deducer
Bronze Member
Deducer,
I am intimately familiar with what lead to the real estate crash and the equally stupid Dodd Frank legislation that followed. I can (and may) write a book exposing the truth of what happened.
George Bush and company had little to nothing to do with it. Although they did enjoy the propped up false economy in its hay day. Look to Bill Clinton and Barney Frank for your top sources. This is the frame work that made legalized thievery of the less fortunate a global enterprise. Bill and Barney are just the big names but they are far from alone in making the situation possible.
In the lending industry there is A paper (prime), B paper (average) and C & D paper. I forbid my sales personnel from chasing C & D paper. And we made good money and enjoyed top market shares without it. I told everyone that would listen and forced many to face the unfaceable. To no avail. They were in too deep to turn back.
But that didn't keep my independent agents from working that business. When they failed, I as principal, got literally truck loads of files with C & D paper to work through and make some sort of sense out of. Usually with State insurance commissioners and regulations breathing down my back. Within those files were the HUD-1 settlement statements showing the charges collected and rolled into the loans. The propped up appraisals and justifications. It was probably the most heartbreaking experience of my career.
The rape and pillage of our most vulnerable was truly a sin. And practiced by hoards of "real estate professionals" at all levels. Scum of the earth. Not just the banks, Banks were the cows tail in the deal and lightweights in the act. Why folks didn't go to jail is a mystery to me. Although it would have exposed the real reasons that set up the practices that legalized out and out thief and left our securities worthless. As wells as wreaked the very fiber of our middle class net worth.
And; to make matters worse......for all the huff and puff of Dodd/Frank and its ginormous regulations that do nothing to provide real safety and do much to set up feel good but useless regulations, the practices are coming back strong. I see it every day gradually raising its ugly head. Those profit margins are just too good to resist.
So......go ahead and tell me all about the financial crisis. I got time.
I'm sorry, but the statement "banks were the cows tails in the deal and lightweights in the act" is completely erroneous. The banks, especially big banks, were front and center in the housing crisis- they are the ones who bullied their way into the housing market and leveraged it to the hilt by buying up mortgages in bulk and CDO'ing them and passing them off as "safe" using that chicanery called the credit default swap as "insurance," making them attractive to conservative investors in the way of paying more yield than say, treasury notes. These investors then wanted more of those securities, which sent the big banks scurrying back to buying whatever mortgages remained to repackage, and when that ran out, they then came up with that infamous "sub-prime mortgage" scheme which was the beginning of the end.
And of course, these banks got bailed out at the taxpayer’s expense. Meanwhile, subprime mortgages were not forgiven. Foreclosures were not reversed. People still had to keep on paying toxic mortgages such as ARM’s which ballooned once the interest-only payment period ended.
And to add insult to injury, these banks continue to foreclose on houses long after the crisis- and one of them, OneWest Bank was famous for tossing people out on holidays, foreclosing on a 89 year old widow, and foreclosing four times as much in communities of color. They foreclosed on a record 36,000 homeowners.
By the way, do you know who the person was who oversaw operations at OneWest Bank? It was Steve Mnuchin, the “foreclosure machine.”
Who is the president-elect’s choice as the treasury secretary? None other than Steven Mnuchin, the foreclosure machine.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the president-elect has just called for escalating the nuclear arms race. What is this? 1951?
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