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Foreclosure pact promises more trouble DAVID ROEDER droeder@suntimes.com Last Modified: Feb 12, 2012 02:25AM The foreclosure settlement involving Illinois and 48 other states is much ado about $25 billion, but for homeowners still in a heap of financial trouble, it signifies little besides more pain. The banks involved will like it, and their investors should draw comfort as well. By settling, the five large banks have indemnified themselves against civil lawsuits over robo-signing and faked paperwork. Criminal charges are possible, but hardly likely. The banks get financial certainty as opposed to the prospect of endless litigation. That should help the...

Stocks accelerated their losses Friday, on track to logging their worst session this year, after stalled debt negotiations in Greece, some disappointing economic news and reports that S&P downgraded a handful of Italian banks. In the latest round of disappointment from the euro zone, ratings agency S&P downgraded 34 of 37 Italian banks, including banking giant UniCredit, citing worries over the banking industry and economic risks in the country. The move comes after the ratings agency's downgrade of Italy's sovereign rating in January to BBB+, along with downgrades of nine other euro zone countries. All three major averages are on...

<p>MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin homeowners are expected to receive $140 million as part of a national $25 billion settlement with the nation's biggest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses.</p> <p>Gov. Scott Walker and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced the terms Thursday as part of the settlement with Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial.</p>

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman sued three of the nation's largest banks over a private national mortgage registry system, contending it has resulted in a wide range of deceptive and fraudulent foreclosure filings. The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, names units of Bank of America Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo Corp. as defendants, as well as MERSCorp., which owns and operates the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, known as MERS. In his complaint, Mr. Schneiderman alleges that MERS has effectively eliminated the public's ability to track property transfers because those...

REPORT: Prepare For A Giant New Wave Of US Bank Failures Luke McKenna Febuary 1, 2012Forget Europe — the weak U.S. recovery puts more than 750 domestic banks at risk of failure, according to a report from Invictus Consulting Group (via Business Wire). Invictus, which stress tested all FDIC-insured banks, says 758 lenders could collapse in the next three years, forecasting a new wave of borrower defaults in the absence of a strong economic up-tick. A disaster in Europe would probably make things much worse. Invictus says the at-risk lenders — mostly regional banks or subsidiaries of the majors —...

While the first reaction is for gold to rally and the pundits to come screaming out of the weeds yelling it’s inflationary, the harsh reality of this statement is actually DEFLATIONARY and not INFLATIONARY. The assumption is that the Fed will keep money cheap and that will mean more inflation. However, this is actually an international demonstration of pure insanity – the attempt to keep applying the same methods and expecting a different result than what was achieved in the past or in Japan. Those prognosticating INFLATION will be left behind just watching as has been the case all along....

Rumor has it that in a matter of days, after months of negotiation with big banks, the White House may announce a settlement that would let the banks off the hook for their role in the foreclosure crisis -- paying a tiny fraction of what's needed in exchange for blanket immunity from future lawsuits.

In recent days, the fact that Mitt Romney has millions of dollars parked down in the Cayman Islands has made headlines all over the world. But when it comes to offshore banking, what Mitt Romney is doing is small potatoes. The truth is that the global elite are hiding an almost unbelievable amount of money in offshore banks. According to shocking research done by the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banks. And that figure does not even count any money being held in Switzerland. That is a staggering amount of...

The Jihad Will Be YouTubed by Raffaello Pantucci December 15, 2011 FOREIGN POLICY - The AFPAK Channel SNIPPET: "While clearly the technology to make such videos is something that is universal, it does seem as though it is aspirant jihadists in the West who find it easiest to use. There was no evidence that Gul was being directed by foreign terrorist organizations to produce his material, and his case shows the continued existence of young Westerners producing radical material on their own. It may indeed be the case that the virtual armies have yet to fully emerge as active warriors...

ZULAUF: THE KEY TO 2012 & THE COMING BANKING BUST 14 January 2012 by Cullen Roche The 2012 Barrons Roundtable came out this morning and the discussion is always interesting. I have tended to veer towards the comments of Felix Zulauf since he’s the global macro master at the table. That said, here are some of his macro thoughts. I think he’s a bit dramatic, but given that he’s one of the few roundtable members who has been able to connect the dots (for the most part) his comments are always worth considering (see past performance from Roundtable members here:...

