Category: credit unions

Just like I said: Megabanks are doing just fine despite economic downturn — at the expense of investors, taxpayers and homeowners.

July 21, 2020

Major banks, including Citigroup, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley used massive trading revenues to beat profit expectations despite the continued struggles of the United States economy during the coronavirus pandemic. Those trading units tend to perform best when markets are volatile, helping to guard the major banks against economic struggles. see https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/17/without-big-wall-street-trading-arms-regional-banks-lean-on-mortgages-and-fees-to-beat-earnings.html Way back in 2006 and 2007 and when I first started publishing articles about the mortgage meltdown (before most people realized there was a meltdown) I reported that the major banks were siphoning off much of the wealth contained inside the U.S. I said that these mega banks were parking ill-gotten gains off-shore in various

Regulatory Capture and Monopoly of Residential Lending by Wall Street

June 16, 2020

It is simply not true and has not been true for 20 years that lending is subject to free market forces or that lenders are subject to regulation. all of this has resulted from extraordinary illegal Market Control which has resulted in the complete inability of small financial institutions to compete with lending practices sponsored by investment banks on Wall Street. As a result consumers are negatively affected. Contrary to the requirements of law they do not have the right to choose the party with whom they are dealing, they do not have the protections of the truth in Lending

Ally $52 Million settlement for "Deficient Securitization"

November 25, 2016

All of these adjectives describing securitization add up to one thing: the claims were false. For the most part none of the securitizations ever happened. And that means that the REMIC trusts never purchased the debt, note or mortgage. And THAT means the “servicer” claiming the right to administer a loan on behalf of the trust is false. And THAT arguably means the business records of the servicer are not business records of the creditor. And THAT my friends means what I have been saying for 10 years: virtually none of the foreclosures were legal, moral or justified. The real

Levitin and Yves Smith – TRUST=EMPTY PAPER BAG

September 26, 2014

Living Lies Narrative Corroborated by Increasing Number of Respected Economists It has taken over 7 years, but finally my description of the securitization process has taken hold. Levitin calls it “securitization fail.” Yves Smith agrees. Bottom line: there was no securitization, the trusts were merely empty sham nominees for the investment banks and the “assignments,” transfers, and endorsements of the fabricated paper from illegal closings were worthless, fraudulent and caused incomprehensible damage to everyone except the perpetrators of the crime. They call it “infinite rehypothecation” on Wall Street. That makes it seem infinitely complex. Call it what you want, it

ALERT: COMMUNITY BANKS AND CREDIT UNIONS AT GRAVE RISK HOLDING $1.5 TRILLION IN MBS

November 14, 2013

I’ve talked about this before. It is why we offer a Risk Analysis Report to Community Banks and Credit Unions. The report analyzes the potential risk of holding MBS instruments in lieu of Treasury Bonds. And it provides guidance to the bank on making new loans on property where there is a history of assignments, transfers and other indicia of claims of securitization. The risks include but are not limited to MBS Instrument issued by New York common law trust that was never funded, and has no assets or expectation of same. MBS Instrument was issued by NY common law

JPMorgan to Pay $13 BILLION in Mortgage Settlement: Which Homes are Affected?

October 20, 2013

The banks have paid tens of billions of dollars in settlements with Federal and State agencies and law enforcement. Where did the money go? But more importantly the real question arises out of the investigation and the question Elizabeth Warren keeps asking — which homes were found to have defective notes and mortgages as alleged by investors in their lawsuits against the investment banks? Which homes did the agency investigation find were foreclosed by parties who were strangers to the transaction. I agree with Sen. Warren who thinks that nothing could be more important to answer as required public informations

South Carolina Court Dismisses Foreclosure Based Upon U.S. Supreme Court Decision

October 4, 2013

hat tip to www.foreclosuredefensenationwide.com Bill Sloan, Esq., in the 9th Judicial Circuit of Common Pleas in Charleston, South Carolina successfully turned the head of at least one judge, citing the United States Supreme Court case of Carpenter v Longen, 83 U.S. 271, 16 Wall. 271, 21 L. ed. 313 (1872). I might add that in the BP litigation, the Circuit Court of Appeals just issued a ruling on the same topic and said “Absent a loss , a claimant has suffered no injury. Unless a claimant can colorably assert a loss, it lacks standing. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,

