Tag: CDO

JOIN NOW! 200,000 SIGNATURE DRIVE FOR ELIZABETH WARREN RECESS APPOINTMENT (via Livinglies’s Weblog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Let’s get in there and put pressure on Obama to get this nomination done. The banks and the special interests have allied to block it. They are trying to kill the agency before any work can be done. Their crimes and unethical behavior will not be brought into the light without the agency.

Please go sign the petition. Elizabeth Warren will make a difference.

James Pilant

JOIN NOW! 200,000 SIGNATURE DRIVE FOR ELIZABETH WARREN RECESS APPOINTMENT GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION ANALYSIS – CLICK HERE EDITOR’S NOTE:  A recess appointment is one in which the President appoints someone during a congressional recess. I’m no expert on the details but I know that recess appointments have been extensively used, particularly by the Bush administration to get around the requirement of getting congressional approval. If Congress is not in session, the President makes the appointment because the p … Read More

via Livinglies’s Weblog

Who will make them pay? (via Livinglies’s Weblog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Let’s saddle up! The Wall Street Banks absorb every kind of benefit from being in this nation including taxpayer dollars. Yet, when it comes to taking any responsibility as citizens, they are notably absent. Is there a kind of vicious hypocrisy in absorbing benefits but paying none of the costs?

Let’s make these people know that we know they have failed to act in accord with basic patriotism.

James Pilant

My thanks to Livinglies’s Weblog.

Who will make them pay? You will. Yesterday, in six cities across Illinois, people stood together and demanded Wall Street banks like JPMorgan Chase pay their fair share to end the revenue crisis, create jobs, and stop illegal foreclosures. In New York City, thousands marched on Wall Street demanding that Millionaires and Big Banks pay their fair share. In North Carolina, community leaders made sure the shareholders of Bank of America faced up to … Read More

via Livinglies’s Weblog

Another Successful Foreclosure Fraud Happy Hour (via Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

These are some great people. They took up a public fight on a major issue before the media or the government recognized the problem. In fact, the government and the press denied there was a problem. These people are heroes, using the power of the internet as visionaries have hoped.

I wish them well!!

James Pilant

Another Successful Foreclosure Fraud Happy Hour Picture of some of the guests at our latest happy hour. Had another great time. We all wore “Hello My Name Is” stickers. Funny thing, almost everybody there was named Linda Green! It really confused the bartenders, they didn’t know which tab to ring the drinks under… Over the weekend I will be posting the history of all of our happy hours and how you can get them going in your town. I want to see this happen in every city every month until the … Read More

via Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge

Fraudclosures | Federal Reserve: They Broke The Law (via Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

For about seven months now, I have argued over and over again that lying to the courts with false affidavits and actions amounting to fraud were prosecutable. I have used the word, crimes, and I meant it.

Why is it that if one of my students breaks the law by stealing a few dollars that he will go to jail and these banks can commit these acts and reap huge profits without fear of prosecution?

I want these law-breakers, these greedy well placed fraudsters, to go to jail, to do the perp walk, to pay enormous fines, and to serve as a warning to every Armani clad crook haunting the board rooms of our great investments banks.

James Pilant

My thanks to “Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge.”

Fraudclosures | Federal Reserve: They Broke The Law The Market Ticker – Federal Reserve: They Broke The Law but nobody cares…. (including us) The reviews found critical weaknesses in servicers’ foreclosure governance processes, foreclosure document preparation processes, and oversight and monitoring of third-party vendors, including foreclosure attorneys.While it is important to note that findings varied across institutions, the weaknesses at each servicer, individually or collectively, resulted … Read More

via Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge

DYLAN RATIGAN: FORECLOSURE FRAUD; $45 TRILLION DOLLARS (via Dylan Ratigan Show)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

A family seizes their home back from the banks.

It’s pitiful that Americans have to take justice into their own hands.

James Pilant

Foreclosure Fraud – Lawyers Cannot Support Fraud

On By southwerkIn business ethics

An attorney discusses widespread fraud and attorney participation.

This is devastating to the banks.

James Pilant

Guest Post | Stay Calm, Remain in Your Homes (via Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

We have many crises going on all at once. Why?

A convergence point has been reached. The foreclosure crisis is one element in a series of development.s In the United States, the critical development has been the continuous conversion of the economy from manufacturing to finance. Everything else flows from that.We make and less actual products each year. Our primary source of income as a nation is financial innovation.

Manufacturing requires large capable work forces to function. Finance requires a handful of people.