Standard & Poor's ratings agency has downgraded France's credit rating, French television channels reported on Friday, citing a government source. EU building flags brussels EyesWideOpen | Getty Images The channels did not provide further details. S&P warned in December that it could downgrade the credit ratings of several euro zone nations if European leaders failed to find a lasting solution to the debt crisis at a meeting of EU leaders that month. Several euro zone countries including France face an “imminent” downgrade by ratings agency S&P, Reuters and Dow Jones news agencies reported, sending the euro to a session low...

The response to the piece on the SEC v Rakoff has been overwhelming. A lot of people are starting to see just how corrupt things are in New York and how we have no regulation at all. The gist of this confrontation between Judge Rakoff and the SEC is truly astounding. Federal Judges are generally worthless. There are so few who actually act like a real judge is supposed to they are destroying the United States single-handedly. The issue here is that the NY bank in question made illegally $150 million. The SEC fines them $15 – pockets the money...

(Reuters) - The half a trillion euros the European Central Bank pumped into the financial system buys hard-hit banks valuable time but will not in itself protect them from threatened rating downgrades, one of Standard and Poor's top executives said. The ratings firm put almost the entire euro zone and some of its biggest banks, including Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale and UniCredit, on a downgrade warning this month. In a telephone interview with Reuters on Friday, S&P's Managing Director of its Financial Institutions division, Scott Bugie, said this week's unprecedented injection of three-year loans by the ECB was...

Drug Enforcement Administration agents have raided an Oklahoma car dealership that the government suspects may be one of about 30 such businesses in the U.S. involved in funding the terrorist group Hezbollah. DEA agents say the car lot of Ace Auto Leasing in Tulsa is part of a huge network that is selling cars and drugs -- and then using the money to support terrorism against the U.S., myfoxphoenix.com reports. During Friday's raid, agents could be seen carryout out filing cabinets and other items. They also questioned employees and took inventory. "They're making big time money and it's going right...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks fell sharply Monday as investors remain concerned about the debt crisis in Europe and its potential impact on the global banking system. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) was down 114 points, or 1%, in afternoon trading. The S&P 500 (SPX) sank 14 points, or 1.1%. The Nasdaq (COMP) slid 31 points, or 1.2%. Stocks opened higher but the gains faded as the banking sector dragged down the broader market. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) fell below $5 per share, lowest level since the worst of the financial crisis in March 2009. Citigroup...

Muslim scholars say the Qur’an prohibits collecting interest on loans. But many banks, both global and local, have found clever ways to meet religious strictures. It’s a system that may be hypocritical, but also profitable. The coverage can be a little bit breathless: “La finance Islamique en plein boom,� Le Figaro reported in September. Yes, Islamic banking, structured along the lines that religion decrees, is in full boom. But is it really banking? And is it really kosher? Islam prohibits the payment of interest on loans, so observant Muslims require specialized alternative arrangements from their banks. Many of the largest...

Should You Worry About Europe's Back Door Bank Run? December 16, 2011 By Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist, Money Morning On Wednesday, Fitch Ratings Inc. downgraded its credit ratings on five of Europe's biggest banks, and while that decision made headlines, it's not the most important story to come out of Europe this week. The real story, which the mainstream media is neglecting, is that there are signs of an underground run on Europe's banks. Almost nobody's talking about it, but there are indications money is already moving out of the European Union (EU) faster than rats abandoning a sinking...

European banks are dumping clients with US citizenship due to a new American law meant to curb tax evasion. The law would require financial institutions around the world to report on certain client activities. Compliance, say many banks, is way too expensive. The idea was to ensure that US citizens were paying their taxes on investments made through overseas banks. The result, however, has been that Americans in Europe may have difficulties finding banks who want their business. According to a report in the Wednesday edition of the Financial Times Deutschland, several European banks have elected to no longer serve...

There’s talk abound about the possibility of exchange controls. The ability to slow the inflow and outflow of funds is being discussed from Greece to Germany and Switzerland. It is no secret that many citizens in the peripheries are moving EUROS out of their domestic banks and into German, Swiss ans British domiciled entities. The German paper HANDELSBLATT had an article during the weekend suggesting that the SNB and Swiss government are readying a plan to undertake exchange controls and a true negative interest rate regime. The overly strong SWISS FRANC has placed a great deal of stress on the...

