Posted on 03/05/2013 7:44:55 AM PST by SeekAndFind
On its most recent magazine cover with the "The Great American Housing Rebound" as the title, Bloomberg BusinessWeek featured characters that, as the New York Post put it, were "drawn to look like minorities."
Perhaps eager to make a lot of noise, Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review responded that "minority borrowers were disproportionately victimized in the bubble. But BusinessWeek here has them on the cover bathing in housing-ATM cash, implying that they're going to create another bubble. That's not okay."
Though it apologized for the alleged offense, Bloomberg BusinessWeek should have stood firm. It did nothing wrong. Though the cover would have likely been more accurate had it included people of all races, the notion that those who borrowed to buy houses they couldn't afford were the ones victimized is laughable, and it's Chittum who should apologize for promoting such an offensive falsehood.
Considering the individuals who bought houses they couldn't afford with the money of others, they were the self-destructive victimizers. In most instances well aware that they were taking on mortgages they couldn't afford, they with great dishonesty accepted the loans on the assumption that, if they couldn't make regular payments on them, it would be easy to pay them off in full by virtue of selling the underlying home for an amount greater than the purchase price. Far from deserving our sympathy, these people deserve our disgusted scorn.
Importantly, the true victims of their recklessness are many.
First off, for individuals to borrow irresponsibly such that they're unable to make their payments, there's logically another set of individual savers victimized by their wasteful profligacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
So the banks did nothing illegal or wrong? How come they keep being sued by AG’s and losing to homeowners suing them?
We offered his realtor a new offer under his recently approved "Short Sale" thru WF. We offered less than 50% 0f what his list price had been the month prior.
Our short sale offer was accepted by the mortgage holder bank. The seller still drives his 2 new model cars and the bank wrote off $90,000+ which is covered by the American taxpayer.
Wharton needs more Reggie Love graduates I suppose...............
Your next door neighbor still might be pursued by the bank, the mortgage maker, for tens of thousands of dollars. Soon, he might not be laughing so loud
It all depends what kind of short sale deal was set up.
That would be racist.
The Congressional Hispanic Institute, Inc, is an entity organized by Cong Joe Baca (D-Cali) in his capacity as head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Cong Baca created "HOGAR" (Spanish for home) in 2003 to work with the mortgage industry, F/M, lenders, banks and latino community groups to increase mortgage lending to what savvy observers consider to be unqualified Latinos.
"HOGAR" colluded w/ Cong Baca in what was to become a massive bilking of taxpayers. Cong Baca calculatedly hyped the fact that the national Latino homeownership rate was 47%, compared with 68% for the overall population.
HOGAR was coached to call the figure "alarming," and to say "a concerted effort was required to ensure that by the end of the decade Latinos will share equally in the American Dream of home ownership."
HOGAR and Cong Baca conned the public, failing to note that most of the "dreamers" were illegals, citizens of Third World countries who had violated US borders.
Predictably, HOGAR colluded w/ co-conspirators which included:
(a) shaky mortgage companies that ran into big trouble;
(b) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both now under federal control after billions in taxpayer bailouts;
(c) Countrywide Financial Corp., sold to Bank of America Corp;
(d) Washington Mutual Inc., taken over by the US government and sold to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.; and,
(e) New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest Mortgage Corp, both now defunct, killed by defaulted subprime Latino mortgages.
HOGAR's ties to the subprime mortgage industry were substantial. Bribery and self-dealing were rampant:
<><> Companies that donated $150,000 to Cong Baca got the right to have their own research fellow who would conduct fraudulent studies, which were cunningly used by industry lobbyists to pump lending.
<><> Bribery and extortion in the form of $100,000 annual donations to Cong Baca, for which HOGAR provided phony news releases from Cong Baca's Hispanic Caucus promoting a lender's commercial products to the Latino market,
<><> The most shocking example of bribery well-substantitated by Hogar's literature..... HOGAR announced it worked with Freddie Mac on a self-serving two-year examination of Latino homeownership in 63 congressional districts.
The "study" found Hispanic ownership on the rise thanks to "new flexible mortgage loan products" that the industry was adopting at the urging of Cong Baca's collusive coterie.
<><> HOGAR conned lenders into even more lenient down-payment and underwriting standards.
<><> As the subprime debacle unfolded, HOGAR declined repeated requests for comment despite the economic havoc their activities precipitated.
The mortgage schemes demonstrated the criminal activities of border violators with multiple identities---perhaps violent, terrorist-connected foreigners---colluding and conspiring to defraud private companies and public entities. And mortgage racketeering enterprises which employed sub rosa finance and business practices to carry out deceptions and frauds.
