My thoughts on the mortgage settlement

You can read about this here, here, here and here.

First of all, let me say this; this issue here, above all of the others, is why I packed it in with the Democratic Party. On top of all of the class warfare, class resentment, racial resentment and everything else; was the realization that I made, that the Democratic Party, starting in 1973 and again in 1993 literally rigged the system to fail. This was by loosing credit restrictions to allow people, who had no business even getting loans, to get credit so easily.

Then once the system failed, the Government, started by George W. Bush in 2008 with tarp loans and the bailing out banks that were “Too big to fail.” Not to mention the fact that the Republicans ripped out regulations that made the whole thing like one million percent worse and when the Republican Congress received a warning that the whole thing was going to collapse, what did they do? They held a hearing and the CEO of Freddy and Fannie played the RACE CARD, they retreated! šŸ˜” I won’t even get into the stupidity of the Federal Reserve, which really made some seriously idiotic mistakes.

Then instead of Obama being smart and saying, “We’re not picking favorites, we are going to allow the market to correct itself.” Instead, he continued the bailouts and even spent more on top of that. Not the mention his attempt to destroy our private healthcare system.

Anyhow, this settlement is not perfect; in fact, it stinks and someone has given a bullet-point list as to why.

This is via Naked Capitalism:

Here are the top twelve reasons why this deal stinks:

1. Weā€™ve now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents. Itā€™s $2000 per loan. This is a rounding error compared to the chain of title problem these systematic practices were designed to circumvent. The cost is also trivial in comparison to the average loan, which is roughly $180k, so the settlement represents about 1% of loan balances. It is less than the price of the title insurance that banks failed to get when they transferred the loans to the trust. It is a fraction of the cost of the legal expenses when foreclosures are challenged. Itā€™s a great deal for the banks because no one is at any of the servicers going to jail for forgery and the banks have set the upper bound of the cost of riding roughshod over 300 years of real estate law.

2. That $26 billion is actually $5 billion of bank money and the rest is your money. The mortgage principal writedowns are guaranteed to come almost entirely from securitized loans, which means from investors, which in turn means taxpayers via Fannie and Freddie, pension funds, insurers, and 401 (k)s. Refis of performing loans also reduce income to those very same investors.

3. That $5 billion divided among the big banks wouldnā€™t even represent a significant quarterly hit. Freddie and Fannie putbacks to the major banks have been running at that level each quarter.

4. That $20 billion actually makes bank second liens sounder, so this deal is a stealth bailout that strengthens bank balance sheets at the expense of the broader public.

5. The enforcement is a joke. The first layer of supervision is the banks reporting on themselves. The framework is similar to that of the OCC consent decrees implemented last year, which Adam Levitin and yours truly, among others, decried as regulatory theater.

6. The past history of servicer consent decrees shows the servicers all fail to comply. Why? Servicer records and systems are terrible in the best of times, and their systems and fee structures arenā€™t set up to handle much in the way of delinquencies. As Tom Adams has pointed out in earlier posts, servicer behavior is predictable when their portfolios are hit with a high level of delinquencies and defaults: they cheat in all sorts of ways to reduce their losses.

7. The cave-in Nevada and Arizona on the Countrywide settlement suit is a special gift for Bank of America, who is by far the worst offender in the chain of title disaster (since, according to sworn testimony of its own employee in Kemp v. Countrywide, Countrywide failed to comply with trust delivery requirements). This move proves that failing to comply with a consent degree has no consequences but will merely be rolled into a new consent degree which will also fail to be enforced. These cases also alleged HAMP violations as consumer fraud violations and could have gotten costly and emboldened other states to file similar suits not just against Countrywide but other servicers, so it was useful to the other banks as well.

8. If the new Federal task force were intended to be serious, this deal would have not have been settled. You never settle before investigating. Itā€™s a bad idea to settle obvious, widespread wrongdoing on the cheap. You use the stuff that is easy to prove to gather information and secure cooperation on the stuff that is harder to prove. In Missouri and Nevada, the robosigning investigation led to criminal charges against agents of the servicers. But even though these companies were acting at the express direction and approval of the services, no individuals or entities higher up the food chain will face any sort of meaningful charges.

