can remind me how Harry Reid became a multi-millionaire being a career politician, ahem, public servant. Perhaps you can remind me why he refuses to release his tax returns while you're at it.
I thought we had regulators like the SEC and CFTC that were supposed to protect the public from fraud and abuse?
Some Wall St banksters deserve the firing squad for all kinds of shit they did that had nothing to do with politicians.
Who appoints the SEC commissioners? I forget.
What jurisdiction does the CFTC fall under? I hope it's not Federal.
Who was responsible for the community reinvestment act (which led to the housing bubble)?
Who bailed out Wall Street?
The CRA is a canard.The housing bubble would have happened without it.
Too much (SBS)money chasing too few homes .Classic asset inflation.
Add in multiple levels of unpunished fraud and theft by TBTF and voila;
A destroyed economy and the mother of all shit sandwiches.
My point is that pointing fingers at the tools and puppets in DC is too easy. They have no idea what these guys do.
The Banksters themselves are to blame. Its a fucking crime syndicate. So where are the authorities? FBI?
Where are the PEOPLE?
Why are the PEOPLE not holding their public servants accountable?
Occupy Wall Street was a great start. In my opinion the vehement and justified anger was focused in the wrong direction.
The anger should be directed at the policiticans. Banks at this point are nothing other than GSE's.
Fair point. I really dont have an answer to that, other than Americans in general are lazy and stupid when it comes to politics.
Or worse, they actually believe they are being served.
-IT
Big surprise... and this is not reported in the MSM? What a shocker! Without question, all those bastards need to have their heads chopped off now.
oh come on.. like anything is gonna happen in the lawless country we live in. guess being a slap explains why they arent "vigorously" defending .. isnt that what all legalbegals do?
Lawyers will get fat and for everybody else there is inflation and increased fees to make up for the fines.
They did it for the lulz (and the finez, and the feez, and the bribez, and the campaign contributionz).
You forgot...
JPM: IS IT OUR FAULT THAT MUPPETS LOVE TO BUY SACKS OF SHIT?
JPM: WE ONLY SELL QUALITY SACKS OF SHIT!
JPM: THE FED AND ECB TAKE SACKS OF SHIT AS COLLATERAL EVERY DAY.
JPM: WARREN BUFFET WOULD RATHER HAVE SACKS OF SHIT THAN BARS OF GOLD.
No fears, the bernank will buy that crap. oh wait, it's not on the big banks books? [/never mind ]
Worse than selling MBS packages of known shitfulness, Bear Stearns also sold said same shit bags to multiple buyers, as Whalen pointed out a couple years ago.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/guest-post-mortgages-were-pledged...
It's not hard to imagine Bear's defense to the first crime, but how the fuck do you defend selling the same thing 6 times? And where's the AG on the latter?
.
Rehypothecated shit bags. A holographic burning bag of dog shit is projected onto the front doorstep of multiple investors. The scheme holds together as long as all investors believe the burning bag of shit on their porch is real. However, it all falls apart as soon as one of the investors tries to stomp out the fire.
No jail time and no revocation of licenses = no change.
J.P. Morgue will simply get $600 million from the FED at 0.10% , $300 million to pay the fine and $300 million to lend out at 5%-29% or send to the London casino for whale Roulette, Pai Gow, and Craps rehypothecation.
Barclays to lend a hand.
Party on.
I am searching for those trusts on Edgar right now.
When (if) I find them, I bet I won't be able to see the contents or the PSA.
Instead, I'll be advised to request it by email: cmbs-prospectus@jpmorgan.com
Per my prior post - you will only get to see SEC Edgar data prior to the firm's filing a withdrawal of registration form for the Trust. Hmmm, bet it was almost exactly 1 year from the registration date, too.
Now...I have to go look, too.
I'm still looking.
If you find it please let me know. I'll do the same.
BINGO
Bear Stearns Second Lien Trust 2007-1 filed registration with the SEC 4-2007. Filed for withdrawal from registration in 1-2008. A mere 16 shareholders reported, thus qualifying the entity for withdrawal. As a compliance geek - I'd love to get to the bottom of their "playnbook".
http://sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=Bear+Stearns+Second+Lien+Trust+2007-1&match=contains&CIK=&filenum=&State=&Country=&SIC=&owner=exclude&Find=Find+Companies&action=getcompany
Bravo!
