Free Republic

The Dodd-Frank Act goes on for 2,319 pages. Like Nancy Pelosi's "pass it to find out what's in the O'care Bill" statement, Senator Dodd said, "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done." The Wall Street Journal reported on July 14, 2010, just one week before Obama signed Dodd-Frank into law that it will "unleash the biggest wave of new federal financial rule-making...

The amount billed by Debevoise & Plimpton to write a 17-page letter on a new rule intended to rein in risky banking — around $100,000 — would make most authors jealous. That’s the fee just for parsing the proper definition of a bank-owned hedge fund. Longer and more complex regulatory missives, weighing in on who should be deemed too big to fail or how derivatives are traded, can easily cost twice as much. These comment letters could save Wall Street banks billions of dollars if they help persuade policy makers to adopt a more lenient interpretation of the coming rules....

The lawsuits against Bank of America are piling up. The latest comes from Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, which wants Bank of America Corp. to repurchase poorly-written mortgages sold by Countrywide Financial in 2005. Bank of America bought Countrywide Financial Corp. in 2008. The lawsuit, which was filed in New York on Monday, claims Countrywide sold U.S. Bancorp a pool of over 4,000 loans originally valued at $1.75 billion. U.S. Bancorp claims Countrywide ignored its own mortgage underwriting guidelines when issuing those loans. According to the complaint, Countrywide agreed to repurchase loans within 90 days if any of the statements made in...

The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday requested public comment on a proposed rule under Regulation Z that would require creditors to determine a consumer's ability to repay a mortgage before making the loan and would establish minimum mortgage underwriting standards. The revisions to the regulation, which implements the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), are being made pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The proposal would apply to ALL CONSUMER MORTGAGES(except home equity lines of credit, timeshare plans, reverse mortgages, or temporary loans).

Barack Obama Has Destroyed the Economy in Two-and-a-Half Years July 14, 2011 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "Boehner: Dealing With the White House 'Has Been Like Dealing With Jell-O' -- In a meeting with a small group of reporters in his Capitol Hill office this morning [he] criticized President Obama and White House officials for their lack of resolve in negotiations. 'Dealing with them the last couple months has been like dealing with Jell-o,' Boehner said. 'Some days it's firmer than others. Sometimes it's like they've left it out over night.' Boehner explained that talks broke down over the weekend because,...

The idea of such a bank has been around since the 1990s but has never gained significant attention until now. In March a bipartisan bill was introduced in the Senate that gained the support of the US Chamber of Commerce, America’s leading business lobby, and the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest labor federation — two groups on opposite sides of most debates. The BUILD Act, proposed by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Kay Hutchinson, R-Texas, and Mark Warner, D-Va., would create a national infrastructure bank that would provide loans and loan guarantees to encourage private investment in upgrading America’s infrastructure. There are...

New York soon will no longer be the financial capital of the world thanks to a hostile government that has served up a menu of punitive regulations aimed at driving big banks out of the country, says analyst Dick Bove. In his latest broadside against the post-crisis regulatory environment, Bove asserts that a recent spate of layoffs, particularly by Goldman Sachs, is just the latest sign that large financial institutions will have to take their operations overseas. The result, he says, will not be good both for New York and the nation. ... In the current climate, Bove says the...

Why is Goldman Sachs pre paring to outsource traders, salespeople and investment bankers from here in America, where it has made untold billions over the years as Wall Street's premier trading firm, to places like Singapore and India? The answer can be found largely in the 2,000-plus pages of last year's Dodd-Frank financial "reform" law -- which will eventually translate into some 40,000 pages of regulations. The financial industry is still frozen, waiting to find out how bad these regs will turn out; but what all the CEOs of the big banks know for sure is that it's about to...

Debit cards, a gleam in bankers' eyes 30 years ago, have become the preferred method for people to tap their bank accounts, a free and easy alternative to paper checks, live tellers or cash machines. U.S. shoppers used them 37 billion times last year, making them more popular than credit cards (19 billion transactions) and checks (18 billion), according to the payments newsletter Nilson Report. Another estimate puts the figure at 45 billion debits. But big changes are afoot that could make it much more expensive for consumers to use the cards. And with concern rising over data breaches, some...

For all those who believed that it was only JP Morgan who is manipulating the Brent-WTI spread, we regretfully have to inform you that the squid is once again front and center, having now been caught red-handed by none other than the ICE exchange, aka the home of Brent trading. From a just disclosed complaint: "On 28 January 2011 the Exchange’s monitoring detected six notable “price spikes” in the April11 Brent/WTI spread, between 14:26 hours and 14:31 hours UK time. These were investigated and found to be the result of a limit order and several large market orders placed in...

