Obama on BANK Prosecutions: THEY DID NOTHING ILLEGAL, Only Found Loopholes That We Worked to Close

[Segami]

:shrug: ..." They Did Nothing Illegal " you say....OK, I'll take your word!




" For perhaps the first time, President Barack Obama was forced to explain why there have been no prosecutions of Wall Street executives for their fraudulent actions during the run-up to the financial crisis. Asked by Jake Tapper to explain this behavior, Obama basically suggested that most of the actions on Wall Street weren’t illegal :rofl: but just immoral, and that his Administration worked to re-regulate the financial sector with the Dodd-Frank reform legislation.



“Banks are in the business of making money, and they find loopholes,” the President said. Apparently forging and fabricating documents to prove ownership of homes that are subsequently stolen from borrowers is now a loophole. Many of the practices on Wall Street “weren’t necessarily against the law but they had a huge destructive impact,” said the President. The work of Bill Black, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and a host of other official studies, analyses, and even court cases cut against that. Just the other day, a new whistleblower lawsuit against banks for setting illegal fees against military personnel wasn’t joined by the Justice Department.



In a follow-up, the President said that “if somebody they violated laws on the books, they need to be prosecuted, and that’s the Attorney General’s job.” Of course, investigations have to actually be carried out, and the President’s Justice Department has been at the lead of a foreclosure fraud settlement which would bail out banks that would otherwise owe in the trillions for fraudulent practices with the origination and securitization of loans, for a pittance of a sum. Only the work of a few Justice Democrats have put a stop to this.



The question came up in the context of Occupy Wall Street, the series of protests in New York City and across the country over the past few weeks. Obama, much like his Chief of Staff, Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve chief, made some guarded remarks about how the protesters were speaking to a general frustration with some problem that he claimed to have worked to solve. Obama confined his remarks to Wall Street and particularly the Dodd-Frank financial reform, which the Republicans want to roll back. He touted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose director nominee, Richard Cordray, just passed the Senate Banking Committee on a 12-10 vote. But he did not seem to understand the broader context of the protests, against an economy that only works for the top 1% at the expense of the other 99%.



cont'


http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/10/06/obama-on-bank-prosecutions-they-did-nothing-illegal-only-found-loopholes-that-we-worked-to-close/


.

[Xicano]

1. K&R

Mr. Obama just STFU already.... Thanks

[occupy_wall_street]

105. INVITATION TO WALL STREET -- for Saturady at 11 AM at Liberty Park

Please assemble peacefully at 140 Broadway.

A company such as Apple or General Motors or the old Ben & Jerrys has a responsibility to act in a responsible manner. Profit is not bad, but adding social justice makes these organizations much better.

The companies of Financial Capitalism are different. The crimes of their employees are what produced the Great Recession of 2008 and massive unemployment. They also took trillions of dollars from retirement funds and from other small investors.

Prosecute Wall Street's criminals. Fraud is still fraud. Banking regulations cannot to cited to usurp the general protections of the Common Law.

No one ever thought of prosecuting Steve Job for anything. He was not a criminal. He was a good man.

Steve Jobs would not have been a success on today's Wall Street. "We Are The 1%" was not his motto.

"Think different" about sums it up.

-- DU members are all invited to come to the Occupy Wall Street site on Saturday, October 8th at 11 AM

-- Please assemble peacefully at the Red Cube at 140 Broadway, at the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street

-- A speaker from OWS will greet everyone from DU. A statement of purpose and an invitation to support OWS will be presented.

That site can accommodate 250 DU members and their friends easily. As many as 1,000 extra people connected to DU can be accommodated directly with OWS plans for Saturday afternoon.



Freely exercise your freedom of speech and of the press; and the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Please, feel free to do all of this with Occupy Wall Street.

[Recursion]

2. It would surprise me if they broke the letter of the law; that's the problem

They're the ones who wrote the laws.

[sabrina 1]

84. Well, the bi-partisan Senate Committee that investigated the

Financial Meltdown, led by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, found that there was criminality and corruption involved in that collapse of the economy, both Republicans and Democrats, and recommended their findings to the DOJ.

If Obama seriously wants to win another term in the WH, he could not do anything worse right now, than to defend the Economic Criminals who wrecked this country's economy. The information is far too available, and in some courts in this country, the corruption is being revealed as cases unfold, one big one right now in New York, and it is shocking.

I don't know who is advising him, but clearly he needs new advisers or he needs to start looking at the evidence of fraud and corruption that is available just about everywhere, and start speaking for himself. This is not something he can hide. I don't know why he is trying to do so.

[Scuba]

110. +1

[louslobbs]

131. +1 n/t

Lou

[SammyWinstonJack]

111. Aren't some of the Economic Criminals who wrecked this country's economy in Obama's Admin?

:shrug:

[banned from Kos]

124. Amazing - I can't find a single word about "criminality" in the FCIC report

In fact, they left crime and corruption out of the short version entirely.

The Commission's final report was initially due to Congress on December 15, 2010, but was not released until January 27, 2011.<10> The Commission concluded that "the crisis was avoidable and was caused by: Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages; Dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance including too many financial firms acting recklessly and taking on too much risk; An explosive mix of excessive borrowing and risk by households and Wall Street that put the financial system on a collision course with crisis; Key policy makers ill prepared for the crisis, lacking a full understanding of the financial system they oversaw; and systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels.“

(wikipedia)

I think you're making that claim up.