I also suspect Schneiderman is posturing.
If he was serious he'd be addressing the issue of what exactly is a "Qualified Mortgage".
And also the IRS 860 tax evasion. These certificates are junk already and carry along with them many negative tax consequenses.
Thanks!
Certainly! Good points.
The slime just thickens.
Found this on Scribd and it's from July 2010. Looks like the same one. maybe not.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47547012/Ambac-Proposed-Amended-Complaint-Agai...
Oh, I get it now, SACO-Trust, Saco-o-shit, Clever, funny guys at Bear Stearns. Wonder where they are now?
is this the same "sack of shit" MBS "securities"
that QEorganizer told banksternanQE to buy?
question for bQE: do you have asthma or do you have a shit breather?
You defruad to the tune of 20b? then you lose twice that if/when you're found guilty. Don't have it? fuck you and die...
While we hope this would effectuate some real change, the likelihood is that it will at best result in a $300mm civil-lawsuit slap-on-the-wrists...
Agree w/the author.
Why doesn't this or any other AG (or federal regulator) open the WHOLE can of worms? Retorical question...I realize it would push the USSA off of the proverbial financial cliff because the fraud at so many levels is overwhelming. There aren't enough jail cells or money to prosecute...and the fraud rises high in organizations to well beyond those organizations.
Millions have been harmed. Sickening. Chase and others were given carte blanche to rape and pillage.
Our mortgage file should fry Chase...but it won't because Teflon won't burn. What has happened to homeowners and investors on a grand scale is just madness.
Why is there no investigation into the fact that most of these mortgage trusts file a registration statement w/the SEC, then within 1-2 years, they withdrawal registration (Form 15) due to dissolution or reliance on the de minimis investor exemption (where did all of the investors go?). It's like clockwork how these trusts filed then withdrew shortly thereafter - a ton o' them. It seems to be a shady standard protocol - how these suckers were filed and withdrawn. Why have bunches of these been filed showing a miniscule amount of investors (two digits) or less after one stinking year? WTF?
Where was SEC regulation? Oh yeah, I guess if mortgage fraud came packaged as a porn web site, it would've received some attention.
What happened to the investigation about Delware filed trusts that originated in NY? Why can't the State of DE locate trust filing data for these securities? I started an inquiring into our trust two years ago...no data located and the trust folks were stumped. Then, quietly a NY-DE investigation started looking into this...but all went quiet.
Why are IRS reports missing for a slew of those trusts = particularly those reporting thru '07 then suddenly vanished? I've reviewed several of these - including our own and it appears they just went up in smoke.
So many more questions...no one who will touch 'em. We are only those to be stolen from. We are otherwise nothing to them. Utterly shameless.
Who gives a flying fuck?
The damage is done.
It's like cops showing up at a murder scene. The act is done. And the victims are impacted.
These types of frauds are going to get worse. This is the tip of the iceberg - 700T of unfunded liabilities heading our way.
I am in the middle of reading "The Rise And Fall Of Bear Stearns" by Alan C. Greenberg. The bankers do all their speculating with other people's money. They only use their money on inside info. Risk arbritrage was Greenberg's specialty. Companies having problems but with lots and lots of assets were excellent targets. They come to the bankers for help, and walk away homeless. Its like an old lady coming to a repair shop with a fairly new Lexus that needs a few minor repairs, and the mechanic tells her that the car has major problems and the repairs will cost $15,000, but he will take this lemon of a car off of her hands for $1,500. Frightened, and not knowing what to do, she sells. Then the mechanic sells the expensive parts for top dollar and junks the rest of the car. Oh, what would we do without the bankers?
I don't know about you but I am getting pretty sick of the state of NY suing Wall Street firms for billions and in the end the cases are ALWAYS settled and New York walks away with billions, but it was the whole country/world that got ripped off, so why is NY the only jurisdiction that gets partial reparations?
I understand the argument that the real plaintiff in a supra national situation is the USA (or other nations) and in the absence of these choosing to file suits or criminal charges the state of NY is filing suits so that evidence/proof can be brought into courtrooms that others are refusing to do. Good for them for doing the right thing, but it really only is right if all the victims of the crimes of Wall Street are compensated for the frauds and conspiracies. If the state of New York bankrupts the corporate criminals then no other victims get justice.
