Robosigning Is Now History - US Announces $26 Billion Foreclosure Settlement
As reported yesterday, the cost of terminal abrogation of contractual rights in the US is, drumroll, $26 billion. Bloomberg notes:
- $26 BILLION FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT ANNOUNCED IN WASHINGTON
- FORECLOSURE ACCORD RESOLVES 16-MONTH ROBO-SIGNING INVESTIGATION
- FORECLOSURE ACCORD IS SUBJECT TO APPROVAL BY FEDERAL JUDGE
- FORECLOSURE DEAL PRESERVES U.S., STATE RIGHTS TO OTHER CLAIMS
- FORECLOSURE ACCORD COULD CLIMB TO $40 BLN IF 14 SERVICERS JOIN
And a whole lot of corner offices for America's Attorneys General. As for what the market thinks of this "severe" settlement: BAC +1.2%, WFC +0.6%, JPM +0.4%, C -0.1%. For those who don't understand what just happened, US banks just funded Obama's re-election campaign to the tune of $26-$40 billion.
From the NYT:
After months of painstaking talks, government authorities and five of the nation’s biggest banks have agreed to a $26 billion settlement that could provide relief to nearly two million current and former American homeowners harmed by the bursting of the housing bubble, state and federal officials said. It is part of a broad national settlement aimed at halting the housing market’s downward slide and holding the banks accountable for foreclosure abuses.
Despite the billions earmarked in the accord, the aid will help a relatively small portion of the millions of borrowers who are delinquent and facing foreclosure. The success could depend in part on how effectively the program is carried out because earlier efforts by Washington aimed at troubled borrowers helped far fewer than had been expected.
Still, the agreement is the broadest effort yet to help borrowers owing more than their houses are worth, with roughly one million expected to have their mortgage debt reduced by lenders or able to refinance their homes at lower rates. Another 750,000 people who lost their homes to foreclosure from September 2008 to the end of 2011 will receive checks for about $2,000. The aid is to be distributed over three years.
In other words, got foreclosed on for being unable to make payments? YOU GET $2,000! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you buy an election using taxpayer money.
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Abrogation nation!
It gets better, Linda Green will be the one signing the $2k check!
...and in the envelope with the check will be a "Barry 2012" contribution form.
By the time they get their fuckin' checks, they'll be able to get about a 1/2oz of gold with it. Jesus Christ, how's that shit sandwich taste.
Fucking $2000? I bought my house at 500K now it's worth 200,000 and you give me 2 thousand dollars? Give me the fucking house, or I'll vote Ron Paul.
Now I have to make payments too? Obama come on, how will I buy more ipads?
it's not our goddamned fault you were an idiot and bought into a bubble.
You listened to the pumpers like silver bagholders around here listened to mosely-claven and they lost big.
But, take heart, because some big fish just got PAYD bigtime. There is NO WAY a deal like this went through without some suitcases of cash.
I have a feeling some of those $2k checks will be used to buy guns.
Just Sayin...
Sarcasm. I was referring to many who believed laughing Bernanke that the housing market will go up forever. And if they give away free fucking houses, Ron Paul will win in landslide.
How do I take out a mortgage to buy silver?
1/2 oz? You can't smoke gold
The ridiculous part is that the banks are getting a "get out of jail free" card for rampant institutional fraud in exchange for what amounts to an aid package.
What about all those fraudulent MERS docs floating around out there? Are all of those now deemed "legitimate?"
No...I think
Ya know... I bought a car a year ago, and IT'S lost value, just like my house. So when is the governement going to give me money for the lost value in my car? Huh... Huh... When!!! I want my damn money Obama! How come all these home owners get money and car owners don't! You know how many millions of people are underwater on the value of their car right now? I swear, car owners never get any respect from this Administration.
Wait... If I lost my house, the government would give me $2k, right? Couldn't I purchase a used car, with a loan of course, and claim it as my house (since I don't have a house any more) and wouldn't I get another $2k when I stop paying the loan? Would that mean I'd end up with your my original $2k (that I never paid on the loan) plus another $2k for not paying my loan, plus the car? Shoot, that's $6k right there and I didn't have to do anything! Easy money, here I come... Livin' the dream...