The alleged ring of swindlers---a Congresman, individuals with multiple identities, banks, insurance companies, mortgage nrokers--might be charged with cheating the US govt, taxpayers and bank share holders out of hundreds of millions of dollars via an elaborate web of mortgage and bank frauds.
The mortgage Dreamers used multiple phony identities, fraudulent Social Security numbers, purchased from identity forgers in order to obtain govt-subsidized benefits.
L/E will find that individuals with multiple identities obtained fraudulent mortgages then flipped the houses at ever-higher prices to family member who then absconded to foreign countries, sticking banks (and taxpayers) with hundreds of millions in fraudulent mortgages.
BACKGROUND A Wall Street Journal investigative report related that, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council examination of the borrowing spree, uncovered financial schemes by low-income housing groups, Hispanic lawmakers, a congressional Hispanic housing initiative, mortgage lenders and brokers, all colluding in fraduent schemes to increase homeownership among Latinos with forged documents which enabled massive fraud.
This was not simply the mortgage market at work. It was fueled by avarice, greed, and Congressional enabling fraudulent practices. In 2005 alone, mortgages to Hispanics jumped by 29%; Latinos with multiple fraudulent identities in low-paying jobs obtained subprime mortgages for prime properties---soaring to 169%.
(Research provided by Wall Street Journal. Some material excerpted from the NY Times).
A year or so before the big housing bubble burst, I visited the home of a hispanic woman in her late 40’s. The home was incredible with plantation shutters, a gigantic kitchen with granite countertops, maple cabinets, etc. She lived there with a young daughter, her mom, a handicapped brother, and her daughter, SIL, and their baby. I believe only the SIL might have had a job. I thought maybe she had received a big settlement somehow or that her dead husband might have had a huge life insurance policy or investments. Turns out that was not the case, and I wasn’t surprised to hear that just a few months later, they lost the home. Fortunately, she hadn’t sold their previous home and they had somewhere to move. I have absolutely no idea how they afforded the mortgage on that first house. Even with my husband’s business and my own business doing quite well at that time, we wouldn’t have thought of even trying to buy something so upscale.
Now that I think of it, they must have been receiving gov’t assistance — maybe for the old grandma, handicapped brother. Who knows.
And now---as President---Ohaha is suing lenders for complying, and actually lending the money (encouraged fraudulent mtge apps----now saddled w/ huge mortgages they can't pay).
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2012 candidate Obama talked a lot, but said only things that made him look good. The whoppers keep on coming-—-- seeking reelection he said taxpayers got back every dime used for TARP to rescue the financial system, and that he also passed a “historic law” to end taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailouts for good.
The dribbling fool "forgot" to say US taxpayers are still owed big bucks for the billion dollar bailout of the financial industry. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together owe taxpayers over $140 billion.
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FANNIE-MAE--THE DEMOCRATS' CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE / By Michelle Malkin
Fannie/Freddie are centerpieces of the criminal enterprise called the Democrat Party-—where Dem cronies and collaborators loot the organization, get cushy jobs, bonuses, and the like.
Fannie Mae’s political machine dispensed campaign contributions, gave jobs to friends and relatives of legislators, hired armies of lobbyists (even paying lobbyists not to lobby against it), paid academics who wrote papers validating the home ownership mania, and spread “charitable” contributions to housing advocates across the congressional map.
Fannie Mae serves as an industrial-sized patronage factory — sharing profits with political allies, spreading taxpayer funds to voting blocs——like ethnic groups-——and doling out jobsto left-wing academics, Washington has-beens and back-scratching buddies.
Obama insider Fannie Mae exec Jim Johnson got sweetheart loans from shady subprime Countrywide. Pols raked in six-figure salaries as F/F engaged in Enron-style accounting, plunged into debt and helped usher in the subprime housing meltdown through cockamamie lending practices.
Bill Clinton appointed Franklin Raines, Daley and Rahm Emanuel just as the quasi-governmental F/M engaged in rampant book-cooking so that F/M insider could help themselves to massive bonuses.
The Chi/Tribune exposed how political whore Rahm Emanuel’s “profitable stint” was low-show w/ no work involved. Emanuel was not even assigned to committees, according to company proxy statements. Immediately upon joining the board, Emanuel and other insiders qualified for $380,000 in stock and options plus a $20,000 annual fee, public records indicate. W/ Wall Street Rahm Emanuel at F/M, accounting tricks were used to mislead shareholders about outsize profits F/M reaped from risky investments.
The goal was to cook the books to keep fraudulent earnings on the books, to make Freddie Mac look profitable on paper-——AND to fraudulently obtain humongous annual bonuses for political insiders.