9. There is plenty of evidence of widespread abuses that appear not to be on the attorney generalsā€™ or mediaā€™s radar, such as servicer driven foreclosures and looting of investorsā€™ funds via impermissible and inflated charges. While no serious probe was undertaken, even the limited or peripheral investigations show massive failures (60% of documents had errors in AGs/Fedā€™s pathetically small sample). Similarly, the US Trusteeā€™s office found widespread evidence of significant servicer errors in bankruptcy-related filings, such as inflated and bogus fees, and even substantial, completely made up charges. Yet the services and banks will suffer no real consequences for these abuses.

10. A deal on robosiginging serves to cover up the much deeper chain of title problem. And donā€™t get too excited about the New York, Massachusetts, and Delaware MERS suits. They put pressure on banks to clean up this monstrous mess only if the AGs go through to trial and get tough penalties. The banks will want to settle their way out of that too. And even if these cases do go to trial and produce significant victories for the AGs, they still do not address the problem of failures to transfer notes correctly.

11. Donā€™t bet on a deus ex machina in terms of the new Federal foreclosure task force to improve this picture much. If you think Schneiderman, as a co-chairman who already has a full time day job in New York, is going to outfox a bunch of DC insiders who are part of the problem, I have a bridge Iā€™d like to sell to you.

12. Weā€™ll now have to listen to banks and their sycophant defenders declaring victory despite being wrong on the law and the facts. They will proceed to marginalize and write off criticisms of the servicing practices that hurt homeowners and investors and are devastating communities. But the problems will fester and the housing market will continue to suffer. Investors in mortgage-backed securities, who know that services have been screwing them for years, will be hung out to dry and will likely never return to a private MBS market, since the problems wonā€™t ever be fixed. This settlement has not only revealed the residential mortgage market to be too big to fail, but puts it on long term, perhaps permanent, government life support.

As weā€™ve said before, this settlement is yet another raw demonstration of who wields power in America, and it isnā€™t you and me. Itā€™s bad enough to see these negotiations come to their predictable, sorry outcome. It adds insult to injury to see some try to depict it as a win for long suffering, still abused homeowners.

I have zero to add to this. The only thing I will ask is, who’s paying for all of this? Answer: You and Mein Taxes. šŸ˜”

This is why we need a new political Party to get in there and fix this asinine morass.

Others: (All Liberals BTW…) American Prospect, Washington Post, US Politics, FT Alphaville, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Wall Street Journal, Time, The Huffington Post, Swampland, ThinkProgress, Prairie Weather, Firedoglake, Business Insider, Financial Times and Discourse.net, ThinkProgress, The Huffington Post, Washington Monthly, Washington Post, Firedoglake, Rolling Stone, The Big Picture, Business Insider, Hit & Run, The Democratic Daily, Zandar Versus The Stupid, Feministing, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, No More Mister Nice Blog, Blog of New Orleans, Gambit, emptywheel, The Political Carnival, DealBook, The Page, Booman Tribune and Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, FORECLOSURE FRAUD, Business Insider and Calculated Risk, Washington Post, Daily Kos and Firedoglake, The Atlantic Online

 

Video: Open Message to Michelle Malkin and Karl Rove

First of all, before you watch my video; Go read this article here, it will open in a new window — then come back here.

After reading that article, I went to twitter and really spoke my mind:

I am the type of person, if I make a mistake; I will admit it. I am also the type of person, that when I feel that I am right, I will back it up. So, I made this video:

I will simply end this blog posting with this; as I said in the video. To Michelle Malkin and Karl Rove; clean up the crap in your own party, before you unleash on my home town. The Republican Party is just as evil, just as screwed up and just hypocritical about many things, including foreign policy.  I agree on Terrorism, it is a problem. But the Republican Party’s nominee for 2000 and 2004, who won those elections handled 9/11 in a wrong-headed way. Because of this, we are now having the problems in the middle east that we are having now. Maybe you should work to fix the problems with your party’s foreign policy and let Detroit sort out its own problems.