The Top Twelve Reasons Why You Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement « naked capitalism http://bit.ly/ztXjix
Best comment....
Richard Kline says:
February 9, 2012 at 7:22 am
Anyone paying attention understands that this grotesquerie of a give-away to the banks is Obama’s main plank in his re-election campaign. What he’s after is to show he can serve the 1% better than any other hairball they could possibly cough up—and in that, he’s right. He’s the best bought son the banksters have ever had.
I wouldn’t call it a ‘settlement,’ I’d call it a surrender document. The chief legal magistrates of 49 states in this country have surrendered any duty of oath and office to defend the interests of their citizens for less then chump change; cheap promises, really. A clipped penny dropped in a beggar’s cup on the way out the banquet door by the offenders. A cost of doing business, and one bargained down by obsequious officials to the vanishing point.
The question comes to mind viewing this: Why, if the 1% can delierately and comprehensively violate statue for profit and be assisted in escaping jeopardy by the country’s officials, why on earth should anyone else honor a contract or obey a statute in financial transactions? Those at the top of the chain manifestly are obligated to no law or restraint. Why, then, shouldn’t the bulk of the citizenry simply ruthlessly default? Particularly all those who are hopelessly underwater. No one higher up the food chain then them thinks ‘following the law’ is in any way desirable or mandatory, so why should they, or we, do so? Now personally, I think we should follow the law, and enforce it. But functionally, what this settlement demonstrates massively is that the law is for chumps and peasants. Nobody else need be overly troubled about ‘the law.’
—And it is THAT knowledge, in my view, that will prove the most cancerous byproduct of this perversion of justice. Not directly; not immediately; put perniciously, insidiously, and potentially pervasively. When everyday folks understand that they are fools for following rules, and the sensebility of that as much as knowledge of the facts will leak out, then rules fall into abeyance. So it is not just an issue that titans of wealth walk free regardless of crimes, but more an issue that the law falls into disrepute in ways small and large but many. The damage from that isn’t just to confidence or to collateral but to restraint from rapacity and misfeasance at all levels. The rich are teaching us all that crime pays, and pays handsomely; society will learn that lesson if that is the way things go. That is my view, one baleful and regretful.
As mentioned by Yves in the post furthermore, this corruscated atrocity of a legal outcome will do nothing to improve the housing market either, but will grossly and bluntly achieve the opposite effect. Who in their right mind would trust any investing or activity in real propert after the laws involved thereof are proved by this outcome to have no force? After the authorities are proved not merely to have no credibility, to be absent of impartiality, but in fact to be demonstrated as wholly in league with robbers at the top of the financial pyramid thieving absolutely everybody else in society? We are just proving that to invest in property is to simply hand over your wallet to the banksters to take as much or all of as they so choose? So to get re-elected, one further piece of collateral damage inflicted by Obama is to ensure that housing will not recover for many, many years, if at all. But the fact that ALL those AGs of both halves of the single party system will line up against the citizenry is the fullest possible demonstration that it is the 1% and their bought-and-paid for political system against the rest of us. They write the rules: we follow them but the don’t. That has a very bad end game . . . .
+100
"I wouldn’t call it a ‘settlement,’ I’d call it a surrender document."
Very nice. In the end, this is about local corruption not federal. Every level seems far gone
Thanks for the link. This is exactly what I was looking for.
These animals are absolute scum and an enemy to the American people.
"When everyday folks understand that they are fools for following rules, and the sensebility of that as much as knowledge of the facts will leak out, then rules fall into abeyance. So it is not just an issue that titans of wealth walk free regardless of crimes, but more an issue that the law falls into disrepute in ways small and large but many. The damage from that isn’t just to confidence or to collateral but to restraint from rapacity and misfeasance at all levels. The rich are teaching us all that crime pays, and pays handsomely; society will learn that lesson if that is the way things go. That is my view, one baleful and regretful."
