US economics: One big Ponzi scheme: While Bernie Madoff languishes in jail, bankers continue to profit as the poor lose their homes and hope.
by Danny Schecter
Al Jazeera
Thank you, Bernie, for breaking your silence - even if you are still clinging to that cover-up mode you adopted since you took the entirety of the blame for your crimes.
What is clear is that ripping off the rich is punished far more severely than ripping off the poor. The lengthy sentence you were given spared countless other greedsters and goniffs from facing the music - what music there is.
In an interview - with a reporter from The New York Times who is writing a book to cash in on a man who has already cashed out - we learn, in the vaguest terms, that Mr M believes the banks he did his crooked business with "should have known" his figures did not figure. Keeping with the deceit that has served him well over the years, he names no names.
That said, how right he may be. There were many who should have known and done something about it. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators for one. Perhaps The New York Times for another. Remember, it was Madoff's confession to his sons that started him on his way to his new 12' x 12' home from home - in a federal correctional institute, where he may dream of his seized penthouse, homes and yachts - rather than any press expose.
For years, he went undetected by business journalists, who knew - or should have known - what he was up to. There are even questions about the speed with which he was sentenced, preventing him from being tried - a process which, through diligent cross-examination, would have brought us more information on the details of his dirty deals.
Do not believe all you read
Even The New York Times interview is being disputed, reports the New York Post: "The trustee representing thousands of Bernard Madoff's victims disputed a report that he personally grilled the Ponzi monster in prison."
"There has been no direct communication between them," said David Sheehan, the chief counsel for the court-appointed trustee, Irving Picard, after The New York Times reported that Picard and Madoff had met over the summer.
"The Times later changed a quote from Madoff and altered some text online that had implied Picard personally visited Bernie in the Butner, NC, lockup where he is serving a 150-year sentence. Picard did not dispute that his legal team met with Madoff."
Madoff is also still not coming clean about the web of alliances he had internationally, as well as in New York. We live in a global economy after all. We now know of Swiss and Austrian connections - but what about Israel, where this ingratiating handler was well known for his connections with Jewish philanthropists and institutions? So far, that story has yet to be told.
At the same time, the people investigating Madoff are making a small fortune. According to the Financial Times: "The army of lawyers and consultants helping to recover funds from Bernard Madoff's $19.6bn fraud stand to earn more than $1.3bn in fees, according to new figures that detail the cost of liquidating the huge Ponzi scheme."
The comments of readers to The Times appear to be more insightful than the paper’s own reports. Here is one from Texas: "I actually, sort of, feel sorry for this man. He was just doing what many investment firms were doing at the same time. He has been imprisoned as a scapegoat - yet many people since then - and to this day - are doing the same thing. Where are the indictments against the thousands of other people who did the same thing - and knowingly led this country into financial disaster?"
Banks close ranks
The best reporting on this subject is not in the mainstream press but in a music magazine, Rolling Stone, where Matt Taibbi investigates why the whole of Wall Street is not in jail: "Financial crooks brought down the world’s economy - but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them," he charges.
Madoff also believes the banks who serviced him did not want to know about his Ponzi scheme which, unfortunately, is probably true - and an attitude coming not just from the banks.
The Times report added: "He spoke with great intensity and fluency about his dealings with various banks and hedge funds, pointing to their 'willful blindness' and their failure to examine discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information available to them.
"'They had to know,' Mr Madoff said. 'But the attitude was sort of: "If you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know."'"
Yves Smith of NakedCapitalism.com quips: "This sounds credible - but it also seems more than a tad self-serving."
Andrew Leonard asks in Salon: "Should we trust him? After all, if there is one thing we know about Bernie Madoff, it is that he is one hell of a liar. But as evidence emerges that bank executives were exchanging emails wondering about Madoff’s amazing investment record, the possibility that the banks were purposefully looking the other way is not inconceivable."
The truth is that many of us still do not really want to know - because, if we did, we would have to do something about it.
By their actions, both Democrats and Republicans clearly appear to prefer the most simplistic understandings - or misunderstandings.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
Showing posts with label Foreclosures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foreclosures. Show all posts
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Mary Bottari: What Does Wikileaks have on Bank of America?
What Does Wikileaks have on Bank of America?
By Mary Bottari
Campaign for America's Future
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is promising to unleash a cache of secret documents from the hard drive of a U.S. megabank executive. In 2009, he told Computer World that the bank was Bank of America (BofA). In 2010, he told Forbes that the information was significant enough to "take down a bank or two," but that he needed time to lay out the information in a more user-friendly format.
