Mortgage Settlement Is Just Another Stealth Bank Bailout
Yet Another Bailout for the Giant Banks … Homeowners Get Hosed Again
The 50-state settlement with the banks (Oklahoma didn’t sign, but supports letting the banks go scot-free) over mortgage fraud is a stealth bank bailout, according to many top observers. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
This is par for the course … All of Obama’s previous “mortgage relief” programs have really been stealth bank bailouts which screwed the homeowner. And see this.
Most independent experts say that the government’s housing programs have been a failure. That’s too bad, given that the housing slump is now … worse than during the Great Depression.
Indeed, PhD economists John Hussman and Dean Baker, fund manager and financial writer Barry Ritholtz and New York Times’ writer Gretchen Morgenson say that the only reason the government keeps giving billions to Fannie and Freddie is that it is really a huge, ongoing, back-door bailout of the big banks.
Many also accuse Obama’s foreclosure relief programs as being backdoor bailouts for the banks. (See this, this, this and this).
Settling prosecutions for pennies on the dollar is a form of stealth bailout. It is also arguably one of the main causes of the double dip in housing.
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February 10th, 2012 at 10:43 am
See this: http://nationalmortgagesettlement.com
That’s the official website set up about the settlement.
See the link to the actual settlement .. “Coming Soon.” That is, we don’t know what it actually says.
I don’t know why the settlement itself hasn’t been released, allowing pundits to perform meaningful analysis, but I do know that without that document the “analysis” is just a guess.
February 10th, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Mike – cross posting threads “maybe the bill is still wet” .. but the business and cynic in me wonders if the whales need a chance to get in front of it .. maximize the feeding grounds of new law .. isn’t there a law that laws must float around for 72 hours .. there should be
February 11th, 2012 at 10:46 pm
I’d say $26 billion in settlement penalties for foreclosure fraud isn’t bad considering you’d be hard pressed to find enough homeowners actually fradulently dispossessed to fill a walk-in closet.
February 16th, 2012 at 2:50 am
[...] Ritholtz : lien vers de nombreuses critiques de l’accord [...]
March 1st, 2012 at 11:08 am
[...] Reserve at almost no cost, and a long list of government initiatives have served as additional “stealth” bailouts of the banks. In the absence of this government support, would the banking industry still be [...]
March 2nd, 2012 at 5:04 pm
[...] Representative John Conyers (D) of Michigan, in an open letter, demanded that states reject the “paltry sum” banks were offering in exchange for being let off the hook in the foreclosure crisis. $26 billion is indeed paltry compared to the estimated $841 billion in outstanding mortgage debt that continues to suffocate homeowners. As Conyers points out, for Michigan alone, it would take $19 billion to relieve underwater homeowners of their debt burden. It seems for the banking industry, a little goes a long way: for $26 billion, banks have potentially saved themselves from ponying up the hundreds of billions of dollars for which they are likely liable, amounting to a second bailout. [...]
March 2nd, 2012 at 5:19 pm
[...] Representative John Conyers (D) of Michigan, in an open letter, demanded that states reject the “paltry sum” banks were offering in exchange for being let off the hook in the foreclosure crisis. $26 billion is indeed paltry compared to the estimated $841 billion in outstanding mortgage debt that continues to suffocate homeowners. As Conyers points out, for Michigan alone, it would take $19 billion to relieve underwater homeowners of their debt burden. It seems for the banking industry, a little goes a long way: for $26 billion, banks have potentially saved themselves from ponying up the hundreds of billions of dollars for which they are likely liable, amounting to a second bailout.“ [...]
March 4th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
[...] at almost no cost, and a long list of government initiatives have served as additional “stealth” bailouts“ of the banks. In the absence of this government support, would the banking industry still [...]