2,500 years ago the scenario was described.
People need to read this stuff and *demand* better:
Tao Te Ching - Verse 57
Govern the country by being straightforward.
Wage war by being crafty.
Win all under heaven by not meddling.
How do I know that this is so?
By what is within me.
The more restrictions there are, the poorer are the people.
The more pointed the people's weapons,
the more disorder there is in the country.
The more ingenious and clever the people,
the more strange the contrivances that appear.
The more laws and edicts that are posted,
the more thieves and robbers that arise.
Hence an Old One has said:
I act without striving and the people transform themselves.
I love stillness and the people straighten themselves.
I do not meddle and the people prosper by themselves.
I am free from desires and the people themselves
return to the simplicity of the Uncarved Block.
Good old 57 is the one I have taped on my wall.
Hellz, yah!
We'll just write a check to ourselves for $26B, problem solved!
You don't suppose any of those pesky criminal cases will go anywhere do ya?
You don't suppose any of those pesky criminal cases will go anywhere do ya?
Rhetorical question ?
There was a news story out of Missouri just yesterday. An indictment against the DocX company.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a number of the robosigners and perhaps a layer or two of their bosses go on trial, even as the big five banks skate.
A few bad apples, right?
How many people are asking themselves, "Why didn't I just strategically default last year?"
Or why did I pay off my mortgage in the first place. I think the reason is that some of us still have a shred of morality.
Our shred of morality is disappearing. I know very successful people who have given up
and are now just left with their cashed in 401k's. They have had it.
If "very successful people" have given up their morality, we need to refresh the definition of success.
true, I should say that people who dedicated their days to doing their job to the best of their ability
only to be screwed in some way by their employer.
Why be moral when the government you elected has shown that the only way to truly get ahead is to be immoral! Follow the example set by your leaders and the pillars of our society...don't be concerned about morals or ethics, do what is expedient to get ahead. Just make sure if you break the 'law' that you have the money to buy yourself a get out of jail free card...cause that's all it takes nowadays; MONEY! Our president and his entire administration are a perversion of what once was a decent society. Hopefully they'll get a taste of their own medicine.
This is a court of law, not of justice.
People who arbitrarily spend our money in a way that doesn't benefit us at all (bankers and gov't people) shuffle some money between one another.
One Adam 12....
We have a robbery in progress...
robosettlement
Abrograted the fully consenting adult supposedly professional money manager buyers long ago.
You know the "professional trader" aka paper pushers of the world squeezing for that extra steenth, taking it in the ass from people who were actually paying attention.
Next idiotic technicality used by the ambulance chasers to prevent asset prices from settling?
How about the documentary issuance congruent with a mortgage is cruel and unusual punishment?
"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent."
-- J. Edgar Hoover
The banality of evil; and Emperor Obama has no clothes. Quick, call Marketing.
God damn those banker motherfuckers... and the AG's too... and the Government.
I thought I just heard on CNBS that the 2K is going to be written off the principle of the loan, in other words, no check is in the mail. Is this correct or just more BS?
Check box A if you want this to be written off your loan (no Box A shown)
Check any other Box if you want this to go toward the 2012 Presidential Campaign.
Remind me again what the individual campaign contribution limit is?
Ha! Now that is funny. On a more serious note I have dealt with this level of betrayal. It hurts but sometimes all that can be done is withdraw certain levels of participation and redirect work toward the suffering which is epic in these times.
"Laws" are just "Word Magic" at this point.
I'm never taking a mortgage out for a home. Never. Fuck these assholes. If I want to buy a home, I'll pay for up front with straight cash homey. And if they give me shit, I'll take my money somewhere else, label me "terrorist" be damned.
Den of thieves is more like it.
So at what point should Rule of Law - Equal Justice - Equal Protection be declared moot?
Right NOW at a minimum.
When the two entities competing are of equal (high) net worth.
February 1871, give or take.
Unfortunately, the US is a lot closer to Orwells' 1984!