[sabrina 1]

126. You didn't look hard enough.

But google around a little, and you will find that the Committee after two years of investigation, found evidence of fraud and corruption, and referred their findings to the DOJ. Sen. Durbin in several interviews after releasing their findings, made it clear that their role was not to go further than providing the information to the DOJ where he hoped investigations would begin.

I am amused at your attempt to pretend that there was no criminal activity involved in the collapse of the World's economy. Especially considering the several cases being heard around the country in different states which have been uncovering such fraud and corruption for a number of months now. And even more especially since this administration has already acknowledged these 'problems' by attempting to pressure States US Attorneys to make a deal with these corrupt Wall Street Corps to get them off the hook. The deal of course doesn't even begin to cover the losses suffered by those they cheated, so at the moment it is still in limbo with at least one AG outright refusing not to prosecute the criminals.

But if you wish to cover your eyes, that's your problem. Clearly the American people are not about to do that until all those responsible are held accountable.

[banned from Kos]

128. I actually re-read the 15-page FCIC 'Conclusions' section - it is very good

http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-reports/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf

Not one mention of "Criminality".

The closest they got was a "lack of ethics".

[sabrina 1]

133. Sigh, a Senate Committee does not make declarions of guilt.

That was not their job. But as Sen. Durbin and other members of the Committee said in several interviews, they found evidence of fraud, corruption and possible criminal acts. BECAUSE of those findings, they referred them to the DOJ. That is as much of a statement they can make in their report regarding evidence they found that requires the DOJ to begin investigations immediately.

And yes, Durbin did mention 'criminality' in his interviews where he was free to speak more clearly than in a formal report. Not that we needed him to. As I said, in cases unfolding around the country, evidence of criminality is being uncovered every day and evidence that it was premeditated. Which is why the US Attorneys in all 50 states prepared to begin investigations. And that is what prompted an attempt to stop them by offering a deal. When you offer a deal, you are admitting guilt. The deal they offered however, is simply a joke considering the extent of the damage caused to those they cheated.

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. "Loophole" this.

[truedelphi]

4. Actually Pres Obama - there are plenty of ways to prosecute several of the people you are closest to

Totally valid, totally legal mthods by which to legally indict, impeach or hassle some of those close to you.

Let's start with the man you refer to as: "My good buddy, Tim Geithner."

He has lied to Congress on several occasions. Any official who lies to Congress can be impeached.

SO someone out there with the money and ability to do this, should look into impeaching Mr Geithner.

He has lied when Head of the New York Federal Reserve, where he manipulated the handling of the 2008 TARP monies, which somehow or other, always ended up benefiting AIG and Goldman Sachs, far more than any other firms. (That might be an indictable charge, in and of itself.) And he lied after being made the Secretary of the US Treasury.

Then there is this thing of Mr Bernanke, who has headed up the Federal Reserve since 2005. While holding this office, he "cranked up the printing press to buy mortgage securities, commercial paper and other assets from Wall Street.

"Those purchases by the way led to some nice profits for the Wall Street banks and dealers who sold them to Bernanke, and the GSE purchases seem to be illegal since the Federal Reserve Act only allows the purchase of securities backed by the government."

The above quoted material was testimony of Senator Bunning back in December of 2009.

So there are just two people who might have been indicted, and or impeached, had you remained true to the radical progressive values that you touted back in your campaign days, especially those days when you made yourself available to the Good People of Wisconsin in October of that year.

Funny how once elected those principles of standing with the people and being for the people went right out the Oval Office window, while you were busy opening the door, via your appointments, to the Biggest and most Heinous of Corporations who are now plundering our wallets (and our gardens) for their profit.

Your "Funny Business" of being so much for the Big Corporations that one of their best friends, an architect of NAFTA's creation, Rahm Emanuel himself, was appointed by you to be your Chief of Staff. And he during the momentous first days in your office, he remained unable to remind you who got you into that office - and instead seemed to feel it was okay to call us "retards."

We "retards" are now holding your feet to the coals. Along with the feet of Goldman Sachs executives, and AIG executives and all the other Too Big To Fail types.

[JoePhilly]

10. I'm sorry, can you state clearly which specific laws they broke and provide the specific details?

You claim "Geithner lied" to congress, and yet you don't provide the actual quotes and the lies. Certainly the GOP would love to know the specifics. You should provide them in detail. Not just claim their existence.

Then ... you provide ... "Those purchases by the way led to some nice profits for the Wall Street banks and dealers who sold them to Bernanke, and the GSE purchases seem to be illegal since the Federal Reserve Act only allows the purchase of securities backed by the government." The above quoted material was testimony of Senator Bunning back in December of 2009.

Would that statement be from Jim Bunning? Right wing nut job, Jim Bunning?

Try this ... find an existing LAW, and then claim some specific person BROKE that law.

Lacking that, your argument is meaningless, and the rest is opinion.

[JuniperLea]

15. You're right...

But just try to convince any of these great legal minds... :crazy:

It's too easy to blame Obama, and too hard to do any actual research.

[JoePhilly]

37. I'd love to see more if these A$$#0!E$ in jail, but you need existing laws to

make that happen.

And the GOP made sure that there are very few laws that needed to be broken.

[JuniperLea]

43. That's exactly right...

I guess people forgot all our displeasure when those laws were being jerked around. It was immoral, but not illegal. And once it is, they will find another way.