A huge financial sector demands several policies. 1. Free trade, in particular, the free movement of money and credit across national borders. 2. Relentless inflation control, this involves suppressing wage pressure and allowing economic growth only in a controlled manner. 3. As little taxation or no taxation on anything related to their operations. The people of the United States bear the principal burden of taxation. The financial sector has incredible profits while other parts of the economy flounder. Yet the tax burden does not shift to follow the money. 4. A intertwining of the government and the financial sector. More and more the government appears to be an arm of investment banking. The government insures the great financial houses of protection from failure. The government provide inexpensive loans for these companies. The government works with frantic intensity to control inflation. 5. Diminished public spending and the rigorous control of all social programs from education to unemployment insurance. This is to justify continuous cuts in taxes and to shift the burdens of a civilization from organizations to individuals. 6. This is a characteristic no often mentioned, but I kept finding it in report after report. A frantic, bizarre mania for numbers indicating a perception of higher form of reality, the music of the spheres. 6. Natural resources, in particular, basic human needs like water are to be divided for use by the private sector. 7. All endeavors from the military to the public schools must be converted from the public to the private, regardless of the outcomes. 8. An almost religious determination to follow the markets wherever they lead, cheaper workforces, better purchasers. 8. A visceral contempt for Americans under a certain income level. The “lower” classes are considered to be lazy, self-indulgent, burdens upon the elite producers. This is indicated by the absence of influence by the middle class on any policy decisions and the continuous development pf the doctrine of personal responsibility demonstrated by such changes policies as bankruptcy “reform” to student loan collections.

The change is focus from producing things to manipulating money might seem to be the most significant change here, but it is not. There is one overriding change that anchors and justifies all the others. The most important change over the past fifty years has been the development of a philosophy justifying profit taking over all other values.

When one part of society did something to damage the social order there were countervailing ideas. We can see this in the Progressive movement, the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the Great Society. Other ideas of how things should work. We as a society called upon a variety of intertwining values to make decisions. But these are no longer considered valid. In the past, there could have been calls to patriotism. These are irrelevant in modern business philosophy. There could have been calls to God and religion. These are irrelevant in modern business philosophy. There could have been calls to the great philosophical systems of history. These are irrelevant in modern business philosophy. There could have been a call to righteousness or ethics. There could have been a call to the rule of law. These are all irrelevant.

For a single nation, only Kafka could explain the motives and values of the financial class. But for international business, the logic is clear.

Here is a posting about these changes beginning with the foreclosure crisis.

George Mantor writes this piece. He has his own web site at Keepin’ it real.

Stay Calm, Remain in Your Homes This is standard advice in times of emergency.  The principle is simple and logical. Authorities are dealing with limited resources in a critical environment wheGuest Post | Stay Calm, Remain in Your Homesre every second counts.  The fewer events and people they need to deal with, the more effective they can be. If you know me, you know that I am upbeat and positive by temperament and challenges don’t faze me.  I’m pretty level-headed, and I do my own thinki … Read More

via Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge

A Brief Comic Strip Explaining CDO’s And How The Banks Use Them

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure

Go to this web site.

Banks Created Fake Demand To Keep Home Sales Going

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure

Back in 2006, when the housing market began to slow banks began to have difficulty moving their CDO’s (collateralized Debt Obligations). So, they created an artificial demand by selling them to each other.

Tens of billions of dollars in deals were exchanged between the banks. The CDO’s were becoming increasingly risky as solid mortgage investments disappeared. But the banks had strong influence over the managers who created the CDO’s and how couldn’t they? A billion dollar CDO made the manager a millionaire off that once transaction.

Without these deals keeping demand high and luring new investors into the game, the housing market would have slowed much earlier with much less damage.

Investment firms like Merrill Lynch cultivated the CDO managers –

As the head of Merrill’s CDO business, Ricciardi also wooed managers with golf outings and dinners. One Merrill executive summed up the overall arrangement: “I’m going to make you rich. You just have to be my bitch.”

The mortgage debts varied in risk, so the banks kept the top 80% and marketed the high risk bottom 20%. But bizarrely, the banks bought each others CDO’s. That’s right, the bottom 20%. But remember, a one billion dollar deal results in five to ten million in fees. That’s a lot of incentive to make bad deals. Bad for your bank but very, very good for you.

The banks were so successful in creating this artificial demand that in 2006, the amount being traded doubled in spite of the cooling real estate market reaching a value of 226 billion dollars.

These were the kind of toxic assets the banks were holding. The banking industry would have you believe that home buyers got in over their heads looking for easy loans. How does that figure when the banks are buying each others’ mortgage investments? How does that work when the banks are creating artificial demand?

And you know the end of the story, how the federal government used tax money to buy those toxic investments which the banks bought from each other knowing they were toxic investment. Do you feel good?

This is isn’t about overenthusiastic home buyers, this New Depression is the result of financial mismanagement and naked greed.

James Pilant