I was thinking more like Argentina's 1989.
Mayhem, have felt for several years America would land like the Soviets. We're probably the Soviets of 1986, a couple of years from fall of grace. Iran in 2013 may ultimately be our Afghanistan. As a guess, the United States as a form of government won't continue past 2015. Then America will be like Russia of the 1990's with individual oligarchs looting what's left of the private sector. That is when sleeps with da fishes emerges in beurocrats and oligarchs alike (if we continue on Soviet corruption/disintegration path). WW3 will emerge around this time (2015) and mankind will have a lot of rebuilding to do by 2021.
You must be a history professor...had to hunt this one down : http://www.byronwine.com/files/1871.pdf
That makes me want to PUKE!!
Why do you think that the 4th branch of government (media) just came out with all the hoopla on the sovereign movement?
It is right there in section 1 of the 14th amendment:
Why would that be in there? Because there really IS a two tiered system in this nation.
And you waive your rights and subject yourself to it's jurisdiction whenever you sign contracts with the corporate USA, UNLESS you explicitly reserve them.
See UCC 1-308.
pods
That's in there because to be a citizen, you have to be either born in the US or naturalized AND subject to US jurisdiciton. If you are not subject to US jurisdiciton, you are not a "citizen" proper.
Put another way, if you are born in the US and renounce your citizenship and move to another country - you are no longer subject to US jurisdiction (hence not a citizen) unless you engage in some contact that indicates your willingness to re-submit to jurisdiction (see "minimum contacts")
Basically, citizenship is partially predicated upon being within the jurisdiction of US courts. Duh.
That UCC shit has nothing to do with it.
Not really seeing where your argument goes against mine.
If you look deeper into what actually defines "US courts" you might be surprised.
Maybe look into the Brushaber decision, or what the 14th amendment actually means, or what the act of 1871 actually did.
If criminal prosecutions are never made and fines are pennies on the dollar of what has been stolen, then crime becomes a simple business decision. There are some matters of the government that should be solely viewed through a pragmatic and efficient lens... however, there are some matters that go to the foundation of the morality underpinning the legitimacy of the entire system and, as a result, must be defended, regardless of how impractical.
The problem with the present approach is that it has killed the ability for capital to be reinvested as well as be created... and, if growth and capital formation are objective and obvious conditions to our recovery, then the real intentions of those in charge become apparent.
Macho - I'm interested in your opinion on how this may or may not impact litigation currently in the courts.
Also, do you feel it will hinder future litigation?
The standard is that you cannot retroactively alter a "vested right." While appellate courts are often "result oriented" I think, objectively, any causes of action of individual homeowners are long since vested. So, regardless of what the settlement entails and regardless of whether congress wants to get involved, I think that genie is already out of the bottle. As best I can tell, this will eliminate any existing litigation by or between the parties to the contract (e.g. banks and states that sign), but any state that opts out will continue to pursue its present claims. Further, it's my understanding this only applies to the robo-fraud, but not other matters, e.g. any other screw ups with assignments or other improper practices.
So, it will stop some litigation or proposed litigation/investigation in its tracks and it will have minimal to no impact on other litigation... practically speaking, I think one of the big issues is that the government could have conducted a full-scale, blitzkrieg type discovery through a criminal prosecution... which would probably not only provided more ammo for individual suits, but also uncovered ancillary improper procedures... my guess is that this is a pretty big development and will act to impede or otherwise stall civil discovery attempting to uncover the same.
In the end, the devil is in the details, but I think these are some good general parameters.
So, basically the AGs agreed there will be no "cites" coming from any litigation , rather lack of litigation, initiated by them.
In reality nothing has changed. This affirms that nothing will change.
Ultimately you have it all correct... it comes down to putbacks... if the government basically lays all the groundwork and proves fraud, etc., with these financial instruments, then, as fiduciaries, I can't see how any GSE or other similar body could hold them... enter a settlement without admission of fault.