[robdogbucky]

47. Stiglitz explains it better than anyone....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLsRiv0gTg

Stiglitz: "A Gun at Our Heads"
PBS interview from December, 2008



http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10885

Joseph Stiglitz Nobel Laureate in economics and author of “Freefall”
Charlie Rose interview from March 2, 2010

[banned from Kos]

11. Garbage. GSE bonds ARE backed by the government.

No one has lost money on GSE bonds although all the equity in FNM/FRE has been wiped out. Also, Bernanke began his 14 year term in 2006, not 2005.

Its difficult to find anything truthful in your post.

Obama put this shit to rest, but like a birther there will be those who can never be convinced.

[JuniperLea]

20. Exactly...

And there are those who still insist there were WMD in Iraq, even though W hisownself admitted there were none.

It's hard to let go of the play toy when the jaw is locked down so hard.

This is just like the banks who are starting to charge people for using their debit cards for purchases, a practice the cards were meant to cover. Sure, there was a clamp down in one area, so they found another way to get money out of people. It will always be so. It's not illegal at all, it's a loophole.

That's not to say the market will support all this ridiculousness.

[girl gone mad]

71. Complete and total bullshit from you, as usual.

That GSE paper was issued with an explicit warning that it was NOT backed by the U.S. Government.

[banned from Kos]

78. Implied, Implicit, guaranteed -- effectively the same because the Treasury

has always paid the coupon.

http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=david_reiss&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D14%26ved%3D0CDMQFjADOAo%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fworks.bepress.com%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1000%2526context%253Ddavid_reiss%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dgse%2520bonds%2520implicit%2520guarantee%26ei%3DqSiOTtvZBYu5twfL-tXeDg%26usg%3DAFQjCNHMUdKQD0VyuDmjrFBB5bA8NxG1Lg#search=%22gse%20bonds%20implicit%20guarantee%22

See Section III.

GSE bonds sell at a premium to US Treasuries because of this guarantee. Parsing words means nothing since of course they are not stamped with a GUARANTEED label.

[girl gone mad]

85. You can repeat this lie as many times as you like.

The paper EXPLICITLY stated that no no US government guarantee existed. Period.

[hatrack]

77. No, they're not and they never have been.

nt

[Enthusiast]

5. The President's main function

since taking office has been protecting the Bush Administration and Wall Street criminals. What do we expect him to say.

[Segami]

8. " You will know them by their words."

[KansDem]

6. Really, Mr. President?

Bundling bad sub-prime mortgages in with a few good ones, giving them a AAA rating, and selling them to unsuspecting investors is "not illegal?"

Foreclosing on home owners with fraudulent documents is "not illegal?"

Really? :wow:

[truedelphi]

12. Yep, really. Despite his campaign promises, that were quite

Radically progressive, the inner Obama that came out once elected has devoted far too much time vying with Bill Clinton for the title "The Best Republican President America ever had."

And it's a title he can never hope to claim because Bill Clinton

1) refused to put this nation into war, when asked to start Iraq War II

and
2) had his Presidency at a time when there was a growing economy. It might not be a situation he created, but it happened while he was President. The period of 1993 to 2000 will be remembered as the good ol' days. People had jobs, and fed their families, without help of food stamps, county relief, and other resources that 18% of the people in my County turn to.

[woo me with science]

7. K&R nt

[hifiguy]

9. Last time I looked, fraud is illegal.

And if packaging garbage mortgages that they knew to be garbage up as AAA investments (after bribing the ratings agency to rate them AAA) doesn't constitute fraud, what does?

This is just more covering the asses of his BFFs on Wall $treet and anyone with half a brain realizes it.

[Toucano]

99. Does it get any simpler than that?

You recommend your client purchase a "piece of shit" instrument and then bet that it fails.

If an auto dealer sold a car with no breaks and then bought an insurance policy on the customer before the ink dried he'd be in jail.

[chill_wind]

13. Uhh.....

[Kaleko]

14. Corrupt to the core.

[banned from Kos]

23. funny how the same who wanted to exonerate a murderer like Troy Davis

convict Obama without evidence.

[ceile]

56. fail.

Troy Davis was convicted without physical evedence.

[Kaleko]

61. Yours is the voice of a shameless colluder

with the financial terrorists who are in the process of committing social genocide worldwide.

Like most of the informed members here, I have a healthy contempt for everything you stand for.

[chill_wind]

90. Wew.

[walerosco]

93. with this kind of inflammatory speech

I wonder why Kos banned you. Only you would agree that a man convicted only with eye witness evidence deserves the death penalty.

[DFab420]

16. Yea I say fuck the rule of law, lets prosecute people ex post facto.

w00t!!!

:yourock:

[JuniperLea]

24. Indeed!

[hifiguy]

29. See posts #6 and #9

What the banksters did with mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps constitutes securities fraud at the highest level, especially when they were bribing the ratings houses to slap AAA ratings on securities that everyone knew were boxes of dogshit wrapped in pretty paper.

[DFab420]

32. I'm not saying it wasn't immoral but could you point out the ACTUAL law they broke?

I understand the were being "fraudulent" in spirit.

HOWEVER was it illegal at the time? Or due to the lack of regulation from the Bush years allowed such actions?

