Curbing Wall Street
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Miller Harkin Act to Save Direct Lending
March 12th, 2010
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With word that Six Senators were expressing opposition to putting direct lending in the budget bill reconciliation -- which only requires sixty votes to pass the Senate -- Rep George Miller, Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, and Tom Harkin, Chair of the Senate Education Committe, got to work. more » Featured Issues
How Too-Big-To-Fail Bank Lobbyists Captured Washington
The financial services industry is spending more than $1 million a day fighting reforms in Congress, using a revolving door of former lawmakers, congressional aides and government officials. We name names and pull their activities out of the shadows.
Read our investigative report » ... more »
Wall Street Showdown: Main Street Fights Back
Now that the Senate is beginning floor debate on a financial reform bill, the push is on to make the bill stronger, identify the obstructionists and rebut the arguments against robust reform. We are tracking the Senate debate with reporting, commentary and research from our blog team and other progressive media sources.
» FACT SHEET: Essentials for Real Financial Reform... more »
Senate Financial Reform Fight: Obstructionists Stall Reform
Forty-one senators blocked debate on a financial reform bill April 26. Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson joined 40 Republicans in voting to obstruct forward movement on changes that would prevent a recurrence of the conditions that led to the current recession and an unprecedented Wall Street bailout. We are identifying those who are standing in the way of reform and debunking their arguments.... more »
The Facts
Big Bank Takeover
Throughout the financial reform debate, the finance industry has waged an unprecedented assault on the democratic process, spending an estimated $1.4 million per day to influence Congress and hiring 70 members of Congress and 940 former federal employees to lobby on their behalf. Many of the current big-bank lobbyists were architects of the too-big-to-fail banking regime while they were employed in Congress or elsewhere in the federal government. They are now drawing lucrative salaries from the banking behemoths they helped create and are scoring victories that assure the continued existence of Wall Street’s casinos, despite the threat they pose to the American economy.more »
The News
Robert Borosage is quoted in The Washington Post on Wall Street's Influence in the White House
January 6th, 2011
Roger Hickey quoted in USA Today
January 6th, 2011
The Case
Why Millions Won’t Get Help From Big Mortgage Settlement
The Obama administration is billing today's $25 billion agreement between most states and five banks that engaged in flawed or deceptive practices as a big win for struggling homeowners. Most of the money in the settlement isn't a penalty, or a fine levied on the banks. Instead, the biggest slice of the settlement will be money banks put toward principal reduction -- reducing the amount owed by struggling or underwater borrowers. (Banks will also put smaller amounts toward refinancing and other ways of helping people get back in control of spiraling debt.) Getting a break on their mortgages could help the millions of homeowners who owe more on their home than it is worth. But many of them won't qualify — thanks to government-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.more »
The Mortgage Deal with the Devil
The long-awaited mortgage deal between the federal government, 49 state attorneys general, and five big banks that was announced Thursday is pretty thin gruel, but it could have been a lot worse. The Obama administration dearly wanted this deal so that it could demonstrate greater help for homeowners and, in turn, relieve the damaging impact of the housing collapse on the economic recovery. The administration’s main programs to date, the Home Affordable Mortgage Program and later the Home Affordable Refinance Program have been notable failures because they were voluntary to the banks. The actual relief under this latest deal is a drop in the bucket measured against the $700 billion by which mortgages are underwater. The best thing that can be said for the deal is that it could be a down payment for much deeper homeowner relief, if state attorneys general and the newly activated federal prosecutorial task force get serious about bigger criminal and civil suits against banks.more »
Latest from our Bloggers
feb
10
2012
2:53 pm
2:53 pm
This week a $25 billion settlement was announced in which big banks pay up for a portion of their bad deeds in the home foreclosure crisis. Everyone is trying to determine whether this is a good deal or a bad deal.
Here is how I score it. This deal represents small progress on a small problem. Now it's time to make big progress on the big problem.
feb
9
2012
11:31 am
11:31 am
The Federal government and the Attorneys General from 49 states have signed a deal with five major banks over charges of fraud, including reported acts of widespread perjury and forgery, in the so-called “robo-signing” scandal.
