1.) Inouye and other Senate dinosaurs make one last mad hobble for cash register — “In the waning days of the lame duck congressional session, Democrats controlling the Senate — in collaboration with a handful of old school Republicans — are pushing to wrap $1.27 trillion worth of unfinished budget work into a single ‘omnibus’ appropriations bill,” reports the AP. Sen. Jim DeMint hates this bill so much that he has threatened to read all 1,900 pages aloud if his colleagues do not make it smaller. To that end, a small contingent of fiscal guerillas are hoping to address the federal budget in the new year, when reinforcements will have arrived from Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Utah, and Kentucky. Until then, it’s DeMint, McCain, and Coburn attempting to hold back a red sea of pork. Their efforts are not completely futile. After requesting an earmark for the Kentucky National Guard to eradicate the most valuable cash crop in the United States, Sen. Mitch McConnell suddenly realized that he is not supposed to be spending other people’s money willy-nilly anymore, and had the earmark removed. “This is exactly what the American people said Nov. 2 they didn’t want us to do,” a chastened McConnell said. (more)
Great news, folks! The over-leveraged government-run debt manufacturer known as Freddie Mac has finally fixed its mortgage calculator! (more)
Elizabeth Warren, America’s working-class warrior who Time Magazine-dubbed “The Sheriff of Wall Street,” has revealed her strategy for preventing another catastrophic financial meltdown — the former Harvard Law professor is going to put out an open call to working class America for tips. (more)
It was an important night for the partners: Their leader would deliver the eagerly awaited State of the Firm report. While the great unwashed would perceive him as a rather dull, normal accountant type, the partners knew this was a man who would cut his best friend’s throat for an extra 10,000 shares of preferred stock. In other words, the perfect man to lead their firm. (more)
Florida Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene has had to spend a lot of time talking about how he made his money, who he used to hang around with, and his past “lifestyle.” The latest questions are about his boat – and specifically what used to happen on it. (more)
RIDGECREST, Calif. — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene says he had nothing to do with creating the subprime mortgage mess that made him fabulously wealthy. (more)
MIAMI — When Jeff Greene, a k a the Meltdown Mogul, recently brought his Democratic campaign for the United States Senate to a poor Miami neighborhood rife with the kinds of subprime mortgages that he became a billionaire betting against, did he: (more)
Mortgage rates have sunk to the lowest level in more than five decades, but consumers aren’t rushing to refinance their loans or buy homes. Mortgage company Freddie Mac says the average rate for 30-year fixed loans sank to 4.58 percent this week. (more)
“Re·cid·i·vism [ri-ˈsi-də-ˌvi-zəm] noun: a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior; especially: relapse into criminal behavior.”—Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration’s flagship effort to help people in danger of losing their homes is falling flat. (more)
Jeff Greene got rich betting against the real estate market. Now he’s hoping to get elected to the Senate from a state whose economy has been devastated by the collapse of that very market. (more)
In a party-line, 56-to-43 vote Tuesday, Senate Democrats blocked any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the corrupt, government-backed mortgage giants that even administration officials admit were at the “core” of “what went wrong” in the financial crisis. (more)
Anti-bank rhetoric may be all the rage, but there are 19 billion reasons why taxpayers should redirect their anger toward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lawmakers who keep bailing them out and the news media that refuse to report it. (more)
To implement its agenda, Team Obama develops a narrative according to its needs. Then they send the marching orders out to their brethren in the media, who faithfully run stories sympathetic to the goal du jour. “Deal with us or we take you down,” Obama tells his targets in his best Chicago-style politico-speak. “If you are not at the table with us, you are on the menu.” (more)
Has Goldman Sachs done something wrong? Do their synthetic collateralized debt obligations pose a systemic risk? If so, what should we do about it? (more)
Plutocracy, rule by the rich, is not named for Pluto, god of death, but his spoiled son, Plutus, the personification of wealth. The juxtaposition of a dead economy and bank billionaires makes this lineage apt. (more)
The Obama administration and Congressional leaders are pushing a Trojan-horse financial “reform” bill that would enrich the wealthy and powerful investment bank Goldman Sachs, which was recently cited for massive fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). That’s the discovery of John Berlau, who won the National Press Club’s Sandy Hume Memorial Award for exposing the conflicts of interest of a former IRS Commissioner. (more)
In late 2005, the booming U.S. housing market seemed to be slowing. The Federal Reserve had begun raising interest rates. Subprime mortgage company shares were falling. Investors began to balk at buying complex mortgage securities. The housing bubble, which had propelled a historic growth in home prices, seemed poised to deflate. And if it had, the great financial crisis of 2008, which produced the Great Recession of 2008-09, might have come sooner and been less severe. (more)
Regulators failed for years to properly supervise the giant savings and loan Washington Mutual, even as the company wobbled under the weight of risky subprime mortgages, a federal investigation has concluded. (more)
A growing chorus of voices has recently been echoing the same refrain: the Obama foreclosure prevention plan has been a failure. This should be no surprise since the Obama plan, from its very beginnings, ignored the primary drivers of default: negative equity coupled with unemployment. But the solution being proffered—mortgage write-downs—is simply another dead-end. Forgiveness, either through bankruptcy courts or the Treasury, will encourage additional delinquencies, not less. The most direct way to reduce foreclosures is expecting those borrowers who can pay their mortgages to do so, regardless of the value of their homes. We need to bring back recourse, allowing lenders to seek repayment from all of a borrower’s assets, not just the collateral behind a loan. (more)