[hifiguy]

36. Misrepresenting the nature of securities has been a crime

since the time of FDR. I can't cite statute and subpart, but making deliberate misrepresentations to individuals or entities to facilitate the sale of securities in interstate commerce is a CRIMINAL offense under the US Code. I once had to research this years ago, but I can't recall the specific statutory/regulatory provision.

And if nothing else it is common-law fraud under the law of all 50 states. There are plenty of grounds for prosecution or filing massive civil lawsuits.

[DFab420]

40. Interesting. Thank you for that information. Hopefully the multitude of investigations DoJ/Watchdog/

or Otherwise, comes up with meaningful proof to nail these bastards.

Thanks for taking to time to illuminate and elevate this discussion.

[hifiguy]

48. You are entirely welcome!

:hi:

[Dreamer Tatum]

64. Not understand how to value them correctly does not equal fraud.

I'm not even a lawyer and I could get that thrown out of court.

[hifiguy]

67. The misrepresentations were deliberate

one need only think back to the testimony before the Senate in which some high-flying bankster was repeatedly grilled about his repeated comments about what a "shitty" investment the crap his bank was selling actually was. "Inside Job" sets forth plenty about what the banksters knew and when they knew it, and that they bribed the ratings agencies to get top ratings on MBS knowing full well that they were crap.

What the banksters didwas deliberate misrepresentation. They knew full well what they were selling was complete garbage.

[girl gone mad]

54. William K. Black certainly can..

and has:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html

[Melinda]

88. Not just the Bush years -- under Obama as well. Read Taibbi's article.

Snippet:

"For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG. With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – "18,000 ... including Madoff," as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – has apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/is-the-sec-covering-up-wall-street-crimes-20110817

The SEC has systematically destroyed thousand of pages of investigation documents and evidence and continues to this day. Read the article and see for yourself who is policing whom.

[Bryn]

17. .

I don't know what to say except for this x(

[gratuitous]

18. No investigation, no indictments

It worked so well with the Bush administration war crimes and crimes against humanity, why not adopt the same tack with the banksters? It frees up a whole lot of time for the Justice Department to pursue online poker websites and medical marijuana dispensaries.

It's called priorities, folks.

[FarLeftFist]

19. You know what? He's actually right.

Sure their were the Bernie Madoff's, etc. But the biggest problem here is de-regulation.

[truebrit71]

28. Um, what Bernie Madoff did WAS illegal..hence him being jailed...

...what the TBTF Banks was also fraud, on a wholesale scale, and Obama is being intellectually dishonest in his parsing...

[ProSense]

42. So

"Um, what Bernie Madoff did WAS illegal..hence him being jailed..."

is what Lee Farkas did:

Former Chairman of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison and Ordered to Forfeit $38.5 Million

The OP actually misrepresents the President's point, which wasn't that they did "nothing illegal."

[FarLeftFist]

86. I said what Madoff did was illegal, what I'm saying is most of the BS wasn't actually illegal,

Just immoral. Which is why we need MORE regulation instead of de-regulation.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Obama to the Banksters when the crisis hit:

"My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." His choice was to protect them from all harm, even from feeling the results of their own actions.

[sad sally]

39. Looks like the pitchforks have been lowered...

Q: Just a follow-up on Wall Street. Are you satisfied with how aggressive your administration has been when it comes to prosecuting? Because I know a lot of it was legal, but a lot of was not. There was fraud that took place.

THE PRESDIENT: Right. Well, let me say this: The President can’t go around saying, prosecute somebody. But as a general principle, if somebody is engaged in fraudulent actions, they need to be prosecuted. If they violated laws on the books, they need to be prosecuted. And that’s the Attorney General’s job, and I know that Attorney General Holder, U.S. attorneys all across the country, they take that job very seriously. Okay?
---
Q: So is it your understanding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can’t actually prevent the debit card fees from going in place, like the ones that are being --

THE PRESIDENT: I think that what the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau could do is to make sure that consumers understood exactly what they were getting, exactly what was happening.** And I think that Congress could make determinations with respect to whether or not a certain practice was fair or not.


**This parrots the answer Bernanke gave Senator Sanders a couple of days ago, as long as banks tell people how they're screwing them they can charge as much as they want.

[rdking647]

22. maybe you cant prosecute the actual bank presidents or top employees

but didnt the bank have robosigners sign their mortgages and then go to court using those illegally signed mortgages??? last i checked thats fraud... a felony...
charge the actual bank with fraud... if convicted the bank is done.. out of business.. thats what happened to arthur anderson with enron...

[ProSense]

25. It

all comes down to one event: the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

The reason Dodd-Frank was necessary is because Glass-Steagall, which made a lot of the actions leading to the crisis illegal, was repealed.

Still, the Obama administration has been prosecuting financial fraud connected to the crisis: StopFraud.gov.

Here's what the President actually said:

<...>

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first on the issue of prosecutions on Wall Street, one of the biggest problems about the collapse of Lehmans and the subsequent financial crisis and the whole subprime lending fiasco is that a lot of that stuff wasn’t necessarily illegal, it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless. That’s exactly why we needed to pass Dodd-Frank, to prohibit some of these practices.

