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Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer’s $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's — and more than five times what the industry gave to any single Republican senator.

Democrat's $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer’s $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's — and more than five times what the industry gave to any single Republican senator. While the industry has scaled back its political spending in the wake of last year’s economic...

In the current Pasadena Star News editorial “The Trouble with Indy-Mac” the editors seem certain they know why Pasadena-based Indy-Mac bank fell in July 2008. Link here: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_13413518 And the story the editors tell probably fits pretty well with what the person in the street believes, which, of course, they mainly get from newspapers and broadcast media. Newspapers always seem to gravitate to telling people what they want to hear. And the public, hearing only secular explanations of the financial crisis in the mainstream media, tend to embrace that paradigm. Round and round it goes, but nobody seems to really...

One year after bank's failure, depositors fight on. BY ERIKA CHAVEZ Dozens of IndyMac Federal Bank customers who lost uninsured deposits after the bank's sudden failure last year rallied Monday to draw attention to their continuing plight. Members of the group, which organized online and numbers 250 people throughout California, gathered in front of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's West Coast satellite office in Irvine, braving the heat to make their voices heard. The goal: to persuade FDIC officials to reimburse their lost money and let consumers know that their savings might not be safe, despite the fact that the...

IndyMac died a year ago Saturday, the first major thrift to fail in the financial crisis. Its burial, marked by confusion, chaos, and a relatively sweet deal for a group of private equity titans, is unlikely to happen in the same manner today. The aftermath of IndyMac, since renamed OneWest Bank, is telling, and provides a stark illustration of how much things have changed in the course of a year.

Report says mortgage lenders helped fuel global economic crisisBy Kevin Smith, Staff Writer Posted: 05/06/2009 06:10:29 PM PDT PASADENA - A new report places failed mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc. among the top 25 lenders whose subprime loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown. In a study released Wednesday by the Center For Public Integrity, IndyMac ranked 14th on the list, with at least $26.4 billion in subprime loans issued. Collectively, the top 25 lenders were responsible for nearly $1 trillion in subprime loans, according to the report entitled "Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown." John Dunbar, project...

An Air Force One lookalike, the backup plane for the one regularly used by the president, flew low over parts of New York and New Jersey on Monday morning, accompanied by two F-16 fighters, so Air Force photographers could take pictures high above the New York harbor. But the exercise — conducted without any notification to the public — caused momentary panic in some quarters and led to the evacuation of several buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City. By the afternoon, the situation had turned into a political fuse box, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg saying that he was...

Former Indymac director who runs White Military Office gave thumbs up to criminally stupid fly-by. Heckuva job, Lou. Read »

...FlashBack So why a 30s style bank panic now? Why Indymac? Because the left hated them. Indymac has been in the crosshairs for some time. The trial lawyers started going after them about a month ago. Not long after that, Schumer started sending letters to regulators attacking Indymac, questioning the financial viability of a bank which he had never examined. Neither Schumer, nor any of his staff even bothered to contact Indymac with any questions. Unsatisfied with the response, Schumer leaked his letters to the press. The local paper in Pasadena (where the bank is located) played along, and ran...

<p>A top bank regulator has been placed on leave pending a Treasury Department investigation into regulators' approval of backdated cash infusions for troubled thrifts.</p> <p>The Office of Thrift Supervision said Thursday its acting director, Scott Polakoff, was placed on leave. He is being replaced by OTS Chief Counsel John Bowman.</p>

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said late Thursday it completed the sale of IndyMac Federal Bank, one of the largest casualties of the housing bust, to OneWest Bank. Pasadena, Calif.-based OneWest, a federal savings bank formed by an investor group that includes billionaire George Soros and Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell, agreed last December to purchase the failed California lender for $13.9 billion.

