60 Minutes: The NEXT HOUSING SHOCK

[Segami]

Run time: 14:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmRKPjggQi0   Posted on YouTube: August 07, 2011 By YouTube Member: CBSNewsOnline Views on YouTube: 89   Posted on DU: August 08, 2011 By DU Member: Segami Views on DU: 6832

 
:smoke: :smoke:


"..As more and more Americans face mortgage foreclosure, banks' crucial ownership documents for the properties are often unclear and are sometimes even bogus, a condition that's causing lawsuits and hampering an already weak housing market...."



.

[aquart]

1. Is it just me but is this article a pity party for the poor banks?

We have to recognize bank ownership or the economy will collapse? Is that the line I'm supposed to follow?

Because that is a load of crap. THEY COMMITTED CRIMINAL ACTS. How about everyone involved does time?

[progressoid]

2. Yeah that shit at the end about a cleanup fund made me sick

And then to say that homeowners would have to accept what the banks say about ownership and move on. :puke:

[Enthusiast]

7. There SHOULD have been a huge

investigation with many prosecutions. But, apparently criminality is now acceptable.

[stockholmer]

15. plus the total of the 50 state's lawsuits is 20 billion, yet Wall Street paid itself 150 billion in

bonuses, just for 2010.

Wachovia (now Wells Fargo under the odious Warren Buffett) laundered $378.4 BILLION in drug cartel money, yet paid a fine of only $160 million.

That is equal to laundering a million, and paying a 423 dollar fine. A speeding ticket is more than that in certain cities.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/04/wachovia-paid-trivial-fine-for-nearly-400-billion-of-drug-related-money-laundering.html

[Enthusiast]

16. That is alarming! nt

[defendandprotect]

28. It's like looking at the Super Sopranos!! Thanks for the info ....

Laundered $378.4 BILLION

Fined 160 MILLION


May I ask a dumb question -- what did Wachovia/Wells Fargo get return for taking

the risk of laudnering this drug money?

I'm guess that they at least got back the $160 million they had to pay for the fine?

And how is all of this done?

I'm sure the drug cartel at least sent them flowers?

Do you know how this is handled -- Swiss bank accounts -- whatever?




:evilgrin:

[McCamy Taylor]

24. You are correct. The message is "let's not quibble, it hurts the economy when banks cant take homes"

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. Still watching, but had to K&R for the Florida woman who took the time to uncover this

Damn.

[Enthusiast]

6. Me too..................nt

[Auggie]

4. No one will go to jail either

"Limited Liability Company"

[bulloney]

5. And we want to privatize everything? This is another example of where big business is corrupt.

Grossly incompetent at best.

They talk about banks paying into a fund to cover costs of this mess. I think anyone with a brain knows that won't happen. This will be another multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout.

I often get into some heated discussions with relatives and friends who bitch about government incompetence. I point out examples like this to show that the private sector isn't any better, at least when dealing with big businesses. Plus, I'll argue that most of our problems with government stem from big business corrupting the system by spending large amounts of money on campaigns and setting up a revolving door between them and the regulatory agencies that are supposed to hold them accountable. Classic fox guarding the henhouse.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. DU is my go to place for the real news.

[freedom fighter jh]

9. Good on 60 MInutes for doing this.

Nuff to make your blood boil.

So now it seems some people are getting a chance to show that their foreclosures are illegal, and they get to keep their homes. What happens to people who've already lost their homes, because courts believed the banks, because courts weren't looking closely, because people being evicted had already depleted their resources and had nothing left to hire a lawyer and fight the case?

[emcguffie]

17. Did you watch until the end?

They are suggesting that people will have to be bought off to accept the banks' ownership. That would mean they still lose their homes, but get some kind of a payment.

Why couldn't they instead just forgive back payments, reduce the monthly payments for those who still have some kind of an income, and let folks keep their homes? Wouldn't that stop the bleeding of the economy?

[Atypical Liberal]

18. +1000. I've been saying this for some time. Bail out the lendee, not the lender!

Why couldn't they instead just forgive back payments, reduce the monthly payments for those who still have some kind of an income, and let folks keep their homes? Wouldn't that stop the bleeding of the economy?

I've been saying this from the beginning.

Rather than bail out the mortgage holders - the banks, they should be bailing out the homeowners.

Take that bailout money and put it towards reducing the principle on people's home loans.

This does many things:

1) It makes the values of the mortgages match the value of the homes.
2) It reduces the cost of living for homeowners, helping restore the global disparity in labor/living costs that is causing so much disruption.
3) It instantly gives people more disposable income, which will fuel the economy.
4) It keeps people in their homes, providing stability.

