This is the kind of story that just totally burns my ass (and not surprisingly is your typical weekend news dump story that is so under the radar I was lucky to have found it by accident). Lord knows we are not likely to hear this story discussed on the Sunday talk shows, or in any of the MSM.
I had read sometime ago, that our Department of Justice was working on this issue, but what I didn't understand at the time, was yet another story coming out about the Banks (who knowingly illegally foreclosed upon these Military families and were caught red handed doing so), would simply get another slap on the wrist. It is beyond the pale.
But what I find rather curious, is that why is it that the Department of Justice is now addressing these illegal foreclosures for the Military Families, but the rest of the nation's people who have also been illegally foreclosed upon are being ignored?
Don't get me wrong, I support the Military and their families and this 'so called deal,' that they are receiving, but in reality the deal is 'chump change,' and is simply another way to let the Banks off the hooks, when their asses should be thrown into jail. In other words, what is really going on here, is yet another indication that if the Banks pay a 'fine,' and get a slap on the wrist, by the DOJ, then this 'fine,' is suppose to cancel out any meaningful laws that were duly broken.
What I fail to understand is why, when the Department of Justice under AG Eric Holder was literally forced kicking and screaming to do something about these illegal foreclosures for the Military families, the rest of the private citizens who have also been illegally foreclosed upon in our nation are not getting the same kind of treatment?
And one of the things that you need to understand about this story is that Bank of America and Morgan Stanley are just two lenders who are making this 'shitty little deal.' There are plenty of other lenders out there that have yet to step up to the plate that were just as guilty of their own treatment of the illegal foreclosures against Military Families, (not to mention the rest of the private citizens in our country, whose lives have been forever changed under the same circumstances of illegal foreclosures).
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley were fined $22 million Thursday to resolve allegations that the banks wrongfully foreclosed on almost 200 active-duty military-service members without first obtaining court orders.
“The men and women who serve our nation in the armed forces deserve, at the very least, to know that they will not have their homes taken from them wrongfully while they are bravely putting their lives on the line on behalf of their country,” Justice Department Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez told reporters. “They [military personnel] have our backs and they need to know that we have theirs.”
According to the Justice Department, the victims included soldiers who “served honorably” in U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://www.marketwatch.com/...
And as I said, there are plenty of other lenders out there that are just as guilty as BOA and Morgan Stanley such as: other major banks with servicer units include J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co.,and Ally Financial Inc. And that dose not even touch the tip of the iceberg for all the other lenders in this nation, who are just as guilty against the Military Families, not to mention the private citizens in this country, who are still being ignored by the DOJ.
For instance check this story out, and Jamie Dimon, and Chase Bank:
JPMorgan Chase acknowledged this week that it overcharged some 4,000 military families for their mortgages and wrongfully foreclosed on at least 14. It's not clear how much the mistakes have cost these families, but the bank told NBC News that it’s collectively refunding about $2 million to those affected. It has also promised to restore the homes that were lost.
A Chase spokeswoman said the bank is “deeply appreciative of those who fight to protect our country” and feels “particularly badly about the mistakes we made here.” (Read the bank’s full statement.)
Bloomberg noted in 2008 that in military towns, foreclosures were increasing at a rate almost four times the national average, despite the special protections given to military families.
http://www.propublica.org/...
Believe me, these assholes are not sorry at all. They're just sorry they got caught ripping the Military Families lives to shreds, while they were fighting and dying and getting maimed to protect our nation. Forget about punitive damages, and forget about the pain and destruction and havoc these Banks have causes these Military Families.
And most of all, forget about the rest of the private citizens whose lives have also been just as destroyed, as these Military Families, because the last I heard, the so called deal that AG Tom Miller was making on behalf of all other 49 State Attorney Generals, has blown up in his face (as he stuffed money into his campaign coffers from the back door financial barons). That deal was not nearly as decent (if that is what you can call it) for the $ 22 million that BOA and Morgan Stanley was forced into paying for only 200 military families.