The financial sector is very creative and they are always looking for ways to make money. That’s their job. And if there are loopholes and rules that can be bent and arbitrage to be had, they will take advantage of it. So without commenting on particular prosecutions -- obviously that’s not my job; that’s the Attorney General’s job -- I think part of people’s frustrations, part of my frustration, was a lot of practices that should not have been allowed weren’t necessarily against the law, but they had a huge destructive impact. And that’s why it was important for us to put in place financial rules that protect the American people from reckless decision-making and irresponsible behavior.

<...>

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nichomachus]

27. He's lying. They broke the law. Over and over and over

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/attorneys-general-settlement-the-next-big-bank-bailout-20111005

[banned from Kos]

30. Taibbi has no legal or financial education - he is a yellow journalist

Quote a Krugman or a Toobin for accuracy.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[chill_wind]

38. And so is Krugman

on the money.

Another Inside Job
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 13, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/opinion/14krugman.html?_r=1

Letting Bankers Walk
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 17, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/opinion/18krugman.html

[banned from Kos]

49. read both - Krugman alleges a state infraction during a foreclosure - Fine

Let's assume guilt. Remedy - compensation for actual loss and punitive fine. Good, I am all for it.

But you have zero chance of getting what you want - a CEO's head on a platter.

[chill_wind]

83. Goodness. You're really hustling around fast with those goal posts. n/t

[Name removed]

57. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[girl gone mad]

72. What is your legal or financial education?

You often claim to be smarter and more knowledgeable than PhD economists and legal and financial experts.

Why should anyone trust you, since your facts are almost always incorrect?

[spin]

31. If politicians didn't get the contributions that they do from Wall Street and bankers ...

we would see some Wall Streeters and Bankers serving time in prison.

[Quantess]

33. Obama has to say what his bosses tell him to say.

You know, his owners, who gave approval for him to be elected president.
Seriously, you think Obama will bite the hands that fed him?

[JuniperLea]

44. What law was broken...

:popcorn:

[truebrit71]

53. Read the article here...

.... They broke http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/attorneys-general-settlement-the-next-big-bank-bailout-20111005 those laws...

[girl gone mad]

58. It was a control fraud.

You have always sided with the banks, for as long as I've been here. You refuse to accept any facts contrary to your own pro-bank bias.

[SomethingFishy]

59. Fraud.

In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent "discoveries", e.g., in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain.


Intentional deception for personal gain. Gee I wonder where that fits in here?

Can you show me how repackaging toxic loans as "Triple A" rated securities is not an intentional deception and does not amount to fraud?

[JuniperLea]

60. That doesn't answer the question...

What particular law shows that the bank committed fraud? I'm sorry, generalizations never pass muster in court.


Edited to say... please tell "ignored" above you that I'm ignoring them... there will be no answer to whatever drivel they spew.

Look, I have always been pissed about this. My mortgage is underwater and I've been railing against the banks for years now. The problem is, the regulations went away, and the banksters took advantage of the situation they created. If we can't put and end to this LEGALLY, and finally, we'll never dig out of this pit.

There were no laws broken that weren't already laid to rest.

[ms.smiler]

74. JuniperLea, I'm sorry you are underwater on your mortgage.

Is it a MERS mortgage?

[JuniperLea]

76. I believe so...

I did the SEIU deal and demanded to know which investors owned my mortgage... and got a creepy letter back saying "many" do.

[ms.smiler]

98. JuniperLea, I consider you a special individual.

Usually mortgage servicers ignore those QWR's in violation of Federal law. At least you got a "creepy letter."

That’s one problem with securitized mortgages. You can’t go to our public land records to determine who presently owns your loan.

MERS doesn’t guarantee the accuracy of their records but have you checked their database using your MIN number?

https://www.mers-servicerid.org/sis/

Have you checked Fannie or Freddie?

Fannie Mae lookup tool: http://www.fanniemae.com/loanlookup/

Freddie Mac lookup tool: https://ww3.freddiemac.com/corporate/

Do they show a loan at your address?

Did you refinance a MERS mortgage? Most Recorder of Deeds offices have online records that you can check. Are there any MERS documents in the Title history?

The reason I’m asking is that a new problem has been uncovered with securitized mortgages involving MERS.

My attorney recently filed 300 Quiet Title actions regarding this problem and 297 of the Complaints went unanswered and the homeowners won by default. In some cases, the property liens were voluntarily withdrawn before the court could strike them from the land records. In some cases, foreclosure actions were withdrawn against some of the homeowners.

I’m not an attorney, but the problem must be what I consider a fatal flaw if so many mortgage servicers were willing to release the property liens rather than set foot in court on the issue.

My own case is in the 1% that is heading for trial and that is closest to trial. We’ll soon have a hearing and a trial date will be set. I’m very anxious to see what a court makes of this problem because it ultimately impacts the validity of millions of MERS documents.

It appears the very things that enabled cost efficient mortgage securitization on Wall Street, actually clouded the Title to the properties over here on Main Street.

[JuniperLea]

127. MIN number?

Please pardon, but I don't know what that is.

[ms.smiler]

135. Please dig out the mortgage papers that you signed.

Your Note would be payable to the loan originator.

The mortgage lien, (Security Instrument) would have MERS as mortgagee and as Nominee for the loan originator. That document is about 17 pages long.

Toward the top of the first page of that document you will see a long number with "MIN" sitting to the left of the long number. That is your Mortgage Identification Number which is used to track your loan in the MERS system.