Fannie and Freddie Platinum Sponsors with (MERS and LPS) of Upscale Event for Bankers

October 16, 2011

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION ANALYSIS – CLICK HERE UNDERLYING THEME: HOW TO GET THE SIGNATURE OF HOMEOWNER WITHOUT ALERTING ALL HOMEOWNERS THAT THEIR SIGNATURE IS NOW A VALUABLE COMMODITY AHC AND LIVINGLIES ANNOUNCE LAUNCH OF AMGAR EDITOR’S COMMENT: Are they really that tone deaf? It appears the answer is yes as Fannie and Freddie Joined Hands with MERS and LPS to become Platinum Sponsors of this Bankers Convention. If they had the slightest notion of the mayhem caused by these two culprits, neither Fannie nor Freddie should have avoided the event altogether and certainly not underwritten

Goldman Sachs Messages Show It Thrived as Economy Fell

April 26, 2010

Editor’s Note: Now the truth as reported here two years ago. There were no losses. They were making money hand over fist. And this article focuses only on a single topic — some of the credit default swaps — those that Goldman had bought in its own name, leaving out all the other swaps bought by Goldman using other banks and entities as cover for their horrendous behavior. It also leaves out all the other swaps bought by all the other investment banking houses. But most of all it leaves out the fact that at no time did the investment

Magnetar Echoes Livinglies call for Alignment of Investors, Servicers and Borrowers

April 22, 2010

see Magnetar%20Mortage%20Recovery%20Backstop%20Whitepaper%20Jun09.pdf Magnetar Mortage Recovery Backstop Whitepaper Jun09 Two things jump out at me with this paper from June, 2009. First it is obvious that the “real money” investors are defined as those seeking low risk and willing to take lower yield. The fact that they are called “Real Money Investors” underscores my point about the identity of the creditor. Those “traditional” investors are no longer available to buy the mortgage backed securities or any other resecuritized derivative package based upon mortgage backed securities. Legal restrictions requiring the securities to be investment grade would prevent them from jumping back in

Foreclosure Prevention 1.1

April 22, 2010

Nobody ever thought that returning a lady’s purse to her after a purse snatcher ran away with it was a gift. So why is anyone contesting returning the purse to homeowners who had their lives snatched from them? The baby steps of the Obama administration are frustrating. Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and those who walk with Wall Street are using ideology and assumptions instead of reality and facts. First they started with the idea of modifications. That would do it. Just change the terms a little, have the homeowner release rights and defenses to what was a completely fraudulent and

Regulation: Big Government or Big Business

April 21, 2010

“the banks should not be allowed to be larger than the government’s ability to regulate them” If you ask someone about big government, they will probably tell you they don’t want government meddling in their personal business. What they really mean is that they don’t want ANYONE meddling in their lives. In reality, that opened the door to the finance sector to meddle, control and alter our lives. Banks, insurance companies and non-bank financial institutions have co-opted governmental decision making, and forced us all to pay dearly — far more than those taxes that everyone is worried about. Just look

U.S. Starts Criminal Probe of Lender Processing Services Inc. Foreclosure-Data Provider

April 7, 2010

The case follows on the dismissal of numerous foreclosure cases in which judges across the U.S. have found that the materials banks had submitted to support their claims were wrong. Faulty bank paperwork has been an issue in foreclosure proceedings since the housing crisis took hold a few years ago. It is often difficult to pin down who the real owner of a mortgage is, thanks to the complexity of the mortgage market. the majority of foreclosures go unchallenged, some homeowners have won the right to keep their homes by proving the bank couldn’t show, on paper, that it owned

Tax Apocalypse for States and Federal Government Can be Reversed: Show Me the Money!