So, I am both pleased and not pleased about this, pleased because someone has to lift the rock and shine a light on Wall Street, and the slime that lives there, hopefully one day they will shame the federal government into action and get some pinstriped suit types put away for a major chunk of the rest of their lives. Not pleased if it results in the people of New York enjoying justice while the rest of the world is stonewalled by lack of action for their abused position.
FUCK YOU SCUM BAG WALL STREET BANKER!
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Anyone who doubts that our financial system remains a combustible stew of greed, inadequate regulation and perverse incentives need look no further than “Bull by the Horns,” a blunt new memoir from Sheila Bair, the former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Bair piloted that agency through the darkest days of the financial crisis, consistently advocating a tougher stance toward the financial giants whose recklessness -- abetted by slavish or inept regulators -- was responsible for the mess.
A feminist Republican, Bair believes passionately in the importance of strong regulation and government service. She has a wide populist streak, yet she’s also a capitalist, and she understands banking.
Perhaps as a result of this unusual perspective, she’s delivered an unusually blistering recollection of her five years in office as well as a sobering assessment of the financial system she helped oversee -- a system still infected by what Bair calls “a culture of greed and shortsightedness.” It’s a wonkish book -- be prepared to accompany the author as she re- fights the Battle of Basel II, for instance -- yet also an endearing one.
Mortgage Mess
As a homeowner, Bair gets treated by a big bank just like so many other Americans: It loses her mortgage paperwork, and charges her 5.62 percent instead of 5.26 percent because of a clerical error. When she tries to refinance, it keeps her $700 rate-lock fee without giving her the loan.
She wears $139 suits from Macy’s and owns up to an occasional tantrum. Aboard Air Force One, she doesn’t hesitate to stuff napkins or coasters in her bag as souvenirs.
Most of all, she demonstrates that “the relationship between Washington and Wall Street had become too cozy.”
At one point, for instance, she implies that the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency essentially rigged a stress test in Citigroup Inc.’s favor so the company wouldn’t have to raise so much capital -- and lose a $50 billion tax break.
Key banking chieftains during and after the crisis of 2008 come in for particular scorn.
Citigroup’s Bungling
Citigroup’s management is “bungling,” and Bair doubts that its CEO, Vikram Pandit, is up to the job of running his large, complex and (at the time) deeply troubled institution.
Kenneth Lewis, then CEO of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp., was seen “as a country bumpkin” by the city slickers who ran the big New York banks, “and not completely without justification.”
At a crucial meeting with federal officials who were about to “forcibly inject” capital into teetering financial institutions, the question on the lips of Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO John Thain, whose firm appeared to be insolvent, was about restrictions on executive compensation.
But these barbs are mere flea bites compared to the fusillade that Bair directs at her nemesis, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who is portrayed as an enabler of Wall Street recklessness and a tool of the big banks -- one devoted in particular to the aid and comfort of Citigroup, where “Geithner’s mentor and hero, Bob Rubin,” was a director.
Geithner’s Fault
In Bair’s book, Geithner symbolizes everything that was wrong with the government’s approach to financial regulation and crisis resolution. She finds him at least partly to blame, during his tenure atop the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for letting the banks run wild.
She also blames him for what she sees as a wildly over- generous series of bailouts, and later for opposing the kind of tough capital requirements and other policies she and her agency advocated.
On top of everything else, in Bair’s view, Geithner was part of a boys’ club that studiously ignored her when important decisions had to be made.
Bair is especially incensed by the bailouts. “What system were we trying to save, anyway?” she asks. “A system in which well-connected big financial institutions get government handouts while smaller institutions and home owners are left to fend for themselves?”
No Alternative
Yet like many ardent bailout critics, she could offer no real alternative for saving all the little people who, for better or worse, depended on the same economy imperiled by the crisis. So, holding her nose, she went along with a bold program that did in fact save the day -- and which she acknowledges was unavoidable.
To her credit, she also pushed for a vast and sensible- sounding program of mortgage modifications (her advice was rebuffed), and later for elements in the Dodd-Frank reforms that would make future bank rescues much tougher on shareholders, managements and boards. Unfortunately, only time will tell if the legislation, which strives to eliminate future bailouts, has also eliminated the conditions that necessitated the last one.