When you search, the results will disclose the Mortgage Servicer. You then need to enter your Social Security number to search for the Investor. The Investor may or may not be disclosed but you won't know until you search. Don't be surprised if Fannie shows as the Investor which is entirely possible. A strange Trust name might also appear.

[JuniperLea]

136. Thanks for the info...

Bookmarking this thread!

[SomethingFishy]

75. It does answer the question. The law broken was FRAUD.

Do you know how the collapse went down? Banks gave out tons of unsecured toxic loans they knew were going to fail. Then they took a bunch of those loans and packaged them together and paid off the ratings people to label them as "Triple A" securities. They then proceeded to convince people to invest in those Triple A securities. By convincing people to invest in securities that they knew were "mis-rated" they committed an act of FRAUD. That is the law on the books and that is the law they broke. This is no generalization, they specifically sold bad securities as "Triple A" thats fraud.

I'm sorry if this is not clear enough for you. I can't make it any more simple. Maybe the fact that they purchased "insurance" against the securities they knew were bad might convince you that they knew exactly what they were doing. This was no mistake, and it was no loophole it was a purposeful defrauding of half the damn country.

[JuniperLea]

79. No, I'm sorry... it doesn't...

I know exactly how the collapse went down, and I know as well as I know my own name that it was contrived, planned, and evil, and it went down exactly as they wanted it to.

I've often pointed to the ratings agencies... they were deemed innocent due to yet another loophole.

Knowing exactly what you are doing doesn't constitute fraud. Nor does lobbying to change the regulations that allowed this fiasco. The bottom line is the regulations were changed to allow this.

[SomethingFishy]

81. Really?

No regulations were changed to allow companies to defraud the American people. That would be a criminal act in itself. I have explained the law, I have explained how they violated the law, I can't make it any clearer. Now it's your turn. Show me the regulation that allows companies to sell securities with false ratings. I have showed you the law, I have showed you how they violated it. You claim there is some regulation making this act of fraud legal. Show it to me.

I'm sorry but if you want to deny there was a crime committed just to help Obama save face and you cannot show me the regulations that make this particular fraud "legal" then this will be my last post on the subject.

[JuniperLea]

129. Ridiculous

If you'd been paying attention, you'd know this started with the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act

And others followed.

I'm sorry, this is pure bullshit... "No regulations were changed to allow companies to defraud the American people."

[ljm2002]

35. They committed massive fraud...

...when they bundled low-quality mortgages into derivative financial instruments, then sold them as AAA-rated securities. Both the banks and the ratings agencies knew what they were doing, and there is ample evidence for this.

They engaged in robosigning, they falsified mortgage applications (IIRC, over half of the "liar's loans" represented lies told by the banks, not by the borrowers), they skirted state requirements for title transfer by use of the MERS system which facilitated mortgage bundling.

I believe the government is avoiding going after all this, because to do so would be to admit to the world that the U.S. financial companies committed international fraud. I also believe that is why our government was hell-bent on bailing out the banks and making good on these fraudulent bets: to do otherwise would be to pull the rug out from the international financial system's reserve currency, to admit that the bedrock has been breached.

Everyone knows it anyway, but we can't actually acknowledge it or there will be further consequences to the U.S.'s preeminent standing in the world of finance. It's like the emperor's new clothes: everyone pretends the emperor is clothed, and it works until one truthteller blurts out the truth. In this case, several truthtellers have blurted out the truth, but the thing only unravels when the legal system acknowledges it. IMO.

[banned from Kos]

41. Bullshit - there are civil suits in process to "putback" bad mortgages on the bundler

However, such is NOT a criminal violation.

[ljm2002]

68. Falsifying information is criminal fraud...

...unless you are arguing that white collar offenses are never criminal.

Or are you trying to dismiss my remarks based on the issue of bundled mortgages? These bundled mortgages were misrepresented as AAA securities, which is another form of fraud. You may argue that the purchasers needed to do due diligence -- however, due diligence assumes that it should be possible to find out true, relevant information, which it was not due to fraud and collusion between the banks, the insurers (AIG) and the ratings agencies.

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/200/

Justice Department Now Tracking Criminal Mortgage Fraud Cases

"The federal government reports filing 151 criminal mortgage fraud prosecutions in the first ten months of FY 2008, according to Justice Department data just obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

(...)

The FBI says that each mortgage fraud scheme contains some type of "material misstatements, misrepresentation or omission relied upon by and underwriter or lender to fund, purchase or insure a loan." "

[banned from Kos]

87. Yes, your FBI link notes many examples of mortgage fraud

BY borrowers AGAINST lenders.

"The FBI says that each mortgage fraud scheme contains some type of "material misstatements, misrepresentation or omission relied upon by and underwriter or lender to fund, purchase or insure a loan." '

AKA - Liar loans where the applicant misstates income, assets, etc.

How could a LENDER lie on a loan?

[JuniperLea]

45. Oh, they knew what they were doing alright... but it wasn't illegal...

Show me the law.

[Maven]

52. SEC Rule 10b5

Look it up.

I'm sure you won't.

[banned from Kos]

63. old law that securities sellers know well - see pages 7-10 of Risk Factors

http://www.businessinsider.com/check-out-the-66-page-presentation-on-goldmans-abacus-cdo-deal-2010-4#-7

on the big bad Abacus Goldman CDO.

You TELL the buyer their entire investment is at risk and list all the possibilities to satisfy 10b-5.