The government has pulled roughly even with the private sector as a source of home mortgages and consumer credit, with both financing $6.4 trillion in outstanding loans last quarter, Federal Reserve data show. This represents a dramatic reversal from 2006, when private-sector financing supplied nearly $2 in outstanding home mortgages and consumer credit for every $1 of government-financed loans.

The New York Police Department is warning local banks to bolster mailroom security after a letter bomb was addressed to the CEO of Deutsche Bank in Germany.

Iceland's special prosecutor has taken Larus Welding, the former head of the failed Glitnir Bank, into custody, Reuters reports. Glitnir Bank was the first of the top three Icelandic commercial banks to fail in 2008. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/iceland-glitnir-bank-larus-welding-2011-12#ixzz1frUOZ09P http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/30/us-iceland-glitnir-idUSTRE7AT2UX20111130

The United States has run up a cumulative $7.5 trillion Trade Deficit. The last time the country ran a trade surplus was in 1976. Nixon closed the Gold Window in 1971. Do you believe it's just a coincidence that the rise of an un-backed Fiat Dollar and the rise of the Trade Deficit haapened so close in time? The Country has been in a pronounced economic decline since the 1970's and when the Gold Window was closed. Since then the money supply has increased many times as has inflation. While living standards have declined, so has domestic energy production. This...

Greek Bank Run Hits The Big Time... Joe Weisenthal Dec. 6, 2011, 2:00 PM On Drudge right now... the red link goes to this story about Greeks taking money out of their bank accounts.

Newt Gingrich made headlines in October because he suggested that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd should go to jail for authoring the so-called Dodd-Frank banking reforms. Taken together the “landmark” reforms look a lot like an Obama speech: very wordy, very partisan, but full of inaction, cross-purposes and the typical liberal confusion about economics, society and man. The legislation crafted by Dodd and Frank has reformed none of the systemic failures in our banking system, but it sure has made it harder for banks to loan money, or for you and me to buy a house. Much of the failure...

What you are about to read should absolutely astound you. During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret. Do you remember the TARP bailout? The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the "too big to fail" banks. Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did. As you will see documented below, the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars...

Central banks around the world, led by the US Fed, have increased liquidity with lots of cheap cash for big banks, the headlines tell us this morning. One or two pundits have even implied that this will avert the next episode in the West's unfolding financial drama.

This week we also learned more about the underhanded and undemocratic ways in which the Federal Reserve saved big banks last time around. (You should read Ron Suskind’s book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.” To understand Mr. Geithner’s philosophy of unconditional bailouts, remember that he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before becoming Treasury secretary.) Is there really no alternative to pouring good money after bad? (snip) The goal is simple, as Mr. Huntsman said in his recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece: make the banks small enough and simple...

Britain's banks have been told to prepare for the end of the Eurozone, it emerged today. City regulator the Financial Services Authority has told banks to ready themselves for armageddon by running "stress tests" on their balance sheets. FSA chief Hector Sants met the heads of Barclays, Satander, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS last week. News of the shock warning came as the world's biggest central banks today launched a desperate bid to save the global economy by flooding markets with cheaper cash.

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - S&P rating agency has just downgraded 37 global banks. Goldman, BofA, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, BNY Mellon are amongst the cuts based on a new methodology. Japanese and UK banks cut or outlook lowered as well.

BANK DOWNGRADE RAMPAGE: Goldman, Bank Of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, And Citigroup Just Got Cut By S&P Simone Foxman Nov. 29, 2011, 4:48 PM Standard & Poor's ratings service just cut the ratings of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup from A to A-, according to Bloomberg. Wells Fargo was also cut from AA- to A+. The agency gave both Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have a negative outlook. Those cuts were part of more than 37 ratings reviewed by the agency. Bloomberg says those are dependent upon "criteria change[s]" that were published on November 9....

Barney Frank, former chairman of the Financial Services Committee, was very cozy with the financial sector for a very long time. This should serve as indictment of legislative record. For the New York Times' leading Frank sanitizer, David Firestone, however, the Frank-Bank friendship is a sign of Frank's "moderation." Firestone blogs at the NYT, "economically, Mr. Frank is essentially a centrist." Firestone's evidence, point by point:  Frank "talks often of the need for a 'grand bargain' between business and liberals." This has a name. It's called corporatism. Call it corporate socialism, or corporate welfare. It's also not a crazy idea, when you...

While everyone was focused on the impending European collapse, the latest soon to be refuted rumors of a quick fix from the Welt am Sonntag notwithstanding, the Bank of International Settlements reported a number that quietly slipped through the cracks of the broader media. Which is paradoxical because it is the biggest ever reported in the financial world: the number in question is $707,568,901,000,000 and represents the latest total amount of all notional Over The Counter (read unregulated) outstanding derivatives reported by the world's financial institutions to the BIS for its semi-annual OTC derivatives report titled "OTC derivatives market activity...

With a brand new proposal, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is the only GOP 2012er to have moved beyond “repeal Dodd Frank” (which sounds like a return-to-the-status-quo) and fashioned a serious and comprehensive — and bold — financial reform plan. He’s for repealing Dodd Frank, of course, but also a) reducing bank leverage by axing the deduction for interest payments and b) shutting down Fannie and Freddie. But eliminating “too big to fail” is really the core of what he’s trying to do. As Team Huntsman correctly notes, the six largest U.S. financial institutions are significantly bigger than they were...

As fears that Greece will leave the euro have grown, a quiet bank run has proceeded. Deposits held by corporations and households fell 22% from the start of 2010 through September. Deposit outflow from Greek banks reportedly accelerated in recent weeks, spurred by a threat that Europe would rescind its bailout package if Athens failed to meet austerity demands.

LONDON (AP) -- Britain's Treasury chief George Osborne says the UK will cut financial ties with Iranian banks over fears about its nuclear program. Osborne says all UK financial institutions will cease business relationships and transactions with all Iranian banks, including their Central Bank of Iran from 3pm GMT (10EST) Monday. Osborne said Monday this is the first time the British government has cut an entire country's banking sector off from the U.K.'s financial sector.

The real cause of the housing bubble and collapse is very simple: An Executive Order by Bill Clinton and enthusiastically championed by George Bush, 13166, forced banks to make bad loans or no loans at all. And Newt Gingrich was championing putting an end to EO 13166 years before the collapse of the banking industry. In the late 1990s, a grand compromise was reached between President Clinton and Senate Banking Chairman Phil Gramm. Long ago, government types decided that home ownership was the key to fiscal stability, but too many blacks didn't qualify for loans. The banking industry argued that...

The New York Fed has released its updated FX swap line data: while the USD line with the BOJ has been cut from $102 million to just $1 million, what is more disturbing is that the swap lines with the ECB increased by $390 million to $2.248 billion. This amount is split between $500 million in a 7 day line at 1.08% and the balance locked up in a 84 day swap at 1.09%, which is where the addition was found. And now we start getting the denials from European banks as to who it may have been to need...

The MF Global scandal may be far worse than anyone suspects. The big New York Institutions routinely post client’s collateral and cash in the REPO market to make more money without notification to clients. In the case of Princeton Economics, Republic National Bank, I believe, was taking Fannie Maes, selling them, and then posting the cash in REPO. Fannie Maes were purchased to specifically prevent that from taking place because they were NOT AAA and were NOT good enough to post into REPO. Consequently, this is why they were selling them without posting any such entries in accounts. This is...

You know, I was getting a fond spot in my heart for Bank of America when it decided to charge a fee because of Chris Dodd's new tax. Then it goes and does something like this. We had a small disaster at our house. To whit, massive damage resulting in an insurance claim, half of which came to $32,568, for which I was issued a check to me and my mortgage company. Duly indorsed said check and sent it to the mortgage company who indorsed it themselves and sent it back after a week or so, telling me to deposit...

