Mortgage Loans

Infamous for little boys plugging holes with their fingers and grown-ups plugging their mouth with their foot (D-Boom), it seems Holland, Berlin's most important ally in the goal of greater fiscal discipline in Europe, has fallen into an economic crisis itself. As Spiegel reports, the once exemplary economy is suffering from huge debts and a burst real estate bubble, which has stalled growth and endangered jobs. The statistics make for some worrisome reading: no nation in the euro zone is as deeply in debt as the Netherlands, where banks have a total of about €650 billion in mortgage loans on their books; consumer debt amounts to about 250% of available income - by comparison, in 2011 even the Spaniards only reached a debt ratio of 125%; unemployment is on the rise; consumption is down; and growth has come to a standstill. The nationalization on SNS in February brought this reality home and as Spiegel reports, "there is no end to the crisis in sight."

Pinning the blame for the collapse of the Cypriot banking system (and the country itself) on the shoulders of one man may seem harsh but Laiki Bank's chief risk officer Dimitris Spanodimos represents the tip of the spear of mass delusion that encompasses most (if not all) of Europe. Cypriot banks had been swamped with deposits courtesy of their cozy relationship with Russia and this left them with, in Spanodimos' words, "comfortable liquidity and capital position to deepen selectively some highly profitable and highly promising client relationships." In short, they had so much excess that they had to invest it somewhere and given the regulators light tough (which gave the banks a clean bill of health through 2011), they bought Greek government debt and extending huge amounts of mortgage loans (in Greece and Cyprus). So, as the WSJ reports, while everyone else was purging, Spanadimos had swallowed the red pill and decided his banks' gorging on extremely risky investments was tolerable - until of course the EU pulled the plug with the haircuts from the Greek bailout. These losses, and the need for new capital, is why Cyprus needed a bailout - so who is to blame...

In 2013, we are receiving the same banker and mass media propaganda that we heard in 2008. The stock markets are okay, economies are recovering, blah, blah, blah. However, do any of the facts support the propaganda? For example, this “bullish” US stock market has not even recovered to the levels of October, 2007. And even, if more QE, more HFT low-trading volume rigging can rig US and other western markets higher, do rising stock markets even matter if the growth of stock markets are less than

Here's a Cheat Sheet to Read While You're Listening to JP Morgan's "Whale" of a Tale Testimony to Congress

Yo Liz:  Subsidies for the zombie banks total more than $3 annually for every dollar in income reported by the industry... 

We urge readers to do a word search for "Moody's" in the official department of justice release below. Here are the highlights:

DOJ COMPLAINT ALLEGES S&P LIED ABOUT ITS OBJECTIVITY - when it downgraded the US?
HOLDER SAYS S&P'S ACTIONS CAUSED `BILLIONS' IN LOSSES - did Moody's actions, profiled previously here, which happens to be a major holding of one Warren Buffett, cause billions in profits?
HOLDER SAYS `NO CONNECTION' BETWEEN S&P SUIT, U.S. DOWNGRADE - just brilliant

Pure pathetic political posturing, because it was the rating agencies, whose complicity and conflicts of interest everyone knew about, who were responsible for the financial crisis. Not Alan Greenspan, not Ben Bernanke, and certainly not Wall Street which made tens of billions in profits selling CDOs to idiots in Europe and Asia. Of course, the US consumer who had a gun held against their head when they were buying McMansions with no money down and no future cash flow is not even mentioned.

“I think there was a level of greed, a level of excessive risk taking in this situation that I find abominable and very upsetting,” says Breuer. “But that is not what makes a criminal case.”

As had been widely expected, days before a National Mortgage/Foreclosure settlement is formally announced, the most exposed banks have started tying up the loose ends with the other nationalized entities. Sure enough, moments ago Bank of America just announced a $10 billion settlement with one of the GSEs - Fannie, whose CEO Tim Mayopoulous was BofA's former General Counsel and one of the people scapegoated by Ken Lewis. As just reported, as part of the agreement to settle representations and warranties claims, Bank of America will make a cash payment to Fannie Mae of $3.6 billion and also repurchase for $6.75 billion certain residential mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae, which Bank of America has valued at less than the purchase price. These actions are expected to be covered by existing reserves and an additional $2.5 billion (pretax) in representations and warranties provision recorded in the fourth quarter of 2012. Bank of America also agreed to make a cash payment to Fannie Mae to settle substantially all of Fannie Mae’s outstanding and future claims for compensatory fees arising out of past foreclosure delays. This payment is expected to be covered by existing reserves and an additional provision of $260 million (pretax) recorded in the fourth quarter of 2012. Bottom line: hit to Q4 pretax earnings will be $2.7 billion. Yet, as BAC notes, despite the settlement, "Bank of America expects earnings per share to be modestly positive for the fourth quarter of 2012." Which means prepare for one whopper of a loan-loss reserve release for the quarter as more "earnings" are nothing but bookkeeping gimmicks.