Bair ends her book with some smart suggestions for making the system safer and fairer, followed by a call to arms for voters and taxpayers to demand reform: “Life goes on, as Robert Frost observed. But financial abuse and misconduct don’t have to.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Bair-Blasts-Geithner-Culture-of-Greed-in-3909694.php#ixzz286D4awxN
Soooo they'll be fined $251 dollars to scare the other MBS structure and pricing factories.
Come on, shitty deals happen all the time.
a “SACK OF SHIT” and a “shit breather.”
Isn't this the stuff the Fed just started paying top dollar for? Who would have thought it?
I can't imagine what they will be buying with QE4.
Front running is sooo counter intuitive these days.
Pretty easy case considering there never were any mortgage backed securities backed by any loans in the first place.
so why does the Fed buy them?
keep counting down, one day soon it will be zero.
MBS's are built on so much fluff and false assumptions it's a wonder why anyone would buy them except under duress from the government. To think that someone would pay their mortgage when the other option is to walk away and go buy a better home at a cheaper price, or to rent one of higher quality, is ludicrous. But of course, there are many other factors that play into the picture now. Instead of treating a mortgage like a business transaction between a service provider and a service purchaser, mortgages have become something entirely different. The state has taken over the role of ensuring people have a home to live in, so if someone decides that they don't like the home they've been allocated or that it was a bad business decision in the first place, they now must contend with getting on the wrong side of the state. The state, not wanting to come across as too abusive in this case, chooses to instead of punish the bad borrower, punish society as a whole for allowing these bad borrowers to exist. The state accomplishes this by recompensing the lender with money drained from the money pool, or to put it more accurately, money added to and then removed from the money pool. In essence, the money holders of the world, by and large, the middle class, then foot the bill for those who cannot afford a home. In this way, the state reminds those of us what we should be doing - looking out for our neighbor. However, the state does not do this efficiently, but rather egregiously. As a result, those who made bad loans - the banks - and those bad borrowers, are barely hurt by their poor transaction decisions and in some cases are rewarded. The bankers are made whole, and the borrowers are not forced to forgo their property. This is monetary socialism. In a monetary-socialist society, the monetary authorities have all the power. They can tax the populace through inflation, or they can relieve the populace through deflation. But do not mistake this for a democracy. There are no democratic back stops in this system. The monetary authorities are elected behind closed doors and through a process not understood by the laymen. The enforcement arm of this system is the bankruptcy court. If the court feels the borrower is advantaged, he punishes the borrower under the pretense of "strategic default". If the borrower is disadvantaged, he relieves the borrower of their debts. The courts, too, are not subject to the democratic process. The only player that is subject to the democratic process is the office of the President, but the rules governing the election are controlled by that President, leaving him at a distinct advantage over challengers. And this is assuming he chooses to hold an election. Thus we move slowly but persistently from a balanced system to an unbalanced system, no longer beholden to public control
from: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/this-presidential-ra...
"With 300 million possible entrants in the race, how did we end up with two guys who would both refuse to bring a single case against a Wall Street bank during a period of epic corruption? How did we end up with two guys who refuse to repeal the carried-interest tax break? How did we end with two guys who supported a vast program of bailouts with virtually no conditions attached to them? Citigroup has had so many people running policy in the Obama White House, they should open a branch in the Roosevelt Room. It's not as bad as it would be in a Romney presidency, but it comes close."
Matt pretty much sums it all up, as usual.
Just wheel out the guillotines, give them a haircut, and take back all the stuff they stole.
I can be convinced otherwise, but now I believe lawsuits like this against big corporations are useless. The corporate shield protects the villans who benefitted from the crimes and are now gone, and the sucessor employees are the ones who suffer. You have to pierce the veil and attack those who took the money and ran.
I dunno.
Anti-JPM headlines - possibly for weeks - are just what we Silver Bulls need after the adverse - for now - position limits decision.
I say "for now," because Friday's decision was hardly the final say, and the issue can be kicked several rungs up the ladder in the months ahead,
But JPM and its fellow Leviathans were probably gloating over it.
This morning, not so much.
NY AG: "JP Morgan - you sold some sacks of sh*t. Please extend your wrists."
A loud, "SLAP!" is heard reverberating throughout the hallways of the NY AG.
JP Morgan: "We're very sorry, and won't do it again. Can we pay our fine now and be on our way?"
NY AG: "Why yes, please take this coupon and remit your fine at the account window. Thanks for cooperating and have a nice day!"
Why is JPM responsible for what Bear Sterns did ?