It's up to the little guys (I say that, but there are plenty of really big fish that had to nibble this turd) to pursue civil claims... of which, you won't see the FED or GSEs seeking putbacks or other civil remedies.
My guess is that what's left of the non GSE/FED holdings is still enough to crash the banks given the amount of leverage in the system... but, it might be a number small enough to get eaten up via other QE mechanisms.
Kick the can.
PS, still does not a damn thing to help the chain of assignment issues clouding millions of titles, unless the entire chain of assignment on all the notes is part of the agreement... and even then, they'll have to exchange some more documents (properly this time).
I think that with some principal writedowns as a carrot, people will unknowlingly solve the issue of clouded title with a refi, would they not?
A refi would basically wipe the slate clean and let them start anew?
pods
Yes.
This Bloomberg story from Feb. 7 illustrates just how valuable a nice fresh signature from the mortgagor actually is.
Banks Paying Homeowners to Avoid Foreclosures
I think this is actually, somehow, the plan... kick the can until you get enough refis... which, of course, doesn't fix any issues related to sale of toxic securities...
I think what will happen is the GSEs come out with principal reductions (for all) and when you go to get your reduction, you'll end up performing the same acts as a refi.
Thanks guys! That is what I had thought the plan was. The FED buys a bunch, backstops the GSEs, and since the average mortgage is like 7 years, eventually all this will solve itself.
pods
Good.
In Tyler's OP it states this deal still needs approval by a Federal Judge. I want to find out who that Judge is.
It won't be Judge Dredd. It will be Judge Payd
lol
How can you not laugh at this farce? Perhaps they just think there isn't enough humor in the world?
Nice posts. "stalling discovery" is what this (and the government) is all about
"a simple business decision"
The same can be said for revolutions
What do you have when the Rule of Law no longer exists?
You either have it, or you don't.
Sounds like Geo Soros is gonna win.
I wonder if the optimal carreer path is to go from big bank to government and get a tax exemption on your couple billions or from government to corner office in big bank and back for the tax exemption....either way, hard honest work is not the optimal carreer path in the US
What are you talking about? Do you know how hard it is to juggle lies continuously? That is a 24/7/365 job my lazy friend.
Of course the circus isn't hiring but if it were there is a career option for these clowns.
Timmay's main man leaves Treasury to join with the Squid as Van Praag " retires ".
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-goldmansachs-vanpraag-idUSTRE8171B020120208
does the media push hard work? Do the banks seem to be about productive hard work?
Entire industries full of George Baileys have been systematically displaced by people who worship money so much they name themselves after it in a process of ruthless racist nepotism. I mean, read some of the historical works, they are an institutionalization of cheating and defrauding every outsider.
Barack Hussein Obama, MMM MMM MMMM
As if McCain winning would have made one inch of difference.
It certainly would have. You'd already be at war by now, with, you know... like... enemies and shit.
Like no wars were started under Obama. But yeah, I agree, McCain wouldn't look good holding Nobel Peace Prize.
Obama hasn't started any wars, asshole. They're kinetic military actions. Grow up.
Bombing the world to peace!
Do a little dance Mr. President!
peace keeping missles John Jimi
Technically ,asshole,the only wars we have had since WWII is the war on drugs, poverty, crime, and finally the war on the American public....I meant terrorism. But I see you're okay with bombing people as long as it's not "war".
It's high time to end the wars on drugs, poverty, and crime as well. These wars also can easily be replaced by kinetic military actions. Ever wonder why the military needs $23 million in night raid equipment when we aren't fighting wars anywhere? Justice will soon be served on dissidents like yourself who dared to question our great nation and its humble leaders.
In the words of a great patriot, "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free..."
You forgot to turn your sarc button off.
He prefers to call them conflicts, drones, anti terrorism measures and....things that go bump in the night
no...the correct phrase is "kinetic humanitarian action."
So he got a Nobel Prize for coming up with a new terminology to describe murder. Sounds worthy. Again, McCain wouldn't be equally bright to do that.
So let me see if I have this right. McCain is a war monger and Obama is a peace monger. Right. Got it thanks.