Please consider this an update on two recent events that have taken place in direct support of AG of New York, Eric Schneiderman's (and Beau Biden's) continued fight for the State of New York for the massive fraud that has taken place on the mortgage crisis in our nation.
The first update is that the FDIC has now officially objected to the BOA's measly 8.5 billions settlement and the other update is that today 20 Democrats in the New York Congressional delegation, including New Democratic Coalition leader Joseph Crowley, upstate moderates like Kathy Hochul and Bill Owens and DCCC chair Steve Israel, backed up Schneiderman and criticized Iowa AG Tom Miller for kicking Schneiderman off the executive committee negotiating with the banks. Led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, their letter is targeted to Miller and parochial in nature, but adding their weight to Schneiderman’s concerns is important.
As stated in today's article by Yves Smith, (the plot thickens):
Ooh, this is getting to be fun. Now the FDIC has weighed in too. Can’t wait to get my hands on the filing (any readers who can get it are encouraged to provide a link or send a pdf so I can upload it).
Needless to say, the FDIC objection is further validation of the questions raised by attorneys general Eric Schneiderman and Beau Biden. No details yet, merely a notice of the existence of the objection at Bloomberg.
Update. Here is the filing. The general logic is similar to the Biden objection (although he also took a major shot at the Bank of New York role), but this is as skeletal as it gets. This is literally a placeholder, to weigh in prior to the deadline for objections, which is August 30.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...
And from David Dayen:
Eric Schneiderman keeps picking up support in his quest to hold a real investigation on the criminal failures in mortgage securitization and servicing. He has the support of a number of newspaper editorial boards, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which devoted its Sunday editorial to an out-of-state Attorney General:
Eric Schneiderman won’t play ball with efforts to make the mortgage foreclosure mess go away. In the spring, federal regulators thought they had a deal with Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, the five biggest mortgage servicers, to settle claims that they had taken shortcuts by foreclosing on homes before the paperwork was properly processed. The banks would have paid about $20 billion, most of it for loan modifications and counseling.
But the banks wanted the 50 state attorneys general to sign off on the deal, too. The AGs have been meeting for months and were said to be close to an agreement. But Mr. Schneiderman is an outlier.
Good for him. The banks want this so-called “global agreement” to indemnify them against any mortgage-related claims, not just processing complaints. Mr. Schneiderman has been investigating the way that the banks securitized mortgages in the years leading up to the 2007-2008 housing collapse, cutting them into pieces and bundling them as mortgage-backed bonds.
http://news.firedoglake.com/...
And here is the full letter to AG Tom Miller (who would sell his soul to the devil for 20 pieces of silver if he could make a buck):
Here’s the full letter from the New York Congressional Dem delegation:
August 30, 2011
The Honorable Tom Miller
Attorney General
1305 East Walnut Street
Des Moines, IA 50319
Dear Attorney General Miller:
As members of the New York congressional delegation, we are united in fighting for a fair resolution of the housing crisis that has devastated tens of thousands of families across our state. That is why we are deeply troubled by your recent action to silence New York’s voice by removing New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman from an executive committee negotiating a nationwide settlement with the banks. We ask that you explain how New York’s interests will be protected as negotiations move forward.
New York’s homeowners and investors have been hit hard by the economic impact of wrongdoing related to the mortgage crisis. According to the FBI, New York ranked as one of the top ten states for known or suspected mortgage fraud activity for two consecutive years. It also was one of the top ten states for reports of mortgage fraud across all originations in 2010. Undoubtedly, our state, the third largest in the nation, deserves a seat at any negotiating table that could potentially limit our state’s ability to investigate and penalize wrongdoing done within our borders.
Raising legitimate concerns about elements of the proposed settlement is a responsibility of every member of the executive committee and should never be the basis for silencing a viewpoint. Your removal of Attorney General Schneiderman sets a dangerous precedent for other attorneys general who, out of fear of what might happen, may choose silence over voicing valid concerns with particular aspects of the proposed settlement. Moreover, your attempt to banish opposition rather than address varying viewpoints undermines both the validity of the process and any settlement reached by the committee.
New York deserves adequate representation during the remainder of the mortgage settlement negotiations. We look forward to hearing how you will ensure that New York’s voice is heard.
Sincerely,
Jerrold Nadler
Carolyn Maloney
Maurice Hinchey
Joseph Crowley
Edolphus Towns
Carolyn McCarthy
Jose Serrano
Gary Ackerman
Timothy Bishop
Eliot Engel
Charles Rangel
Nita Lowey
Louise Slaughter
Paul Tonko
Gregory Meeks
Bill Owens
Yvette Clarke
Kathleen Hochul
Brian Higgins
Nydia Velazquez
Steve Israel
Make no mistake about it, this so called 'global agreement,' is nothing more than a way to give the Banks and Wall St. complete immunity for their FRAUD and thereby giving them all not only a 'get out of jail card free,' but also will essentially cancel State's Rights for their own property laws.