LOS ANGELES – Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said late Thursday it completed the sale of IndyMac Federal Bank, one of the largest casualties of the housing bust, to OneWest Bank. Pasadena, Calif.-based OneWest, a federal savings bank formed by an investor group that includes billionaire George Soros and Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell, agreed last December to purchase the failed California lender for $13.9 billion. OneWest will assume all deposits of IndyMac's 33 branches, which will reopen as branches of OneWest on Friday, with deposits continuing to be insured by the FDIC. As of Jan. 31, IndyMac had total assets...

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reached a preliminary agreement to sell the remains of IndyMac Bank -- one of the biggest bank failures in U.S. history -- to a team of high-profile investors, suggesting there is private money willing to invest in troubled banks if the government agrees to shoulder heavy losses. Bloomberg News/Landov Christopher Flowers The investment team, which includes affiliates of private-equity chieftain Christopher Flowers, hedge-fund investors George Soros and John Paulson, and computer mogul Michael Dell, will contribute $1.3 billion in capital toward a purchase of IndyMac Federal Bank. The investor group and the government...

WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. senator on Tuesday warned American International Group Inc. (AIG.N) employees to return bonuses they are receiving or face being slapped with a major tax on those payments. "They should voluntarily return them (the bonuses). If they don't we plan to tax virtually all of it," Senator Charles Schumer, a member of the Democratic leadership, said in a speech on the Senate floor. Schumer noted that AIG lost nearly $100 billion last year and is now being propped up by U.S. taxpayer funds. Providing performance bonuses to employees "Defines Alice in wonderland business...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California's attorney general is reviewing a request by former employees of IndyMac Bancorp Inc to investigate whether a New York senator triggered the bank's collapse by releasing confidential information. At issue is a much-publicized letter that Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, sent in June to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) and Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) questioning the company's ability to survive. The FDIC took control of IndyMac on July 11 after depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion over 11 days. It was the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history. At the time, OTS Director John Reich...

IndyMac will soon earn the first half of its name back. The government, which seized the failed bank last summer, is expected to close a deal in the next week that would return the California mortgage lender to private ownership. For IndyMac, the deal means independence in less than eight months. For the government, the IndyMac sale provides a shining example that takeovers can work at a time when the Obama administration may soon begin pushing for more nationalizations. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.) "The fact that the government ownership of IndyMac is coming to an...

The man at the center of a fraud scandal at the Treasury Department has been allowed to quietly quit and retire from his job as a government regulator, despite allegations that he allowed a bank to falsify financial records and amidst outcries from investigators who say the case shows how cozy government regulators have become with the banks and savings and loans they are supposed to be checking on.

New York Senator Charles Schumer proposed handing $15,000 of Joe the Plumber's money to every person who buys a home. It is possible that someone has come up with a more foolish idea, but no one had yet been able to find one that makes less sense. In addition to the fact that taxing non-home buyers to hand a really big check to home buyers (as opposed poor children, unemployed workers, or people needed health care) is a questionable redistribution of income (spreading the wealth around), this proposal is incredibly easy to game. I'm going to buy my brother's house...

Shoring Up Your Intellectual Defenses A likely feature of the political debate of the next few years will look something like this. Conservatives will make a specific argument about a specific public-policy dispute — say, NR's editorial today questioning the need and wisdom of appropriating the second half of the TARP funds — and liberals will then respond not with a meaningful rebuttal of the specific argument but instead with a general attack on conservative credibility. "Your free-market ideology led to the worst recession since the Great Depression," they will assert. "Why should we believe anything you say now?" Getting...

Darrel Dochow May Not Be the Only Official Who Helped Banks Hide Financial Problems A brewing fraud scandal at the Treasury Department may be worse than officials originally thought. Investigators probing how Treasury regulators allowed a bank to falsify financial records hiding its ill health have found at least three other instances of similar apparent fraud, sources tell ABC News. In at least one instance, investigators say, banking regulators actually approached the bank with the suggestion of falsifying deposit dates to satisfy banking rules -- even if it disguised the bank's health to the public. Treasury Department Inspector General Eric...

