Einmal ist Keinmal

I can no longer say that not a single senior executive of one of the major nonprime lenders whose frauds hyper-inflated the housing bubble and caused the Great Recession has been convicted of his frauds. A single senior executive of one of the hundreds of fraudulent nonprime lenders was convicted yesterday, April 19, 2011. A jury found Lee Farkas, Chairman of the Board of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (TBW), guilty of fraud. TBW was a large mortgage banking firm that made many nonprime loans, but the prosecution does not address the fraudulent nonprime lending

Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum

It is one of the paradoxes of life that the most practical means to ensure that the system does not collapse is to insist on justice for all and to ignore demands for special treatment premised on claims that justice places the system at grave risk of collapse. Nietzsche argued that the ubermensch (generally translated as “Superman”) transcended the normal rules. The elites claim impunity from normal rules on the basis of their purported superiority and because they claim that they are so important that applying the normal rules to them will harm society. Some pigs are more equal than others. What any competent financial regulator learns is that the best way to destroy a financial system is to refuse to hold the elites accountable. Regulators that insist on doing justice prevent the heavens from falling.

Punishing Savers and Theft Amongst the Elderly

You normally don’t see these two phrases in a single headline, but they are very much connecting. I thought of this this morning when I read a post called Retirement in the Liquidity Trap by Tim Duy. Commenting on a Wall Street Journal article about how U.S. retirees were suffering as a result of low

David Sokol’s abrupt resignation

David Sokol, widely considered the heir apparent to Warren Buffett,  has abruptly resigned from Berkshire Hathaway’s subsidiaries after it was revealed that he profited from the purchase of a publicly-traded company made by Berkshire. The SEC is likely to investigate. This looks pretty ugly if you ask me. Sokol will talk to CNBC tomorrow at

Three eminent domain cases show corporatism in action

So the dialling for dollars campaign is under way in U.S. municipalities. I’m talking about the use of eminent domain laws to dispossess property owners of property in order to make way for luxury facilities. This is an ongoing process I expect to get worse as cash-strapped municipalities figure out how to close budget gaps. There are three recent cases that I want to highlight. But first, here’s some history

UBS Faces LIBOR Manipulation Probe

By Warren Mosler As previously discussed, the US should outlaw the use of libor by its banking system. It makes no sense to allow US dollar rate setting for our banks to be set overseas by the BBA. Setting our banking system’s dollar rates is the Fed’s responsibility. And, to further make the point, note

What the Mortgage Deal In The Works Reveals About The Obama Administration

The Obama Administration is keen to get this $20 billion mortgage settlement done. The prevailing view in the Administration is that the U.S. is in a fragile but sustainable recovery. With emerging markets leading the economic recovery and U.S. banks on sounder footing, now is the time to resume the expansion of U.S. financial services.

I strongly disagree with this vision of America’s future economic development. But this is the road we are on

Countrywide Control Fraud, Inch Deep Prosecution

By William K. Black I write to contrast four recent stories about Countrywide. Here are their headlines and brief synopses provided in the initial paragraphs of the stories. U.S. drops criminal probe of former Countrywide chief Angelo Mozilo Mozilo’s actions in the mortgage meltdown — which led to $67.5-million settlement against him — did not

Ten Ideas That Would Turn David Rosenberg Bullish on the USA

From today’s Breakfast with Dave research note at Gluskin Sheff (highlighting added):

1. An energy policy that truly removes U.S. dependence on foreign oil (shale case, coal, nuclear).
2. A complete rewrite of the tax code that promotes savings, investment, and a revamp of the capital stock. Cut tax rates, eliminate loopholes and costly tax breaks. Tax consumption, promote savings and investment. That is crucial. But it will take political courage (ask Brian Mulroney).
3. A credible plan that reverses the runup in the debt to GDP ratio. This includes not just on-balance sheet items but new rules governing entitlements too. We need delineation of the future of Fannie and Freddie if there is any … they became wards of the government nearly three years ago and there is still no clarification on this file (slightly more important than these periodic consumer spending gimmicks that have surfaced over the past few years). We need a complete rewrite of social contracts and a reversal in sacred cows that have been created over the years that are completely unaffordable. Plus, people are not going to learn to live within their means if our politicians continue to set a bad example. The act of dipping into Social Security, incentivizing companies who are already cash-rich to spend more on new equipment and extending a Bush tax cut that always had a 10-year expiry date at the expense of the already severely strained public purse was political expediency at its worst.
Published by Edward Harrison on 24 January 2011 10:00

Cash Incentives for Whistleblowers of Control Fraud

by William K. Black Marty Robins’ December 15, 2010, column "Blow the Whistle on Pointless Whistleblowing" in The Huffington Post opposed the SEC implementing the Dodd-Franks Act’s provision that the SEC should develop a system of financial incentives for whistleblowers. Mr. Robins is a former corporate counsel with strongly conservative, anti-regulatory views. His purpose in

Time To Shut Down MERS

Randall Wray advises us to support Representative Kaptur’s bill and restore the rule of law Every link of the home finance food chain promoted fraud—from mortgage brokers and appraisers who conspired to overvalue property to stick buyers with overpriced homes, to many mortgage lenders which preferred the riskiest mortgages to maximize interest and fees, on

Put-Back Losses on Mortgages Estimated at $52 Billion

by John Lounsbury Buried 72 pages deep in the latest COP (Congressional Oversight Panel) Report is the following table: (Click on table for larger image.) The significance of this table is explained in the report: The estimated $52 billion would be borne predominantly by four firms (Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup),