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nytimes.com — Just a few months after completing an historic settlement with the Big Banks for foreclosure abuses, states are already raiding the settlement money to close budget gaps.

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washingtonpost.com — Wall Street ties complicate the politically touchy search for economic adviser

By Peter Wallsten and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 2, 2011; 7:32 PM

President Obama is expected to name a new chief economic adviser as early as this week, but the months-long search process has proven difficult and politically touchy......

And even some in the administration have suggested appointing a person with a business pedigree rather than a background primarily in academia or government....

"It's a big concern when there are these high-level advisers who have been marinated in the industry," said Robert Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future.

....
The criticism from the left reflects a broader tension between Obama and liberals over his economic agenda and the makeup of his policy team.

Summers, the former president of Harvard University, received about $5.2 million in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the year before he entered government, and he also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from major financial institutions.

Some liberals had hoped the financial regulation bill that passed last year would have done more to curtail the size and power of large banks and put more severe limits on their activities, such as operating hedge funds.

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usatoday.com — President Obama named William Daley as his new chief of staff.

"It would be nice if one of these appointments didn't have a Wall Street connection," says Roger Hickey of the liberal group Campaign for America's Future.

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wonkroom.thinkprogress.org — Since the foreclosure fraud scandal — in which banks were caught allowing “robo-signers” to approve potentially fraudulent foreclosure forms — first hit the national airwaves, Wall Street banks have been trying to downplay the extent of the problem, claiming that it only has to do with paperwork mistakes and not a compete disregard for due process and property rights. Wells Fargo and Citigroup both refused to implement foreclosure moratoriums despite their associations with robo-signers, and Bank of America and Ally Financial have both lifted their respective moratoriums.

Epitomizing the banks’ attempt to turn this into a story about mistaken paperwork — and not one about improperly throwing people out of their homes — Bank of America has come forth with an admission that it made “some mistakes” in its foreclosure process, but insists that they are “relatively minor”

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thenation.com — To avoid angering the public and their investors, some corporate interests are going to great lengths to hide their political spending. These companies have dumped money into nonprofits and trade associations that often have innocuous names like Americans for Job Security or Revere America, but in reality serve to shield donors from accountability for their spending in our elections. This activity was greatly enhanced by the Supreme Court's now infamous Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates for unlimited and anonymous corporate spending in our elections

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dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com — Felix G. Rohatyn, one of Wall Street’s last old wise-men, was sitting in his office at Lazard overlooking the Empire State Building on Monday morning.

At 82, Mr. Rohatyn has quite a history: he helped save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s, advised RJR Nabisco on its sale to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in the 1980s and sold Columbia Pictures to Sony in the 1990s before becoming ambassador to France under President Bill Clinton. In the last decade, he returned to Wall Street, first to Lehman Brothers and now to his longtime home, Lazard.

Mr. Rohatyn, whose revealing memoir, “Dealings: A Political and Financial Life” (Simon & Schuster), comes out in two weeks, is a proud man and has a lot to be proud of.

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huffpostfund.org — Nearly a dozen major banks and hedge funds, anticipating quick profits from homeowners who fall behind on property taxes, are quietly plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into businesses that collect the debts, tack on escalating fees and threaten to foreclose on the homes of those who fail to pay.

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huffingtonpost.com — In the rush to foreclosure, the banks and even government officials have been taking the position that the borrower/homeowners are fully to blame for the situations they find themselves in and that the paperwork technicalities just need to be worked out in order for there to be a just outcome, which is to say, a foreclosure.

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cepr.net — The Washington Post appears to have outdone itself in a discussion of the politics surrounding the foreclosure crisis. For beginners, it told readers that:

"Reviving the economy requires repairing the housing market."

What does the Post possibly think it means by this statement? Does it mean that reviving the economy means re-inflating the housing bubble? That's a novel economic theory. Maybe they should find an economist who won't laugh at it.

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online.wsj.com — As banks restart foreclosures they had suspended, bondholders are stepping up efforts to recoup losses on soured mortgage portfolios amid concern about sloppy mortgage servicing and underwriting practices.
In a letter Monday, a group of institutional bond investors raised objections to the handling of 115 bond deals issued by affiliates of Countrywide Financial Corp., acquired by Bank of America Corp. in 2008.

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