Thank You.

-Patrick

…and of course, Michelle Malkin’s resident useful idiot agrees with her.

Update: ….and if this isn’t bad enough, we have Andrew Breitbart meeting with Bill Ayers. You see now why I don’t want anything to do with the Republican Party and the majority of the Conservatives; or those who call themselves Conservative? šŸ™„

Update #2: In my video, I made a reference to Michelle Malkin using Frankfort School tactics, this is what I was referring to here:

Others: Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, The Atlantic Wire, New York Magazine, The Nation, Wonkette, Hollywood Reporter, nation.foxnews.com, The Hill, The Moderate Voice, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, National Review, PopWatch, emptywheel, Poynter, ABCNEWS, Taylor Marsh, Outside the Beltway, The Raw Story, The Daily Caller, Hullabaloo and Daily Kos (via Memeornadum)

Debate This: Is this Pete Hoekstra ad racist?

(H/T HotAir headlines)

I honestly do not know if it is or not. If anything, one could say that it is pandering to paranoia or populist sentiment in the conservative movement?

But, does it rise to the level of racism?

Comments welcomed here.

Charlie Rangel continues his role as a race-baiting twit

What a buffoon… šŸ™„

Video:

The story:

On of the main tenets of Eric Bollingā€˜s show Follow the Money is that a free market economy is fairer and more successful than one administered by the goverment. Tonight, Rep. Charlie Rangel ventured onto the program to make the opposite case: that government jobs were in some ways more attractive, because minorities and women experienced less discrimination.

Bolling opened the floor by asking why the president promotes government jobs. The distrust of the government didnā€™t surprise the longtime Congressman, but he noted that ā€œa lot of women are involved in these lower income jobs, a lot of minorities,ā€ and later explained, ā€œthe government doesnā€™t have the racism and discrimination that the private sector enjoys.ā€ This, to Rangel, means that ā€œa lot of people could to better with the government job,ā€ both minorities, women, and the elderly, working in places such as the post office. Bolling asked again to confirm whether he really meant the private sector had discrimination.

via Rangel Says Private Sector is Racist – Charlie Rangel – Fox Nation.

Let’s see here; where’s that graphic at?

Whoop, there it is! šŸ˜†

San Francisco occupy protester strangles his parents

Unreal.

The Story:

Friends and relatives said Susan Poff and Robert Kamin of Oakland were the perfect pair to adopt a foster child.

They had dedicated their careers to helping others escape poverty, she as a physician assistant in a city-run clinic in the Tenderloin and he as a clinical psychologist for inmates in the San Francisco County Jail system.

But now, less than a decade after they adopted, their 15-year-old son stands accused of strangling both Poff, 50, and Kamin, 55, then hiding their bodies in the back of the family’s PT Cruiser.

Police were called to the family’s home on Athol Avenue on Friday by a co-worker who was concerned when Kamin did not show up for work.

[…]

Initially the son, whose name is being withheld because of his age, denied any involvement, but later told officers what had happened, authorities said. He was arrested on suspicion of murder Saturday and is being held at the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center in San Leandro.

Co-workers said Poff and Kamin were having some arguments with their son, some of it having to do with him spending too much time in the Occupy Oakland encampment, but nothing that sounded beyond the scope of typical teenage rebelliousness.

Yup, Just like the tea party.

Nancy Pelosi herself said it!

I’m sure she is really proud.

Others: The Gateway Pundit, moonbattracker.com/wordpress, Verum Serum and Jammie Wearing Fools

Video: Charlotte Bergmann takes a verbal berating from a racist black radio host

This comes with a Hat Tip to Smitty over at The Other McCain.

First of all here is the Billboard that she dared to put up:

The video:

I am going to write over here, what I wrote on Stacy’s blog, in the comments section:

If I were that Woman’s hubby….That would be a dead black man. Quote me on that. That was bullshit. That was NOT an intelligent black man, speaking to a black woman; that was a feral NEGRO asshole being a dick to a black lady.