From Matt Taibbi via Naked Capitalism:
A hilarious report has come out courtesy of the National Institute of Money in State Politics, showing that Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller – who is coordinating the investigation into the banks’ improper mortgage dealings – increased his campaign contributions from the finance sector this year by a factor of 88! He has raised $261,445 from finance, insurance and real estate contributors since he announced that he was going to be coordinating the investigation into improper foreclosure practices. That is 88 times as much as they gave him not over last year, but over the previous decade….
Put it this way. If the banks had to pay what they actually owed – from the registration taxes/fees they avoided by using the electronic registry system MERS to the money taken from investors in toxic mortgage-backed securities to the fees and payments stolen from homeowners via predatory loan practices and illegal foreclosures – they would probably all go out of business. That’s how much money is at stake here: the very future of financial giants like Bank of America and Citi and JP Morgan Chase is hanging to a very significant degree on the decisions of politicians like Miller.
Hence the sudden avalanche of money sent Miller’s way. The numbers are laughable. In 2006, out -of-state donors gave Miller’s campaign $10,508. For the 2010 cycle, that number was $497,357. Three lawyers by themselves – Al Gore’s attorney David Boies, plus Donald Flexner and Robert Silver, all partners in the firm Boies, Schiller and Flexner – gave Miller a total of $60,000.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...
At first, I read that the Big 5 Banks and Lenders were being asked for by (yet another whore of the Corporate World, AG Tom Miller) for a measly $ 20 billion.
Then it just went from bad to worse, and kept blowing up over and over again. Last I heard, the Big 5 Banks/Lenders were down to $ 5 billion.
Banks have privately said that they will not agree to a fine above $10 billion — far below a discredited $20 billion figure floated in the press two months ago — arguing that regulators have not provided evidence that servicing problems led to wrongful foreclosures.
snip....
This demand sounds promising but is actually a huge Trojan horse, and I am troubled it is being included: The revised term sheet raised some new issues, including a proposed requirement for more documentation concerning the basis of knowledge for a foreclosure and notes and assignments. The state AGs are seeking to require documentation on the appropriate transfer and delivery of endorsed notes and deeds of trust at the formation of a mortgage-backed security. Essentially, servicers would have to document that they not only have positions with the MBS but document that the securitization was formed properly.
snip...
This ask sounds troublingly like it is setting the stage for a broad waiver of liability for mortgage abuses, a step we have roundly opposed. No one has any business giving broad waivers when they don’t know what bad conduct they may be forgiving. And the ample evidence of abuses in the improper application of payments and the use of junk and pyramiding fees suggests there are a lot of bad practices the servicers would love to have forgiven before anyone can attach a dollar tag to what they really are worth.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...
So here we have Bank of America and Morgan Stanley being dragged kicking and screaming to pay 200 Military Families a paltry $ 22 million in fines (but only because they were caught, certainly not because 'they are so sorry, and they won't do it again.') And as I said, this certainly does not include the rest of the Big Five Lenders/Bankers and even more shitty little shady groups, that have not been duly charged for criminal violations against the Military Families, but now what we have is a fully discredited AG Tom Miller, trying to hold it together for the rest of the other 49 State AG's as the Banks are now demanding that the 'bottom line,' that they are willing to pay is going to be either $ 5 or $ 10 billion (for the rest of millions of other private citizens who've also been illegally foreclosed upon) to 'wipe the slate clean,' of the bullshit MERS whitewash so that above all, they are not required to clean up their own mess, or face any criminal charged whatsoever.
Welcome to the continuing story of the greatest looting operation in American history and yet we’re supposed to be grateful when one of these banks on taxpayer welfare is required to pay some trivial sum of money to rectify devastating wrongs? I wonder how Assistant AG Perez under AG Holder, could please explain to all of us exactly how is it that fraud committed by banks is punishable with a fine, but fraud committed by your average individual results in hard time in prison?
I guess that is what they all mean, at Goldman Sachs when they say they are all doing 'God Work.'
My own Dad was in the USAF for 30 years of his life, a high ranking officer, so it makes me fully disgusted to know that the duplicity here by both Assistant AG Perez, and AG Holder of the DOJ, to treat our Military Families this way, (not to mention the rest of private Americans citizens) stinks to high heaven, and to me I cannot remember a lower point in our history of this nation.