Report: "Reckless Endangerment"June 10, 2011 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Last night I promised that I would begin reading on my own a book, and I did: "Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon." It's by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner (he might pronounce it Rose-ner), and Gretchen is a business writer for the New York Times. I have to confess, before I knew anything of the book or knew anything of the contents of the book, simply because she was at the New York Times I figured it was going to have an obviously left-wing slant...

Senate panel discusses state of small banks. * Smaller banks post lower earnings compared to big rivals. Community bankers on Wednesday pressed lawmakers to make sure the new Wall Street financial reform law does not inadvertently crush their businesses. Small-bank representatives said last year's Dodd-Frank reform law does not do enough to spare them from costly regulations or level the playing field with banking behemoths such as Bank of America (BAC.N) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N). "The cumulative burden of hundreds of new or revised regulations may be a weight too great for many smaller banks to bear," Tommy Whittaker, president...

The Dodd Frank Act does not boast many friends in the financial industry. It does not take much asking around to find a banker who believes that its architects – senators Chris Dodd and Barney Frank – have contributed to many firms’ marked difficulties in reaching return on equity targets. three critical problems with the legislation: artificial deadlines, the rule-making process, and, above all, the ongoing budget stalemate in the US. Although the act contains over 2,000 pages, it is, in many ways, more remarkable for what did not make it into the text. Rather than lay down prescriptions for...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Senate will soon issue findings of a probe of the US mortgage meltdown that fueled the global financial crisis, with Goldman Sachs likely to face fresh embarrassment over its role, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose high-profile inquiry commission subpoenaed Goldman's and other executives last year, is due to release its report on the subprime implosion of 2007 and 2008. The paper, citing people familiar with the matter, said the report was expected to release emails from securities firms that developed or sold subprime mortgages and financial vehicles including...

Former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, a veteran Washington insider, is Hollywood's new chief lobbyist. The Motion Picture Assn. of America said Tuesday that Dodd will become the new chief executive of the MPAA, the lobbying arm for the main studios that also oversees the film ratings system. Dodd succeeds Dan Glickman, a former Kansas congressman and Secretary of Agriculture, who stepped down a year ago after five years on the job. Dodd will pull down more than $1.5 million in salary, 25% greater than the $1.2 million Glickman received.

Angelo Mozilo, former boss of Countrywide Financial, has been charged with civil fraud and insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He is the highest profile executive to face charges relating to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2007. --snip-- Mr Mozilo has denied doing anything wrong. Two other former executives have also been charged with civil fraud. --snip -- The SEC published extracts from e-mails sent by Mr Mozilo. "The bottom line is that we are flying blind on how these loans will perform in a stressed environment of higher unemployment, reduced values and slowing home sales," he...

The Securites Exchange Commission (SEC) formally charged former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo and two other company executives with civil fraud. The SEC also charged Mozilo with illegal insider trading, an agency spokesman said Thursday. Civil fraud charges also were filed against Countrywide's former Chief Operating Officer David Sambol and ex-Chief Financial Officer Eric Sieracki. Countrywide Financial, the California-based mortgage lender, was a key component to the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007, which was the beginning of the financial decline and current recession in the U.S. Mozilo is the most high-profile individual to face formal charges from the federal government...

House Democrats Lock GOP Out of Committee Room A bitter divide over Countrywide mortgage scandal. By JAMES FREEMAN Democratic staff for the House oversight committee informed their GOP counterparts today that the majority has changed the locks on the committee's hearing room. While Republicans previously enjoyed their own key to the room, they will now have to request access from Democrats. This followed a bitter partisan argument in which Republicans refused to take down a video from their website that contradicted Dem explanations about a closed-door meeting on the Countrywide VIP loan scandal. As we reported last week, the committee...

U.S. drops criminal probe of former Countrywide chief Angelo MoziloBy E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times February 18, 2011, 4:11 p.m. Federal prosecutors have shelved a criminal investigation of Angelo R. Mozilo after determining that his actions in the mortgage meltdown — which led to $67.5-million settlement against him — did not amount to criminal wrongdoing. As the former chairman of Countrywide Financial Corp., Mozilo helped fuel the boom in risky subprime loans that led to the crippling of the banking industry and the near-collapse of the financial system. A federal grand jury in Los Angeles began probing Mozilo in...

Issa demands details on Countrywide's VIP loan programBy Peter Schroeder - 02/16/11 06:31 PM ET Bank of America will have to turn over all documents and records tied to Countrywide Financial's VIP lending program after House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) issued a subpoena for them Wednesday. Issa announced the far-reaching subpoena, his first as chairman of the panel, and made clear that he wanted to know specifically what public employees or elected officials may have benefited from the program. Issa is looking for all documents about the program, and is particularly interested in what "covered borrowers" were involved...