….and they wonder why I won’t vote Democratic Party no more. It is the same mentally that those corrupt Detroit Police officers carried that shot my cousin Michael Hill on July 11, 1994. That whitey is evil…

Why don’t want them around me, ever. šŸ˜”

In case you are wondering, I’m talking about this Cousin here:

My Cousin, Michael Hill -Mowed down by three corrupt Detroit negro cops in 1994.

So, yeah, I have attitude towards blacks, especially liberal black Democrats. šŸ˜”

Charlotte’s running for Tennessee’s 9th district, help her win and put people like this asshole in check.

 

Video: Friday Evening Thoughts

Just a video of my thoughts.

Please note: In this video, I mistakenly refer to the Washington Times; I meant Washington Post. Oops. šŸ˜³

References:

Quinnipiac University: Romney Pulls Ahead In See-Saw Florida Gop Primary, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Men Shift From Gingrich To RomneyMemeorandum thread

Washington Post: Ron Paul signed off on racist newsletters in the 1990s, associates say

Ta-Nehisi Coates / The Atlantic Online: No One Left to Lie To

Jeffrey Lord / American Spectator: Elliott Abrams Caught Misleading on Newt

Roundups: Washington Wire, Outside the Beltway, NationalJournal.com, The Caucus, M.JOSEPH SHEPPARD’S ā€¦, Sunshine State News, Washington Post, Firedoglake, Don Surber, Florida Times Union, The Strata-Sphere, The Moderate Voice, The Other McCain, American Spectator, Presidential Power, Hot Air, Mail Online, Reuters, GOP 12 and Post on Politics, The Atlantic Online, The Hill, Little Green Footballs, The Political Carnival, US Politics, Hit & Run, Boing Boing, Gawker, Daily Kos, Hot Air, YID With LID, Outside the Beltway, The Daily Dish, The PJ Tatler, GOP 12, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Political Mojo and Shakesville, National Review, Riehl World View, Guardian, Big Journalism, The Atlantic Online, LeĀ·gal InĀ·surĀ·recĀ· tion, Eunomia, RedState, Power Line, The Reality-Based Community, The Daily Caller, JOSHUAPUNDIT and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

Rand Paul: “ā€˜I was barked at: “Do not leave the cubicle!ā€ by the TSA

…and of course, the statist White House sides with the TSA! Hope and Change?!?! Right. šŸ™„

Just a follow up to a story I wrote on earlier

Over to you Daily Caller:

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told The Daily Caller that being ā€œdetainedā€ by the Transportation Security Administration at the Nashville airport Monday was a major ordeal that underscores flaws in TSAā€™s procedures that affect tens of millions of passengers every year.

ā€œIt was a big headache,ā€ Paul said in a phone interview. ā€œI missed my speech here. I was supposed to speak to the Right to Life March, probably the biggest audience Iā€™ll get to speak to, and I missed it.ā€

The White House, through spokesman Jay Carney, defended the TSAā€™s actions during Mondayā€™s press briefing by arguing that Paul wasnā€™t technically ā€œdetained.ā€

ā€œLetā€™s be clear,ā€ Carney said. ā€œThe passenger was not detained. He was escorted out of the area by local law-enforcement.ā€

But Sen. Paul told TheDC that he certainly felt like he was detained. ā€œIf youā€™re told you canā€™t leave, does that count as detention?ā€ Paul asked.

ā€œI tried to leave the cubicle to speak to one of the TSA people and I was barked at: ā€˜Do not leave the cubicle!ā€™ So, that, to me sounds like Iā€™m being asked not to leave the cubicle. It sounds a little bit like Iā€™m being detained.ā€

The incident started after the scanner Paul walked through sounded its alarm. Current TSA rules would require Paul to undergo a mandatory pat-down before proceeding to his plane. But Paul told TheDC that the TSA agents caved in after a two-hour battle andĀ allowed him to go through the scanner again without additional physical screening.