The latest from Foreclosure Fraud.org on more of the MERS Whitewash bullshit:
A federal judge this week issued a stern rebuke to big banks and the Mortgage Electronic Registration System in its handling of foreclosures and what he called a violation of a long-standing Oregon recording law. Now, the financial industry lobby wants the Oregon Legislature to amend an affordable housing bill to retroactively waive those reporting requirements.
U.S. District Court Judge Owen Panner wrote in his ruling: “Given the numerous problems I see in nearly every non-judicial foreclosure case I preside over, a procedure relying on a bank or trustee to self-assess its own authority to foreclose is deeply troubling to me.” Among those problems: Gaps in ownership records and possible “robo-signing” of mortgage documents.
But loan servicers, credit unions and title companies say the legal questions have cast a cloud over title on thousands of homes and mortgages in the state, slowing the process and holding back the housing market. Under the proposed amendment, past and future foreclosure sales with improperly recorded deeds could no longer be voided by a judge.
http://4closurefraud.org/...
You'll excuse me for saying so but neither, Assistant AG Perez under AG Holder or AG Tom Miller is worthy of licking the bottom of the boots of any brave American soldier in this country. Based upon all the evidence that has been given to date to both the DOJ by Senator Carl Levin, and his Senate Panel on the outrageous criminal activities of Wall Street and the Bankers/Lenders (not to mention the same Phil Angelides study by the full Commission of the FCIC) there are no more excuses left, period.
And BTW, could you please, please spare me the bullshit, that the 'hands of justice move slowly in our nation.' I'm so over that. As one of my favorite writers over at Counter Punch put it recently:
How do you light a fire under Congress? How do you get these guys to do what they're paid to do?
We're 5 years into this slump, millions of people have lost their homes and jobs, 44 million people are on food stamps, the economy is in the tank, and congress won't lift a finger to help. What's that all about? You'd think that the revision in GDP and the uptick in unemployment claims would set off alarms on Capitol Hill. But it hasn't. They just shrug it off and move on. What do they care? They get their fat paycheck one way or another, so what difference does it make to them? Besides, if they play their cards right, they'll nab a 6-figure lobbying job as soon as they retire and spend the rest of their lives working on their chip-shot and swilling single-malt at the club with their moneybags friends. Doesn't that piss you off?
Congress just doesn't seem to "get it". They don't understand what people are going through; how maxed out they are. We're in the middle of a Depression and all they want to do is score points playing political circlejerk by stonewalling the debt ceiling or jacking-around with Medicare. Meanwhile, unemployment is on the rise (Initial claims rose to 424,000 on Thursday), GDP is falling (1Q GDP revised to 1.8%), durable goods are down 3.6 percent in April, the market is topping out, business investment is flat, Europe's on the ropes, Japan is in a historic slump, China is overheating, the output gap is as wide as it was 6 quarters ago, bank balance sheets are bleeding red from falling home prices and non-performing loans, and the housing market is crashing.
Did I miss something?
http://www.counterpunch.org/...
No Mike, you didn't miss a thing, because what is really going on is that AG Holder, and the rest of our cowardly paid off so called 'public servants' (in both parties) are simply waiting it out, because by 2012 (Just in time for the new elections for the President) the Statue of Limitations will all run out for these same Wall Street/Bankers and Lenders who knowingly destroyed millions of American lives, their jobs, illegally foreclosed upon Military Families and millions of other private citizens, who are are simply letting the clock tick out, until "Let's make a deal," is all done with.
That is now what we call Democracy in our country. Sometimes I wonder if any of these Bankers or Lenders even thinks about a Military man or woman coming home, in a wheel chair, with no legs for the rest of their lives, who they knowingly illegally foreclosed upon, and what that has done to his/her entire family the rest of their lives.
Nahhhhh, I don't think so. That is what moral corruption means in our nation, and in our leaders all the way around. Regardless of which party is in the White House, to give them a pass this time around, is not ok with me, ever.
So here is my big Fuck you, to the con job of this weekend, Asst. AG Perez of the DOJ. Thanks for yet another bullshit 'token,' gesture, for yet another bullshit deal, for our own Military Families who were thrown out of their own homes and illegally foreclosed upon while their husbands and wives, put their lives on the line, and were fully ignored by our own government.
Thanks as always.
Ms. B.