A few days ago we suggested that any deal be scored against five basic principles: openness, justice, restitution, deterrence, and reconciliation. It's clear that this deal falls short in every category. The best thing that can be said about it is that, thanks to a few tough holdouts led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman, it now allows additional civil and criminal investigations to proceed.
That's far from nothing, and it could be a big deal. But it will only be a big deal if the Administration stops coddling banks and devotes a lot more resources to helping homeowners and upholding justice.
Up to now, the fight has been to prevent the Administration from doing another cushy bank deal. Now that the door's been left open to further action, there's a new fight: to demand that they devote the Federal government's resources to investigating Wall Street crime.
Our own scoring of the agreement follows, based on the criteria we set out last week. Others may have a different opinion. But now that the deal's done, the way forward is clear. To paraphrase Joe Hill, don't mourn or celebrate: Organize. more »
feb
9
2012
10:40 am
10:40 am
The bank settlement of $25 billion over three years from five major banks for robo-signing forgeries is being hailed in Washington and more »
feb
8
2012
4:05 pm
4:05 pm
Dear Self-Described "Producer": I received your hate mail this morning. Thank you for emerging from your self-creating illusion long enough to write it.. I particularly enjoyed your oblique references to the John Galt character in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, who isn't acknowledged enough nowadays for his special role: Galt may be the most long-winded and incoherent crybaby in literary history.more »
feb
7
2012
9:34 pm
9:34 pm
A Missouri grand jury handed down multiple felony indictments for foreclosure fraud on Monday. That's the same kind of crime being negotiated in nationwide settlement talks with America's big banks. If people can be indicted for doing it, why should bankers be allowed to write a check and walk away?
"Robo-signing" is the nickname that's been given to the practice of hiring large groups of inexperienced workers (they called them "Burger King Kids" at JPMorgan Chase) to file false statements with local courts in order to process foreclosures. In a typical "robo-signing," someone who sign a statement testifying that they had personally reviewed documents that prove the bank has title to a home that's being foreclosed - and might do that many times every hour. That's either perjury or forgery, depending on the way in which the robo-signing was done.
Forgery and perjury are serious crimes. It's an even more serious crime to ask others to do it for you.
Banks, and some friendly and lazy journalists, were quick to dismiss the whole issue as a "paperwork problem." If robo-signing is a "paperwork problem," then the St. Valentine's Day Massacre was a "misplaced bullet problem." more »
feb
7
2012
3:55 pm
3:55 pm
Just in case you missed the news, "Insider trading" is back. It's even bipartisan. Well, the truth is that it never really went away after its heyday during the 1980s, when Gordon Gekko served as a stand-in for era villains like Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky. It launched more investigations in the 1990s than at any other time, except for the 1980s.
In the "aughts," the names and players changed, but the "inside game" remains the same. Now, Raj Rajaratnam and Martha Stewart serve as stand-ins for Milken and Boesky. Gekko even returned to the scene, getting out of prison little more than year before Rajaratnam began serving his own prison sentence. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney could even be called a stand-in for Gordon Gekko, in the 2012 presidential election. (But Newt Gingrich could be a runner-up for that spot.)
Not only are insider trading and inside traders back, but they're not just on Wall Street anymore. They're all over Capitol Hill, and apparently have been for a while. Naturally, now that it's news, there's a bill to ban congressional insider trading —the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act, a/k/a the STOCK Act.
feb
6
2012
2:47 pm
2:47 pm
Once again we're hearing that a foreclosure fraud deal is about to be announced between major banks, the US government, and most or all of the states. We've heard that before, only to have the deadline pushed back so that holdout Attorneys General can be brought on board with the agreement.
Deal, or no deal? We're not sure, but it's certainly possible we'll hear something today, tonight, or tomorrow.
How will we know if it's a good deal for the American people? After all, this is an issue with a lot of moving parts. It includes all of the states and multiple agencies within the Federal government, and involves a multitude of allegations involving several different kinds of crime that come under different jurisdictions. Even the statutes of limitations are a moving target.
That doesn't mean we don't know enough to judge the deal, if and when it's announced. There are well-established facts to guide us, and the principles involved are clear. more »