Jon Corzine has been the CEO of Goldman Sachs, a United States senator, and the governor of New Jersey, the position he held in 2009, when the Obama administration was preparing to take office. His mix of Wall-Street and public-sector executive experience is doubtless why the Obama transition team called on him for advice. As Joe Biden tells it, they'd gathered a few dozen economists in Chicago to talk over the financial crisis. Some were suggesting a bank holiday. "I literally picked up the phone and called Jon Corzine and said Jon, what do you think we should do," Biden...

Even as Bank of America and other major lenders back away from charging customers to use their debit cards, many banks have been quietly imposing other new fees. Need to replace a lost debit card? Bank of America now charges $5 — or $20 for rush delivery. Deposit money with a mobile phone? At U.S. Bancorp, it is now 50 cents a check. Want cash wired to your account? Starting in December, that will cost $15 for each incoming domestic payment at TD Bank. Facing a reaction from an angry public and heightened scrutiny from regulators, banks are turning to...

What Iceland Teaches Us: “Let Banks Fail” Agence France-Presse notes: Three years after Iceland’s banks collapsed and the country teetered on the brink, its economy is recovering, proof that governments should let failing lenders go bust and protect taxpayers, analysts say.***“The lesson that could be learned from Iceland’s way of handling its crisis is that it is important to shield taxpayers and government finances from bearing the cost of a financial crisis to the extent possible,” Islandsbanki analyst Jon Bjarki Bentsson told AFP.“Even if our way of dealing with the crisis was not by choice but due to the inability...

Occasionally the Washington Post does some real reporting. Yesterday Zachery Goldfarb did an analysis of the aggregate profits over the past three years for the major banks and financial institutions as compared to the eight years of the Bush administration. The finding: these firms have accumulated more profit in the three years of the Obama administration than they did in the two terms of George W. Bush. In an interview with Mr. Goldfarb on NPR when asked what kind of companies and how this happened, replied: We're talking about banks, the big ones you've heard of, Citigroup, Bank of America....

Occupiers last seen scratching their heads in disbelief (or possibly because of the lice infestation). Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: “New government data shows profits for America’s largest financial firms are once again reaching record highs not seen sense before the financial crisis of 2008. In fact, Wall Street firms have earned more in the first two and a half years of the Obama presidency than all 8 years of the Bush presidency. Over 85 billion dollars in profits compared to 77 billion.” Joe Scarborough: “Wait — you mean in the first two years they made more than in eight...

The found of Bank Transfer day has claimed has claimed that the whole "day" was misunderstood. The idea was never to have a massive one day move from big banks to credit unions, but rather for the day, November 5, to be the deadline of a broader movement. It turns out that the movement actually had some heft behind it... According to ABC News, In October alone Credit Unions around the country gained 650,000 new customers and $4.5 billion were moved out of major banks. That is obviously a sliver of total bank deposits, but banks have been sent a...

Thirty major U.S. public companies, including San Francisco's PG&E Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., paid no federal taxes over the past three years, according to a report released Thursday. A number of them, notably Wells Fargo, also benefited greatly from various tax subsidies.

United Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard has a message to the flea party whiny-whiners still camping out instead of sleeping in their parents' basements -- playtime is over. Just in case the Occupy movement fails -- in other words, when it fails -- Gerard is urging union members to fill that gaping void with "more militancy." "And no wonder people are occupying. We oughta be doing more than occupying parks. We oughta start occupying bridges. We start oughta occupying the banks places themselves."

Banks: Using the Guy Fawkes mask emblem of Occupy Wall Street and the "Anonymous" hacker group, leftists are planning a big Nov. 5 to-do to pull their money from big banks and put it into small banks. It's economic idiocy. Led by the likes of MoveOn.org, Arianna Huffington and a supposed Los Angeles art gallery owner named Kristen Christian, the leftist game of "blame the banks" for the acts of Democratic politicians is coming together Friday — Guy Fawkes Day in England — in an extravaganza of events alternately titled "Bank Transfer Day,"

Gold is headed into the $2000s. The mess in Europe is incurable and can only be damage controlled by QE. MF Global got busted because credit default swaps did not work. MF Global had their Greek and Euro bond position covered by credit default swaps that they thought would protect them. SURPRISE! They did not work because the Greek situation of a 50% haircut was given another name than “default” by a select group of Banksters and related parties. 97% of all credit default swaps written are carried by the major US banks. That means 97% of all the credit...