Boo Hoo for Bankers
Bankers are very upset. Occupy Wall Street vilifies them. Elizabeth Warren and even the president say mean things.
And you know how sensitive bankers are.
In fairness, isn’t it time we start thinking about them as compassionately as they think about us?
For instance, let’s say you live in Nevada, where you sent in your mortgage payments every month for eight years – and then fell behind. How much time does your banker think you’re worth, to find a fair solution to the problem?
The attorney general of Nevada found that a typical worker in attorney management at Lender Processing Services (LPS) – which most of the big banks use – was required to resolve the legal issues on 30 foreclosures an hour. That’s two minutes for you and for each of the other homeowners who had worked for many years to provide for their families and now were about to lose their homes.
Then an $11 an hour employee wrote signatures on the required documents.
She says she signed 2,000 documents a day – all forgeries — and so did her coworkers.
Nevada has sued Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America as well as LPS. Massachusetts is suing those banks and others.
No wonder their feelings are hurt.
Mitt Romney and Justice Roberts say a corporation is a person. So, can banks and mortgage service companies be jailed? Electrocuted?
It’s not just their feelings that should be hurt.
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Our hats are off to attorneys general Martha Coakley of Massachussets and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada for digging out the truth and acting on it. That’s two states out of 50. Where the hell are the other 48? And where oh where is the attorney general of the United States?
Comment by Al — January 13, 2012 @ 10:49 pm
Al, How could you have left Rich Cordray, Ohio’s Attorney General from 2008 - 2010,(and, I might add a dear friend)who is now the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as one of the heroic AG’s who went after the Mortgage industry?
“As Ohio’s attorney general during the fallout from the financial crisis, Mr. Cordray undertook a series of prominent lawsuits against big names in the finance world, including Bank of America. After narrowly losing re-election in late 2010, he came to Washington to lead the bureau’s enforcement… effortsHere is a look at some cases that made Mr. Cordray, as Ohio’s attorney general, the Midwestern sheriff of Wall Street.
CREDIT RATING AGENCIES
While federal officials issued reports chiding the nation’s top credit rating agencies, Mr. Cordray took them to court. In 2009, he sued the firms, saying that they awarded top grades to troubled mortgage-backed securities and also were “intimately involved in structuring” the investments. The products, he said, caused retirement funds to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. The suit is still pending.
“The rating agencies’ total disregard for the life’s work of ordinary Ohioans caused the collapse of our housing and credit markets and is at the heart of what’s wrong with Wall Street today,” he said at the time.
GMAC
Last fall, Mr. Cordray became one of the first attorneys general to take action in the nationwide investigation of wrongful foreclosures. His target was GMAC Mortgage and its parent, Ally Financial. Mr. Cordray sued the firms, arguing that they had used bogus paperwork to foreclose on homes. He sought to collect up to $25,000 for each foreclosure.
“It’s now becoming clear that fraud, deception and an utter disregard for accuracy are in part to blame for the national foreclosure disaster,” he said at the time. The suit is pending.
A.I.G.: One of Mr. Cordray’s biggest wins came against the American International Group and its former top executives, whom he accused of accounting fraud. He secured about $700 million from the insurer and a $115 million from its former chief executive, Maurice R. Greenberg.
MERRILL LYNCH
In 2008, his office sued Merrill Lynch on behalf of the state’s teacher pension funds. Mr. Cordray said that Merrill had artificially inflated its stock price, which fell after the bank had losses on subprime mortgages. Merrill settled for $475 million.
He later led a multistate lawsuit against Bank of America over its takeover of Merrill. “The amount of shareholder value affected here, negatively, is about as great as has been alleged in any case, ever,” Mr. Cordray said at the time about the suit, which is also pending.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/wall-streets-newest-regulator-a-longtime-foe/
Comment by Mrs D — January 14, 2012 @ 4:05 pm
Well, I’m glad you straightened that out. I wasn’t thinking about Cordray as Consumer Protection Bureau chief because he just took office and hadn’t had time to enter the fray. But his Ohio record — you’re right — is formidable (which is why he was Obama’s pick).
The reason for my impatience in that first comment is that in all the states who were trying to join into the big wrist-slap-and-fine multi-state deal (which would insulate the banks against lawsuits), the statute of limitations is rapidly running out with regard to criminal or even civil prosecutions.
Comment by Al — January 14, 2012 @ 5:06 pm
Thank’s Al!
Comment by Mrs D — January 17, 2012 @ 9:53 am