Despite the fact that myself and everyone else acting like they know what lays ahead are proven wrong time and time again, we continue to make predictions about the future. It makes us feel like we have some control, when we don’t. The world is too complex, too big, too corrupt, too lost in theories and delusions, and too dependent upon too many leaders with too few brains to be able to predict what will happen next. This is the time of year when all the “experts” will be making their 2013 predictions - but few will address where they were wrong in previous predictions. I’m more interested in why I was wrong. It seems I always underestimate the ability of sociopathic central bankers and their willingness to destroy the lives of hundreds of millions to benefit their oligarch masters. I always underestimate the rampant corruption that permeates Washington DC and the executive suites in mega-corporations across the land. And I always overestimate the intelligence, civic mindedness, and ability to understand math of the ignorant masses that pass for citizens in this country. It seems that issuing trillions of new debt to pay off trillions of bad debt, government sanctioned accounting fraud, mainstream media propaganda, government data manipulation and a populace blinded by mass delusion can stave off the inevitable consequences of an unsustainable economic system. Will 2013 be the year it all collapses in a flaming heap of rubble? I don’t know. Maybe you should ask an “expert”.

Following up on our recent discussion of the worst-is-first rally that we have all been witness to in the last few weeks, we thought it noteworthy that the 'most-shorted' names in the Russell 3000 and the index itself have now recoupled from their epic divergence post-QE3. We have seen five large short squeezes 'engineered' since the lows in March 2009 - and given Citi and BofA's 17% gains in December alone, we suspect (and have heard from more than a few funds) that year-end is bringing some forced buy-ins as SecLend desks become a little more activist.

The institutional crazies, village idiots and knee-jerk opportunists who bought shares yesterday following a Fed announcement of yet more monetization seem not to have been paying attention, at least initially, to the nasty sell-off in T-Bonds.  Well before yesterday, any sentient being would have surmised that easing’s impact on the economy had reached the point of diminishing returns. With administered rates pegged at zero and mortgage loans near historical lows, how much more boost are we to expect from yet another gaseous effusion of bank-system credit? 

Why does the Big Media other than WSJ refuse to report on the TAG subsidy grab by the largest banks?  

The week's most anticipated speech (given Obama's absence from DC) is here. Bernanke's Economic Club of New York extravaganza - where he has previously hinted at new or further policy - is upon us. Sure enough, it's a smorgasbord of we'll do whatever-it-takes (but won't bailout Congress) easing-to-infinity, housing's recovering but we want moar, simply re-iterating his comments from last week...

• *BERNANKE SAYS FISCAL CLIFF WOULD POSE `SUBSTANTIAL THREAT'
• *BERNANKE SAYS CONGRESS, WHITE HOUSE NEED TO AVERT FISCAL CLIFF
• *BERNANKE SAYS FED TO ENSURE RECOVERY IS SECURE BEFORE RATE RISE
• *BERNANKE SAYS HOUSING RECOVERY `LIKELY TO REMAIN MODERATE'
• *BERNANKE SAYS CRISIS REDUCED ECONOMY'S POTENTIAL GROWTH RATE

However, as we have noted previously, once you've gone QE-Eternity, you never go back... and we would this is the 3rd time in a row that someone from the Fed has spoken and stocks have sold off.

Moments ago Ben Bernanke released a speech titled "Challenges in Housing and Mortgage Markets" in which he said that while the US housing revival faces significant obstacles, the Fed will do everything it can to back the "housing recovery" (supposedly on top of the $40 billion in MBS it monetizes each month, and/or QEternity+1^?). He then goes on to say that tight lenders may be thwarting the recovery, and is concerned about high unemployment, things that should be prevented as housing is a "powerful headwind to the recovery." In other words - the same canned gibberish he has been showering upon those stupid and naive enough to listen and/or believe him, because once the current downtrend in the market is confirmed to be a long-term decline, the 4th dead cat bounce in housing will end. But perhaps what is most amusing is that the Fed is now accusing none other than the US household for not doing their patriotic duty to reflate the peak bubble. To wit: "The Federal Reserve will continue to do what we can to support the housing recovery, both through our monetary policy and our regulatory and supervisory actions. But, as I have discussed, not all of the responsibility lies with the government; households, the financial services industry, and those in the nonprofit sector must play their part as well." So "get to work, Mr. Household: Benny and the Inkjets, not to mention Chuck Schumer's careers rest on your bubble-reflation skills."

So Spain will suffer a collapse, most likely of its banking system resulting in a sovereign default (barring a bailout). When this happens, some €1 trillion+ worth of collateral (still rated AAA by EU banks) will be sucked out of the system.