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Here is your open thread for Monday January 7th, 2013. You may post random links and off-topic discussions here. Also, if you have an idea or a topic you’d like to see covered in an article, please make it known.
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http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20130107a.htm
Ten mortgage servicing companies subject to enforcement actions for deficient practices in mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing have reached an agreement in principle with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Board to pay more than $8.5 billion in cash payments and other assistance to help borrowers.
Yes, this truly is a nation of laws. Alexander Hamilton must be proud.
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RE: ChrisM @ 1 – DIllinger robs bank of $1 million. Agrees to return $100,000 in plea deal.
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By Blurtman @ 2:
The difference between today’s bankers and John Dillinnger?
Dillinger was more honest.
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RE: Ira Sacharoff @ 3 –
They Have a Prohibition of Alcohol Museum in Philidelphia
You can get your picture taken with rough looking life size images of Pretty Boy Floyd and Al Capone in zoot suits.
My friend did that and I teased him….I see you got your picture taken with all your blue dog Democrat friends…..
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RE: softwarengineer @ 4 – 90 years from now they’ll have the same thing, but the dress will be today’s gang clothing.
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RE: Ira Sacharoff @ 3 –
I agree Ira. Great recent book on the subject by the former Inspector General of Tarp – Neel Barofsky. He spoke in Seattle in November and the stuff he had to say should have been on the front page. While IG he was told flat out he would never work on Wall Street if he pursued the bankers. Even though he would have done so without the threats, he determined it wasn’t a matter of “too big to fail” but “too big to jail”. Geithner comes across as a very odd man who went out of his way to shield the bankers and everyone who surrounded him at Treasury seemed to have worked at Goldman Sachs.
http://www.amazon.com/Bailout-Account-Washington-Abandoned-Rescuing/dp/1451684932/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357685671&sr=1-1
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RE: Chris @ 6 –
Geithner Couldn’t Sell His Underwater Mortgage Mansion Either
And he’s giving us financial advice?
He’s jumping the sinking ship anyway….I wonder who his Wall Street replacement will be?
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RE: Chris @ 6 – Yes that is a great book, and a pretty good read. The only disappointment was it ended rather abruptly, because there were a ton of endnotes, so I thought it had further to go. (I was reading the Kindle edition.)
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RE: softwarengineer @ 7 –
Ha ha – the book didn’t go into that but Barofsky had a story about him that offered some insight. Apparently when Geithner had tax trouble the trouble was more or less knowingly failing to pay US taxes on income he received from an international organization. When it was caught he ended up just paying the back taxes for the period within the statute of limitations and not the rest. I don’t blame a guy for doing the minimum necessary to stay out of jail and saving money on the balance but should he have been in the Treasury after this came to light? Especially when Sumners was available? My guess – the banks knew Sumners was going to prosecute some of them.
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 8 –
Ha ha, yes on the Kindle if you hit the wrong button you end up in the footnotes and can’t get out. The footnotes do have some good stuff in there though. Barofsky wrote a great book but he can’t seem to get a lot of press on it and the New York Times wrote a bad review which I can’t understand because the book not only gives the best chronology of events but also gives an inside look as opposed to the press releases coming out at the time. The reviewer focused on how great Tarp was. I think he’s a modern William Shirer. Barofsky and Warren seem to be the only incorruptible characters to come out of this mess.
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RE: Chris @ 6 – When Geithner was being questioned by Congress as part of the vetting process, he was asked why he, as NY Fed president, did not regulate Wall Street when they were practicing flagrant fraud. His answer was that he did not view his responsibilities to include a bank regulatory role. Apparently the putz did not read the Fed’s charter. His excuse for not reigning in Wall Street was essentially – Don’t blame me. I wasn’t doing my job.
This was Obama’s pick. Ditto Summers. Obama sucks.
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RE: Blurtman @ 11 –
I didn’t know he said that. That is crazy since the Fed comes out with rules all the time.
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