Recent new reports suggest that BofA is now moving into high gear on damage control, creating a "war room" and buying up hundreds of derogatory Internet domain names including BankofAmericaSucks.com and BrianMoynihanblows.com (BofA's CEO).
Before the big banks start calling for Assange's internment at Guantanamo, the question worth considering is what does Wikileaks have on America's largest bank?
Legal Liability for Toxic Mortgages
BofA is already under the gun, defending itself from multiple lawsuits from private investors as well as Fannie and Freddie demanding that the bank buy back billions worth of toxic mortgages-backed securities. The firm stopped issuing subprime mortgages in 2001, but it kept underwriting subprime mortgage-backed securities for many years. In September 2009, for example, BofA underwrote $239 million worth of securities backed by subprime loans. BofA has reserved $4.4 billion for these "put back" lawsuits. If Assange has emails showing that top executives at BofA knew they were peddling toxic dreck to investors, it would rock the firm and give tremendous ammunition to the army of lawyers already knocking on BofA's door.
Reckless and Illegal Foreclosures
BofA is at the heart of the robo-signing scandal and has wrongfully foreclosed on countless American families. One poor woman returned to a vacation home to find it locked, all her possessions gone -- including the ashes of her late husband. How could such a mistake be made? A BofA employee deposed in February 2010 said that she signed as many as 8,000 foreclosure documents a month without reviewing them, in violation of the law. Mounting questions about the fraudulent and illegal foreclosure practices at the big banks and mortgage service companies prompted BofA to temporarily halt foreclosures nationwide in October 2010. If Wikileaks can document that top BofA officials have a callous disregard for legal processes and constitutionally protected property rights, BofA's mounting legal liability may not be sustainable.
Countrywide Headaches
In 2008, BofA acquired Countrywide, one of the most aggressive and fraudulent lenders during the housing bubble. The result has been a trainwreck of liability and lawsuits for the megabank that now has over 1.3 million customers in foreclosure. To settle the lawsuits with Illinois, California and eight other states over predatory lending, BofA came up with an $8.4 billion loan relief plan for those holding Countrywide mortgages. In June, 2010 BofA paid $108 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission case that charged Countrywide with having extracted excessive fees out of borrowers facing foreclosure. BofA paid $600 million in August 2010 to settle shareholder claims that Countrywide had concealed the riskiness of its lending standards. There is no end in sight for these suits. In June 2010 the State of Illinois sued Countrywide again, this time over racial discrimination in its lending practices. Wikileaks could have further documentation of Countrywide's illegal and reckless underwriting practices or ongoing fraud at BofA.
To Read the Rest of the Article
By Mary Bottari
Campaign for America's Future
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is promising to unleash a cache of secret documents from the hard drive of a U.S. megabank executive. In 2009, he told Computer World that the bank was Bank of America (BofA). In 2010, he told Forbes that the information was significant enough to "take down a bank or two," but that he needed time to lay out the information in a more user-friendly format.
Recent new reports suggest that BofA is now moving into high gear on damage control, creating a "war room" and buying up hundreds of derogatory Internet domain names including BankofAmericaSucks.com and BrianMoynihanblows.com (BofA's CEO).
Before the big banks start calling for Assange's internment at Guantanamo, the question worth considering is what does Wikileaks have on America's largest bank?
Legal Liability for Toxic Mortgages
BofA is already under the gun, defending itself from multiple lawsuits from private investors as well as Fannie and Freddie demanding that the bank buy back billions worth of toxic mortgages-backed securities. The firm stopped issuing subprime mortgages in 2001, but it kept underwriting subprime mortgage-backed securities for many years. In September 2009, for example, BofA underwrote $239 million worth of securities backed by subprime loans. BofA has reserved $4.4 billion for these "put back" lawsuits. If Assange has emails showing that top executives at BofA knew they were peddling toxic dreck to investors, it would rock the firm and give tremendous ammunition to the army of lawyers already knocking on BofA's door.
Reckless and Illegal Foreclosures
BofA is at the heart of the robo-signing scandal and has wrongfully foreclosed on countless American families. One poor woman returned to a vacation home to find it locked, all her possessions gone -- including the ashes of her late husband. How could such a mistake be made? A BofA employee deposed in February 2010 said that she signed as many as 8,000 foreclosure documents a month without reviewing them, in violation of the law. Mounting questions about the fraudulent and illegal foreclosure practices at the big banks and mortgage service companies prompted BofA to temporarily halt foreclosures nationwide in October 2010. If Wikileaks can document that top BofA officials have a callous disregard for legal processes and constitutionally protected property rights, BofA's mounting legal liability may not be sustainable.