The FDIC has just announced that a consortium of private equity and hedge fund firms would be buying IndyMac. IndyMac was an independent "bridge bank" spun off of Countrywide Mortgage in the late 90s.  IndyMac acted as a "bridge bank" to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. New York Democrat Charles Shumer precipitated the fall of IndyMac in May of 2008 by releasing "inside" information that the mortgage company was in dire financial straits. This disclosure created the initial "bank run" that is credited by many economists as the initial trigger that prompted the current mortgage crisis. The FDIC took over...

A group of private investors agreed today to buy IndyMac Bank, the Pasadena specialist in exotic home loans that collapsed in July and became the third-largest bank to fail since the government began insuring deposits in 1934. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has run IndyMac since its collapse, said the bank would be purchased by IMB Management Holdings, a New York-based partnership led by buyout expert J. Christopher Flowers, hedge-fund operator John Paulson and Steven Mnuchin, chairman of private equity firm Dune Capital Management. IMB Management Holdings and the investor group will inject about $1.3 billion in new capital...

A private equity company led by former Goldman Sachs executives is the likely buyer of IndyMac Bank, according to a report published Friday. The winner of the bidding for the Pasadena-based thrift is New York-based Dune Capital Management, founded in 2004 by ex-Goldman partners Steven Mnuchin and Daniel Niedich, according to the report on the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter Web site.

One of the main US banking regulators allowed banks to backdate transactions so as to maintain "well capitalised" status and avoid regulatory restrictions, the Treasury department's watchdog arm has said. The practice came to light as part of a routine federal investigation into the failure of IndyMac, one of five lenders regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision to be wound down this year. IndyMac suffered a run on its $19bn (€13.6bn, £12.8bn) in customer deposits in July after Senator Chuck Schumer, chairman of Congress's joint economic committee, made public a letter he had written to regulators questioning the lender's...

A long-awaited sale of IndyMac Bank may be announced as early as today. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has been looking for a buyer, or buyers, for the Pasadena lender since the government declared it insolvent and seized it in July. Final bids were due by Dec. 12, and the FDIC said it expected to close a deal by the end of the year. The American Banker newspaper reported Tuesday that the announcement could come today.

A senior bank regulator was removed from his job after being accused of helping mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp alter its records so it appeared to be in better shape -- weeks before it was seized by the government. The Office of Thrift Supervision has reassigned its top West Coast official, Darrel Dochow, who was also a controversial figure in the regulatory lapses surrounding the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s. In a letter sent Monday to Sen. Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, the Treasury Department's inspector general wrote that the federal OTS allowed the bank...

Regulator in IndyMac case gets reassigned WASHINGTON (AP) -- A key senator questioned regulators' approval of a backdated cash infusion for IndyMac, a big thrift that failed in July and cost the federal insurance fund for banks nearly $9 billion. The official at the Office of Thrift Supervision who approved the action has been reassigned within the Treasury Department agency that oversees savings and loans. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said the "backdating" to March 31 of the $18 million capital injection into IndyMac by its parent company was done in May...

Feds Cite Schumer In Collapse Of IndyMac An important angle in the IndyMac failure that may get lost in ominous headlines tonight and tomorrow: federal regulators pointedly cited U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in explaining the bank's failure. In simple language, federal regulators blamed Schumer for a run on the bank.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer's public criticism of IndyMac Bancorp last summer, which critics say helped spark a run on deposits that took under the troubled thrift, came while IndyMac's assets were being eyed by investors who are major donors to the Democratic Senate campaign committee the senator chairs. Sen. Schumer, chairman of a Senate banking subcommittee, was criticized at the time for publicly raising questions about the bank's solvency and regulators' oversight of it. What wasn't known then was that a group of potential investors, led by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management LP, had been inside the bank looking...