ā€œFor an hour and a half, they said ā€˜absolutely, I would have to [accept a pat-down],ā€™ā€ Paul said. ā€œAnd, because I used my cell phone, they told me I would have to do a full body pat down because youā€™re not allowed to use your cell phone when youā€™re being detained.ā€

ā€œItā€™s like, well, I canā€™t call my attorney? I canā€™t call my office to tell them Iā€™m going to miss a speech to 200,000 people?ā€

ā€œIn the end, after two hours of this quarreling,ā€ Sen. Paul explained, ā€œthey did let me walk through the screener [machine] and it didnā€™t go off. So what the TSA is not telling you is the screeners are being used as random devices as well. The [mechanical] screeners will go off randomly, and the [agent] screeners donā€™t know that itā€™s a random call but it has nothing to do with what youā€™ve done.ā€

Of course, the Statist in chief’s staff is defend the entire thing; over to you The Hill:

The White House is standing by the Transportation Security Administration in its standoff with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and his father, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

The elder Paul called the TSA a “police state” Monday after Rand Paul was reportedly detained by TSA after he refused to take a pat-down from TSA officials at the Nashville International Airport.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that he didn’t have any reaction to Paul’s “police state” comments.

But Carney sided with the TSA saying, “I think it is absolutely essential that we take necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe.”

Ron Paul, who is one of four remaining Republican candidates for president, disagreed Monday afternoon. Paul said after he confirmed the incident involving Rand Paul on his Twitter page that it showed why the TSA should be eliminated.

“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” the elder Paul said in a statement released by his presidential campaign.

“One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities,” he continued. “The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe. That is why my ā€˜Plan to Restore America,ā€™ in additional to cutting $1 trillion dollars in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA.”

TSA has defended its treatment of Rand Paul, saying that its employees in Nashville followed its normal procedure with the senator, who has often sharply criticized the agency’s pat-downs before he refused one Monday morning.

So, there you have it, an out of control organization that is now detaining White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and not the Arab terrorists it was designed to capture. How quaint. šŸ™„Ā  I have to wonder aloud, if Rand Paul were Jewish or black, would they have done all of this?Ā  It is to wonder.

I am also getting tips from readers that were in the area of the time of the incident and they are reporting that Senator Rand Paul grew very angry and used vulgarities at the TSA staff and made some very nasty racist comments at the TSA staff, who just happened to be black. Nice going Senator Paul; make yourself look like a bigger idiot than you already are. šŸ™„Ā  Of course, I cannot independently verify the reports, so take them for what they are worth.

Update: Now a huge memeorandum thread.

Update #2: Smitty, who I consider to be a friend; makes some good points.

Breaking News — Senator Rand Paul detained by TSA

Rand Paul has been detained by the TSA for refusing a pat-down, after a x-ray showed an anomaly”

The Daily Caller has the story:

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paulā€™s press secretary Moira Bagley tweeted on Monday that Transportation Security Administration officials were detaining her boss in Nashville, Tenn.

ā€œJust got a call from @senrandpaul,ā€ Bagley tweeted at about 10 a.m. on Monday. ā€œHeā€™s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.ā€

Texas Congressman and current Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul ā€“ Sen. Rand Paulā€™s father ā€“ placed a post on Facebook about the news as well. ā€œMy son Rand is currently being detained by the TSA at the Nashville Airport,ā€ Ron Paul posted. ā€œIā€™ll share more details as the situation unfolds.ā€

Ron Paul adds, via Twitter, that the TSA detained his son ā€œfor refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner.ā€

Sen. Rand Paulā€™s Facebook page has a post about the incident too. ā€œSenator Paul is being detained at the Nashville Airport by the TSA,ā€ Sen. Rand Paulā€™s Facebook post reads. ā€œWe will update you as the situation develops.ā€

Sen. Rand Paulā€™s chief of staff Doug Stafford told The Daily Caller the Senator ā€œwas detained by the TSA after their scanner had an ā€˜anomalyā€™ on the first scan.ā€

viaĀ  The Daily Caller.

To my libertarian and Ron Paul fans, please, do not freak out over this; the TSA were simply doing their jobs, I believe Rand Paul was released, but they would not let him fly on the plane he did try to board.