[emcguffie]

32. If only.

I'm afraid just the opposite is about to happen -- that they will help the banks out again, and screw us again. That's certainly what they want to do.

I say shame on 60 Minutes.

But then, I haven't watched it in years. Not since the Dan Rather business.

[freedom fighter jh]

26. Well, yeah, but that was just an opinion . . .

It doesn't negate the facts they brought out: that some (they implied most) foreclosures are done fraudulently. Once that truth is out, courts will start to give future foreclosure victims a chance and the whole foreclosure scam may start to fall apart. So they've done a real service even if they did say something dumb at the end.

[emcguffie]

31. Well, I hope you are right. But...

the way things usually go, you will be wrong, and all the help will go to the banks.

Of course it's time to change, but will it?

What they put on the TV is always a tip-off to what they intend to do. So to me, this is just a -- there's a literary device -- oh, yes, foreshadowing of where the conversation is going to go next.

Since this aired months ago, I don't know what it means now. Maybe other events have kind of overtaken? Maybe not. I've seen a couple of threads about people applying in the tens of thousands for section 8 applications, and this not being covered.

Where are all the people who lose their homes going?

[Xtraneous]

25. Advice given to me when I was falling behind: DON'T LEAVE!

That's rule #1. In this overburdened situation the banks are so far behind that there's a possibility you could stay in your house for close to three years. I got this advice from a lawyer paid for by the government about three years ago.

Back in 1991, I was a tenant in a 2-family house that was foreclosed on. The owners left, I stayed. The bank didn't contact me for the entire four years I stayed, yet they paid the taxes. The money I put away for the first year and a half paid in full my first house, another foreclosure. I was hoping to buy the house I was living in, but even after I left- and basically gave it to a friend to occupy- the bank didn't show up for another 3 years (7 years total!) and that's when my next door neighbor bought it. If the property wasn't occupied, it would have been vandalized and worthless within those 7 years.

The least that the government should do is force the banks to allow tenancy of the defaulted mortgagees until there was a successor. The property would be protected and there's a possibility the new owner would be an investor who would be willing to make a deal to lease the property to the former owners. It may not be a suitable situation for most but it's a better solution.

[defendandprotect]

29. +1 --

[emcguffie]

33. Yes. So where are the ones who leave going? NT

[midnight]

10. K&R Is Hamp ever going to get some teeth and demand

compliance towards fixing this mess?

[MrMickeysMom]

11. I have an idea...

Just return the home to the homeowners, paid in full. THAT should allow the homeowners to continue paying taxes to the local economy as they find work.

Oh, Work? I suggest we have the clean up fund go toward THAT.

[florida08]

12. watched this when it came out in April

Excellent piece of investigative journalism. But the meme is to blame ignorant homeowners who purchased more house than they could afford. Predatory capitalism? You bet. Wall Street predatory practices? Absolutely. Money never sleeps. As we see the lie perpetrated has somewhat worked. Still no tough regulations. All you have to do is look at the numbers.

[chervilant]

13. The El Toro Poo Poo has not yet hit the fan...

Banks Sell 'Toxic Waste' CDOs to Calpers, Texas Teachers Fund
By David Evans (published in Bloomberg, June 1, 2007 -- posted online July, 2007):

Bear Stearns Cos., the fifth-largest U.S. securities firm, is hawking the riskiest portions of collateralized debt obligations to public pension funds.

At a sales presentation of the bank's CDOs to 50 public pension fund managers in a Las Vegas hotel ballroom, Jean Fleischhacker, Bear Stearns senior managing director, tells fund managers they can get a 20 percent annual return from the bottom level of a CDO.

``It has a very high cash yield to it,'' Fleischhacker says at the March convention. ``I think a lot of people are confused about what this product is and how it works.''

Worldwide sales of CDOs -- which are packages of securities backed by bonds, mortgages and other loans -- have soared since 2003, reaching $503 billion last year, a fivefold increase in three years. Bankers call the bottom sections of a CDO, the ones most vulnerable to losses from bad debt, the equity tranches.

They also refer to them as toxic waste because as more borrowers default on loans, these investments would be the first to take losses. The investments could be wiped out.

I suspect that the banks who've written the vast majority of these 'toxic waste' loans have been scurrying around these past five years, 'cleaning up' fraudulent loan documents in their frantic efforts to prevent the massive catastrophe that WILL be inevitable if the worthlessness of the CDOs becomes common knowledge.