The SEC has been issuing subpoenas for an investigation into rumor-driven market manipulation. Of course, Harry Reid stood up in broad daylight to talk about a troubled insurer "with a name that everyone knows," so his contribution was merely obtuse. And predictably destructive. The steep drop in the share prices of insurance companies Thursday destroyed wealth for uncounted middle-class investors holding onto stock in companies still considered healthy....It calls to mind Senator Chuck Schumer's public suggestion in July that troubled IndyMac Bank "could face collapse." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121607771017452513.html) It did, after a deposit run. Senator Schumer said criticizing his action was akin...

The federal takeover of IndyMac Bank over the weekend could cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8 billion. But Senator Chuck Schumer, who helped to precipitate the collapse by publicizing a letter to the bank's regulator last month, has no remorse. He was, he says, just doing his job in telling regulators that the bank "could face a collapse," a prophecy that quickly proved to be self-fulfilling. "It's what legislators are supposed to do," the New York Democrat told the Journal. Depositors who spent Monday trying to recover some of their money might beg to differ.

NEW YORK -- New York Sen. Charles Schumer won't face a California investigation into whether he helped fuel IndyMac Bancorp Inc.'s collapse by expressing concerns about the mortgage lender's soundness. The California Attorney General's office said in a letter Thursday that there was "insufficient evidence" to investigate Sen. Schumer.

Alleging misconduct, Artorius Castus and a number of private entities have filed papers with the SEC pushing for an investigation into the burgeoning IndyMac scandal. Next week, one these entities will be filing papers and producing evidence to the Department of Justice requesting an ivestigation into Schumer's leaked memo.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California's attorney general is reviewing a request by former employees of IndyMac Bancorp Inc to investigate whether a New York senator triggered the bank's collapse by releasing confidential information.

California mulls probing senator over IndyMac crashWed Aug 20, 2008 6:51pm EDT By John Poirier WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California's attorney general is reviewing a request by former employees of IndyMac Bancorp Inc to investigate whether a New York senator triggered the bank's collapse by releasing confidential information. At issue is a much-publicized letter that Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, sent in June to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) and Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) questioning the company's ability to survive. The FDIC took control of IndyMac on July 11 after depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion over 11 days. It...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - IndyMac Bancorp Inc (Other OTC:IDMC.PK - News), once one of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders, has filed for bankruptcy protection, less than three weeks after being seized by federal regulators following a bank run by depositors. The Pasadena, California-based company filed for Chapter 7 protection on Thursday with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Los Angeles, indicating it plans to liquidate. IndyMac expects the court to appoint a bankruptcy trustee promptly. IndyMac shares closed Thursday at 13.5 cents on the Pink Sheets. They are expected to be worthless.

As of Tuesday, July 15, crowds outside branches of the failed California bank IndyMac were getting ugly. On the second business day after federal agents seized control of bank assets and promised orderly restitution of FDIC-insured funds to IndyMac customers, large numbers of shocked depositors still had not been reimbursed. Those who had more than the FDIC-guaranteed $100,000 in IndyMac accounts were still awaiting word as to what portion of their life savings they could expect to see again. While bank failures are not particularly unusual even in the best of times, the IndyMac implosion has raised eyebrows worldwide for...

Left-wing pressure groups like the Center for Responsible Lending played a role in bringing down Indymac, according to commentator Jerry Bowyer. Around the same time Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) questioned the financial viability of the California-based bank, an event the Office of Thrift Supervision said gave "the bank a heart attack," the Center for Responsible Lending exacerbated the situation. As Bowyer writes: Indymac has been under attack from the hard left. The Center for Responsible Lending issued an attack on Indymac within a few days of Schumer's letter. CRL is part of a small army of left of center...

Don't blame Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., member of two influential banking committees - the Senate Finance Committee and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs - for IndyMac's collapse, says CNBC's Erin Burnett. Burnett, host of CNBC "Street Signs," disagreed with a claim by MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough that a letter to regulators from Schumer caused a run on the beleaguered bank IndyMac, which eventually led to its failure and takeover by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. "I don't think Chuck Schumer caused a run on the bank," Burnett said on MSNBC's July 24 "Morning Joe." "This...