March 31, 2010

SEE states-look-beyond-borders-to-collect-owed-taxes states-ignore-obvious-remedy-to-fiscal-meltdown tax-impact-of-principal-reduction accounting-for-damages-madoff-ruling-may-affect-homeowner-claims taxing-wall-street-down-to-size-litigation-guidelines taking-aim-at-bonuses-based-on-23-7-trillion-in-taxpayer-gifts payback-timemany-see-the-vat-option-as-a-cure-for-deficits As we have repeatedly stated on this blog, the trigger for the huge deficits was the housing nightmare conjured up for us by Wall Street. Banks made trillions of dollars in profits that were never taxed. The tax laws are already in place. Everyone is paying taxes, why are they not paying taxes? If they did, a substantial portion of the deficits would vanish. Each day we let the bankers control our state executives and legislators, we fall deeper and deeper in debt, we lose more social services and it endangers our

BAC assigned a note in 2010 that they sold in 2003

March 25, 2010

Editor’s Note: Recontrust appears to be wholly owned by Bank of America. This particular deal looks like a “reconstituted” mortgage backed security comprised of new securities which are “backed” by old mortgage backed securities which in turn are backed by a list of “loans” which may or may not exist, and which certainly have at least in part been paid in whole or in part through insurance, credit default swaps and federal bailout. From the comment Section of the Blog: ReconTrust filed a NOD on behalf of BAC “servicer” for GRS Mort. Trust 2003-9, seven days later filed an assignment

Give me a little help here: Trusts, REMICs, and the Authority of the Trustee or Trustee's Attorney to Represent

June 25, 2009

When U.S. Bank comes in as Trustee for the the holders of series xyz etc., the use of the words Trustee and series certificates give it an air of legitimacy. But this is probably just another bluff. Reading the indenture on the bond (mortgage backed security) and the prospectus, you will see that the “Trust” may or may not be the the Special Purpose Vehicle that issued the bonds. And of course I remind you that the “borrower” (whom I call an “issuer” for reason explained in other posts) signed a note with one set of terms and the source

Those $18 billion in bonuses were earned from hidden profits: The Joke is on Us

January 30, 2009

Obama is of course correct in his outrage. Taking hundreds of billions of dollars from the taxpayers to cover the appearances of catastrophic losses and then paying bonuses for good management is over the top by any standards. But neither he nor the media is correct in assuming that that the bonuses were not in fact earned by the people who defrauded us in the first place with the mortgage meltdown. Those bonuses were paid BECAUSE PROFIT WAS GENERATED even if it wasn’t completely reported. Nobody seems to get it — the key acronym is OPM (other people’s money). Wall

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! (I THINK)

January 2, 2009

Happy New Year! We have much to talk about this year as we push forward. By all accounts, the economy, the dollar, the foreclosures, the job situation etc are all getting worse by the minute. Even if Obama is a magician it will be 2 years before there is a glimmer of hope. The homeowner aid programs are window dressing. Even the Sheila Bair one from FDIC/Indy Mac while well-intentioned does little for most homeowners. The ONLY hope for homeowners and the only hope for our economy is if we face the music and take the free market enthusiasts at

Resources: Trade Periodicals and Research – Use of Professional Information Sources

December 24, 2008

Use of Professional Information Sources Bank Systems & Technology American Banker Community Banker Factiva Independent Banker Bank Technology News Banking Strategies Wall Street Journal/WSJ Online Law firm/consultant/association-provided newsletters ABA Banking Journal NewsEdge US Banker Lexis/Nexis Local associations publications Internally provided news feed Other; please specify — post on comments page

WORKSHOPS COMING UP 8 CA CLE & 9.5 FLA CLE CREDITS

December 17, 2008

PLEASE SUPPORT THIS SITE !!! donation-form-1108 Florida Bar Approves Garfield Continuum for 9.5 CLE Credits Lawyers Workshop Registration Form – November 2, 2009 Homeowners Workshop Registration Form – November 1, 2009 What Lawyers Are Saying About Neil Garfield\’s Seminars covered-in-the-garfield-continuum-workshops-you-can-look-this-stuff-up-in-wikopedia REQUIRED READING: appraisal-fraud-and-industry-standards-described-in-2003-official-white-paper-red-flags-described-in-detail-with-excellent-diagrams-explanations-and-descriptions-of-best-practices Work and Play in Sunny Clearwater Beach FL How to Save $$ while attending Garfield Event(s) Clearwater Beach FL November 1-2, 2009 * Reserve Workshop Seat prior to Oct 23, 2009 for Early Bird discount on Registration * Mention Garfield’s Foreclosure Defense Group when reserving rooms to get special Group Rate of $99 * Check into flying into Tampa/St. Petersburg and other airports within a short drive multiple