When I was a newby mortgage loan officer, I distinctly remember Anthony Mozilla (the founder and CEO--at that time--of Countrywide) addressing a rather sizable contingent of his 'loyal minions' and throwing out the statistic that "20% of high risk loans end in foreclosure." Mozilla, pausing for dramatic effect, then asserted, "We are looking at this statistic all wrong. This means that 80% (emphasis his) of high risk loans are successful." Mozilla informed us that Countrywide intended to tap into this vast pool of potential borrowers--historically disenfranchised by mortgage lenders--and went on to describe the new sub-prime products Countrywide was introducing to the public.

This was all smoke and mirrors. Anyone who's worked in commercial banking understands the merit of assessing potential clients' credit worthiness. I had clients who wanted to 'buy' houses that were far outside their means, and they would NOT listen to ANYONE's adjurations about being 'one paycheck away from financial catastrophe' if mortgaged beyond their means. I realize now that these pitiable people continued to shop around for a loan officer until they found one who would write the loan they wanted.

I could go on for days about how we were 'encouraged' to market the sub-primes. Of course, the big five mortgage lenders (BoA, Chase, Wamu, Wells Fargo, and Countrywide) were paying loan officers exceptional commissions on the sub-primes, a fact that my manager threw in my face each time he berated me for not marketing those vile pieces of corporatist crap.

Actually, I had to do loan documentation grunt work for my manager while he was still a mere loan officer and I was his assistant, so I saw all the dirty tricks lenders can pull to get a loan to closing. I found these tactics distasteful and disingenuous, and I refused to use them. I feel fortunate that I became wary of these dirty tricks, and made a conscious decision to avoid them.

I left--serendipitously--right before the internal auditors executed an early morning raid on our high-rise offices, re-keyed the locks, and confiscated all the files and computers. I had lunch with our admin one last time after that, but I don't know the legal outcome for my former manager and his hotshot loan officers. The morning of the raid, they were invited to leave the building, with the promise that their personal belongings would be shipped to them after the audit was completed.

[stockholmer]

14. MERS fraud has been on the radar since at least 2005, hard to believe CBS 'just heard of it'

http://lendersfraud.com/court-rulings-against-mers/

[L0oniX]

19. Throw the scum bags in prison ...like they would do with the little guy who forges legal documents.

[orbitalman]

20. Kill the bankers. n/t

[leeroysphitz]

21. So how is this Obama's fault?

[defendandprotect]

30. Obama bailed out the banks -- rather than NATIONALIZING them...

which was the advice he got from his economists --

and later Rahm "crowed" about how grateful business should be to Obama -- !!

All of these forclosures should have been stopped --

especially the "liar loans."

[leeroysphitz]

34. Ok, thanks.The OP wasn't clear on how to blame him. n/t

[defendandprotect]

35. You're welcome -- and here's Koch Bros DLC Rahm Emmanuel in full confession mode .....

From DU 8/12/10 --

Rahm .... crowing about preserving "private health care industry" ... business s/b grateful!

”In a Thursday interview, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argued that rather than recoiling against Obama, business leaders should be grateful for his support on at least a half-dozen counts: his advocacy of greater international trade and education reform open markets despite union skepticism; his rejection of calls from some quarters to nationalize banks during the financial meltdown; the rescue of the automobile industry; the fact that the overhaul of health care

preserved the private delivery system;

the fact that billions in the stimulus package benefited business with lucrative new contracts, and that financial regulation reform will take away the uncertainty that existed with a broken, pre-crash regulatory apparatus.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=B2F85DDF-18...

[spooked911]

22. wow

fucking banksters need to go to jail

[McCamy Taylor]

23. This is not an expose. CBS advocates letting banks off with a wrist slap. Watch the whole

piece. It ends with a former government official suggesting that banks be allowed to settle their suits with the 50 states for "billions" in the form of small checks for the homeowners who will be deprived of their homes. The banks are only willing to go this far because they have lost cases in court in which the homeowners have been awarded their homes back by judges who are upset over the banksters' fraud.

If you hear anyone in this administration advocating the "let them pay 'billions' to avoid lawsuits and speed up their foreclosures" know that that person is bought and owned by the banks.

[bertman]

27. Chairman Bair is just doing what everyone else in this administration is doing: shielding

the criminals from prosecution. Did anyone hear her suggest that there was CRIMINAL wrongdoing going on? I didn't. "Sloppy paperwork" my ass. Massive profits through fraud.

I'll bet that the Justice Department decides to "look forward, not backward" on this one.


REC.