If anyone was waiting for Bushco’s AG not named Abu Gonzales to intercede on our behalf in the wake of the rampant predatory lending and non-transparency in the wake the subprime mortgage meltdown…well, it looks like you’re going to have to keep waiting (from here)…WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey rejected on Thursday the idea of creating a national task force to combat the country’s mortgage fraud crisis, calling the problem a localized one akin to “white-collar street crimes.”Absolutely (and Mukasey admits later in the story that this is different from Enron; well, he got that much right anyway).
Mr. Mukasey made clear that he saw the mortgage fraud problem at the root of the nation’s housing crisis as a serious one. But he said he was confident that the Justice Department’s current approach — using local prosecutors’ offices around the country to oversee separate F.B.I. investigations — was adequate.
…
“This is disappointing,” Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads the House financial services committee, said in an interview about Mr. Mukasey’s remarks.
Calling the mortgage crisis, “worse than Enron,” Mr. Frank said, “Enron didn’t cause a worldwide recession. This has more innocent victims.”
Mukasey also referred to the mortgage collapse as “white-collar street crime.” What, does that mean we can look forward to a shiv duel between Angelo “Walking Death” Mozilo and Stanley “White Murder” O’Neal? Or dueling Glocks at 20 paces?
And in the best capitalist tradition, you can rest assured that contrition is nowhere in sight for these robber barons, as noted in this story where they testified before the House Committee on Government and Oversight Reform last March.
And concerning some of the individuals in the Enron task force, this Houston Chronicle story notes that some of these lawyers have used that experience as spring boards of a sort into both appointed and elected government offices as well as private practice.
1 comment:
I find Attorney General Mukasey’s remarks regarding the mortgage crisis arrogant and certainly would be expected of the government to protect the powerful and the wealthy
lenders who actually above the laws since as with federal savings banks there are no laws that permit redress of the borrower who has been harmed..
In 2007 the US Attorney Stickhan in Cleveland Oh stated that their job was to protect the banks and that foreclosure complaints are to be handled in the case of federally chartered banks by the Office of Thrift Supervision. The FBI in Washington DC stated that unless fraud was apparently clear, foreclosures are a civil matter. The answer to the foreclosure crisis in the USA was evident at the beginning of the foreclosure crisis.
The problem is simple - the United States Congress. The reason: there are no Federal Consumer Banking Regulations that protect a mortgage borrower with a loan form a federally chartered savings bank. The source of this information is the Office of Thrift Supervision (the federal supervisor in the USA of federally chartered savings banks.) (Note that the Office of the Controller of Currency supervises National Banks.) Federal Banking Regulations basically protect banks from those who commit crimes against banks. There are NO federal consumer banking regulations that protect a mortgage loan borrower from their federally chartered savings bank – even if that bank is unethical and commits acts that violate the standards of acceptable national banking standards, harming the mortgage loan borrower. Accordingly, Federally Chartered Savings Banks operate with impunity.
Congress - your elected representatives - have not enacted any federal banking consumer legislation to protect the mortgage borrower from a federally chartered savings bank because the wealthy and powerful banks will not permit this. An example to prove this statement is when Congress backed away from giving power to US Bankruptcy Judges to amend a bankruptcy petitioner’s mortgage loan. Another example is the current Congressional rhetoric to help protect lenders, home builders and Wall Street (hedge funds) with financial aid but not the mortgage loan borrower. A last example is when Congress in 2005 helped protect banks by making it almost impossible for an individual to discharge their credit card balances in bankruptcy. This last example heralds the next crisis - called the “credit crunch”.
My statements are a result of my on going research and my experience in fighting my foreclosure with an 18 billion dollar Federally Chartered Savings Bank. My home of 7 years was sold at foreclosure auction in March 2008 in Cleveland Ohio as the result of a federally chartered savings bank violating the standard rules of nationally accepted banking practices against me, the consumer. The proof of what I say is in the answer to the question: how many federal mortgage loan borrowers in the USA have been able to fight their foreclosure either in the courts or through petitioning the federal government and have won or stayed their foreclosure? The federal mortgage lending system is designed so that the mortgage borrower has no protection and his or her voice is silenced.
Alan Greenspan in his book “The Age of Turbulence” on page 114, describes the Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980s ”. I believe we have a repeat of the 1980s, only worse. Our elected officials have done absolutely nothing to legislate and regulate the savings banks since the last crisis and were so surprised when this crisis started in early 2000. Is this arrogance or ignorance? Mortgage borrowers don’t need a tax bailout, they need a level and fair playing field.
The solution to the Foreclosure Crisis is to elect representatives to the Congress of the United States that represent the people that elected them, and not themselves, They need to pass legislation to protect federal mortgage loan borrowers from the wealthy and powerful banks who violate sound banking practices. Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd who each chair committees in the House and Senate have not enacted legislation to protect those among us that can not afford the thousands and thousands of dollars needed to hire attorneys to hold our hand at the foreclosure auction as we watch our houses sold for pennies on the dollar. Both of these committees have certainly tried to protect the lenders, the real estate & builders,but not one hint of giving the borrower under the threat or in actual foreclosure any legal avenue to fight this Federally Chartered Savings Bank.
The core problem is not the variable rate mortgages or sub prime loans: it is the lack of regulation and oversight of ALL mortgage loan lenders and the lack of protection for ALL mortgage loan borrowers.
If this crisis was the Titanic, then our elected officials would be in the life boats waving goodbye the women and children still aboard the sinking ship USS Foreclosure.
Michael LittleBig ,Rocky River Ohio
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