Countrywide Headaches
In 2008, BofA acquired Countrywide, one of the most aggressive and fraudulent lenders during the housing bubble. The result has been a trainwreck of liability and lawsuits for the megabank that now has over 1.3 million customers in foreclosure. To settle the lawsuits with Illinois, California and eight other states over predatory lending, BofA came up with an $8.4 billion loan relief plan for those holding Countrywide mortgages. In June, 2010 BofA paid $108 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission case that charged Countrywide with having extracted excessive fees out of borrowers facing foreclosure. BofA paid $600 million in August 2010 to settle shareholder claims that Countrywide had concealed the riskiness of its lending standards. There is no end in sight for these suits. In June 2010 the State of Illinois sued Countrywide again, this time over racial discrimination in its lending practices. Wikileaks could have further documentation of Countrywide's illegal and reckless underwriting practices or ongoing fraud at BofA.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Monday, December 13, 2010
Robert Scheer: Payback at the Polls
In this live chat session, Robert Scheer responded to readers’ questions and comments about his latest column, “Payback at the Polls,” dealing with the 2010 midterm election.
TruthDig
...
Anderson: The first question is from Bob from Fulton, Mo.: With the president already on record more or less intending to govern as a moderate Republican, what should progressives do in the next two years to influence the conversation?
Scheer: Well, a moderate Republican in the mode of Dwight Eisenhower, who was far better than any of the presidents who came after him, would be welcome. You know, even Richard Nixon favored a guaranteed annual income. What I’m worried about is Obama may do what Clinton did, which was move to the right—to the right of Richard Nixon, to the right of Dwight Eisenhower. And it was Bill Clinton, in response to his reversal in the ’94 election, who ushered in the disastrous radical financial deregulation that caused this whole problem. And Obama, in his extreme stupidity—and I use those words advisedly—turned to the same fools that created this mess under Clinton, to Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, the protégés of that raging genius, Robert Rubin, and gave us this stupidity that said that Wall Street did not need any brakes on the system, any road rules, any rules of engagement.
And as a result, we have 50 million Americans that have either lost their homes or have their mortgages underwater and are thinking of walking away from their homes. We have 44 million Americans living under the official poverty line. We have a disaster going on here, and the people who call themselves progressives, that have sold their soul to the Democratic Party, seem to have an inability to recognize this. They’re yapping cheerleaders. Even Jon Stewart, who I’ve respected in the past, would have Obama on just before the election, and accept this nonsense that, oh, “Summers did a heckuva job.” He only quibbled about the word? This is a disaster that we’ve had. And as a result, the right wing, which can be very dangerous—if they start blaming immigrants, if they cut back needed social programs, yeah, they’re a real danger. And if we don’t do what we have to do to get out of this mess, it’s a really big problem.
Anderson: [Question from Truthdig member chacaboy]: There’s a preamble here. It says, “If Obama had not shown so much deference to Wall Street and the military and such eagerness for an exorbitantly expensive occupation of Afghanistan and excessive military budget, I could have sympathy. But as it is, I cannot distinguish Obama from most Republicans, including George W. Bush.” So now he says: “I would like to ask if there is any truth to the idea that we have something to lose by our critique?” I guess progressives critiquing Obama is the context there. “Is there anything to the argument (i.e. columnist Ruth Marcus) that Obama passed a stimulus package, he got health care done, and he passed financial regulations, and to withdraw support from him now would be to lose more ground by throwing the baby out with the bathwater?”
Scheer: Well, you know, we live in a democracy, and the key to democracy is that we not surrender our common sense or our ability to think. And what she [Marcus] said in that article was just gibberish. I mean, what are we talking about? First of all, the American people have rejected health care. At least half of them find it terrible, and the other half seem to be quite tepid about it. I’m tepid about it. You know, yeah, there are some good things in the health care thing, but there’s no cost control. It forces people to buy health insurance from insurance companies that are not going to do us any favors. This administration gave us something called health reform which is really, at best, mild, and at worst quite costly and disastrous. It certainly is not the thing they should have moved on when they had a banking meltdown, when we had a disaster in the economy. It was a feint. It was an attempt to find some win-win thing which didn’t work out. Health care should not have been the big item on the agenda; it was done for opportunistic reasons, you know, because they didn’t want to confront Wall Street. And instead of spending his capital on making the Wall Street system correct and putting sensible regulations in, he settled for very mild regulations on Wall Street and a very weak consumer agency; he couldn’t even push through Elizabeth Warren as a confirmed appointee with some real power. And as a result, you know, health care basically did not help him, and it’s been mostly a distraction. And the right wing has used it—you know, “socialized medicine” and all that garbage; of course, it’s nothing of the sort.