My friend, Ed Morrissey, who I do trust, weighs in:

No one thinks a Senator should get different treatment than anyone else, but that proves that the security theater we experience at airports isnā€™t designed with flight security as its primary goal.Ā  Besides, letā€™s not forget that TSA is already working on programs for clearing frequent travelers on an expedited basis who they know through prior investigation wonā€™t pose a security risk on commercial flights. Ā  Who in their right mind thinks that Senator Rand Paul represented any kind of real security risk on board an aircraft?Ā  Anyone? Anyone?Ā  Bueller?Ā  Bueller?

Now, it might look like it was intentional, but I very much highly doubt that was even remotely intentional at all.Ā  I simply believe that the TSA wanted to do their jobs and Rand Paul refused to let them, and for this, he was detained and released and not allowed to fly. Let us not forget why the TSA put these regulations in place, on Christmas Day in 2009, an idiot kid from Nigeria blow himself up on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan; which by the way is my hometown and the airport that this almost happened at, is less than 10 miles from my HOUSE!

Anyhow, again, this might look bad, but I seriously doubt it is anything but Senator Rand Paul grandstanding against something that he feels is against his rights as a citizen. I personally disagree with that; I believe that safety of those flying here in America and abroad, should come first. Then again, I have never flown, nor will I ever. Too many planes crashing for this old man. šŸ˜Æ

Related:

Others: Hot Air, The Gateway Pundit, Big Government, Outside the Beltway, Mediaite, Michelle Malkin, The Raw Story, Gothamist, LewRockwell.com Blog, Campaign 2012, National Review

Update: Now a huge Memeorandum thread.

Update #2: Smitty, who I consider to be a friend; makes some good points.

 

Mitt Romney fires a shot across Newt Gingrich’s bow

Looks like Mittens is feeling the heat, perhaps from the flip flops and/or because of the recent polls and is firing back.

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. ā€” Mitt Romney landed here Sunday with a simple message: Newt Gingrich is a failure and a fraud. And a disgrace. And a hapless showman.

Standing under a brilliant orange Florida sunset, Romney delivered his longest sustained critique of the South Carolina primary winner to date ā€” ticking through a list as if he were reading off Gingrichā€™s Wikipedia page, and undercutting each item as he got to it.

ā€œSpeaker Gingrich has also been a leader,ā€ the former Massachusetts governor said. ā€œHe was a leader for four years as speaker of the House. And at the end of four years, it was proven that he was a failed leader and he had to resign in disgrace. I donā€™t know whether you knew that, he actually resigned after four years, in disgrace.

Romney continued: ā€œHe was investigated over an ethics panel and had to make a payment associated with that and then his fellow Republicans, 88 percent of his Republicans voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich. He has not had a record of successful leadership.ā€

Then Romney got into Gingrichā€™s post-congressional career.

ā€œOver the last 15 years since he left the House, he talks about great bold movements and ideas,ā€ he told the crowd of several hundred people gathered at a building materials company here. ā€œWell, whatā€™s he been doing for 15 years? Heā€™s been working as a lobbyist, yeah, heā€™s been working as a lobbyist and selling influence around Washington.

via Mitt Romney: Newt Gingrich is a ā€˜failed leader,ā€™ ā€˜disgraceā€™ – Reid J. Epstein – POLITICO.com.

To be clear, Newt Gingrich is not a saint and as Geller put it, “He is a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our Son-of-a-bitch.”Ā  I know that personally I would rather vote for someone like Newt and hold my nose, than to vote for some idiot racist Mormon who worked for a Latin-American financed company that acted as corporate raiders. I am sorry, but that is simply Anti-American; the very idea that an American would sit at a table with Latin Americans to devise a plan to destroy American businesses is absolutely asinine and for this Mitt Romney should be held accountable.Ā  However, because Fox News and others are in the tank for that creep, you will not hear a word about it and that my friends is the tragic thing about corporate media.

So, yes, you can put me in the “anyone but Mitt Romney” category.