[Maven]

96. That doesn't necessarily get you out of hot water.

It's not just the statute, but all the case law construing it and the particular judge applying it. And it's not just the report but the totality of the evidence. The spirit and intent of the law is to punish sellers who mislead buyers of securities, including by omission of material facts that would affect the buyers' decisions. If a judge found that a bright and sunny sales pitch was made while the company was privately betting against the same product (as was the case with Goldman), a laundry list of oblique "risk factors" buried in a 66-page report would not necessary save you. The trick would be to show that Goldman et al had some other information which they kept to themselves (including their own analysis) leading them to believe that the securities were likely to fail. Since they bet against those securities, it is a safe assumption that they did have such information. Only the discovery process being allowed to proceed will tell us for sure. That is why Obama's mettling to assist in the cover-up is so outrageous.

[COLGATE4]

109. Excellent analysis. First post that actually explains the legal issues here.

[banned from Kos]

117. Do you know how many Investment houses put out a Buy rating on a stock

while their trading desk was shorting the same stock?

Answer - all of them have for 50+ years.

Immoral? Sure it is. But there is no law against it.

[hifiguy]

69. Thank you for that cite.

I had to look into this stuff in depth a few years ago and could not remember 10b5 by name.

That reg alone is enough to put hundreds of banksters in the dock.

[indepat]

46. Certainly not illegal about creating and marketing fraudulent

securities. No siree! :patriot:

[Fire Walk With Me]

50. The scorched Earth they've left in their wake does not signify a need for massive Change?

There is the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law. I opt for the Law of the Constitution, of individual rights.

[Nye Bevan]

51. Everyone wants Lloyd Blankfein to go to prison.

But nobody can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed any crime.

Being a greedy bankster is not illegal.

[SomethingFishy]

55. Oh please....

So let me get this straight, nothing illegal was done and it was all fixed by Dodd-Frank.

Is he trying to throw the election?

Dodd-Frank is fucking useless. Out of the 400 regulations 38 have been put into effect and none of those will stop Wall Street from doing it all over again.

And Not illegal? Repackaging toxic loans as "Triple A" rated securities and then selling them as such is fraud. You can make a case for what Obama said "immoral not illegal" if that was all they did, but the fact is once they repackaged these loans they bought insurance against them, indicating that they knew damn well they were committing fraud.


Standing up for Obama is one thing and I do it every chance he gives me. But this? No way.

[joeybee12]

62. If he believes that, he doesn't know the laws he's talking about...

And, of course, he doesn't deserve re-election.

[Amonester]

65. He did not lie when he said...

most

of the actions...


The follow up question should have sounded like; "Then what about the remaining actions of the most of them?"

Was such a 'natural' follow up question ever asked? :shrug:

[girl gone mad]

66. The only real "loophole" they found was regulatory capture.

Our government refuses to prosecute these crimes because the politicians and regulators have been bought off.

[hifiguy]

70. Correct in all respects.

The rules and regs are on the books, and go unenforced.

[louslobbs]

132. +1 n/t

Lou

[abelenkpe]

73. Fabricated and forged documents not breaking the law?

So If I go out and forge and fabricate it's all good?

[KurtNYC]

115. they foreclosed on properties to 'put assets on their books'

went after all who could not defend themselves.

[abelenkpe]

120. Sadly I know you are correct

I have two cousins who lost their homes to foreclosure. They had less expensive homes, and weren't that far behind on payments. Their lateness was strictly due to losing work due to the economy. While my parents, who have always been higher on the totem pole have also declared bankruptcy and are waaaaaay underwater on their home, late on payments and have a second mortgage to boot had enough money to afford a lawyer and work out a better deal. Really doesn't seem fair does it?

[chill_wind]

80. Fraud Factories. Alan Grayson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqnHLDeedVg

[coalition_unwilling]

82. One of the special features of the "Inside Job" DVD is an interview

with Yves Smith (pen name of the editor in chief of NakedCapitalism.com), wherein she opines that there had to have been fraud at various points in the food chain, specifically with regard to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

Her opinion is echoed by 2-3 of the protagonists in Michael Lewis' "The Big Short," specifically Steve Eisman and Michael Burry.

How Obama can say there was no fraud when there has been no overarching investigation staggers the imagination. But I guess it's all part of the "looking forward and not backward" ethos that characterizes his pathetic excuse of an administration, his way to make sure that the laws of the land are faithfully executed only when politically expedient to do so.

What a putz.

[chill_wind]

113. In fact she has a piece today:

Summarizing key points (see link for elaboration)


1. Violation of REMIC (real estate mortgage conduit) rules, which are IRS provisions which allow mortgage backed securities to be treated as pass-through entities.

2. Consumer fraud under HAMP.

3. Securities fraud by mortgage trustees and servicers.

4. Widespread risk management failures as Sarbanes-Oxley violations.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/why-occupywallstreet-doesnt-support-obama-his-nothing-to-see-here-stance-on-bank-looting.html

[loyalsister]

89. Why is it so hard to believe that there are legal ways to be corrupt

when it is legal for insurance companies to deny coverage for lifesaving treatments?
Unfortunately, it is not illegal to screw people over.

[WinkyDink]

91. Elliott Ness, he ain't.

[Taverner]

92. Now now I am sure this is just being taken out of context

Let me put on my blinders and drink this kool-aid and we'll all be fine, OK?