And so the real problem is that Obama has not only failed to deal with our meltdown; he’s exacerbated it. The stimulus was not effective. An enormous amount of money has been spent making the banks whole. I don’t know why these columnists can’t look at the numbers—the apologists for Obama—why don’t they talk about the over $2 trillion that were spent to take toxic assets off the books of the banks, but not a penny—not a penny really being spent to make people whole who are hurting. Where is the mortgage forgiveness, where is the moratorium on mortgage foreclosures? We don’t even know who owns these homes, 65 million homes, thanks to a system that Bill Clinton helped put in place, with the great liberals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cooperating with the swindlers at Countrywide Mortgage, put in place this Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems so 65 million American homes are owned by a computer bank in Reston, Va., owned by the banks, and we don’t even know who owns these homes.
And so last month we had the highest number of foreclosures, people are in great pain, and progressives still blindly support the president out of some idea that he’s the lesser evil. That’s a betrayal of democracy. We’ve got to call it the way we see it. And the best thing you can do for Obama is to have sharp criticism from the progressive side, and he hasn’t been getting it. He was able to roll over the progressives, he was able to take them for granted, and unfortunately some of those very same progressives were the victims of this folly, like [Sen.] Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. My God, I mean the poor guy was one of the few people who stood against this, and he got overwhelmed by this rage out there. So I really have no sympathy at all for this position. We keep going this way, and it’s going to be a real, a bigger Republican sweep in two years.
To Read the Entire Live Chat and/or Listen To It
TruthDig
...
Anderson: The first question is from Bob from Fulton, Mo.: With the president already on record more or less intending to govern as a moderate Republican, what should progressives do in the next two years to influence the conversation?
Scheer: Well, a moderate Republican in the mode of Dwight Eisenhower, who was far better than any of the presidents who came after him, would be welcome. You know, even Richard Nixon favored a guaranteed annual income. What I’m worried about is Obama may do what Clinton did, which was move to the right—to the right of Richard Nixon, to the right of Dwight Eisenhower. And it was Bill Clinton, in response to his reversal in the ’94 election, who ushered in the disastrous radical financial deregulation that caused this whole problem. And Obama, in his extreme stupidity—and I use those words advisedly—turned to the same fools that created this mess under Clinton, to Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, the protégés of that raging genius, Robert Rubin, and gave us this stupidity that said that Wall Street did not need any brakes on the system, any road rules, any rules of engagement.
And as a result, we have 50 million Americans that have either lost their homes or have their mortgages underwater and are thinking of walking away from their homes. We have 44 million Americans living under the official poverty line. We have a disaster going on here, and the people who call themselves progressives, that have sold their soul to the Democratic Party, seem to have an inability to recognize this. They’re yapping cheerleaders. Even Jon Stewart, who I’ve respected in the past, would have Obama on just before the election, and accept this nonsense that, oh, “Summers did a heckuva job.” He only quibbled about the word? This is a disaster that we’ve had. And as a result, the right wing, which can be very dangerous—if they start blaming immigrants, if they cut back needed social programs, yeah, they’re a real danger. And if we don’t do what we have to do to get out of this mess, it’s a really big problem.
Anderson: [Question from Truthdig member chacaboy]: There’s a preamble here. It says, “If Obama had not shown so much deference to Wall Street and the military and such eagerness for an exorbitantly expensive occupation of Afghanistan and excessive military budget, I could have sympathy. But as it is, I cannot distinguish Obama from most Republicans, including George W. Bush.” So now he says: “I would like to ask if there is any truth to the idea that we have something to lose by our critique?” I guess progressives critiquing Obama is the context there. “Is there anything to the argument (i.e. columnist Ruth Marcus) that Obama passed a stimulus package, he got health care done, and he passed financial regulations, and to withdraw support from him now would be to lose more ground by throwing the baby out with the bathwater?”