It was always destined to fail and regardless of the powers that be, it was like putting a band-aid on very serious crack in the Hoover Dam. You cannot overturn centuries of property/contractual law no matter how much you wave a shitty pig with lipstick on that holds a magic wand.
As my friend Matt Stoller writes:
The banking system is really at the heart of our politics, which is why it’s such a great test of one’s political theory of change. I’ve been following the foreclosure fraud story for a few years now, because it’s the tail end of a massive economy-wide fraud scheme that started as early as 2003. The securitization chain failure can’t be put back in the bottle, the housing system it collapsed is simply too big to bail. So elites keep trying to patch this up the way they have everything else. It isn’t working. And their scheme has been obvious and obviously dishonest. Along with Obama (who I criticized as empty as early as 2004, ratcheting this up to dishonest and authoritarian by 2006-2007), I pointed out that Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller was engaged in serious bad faith only a few months after the negotiations started.
snip.....
For the rest of the Democratic Party, well, reality is just beginning to intrude into the fantasy-land of partisans, even though the 2010 loss should have delivered a searing wake-up call to the failure Obama’s policy agenda. From 2006-2008, the Bush administration’s failures crashed down upon conservatives, and they in many ways could not cope. But their intellectual collapse was bailed out by Obama. Faux liberals are seeing their grand experiment in tatters, though right now they can only admit to feeling disappointed because the recognition that they have been swindled is far too painful. And the recognition for many of the professionals is even more difficult, because they must recognize that they have helped swindle many others and acknowledge the debt they have incurred to their victims. The signs of coming betrayal were there, but in the end it all comes down to judging people based on what they do and who they choose as opponents. And this Democratic partisans did not do, choosing instead a comfortable delusional fantasy-land where foreclosures don’t matter and theft enabled by Obama (and Clinton before him) doesn’t matter.
Eric Schneiderman’s willingness to go after the banks and stand up to the corruption of the Bush and Obama administrations should be a reminder to all of us of this. We have free will. He is doing the right thing for no other reason than because he wants to, because he believes in it. He is going to face serious consequences for this, very nasty stuff. Eliot Spitzer was taken down and his name dragged through mud because of who he took on. Paying ugly costs for standing up is routine, unfortunately, in modern America. And the least powerful among us face far worse consequences than politicians who are embarrassed. But integrity exists, and Schneiderman is showing that free will can be exercised in its service. This fact is true of many people, not just Schneiderman; Bill McKibbin, Jane Hamsher, Dan Choi and others just got arrested in front of the White House to register dissent. So next time someone tells you that you have no choice but to support one of the two branches of the banking party, just remember, you also have free will. And the only person who can take that away from you, is you.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...
Imagine today, using such out of date ideas of 'integrity, and doing the right thing?'
I happen to believe that Americans across the board are actually staving to death for such old fashioned notions as integrity and doing the right thing.
And if it takes somebody like AG Eric Schneiderman, and Beau Biden and the FDIC to push President Obama back into realizing that you don't keep following the same failed policies over and over again, in order to curry favor with Wall St./the Banks, that's fine with me. Somebody needs to remind him that there is a world of difference between his 'savvy businessmen,' friends, and that old Italian saying: 'You don't shit where you eat.'
As was noted in a recent fantastic article (on who really got saved and who really keeps getting screwed, over and over again):
“Bailing out firms indiscriminately hampered rather than promoted economic recovery,” Mr. Kane continued. “It evoked reckless gambles for resurrection among rescued firms and created uncertainty about who would finally bear the extravagant costs of these programs. Both effects continue to disrupt the flow of credit and real investment necessary to trigger and sustain economic recovery.”
As for making money on the deals? Only half-true, Mr. Kane said. “Thanks to the vastly subsidized terms these programs offered, most institutions were eventually able to repay the formal obligations they incurred.” But taxpayers were inadequately compensated for the help they provided, he said. We should have received returns of 15 percent to 20 percent on our money, given the nature of these rescues.
Government officials rewarded imprudent institutions with stupefying amounts of free money. Even so, we are still in economically stormy seas. Doesn’t that indicate that it’s time to try a different tack?
http://www.nytimes.com/...
If there is still (one remaining person on the planet) or here at Daily Kos that actually sincerely believes that we would not be in this middle of this failed and horrifying, austerity movement as a result of covering up the endless fraud for Wall St./the Banks (while bailing their asses out on a continual basis), and allowing the same failed endless wars policies to continue I would love to hear from them. Who got saved? Please feel free to tell me that when Congress is ready to pay back the $2.5 trillion dollars they stole from Social Security.
And you bet your ass, it is way past time to try a different tack, but god forbid we should embrace such old fashioned notions as: integrity and doing the right thing. Carry on, and thanks as always.
Ms. B.