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FRANKLIN RAINES----THE BIG F/M FISH THAT GOT AWAY WITH A BUNDLE
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report says that F/M CEO Franklin Raines---a Clinton appointee---and other Fannie Mae bigwigs, deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to artificially hit earnings targets in order to trigger multi-million dollar bonuses for senior F/M executives.
Ex-Fannie CEO Franklin Raines should be behind bars for life. He is a crook of the first order. This thief Raines cooked the FM books precipitating losses of $9B (that we know of) for the single purpose of creating bonuses for himself and other F/M insiders. The SEC said Raines broke accounting rules by playing with risky derivatives.
RAINES COOKS THE F/M BOOKS---WALKS AWAY A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE After Raines was fired and exposed as a fraudster for cooking the govt books, Raines walked away w/ $90 million dollars, a $26 million parachute, PLUS..... Raines gets a MONTHLY pension of $116,300 for life. Raines had already collected $4.87 million in "special performance" shares. Raines owns options giving him $5.8 million in net profit after redemptions, plus another $8.7 million in deferred compensation for his six years at the F/M helm. There's more.
Raines keeps $5 million of paid-up life insurance. He and his spouse get free medical and dental benefits for life, worth over $1 million. NOTE: Raines earned $20 million in salary, bonuses and stock awards (that we know of) in one year.
To keep Raines happy within philanthropic circles, Fannie Mae will match Raines' charitable contributions by $10,000 a year.
After he was fired, Raines told the F/M board that he's entitled to get paychecks until June 22 giving him another $600,000, which triggers a $2,000 monthly rais
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GENESIS OF THE F/M BILKING--- Clinton appointee. Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines' Letter to Shareholders--excerpted from 2003 Fannie Mae Annual Report
Excerpt ...Ten years ago the typical conforming mortgage required a down payment of 10-20%, and low-down payment mortgages were considered too risky. But then we helped to standardize the 3-5% down payment loan, brought it to global capital markets, and made it available to lenders and communities nationwide. Now low-down payment loans are commonplace. And we just adopted a new variance in our underwriting standards that will make the $500 down payment loan widely available as well...
In 1994, we pledged to provide $1 trillion in capital to ten million underserved families by the end of 2000. Thanks to our housing and industry partners, we met that goal early.
Then in 2000, we launched our American Dream Commitment, a pledge to provide $2 trillion in capital to 18 million underserved families by the year 2010, including $400 billion targeted specifically for minority families (later raised to $700 billion in response to President Bush’s Minority Homeownership Initiative). After four of the strongest years in housing and mortgage finance history, we’ve already surpassed the top-line goals of this commitment. But our work is far from complete.
So in January 2004, we announced our Expanded American Dream Commitment and pledged significant new resources to tackle America’s toughest housing challenges. Our new commitment has three main goals.
First, we will expand access to homeownership for six million first-time home buyers in the next ten years, including 1.8 million minority first-time home buyers.We also will help raise the national minority homeownership rate from 49 percent to 55 percent, with the ultimate goal of closing it entirely.
Second, we will help new and long-term homeowners stay in their homes through a series of initiatives, and commit $15 billion to preserve affordable rental housing and $1.5 billion to support the revitalization of public housing communities.
Third, we will increase the supply of affordable housing and support community development activities in at least 1,000 neighborhoods across the country through our American Communities Fund, and through targeted investments like Low-Income Housing Tax Credits that help finance affordable rental housing.
It is because of initiatives like our Trillion Dollar Commitment and our American Dream Commitment that we have exceeded our HUD affordable housing goals for ten consecutive years. (End Raines excerpt.)
lol...got you on that!
It takes two to tango. Refusing to identify the borrower as victim doesn’t absolve the bank. They can both be in on the fraud....i.e. doctoring up an income statement, together.
I think most of these mortgage ‘victims’ are really victims of their own naivety. Of all the things are schools teach, the basic principles of borrowing don’t seem to be one of them (our politicians could take a few lessons on this too). Most borrowers just went in blind, and ‘saw what the bank can get them’....without any other diligence.
I can see how they might feel ‘cheated’, when an adjustable rate mortgage started to climb...but how often did the bank not disclose that on the front end?
I think most of these lawsuits take advantage of the fact that the willy nilly trading of mortgage backed securities left a very sketchy paper-trail, and banks have a hard time producing documentation when they are required to. So they have screwed up for sure...but not because they victimized the borrower, just because they were sloppy.
IIRC, little known junior senator hussein and Kerry were in the top 2 or 3 congress members who were getting the largest kickbacks from FannyMac.
The problem that caused the Great Recession is going to occur again. All that has to happen is that interest rates go up about 2%. Just wait until all these new ARMs balloon on all those enjoying the temporary low rates.
It apeears that this is becoming a new entitlement.
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