25 signs of insolvency. ... And what can't be paid back will be defaulted on. If you didn't know it before, you do now: The entire US banking system is insolvent.

Why We Buy Into the Herd, Even When It's Not Good for Us By Michael S. Rosenwald Sunday, July 20, 2008; F01 After IndyMac Bancorp failed, customers waited in line for hours to collect their money. The police had to be called in to quell the mob. The scenes brought to mind dire moments from the Great Depression. This time, with satellite TV trucks parked outside the bank's branches, the world watched last week as our financial system took another body blow. On the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Web site, IndyMac customers were told: "If the balance in your account...

THERE is a story about a science professor giving a public lecture on the solar system. An elderly lady interrupts to claim that, contrary to his assertions about gravity, the world travels through the universe on the back of a giant turtle. “But what supports the turtle?” retorts the professor. “You can’t trick me,” says the woman. “It’s turtles all the way down.” The American financial system has started to look as logical as “turtles all the way down” this week. Only six months ago, politicians were counting on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the country’s mortgage giants, to bolster...

In politics the game always goes to the politician who can stick the blame on the other guy.  Sometimes, like New York Senator Charles Schumer, you can even nudge a bank into receivership.  Loose lips sink ships, Senator! When things go wrong for the Ins the Outs make hay deploring the "mistakes" of the Ins.  Then the Outs get in and the game starts all over again. Right now we are in the middle of a perfect storm of "mistakes."  There's the mortgage meltdown, the food crisis, the gasoline price spike, the IndyMac bank failure, Obama's flip-flops, and the granddaddy...

IndyMac has failed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been hobbled but kept alive by a government and Federal Reserve rescue. All of this happened just weeks after President Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson claimed that the worst of the credit crisis had passed. Don't believe anyone who tells you that the worst is over until the banks, insurance companies, investment funds and mortgage companies that hold securitized debts fess up to what those securities are actually worth. The problem isn't that the securities are illiquid, it's that the prices should be lower than the financial institutions are willing...

IndyMac bank run: A sign of things to come? HARRY KOZA Harry Koza is senior Canadian markets analyst at Thomson Financial and a columnist for GlobeinvestorGOLD.com. July 18, 2008 It was only a few months back that Northern Rock PLC made the headlines after hordes of depositors descended on the failing bank to demand their money. The story made front-page news around the world. Last week, the same thing happened to Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp, and over the weekend, the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) closed IndyMac and turned it over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). IndyMac...

Remember the American Dream? It had a roof on top. A door to happiness in its belly. And in some cases, a white-picket fence around its edges. Now homeownership and all its once-cherry-on-top privileges are on blue-light special: Bargain-basement dreams are in danger of turning into nightmares for millions of Americans, and it shows no sign of ending soon.

The demise of IndyMac, coming on the heels of Bear Stearns' desperate sale to JPMorgan Chase, is a sure sign of the fragility of today's markets. What's needed now, more than ever, is reliable information for investors and confidence that trading can be conducted without the illegal influence of manipulation.Because financial institutions depend on confidence, they are uniquely vulnerable in the current climate. A "run on the bank" can take hold quickly, and can be fatal. But stampedes are not always rational. When an irrational panic is fueled by a sense of urgency, false rumors that must be acted on...

WASHINGTON -- Failed lender IndyMac Bank is among nearly two dozen banks under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for possible mortgage fraud, U.S. officials said. The big Pasadena, Calif., bank was seized by regulators last week, the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history. It specialized in home loans to borrowers who lacked full documentation for their income or assets and have a higher default rate than other loans. The IndyMac investigation began shortly before the bank was seized last week, a law-enforcement official said.

Bank Run video

Drudge is reporting that the FBI has been investigating failed bank IndyMac for mortgage fraud in loans made to risky borrowers. Countrywide is also under investigation.