[walerosco]

94. K & R

[Ignis]

95. This is almost as funny as Shrub pretending to look for WMD under tables.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKX6luiMINQ

Almost. :puke:

[slipslidingaway]

97. knr - Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/obama-goes-all-out-for-dirty-banker-deal-20110824

"...On the one side is Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, who is conducting his own investigation into the era of securitizations – the practice of chopping up assets like mortgages and converting them into saleable securities – that led up to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

...This deal will also submarine efforts by both defrauded investors in MBS and unfairly foreclosed-upon homeowners and borrowers to obtain any kind of relief in the civil court system. The AGs initially talked about $20 billion as a settlement number, money that would “toward loan modifications and possibly counseling for homeowners,” as Gretchen Morgenson reported the other day.

To give you an indication of how absurdly small a number even $20 billion is relative to the sums of money the banks made unloading worthless crap subprime assets on foreigners, pension funds and other unsuspecting suckers around the world, consider this: in 2008 alone, the state pension fund of Florida, all by itself, lost more than three times that amount ($62 billion) thanks in significant part to investments in these deadly MBS.

So this deal being cooked up is the ultimate Papal indulgence. By the time that $20 billion (if it even ends up being that high) gets divvied up between all the major players, the broadest and most destructive fraud scheme in American history, one that makes the S&L crisis look like a cheap liquor store holdup, will be safely reduced to a single painful but eminently survivable one-time line item for all the major perpetrators..."

[Toucano]

100. The saddest part is that this is the thinking of a so-called great legal mind. n/t

[Honeycombe8]

101. Is that true? I think I heard on TV that hedge funds did illegal things.

Maybe they were pundits just spouting off, though.

And weren't there illegalities done in the mortgage industry? Not sure. Putting something in fine print in a contract is a legal, but unethical, thing to do, if you verbally lead someone to think something else. Or if you know they probably don't understand, but you don't say anything.

But as far as Wall Street and the hedge funds, I'm not sure.

One thing, though. Obama appointed Geithner & Summers to his economic team. Not sure about Summers, but Geithner worked for Goldman & Sachs, and was involved in the business while it was leading to this economic crash.

[slipslidingaway]

103. When did Geithner work for Goldman Sachs? Link to position and years he worked there ...

I'm no fan of Geithner for other reasons, but when did he work for Goldman?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

112. Every day he's been T-Sec.

Bam!

[slipslidingaway]

123. That may be true :) but the poster mentioned Geithner had worked for Goldman before T-sec??? n/t

[kenny blankenship]

102. Spoken like the lawyer for Wall St. that he is.

The biggest they got, but they got him CHEAP.

[DCKit]

104. Seems the definition of "conspiracy" is missing from the WH dictionary. nt

[occupy_wall_street]

106. Criminal Law vs. Banking Regulations. The 1%ers wrote the banking regulations.

Which do you prefer ?

If the protections of criminal law matter to you, more than the royalist prerogatives of the 1%ers, then come to Broadway & Liberty tomorrow morning at 11 AM.

Meet at Red Cube.

Rule of Law is at the core of our economic and social travails. Fraud and conspiracy are not prosecuted, not for the top levels of America's Financial Capitalism.

[BR_Parkway]

107. Which is why some are pushing so hard to settle with no criminal prosecutions

Let's face it, if anyone goes to jail for this it'll be some state AG office, not the "don't look back" DOJ

[hobbit709]

108. Paging Sgt. Schulz.

[elehhhhna]

114. Many of the practices on Wall Street “weren’t necessarily against the law

fine.

whatcha doing about the OTHER practices that WERE agianst the law.

Corporate. Appeaser. Extraordinaire.

bfd = big frikkin disappointment

[JNinWB]

118. In order to prosecute, you need a Person to accuse and a specific Law that was broken.

Many of these investigations have gone nowhere because they came down to the "intent" of the person investigated. It is impossible to prove intent unless you have incriminating EVIDENCE. If the individual claims that he had no idea that anything fraudulent was happening, the investigators must PROVE otherwise.

I'm sure they are still looking for evidence of motive, but it will be very difficult to prove in court. There were many different parties involved in each transaction---buyers, realtors, appraisers, title companies, home inspectors, mortgage brokers, lenders, financial institutions, bond rating agencies, financial advisers, derivative designers, etc.

Which party committed the fraud and how do you prove it?

[ms.smiler]

119. JNinWB, you are correct about intent under Federal law

The beauty of this though is that both the New York and Delaware Attorneys General are interested in investigating the securities fraud. Most of the mortgage backed securities were done in New York and are governed by NY law while a smaller percentage were done under Delaware law.

The states don't need to prove intent, so it is much easier for those states to investigate and prosecute securities fraud.

Ordinary homeowners have filed complaint after complaint on both the state and federal levels. Our government agencies are more interested in protecting the banks though than investigating wrongdoing.

It will be up to the Attorneys General and individual homeowners to hold the banks accountable.

[JCMach1]

116. kinda like the 'W' administration, huh...

FAIL

[thereismore]

121. Obama's Justice Dept is his biggest failure, IMO. nt

[blindpig]

122. Well yes.....

It's a capitalist society, they wrote the rules, the system operates as designed.

It's the Capitalism that's the problem.

[Name removed]

125. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KoKo]

130. K&R!

[kentuck]

134. Fraud is illegal.

Not a loophole. They knew what they were doing.