Scheer: Well, you know, we live in a democracy, and the key to democracy is that we not surrender our common sense or our ability to think. And what she [Marcus] said in that article was just gibberish. I mean, what are we talking about? First of all, the American people have rejected health care. At least half of them find it terrible, and the other half seem to be quite tepid about it. I’m tepid about it. You know, yeah, there are some good things in the health care thing, but there’s no cost control. It forces people to buy health insurance from insurance companies that are not going to do us any favors. This administration gave us something called health reform which is really, at best, mild, and at worst quite costly and disastrous. It certainly is not the thing they should have moved on when they had a banking meltdown, when we had a disaster in the economy. It was a feint. It was an attempt to find some win-win thing which didn’t work out. Health care should not have been the big item on the agenda; it was done for opportunistic reasons, you know, because they didn’t want to confront Wall Street. And instead of spending his capital on making the Wall Street system correct and putting sensible regulations in, he settled for very mild regulations on Wall Street and a very weak consumer agency; he couldn’t even push through Elizabeth Warren as a confirmed appointee with some real power. And as a result, you know, health care basically did not help him, and it’s been mostly a distraction. And the right wing has used it—you know, “socialized medicine” and all that garbage; of course, it’s nothing of the sort.
And so the real problem is that Obama has not only failed to deal with our meltdown; he’s exacerbated it. The stimulus was not effective. An enormous amount of money has been spent making the banks whole. I don’t know why these columnists can’t look at the numbers—the apologists for Obama—why don’t they talk about the over $2 trillion that were spent to take toxic assets off the books of the banks, but not a penny—not a penny really being spent to make people whole who are hurting. Where is the mortgage forgiveness, where is the moratorium on mortgage foreclosures? We don’t even know who owns these homes, 65 million homes, thanks to a system that Bill Clinton helped put in place, with the great liberals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cooperating with the swindlers at Countrywide Mortgage, put in place this Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems so 65 million American homes are owned by a computer bank in Reston, Va., owned by the banks, and we don’t even know who owns these homes.
And so last month we had the highest number of foreclosures, people are in great pain, and progressives still blindly support the president out of some idea that he’s the lesser evil. That’s a betrayal of democracy. We’ve got to call it the way we see it. And the best thing you can do for Obama is to have sharp criticism from the progressive side, and he hasn’t been getting it. He was able to roll over the progressives, he was able to take them for granted, and unfortunately some of those very same progressives were the victims of this folly, like [Sen.] Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. My God, I mean the poor guy was one of the few people who stood against this, and he got overwhelmed by this rage out there. So I really have no sympathy at all for this position. We keep going this way, and it’s going to be a real, a bigger Republican sweep in two years.
To Read the Entire Live Chat and/or Listen To It
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Media Matters: Michael Moore "Capitalism: A Love Story" and Sue Wilson "Broadcast Blues"
Michael Moore "Capitalism: A Love Story" and Sue Wilson "Broadcast Blues"
Media Matters with Bob McChesney
Filmmaker Michael Moore sits down with Bob McChesney this week to discuss his new movie "Capitalism: A Love Story."
Sue Wilson will then join us live to talk about her movie "Broadcast Blues" the movie "the media does not want you to see." The website for Broadcast Blues.
To Listen to the Episode
Media Matters with Bob McChesney
Filmmaker Michael Moore sits down with Bob McChesney this week to discuss his new movie "Capitalism: A Love Story."
Sue Wilson will then join us live to talk about her movie "Broadcast Blues" the movie "the media does not want you to see." The website for Broadcast Blues.
To Listen to the Episode
Monday, January 18, 2010
Mark Engler: Dr. Martin Luther King's Economics
Dr. Martin Luther King's Economics: Through Jobs, Freedom
By Mark Engler
The Nation
...
King argued in one of his last sermons, "If a man doesn't have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists."
The solution, he believed, was to "confront the power structure massively."
Four decades later, as our country struggles with disappearing jobs and growing desperation, much of the critique of the U.S. economy offered in the Poor People's Campaign is newly resonant. As the country celebrates Dr. King's life and legacy, it is an opportune time to ask: How did the reverend approach issues like poverty, unemployment, and economic hardship? And--given that he offered his criticisms amid one of the greatest periods of economic expansion in our country's history--how might he respond to today's crises of foreclosure and recession?
To Read the Entire Essay
By Mark Engler
The Nation
...
King argued in one of his last sermons, "If a man doesn't have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists."
The solution, he believed, was to "confront the power structure massively."
Four decades later, as our country struggles with disappearing jobs and growing desperation, much of the critique of the U.S. economy offered in the Poor People's Campaign is newly resonant. As the country celebrates Dr. King's life and legacy, it is an opportune time to ask: How did the reverend approach issues like poverty, unemployment, and economic hardship? And--given that he offered his criticisms amid one of the greatest periods of economic expansion in our country's history--how might he respond to today's crises of foreclosure and recession?
To Read the Entire Essay
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