Mortgage News Daily:

And how ’bout that $85 million Fifth Third settlement last month involving an appraiser that ratted out, uh, blew the whistle on, his former employer? (It isn’t a stretch to forecast that tattle-tales, uh, whistleblowers, are a likely threat to those who remain in MSAs.) Snide comments aside, many believe that this type of activity levels the playing field for companies above reproach. Dave Gallegos sent along this story from Isaac Peck. “In what many see as a win for appraisers, as well as those lenders and appraisal management companies (AMCs) that do follow the law, Fifth Third Bank has agreed to pay nearly $85 million as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The case deals primarily with fraudulent appraisal practices. The lead whistleblower in the case is George Mann, Fifth Third’s former chief appraiser.

“The settlement is the latest in…

Congress.. Living the thug life.. Can you imagine if you tell your boss that you are only working 111 days per year and the remainder of the year that you expect to be paid? I don’t think so. Your boss would show you to the door with a pink slip. Time for the American people to fire their Congress person, regardless of political party, who is not working for you.

Here is the 2016 Congressional calendar:

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s supervisory actions resulted in $107 million in relief to more than 238,000 consumers, according to the ninth edition of its Supervisory Highlights.

The report outlines the illegal practices uncovered by the bureau’s examiners from May 2015 to August 2015. Check here for coverage over the CFPB’s eighth edition.

During this period, the bureau found violations in the student loan servicing, mortgage origination and servicing, consumer reporting, and debt collection markets.

Read on.

Earlier this month, it was reported that less than two weeks before the economic collapse of 2008, several members of Congress took their money out of the stock market. Many high-ranking government employees were given a heads-up about the impending market crash in secret meetings with the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. Then they used that information to engage in insider trading.

It was revealed that Senator Shelley Capito and her husband sold $350,000 worth of Citigroup stock at $83 per share, just one day before the stock dropped to $64 per share. Another shady trader was Congressman Jim Moran, who had his biggest trading day of the year days after the secret meeting, sellings stock in nearly 100 different companies.

These actions would be illegal for any American in any other circumstance, but members of Congress and high-ranking government officials are actually exempt from insider trading laws.

According to a recent report from RealtyTrac, the state of New Jersey has more zombie foreclosures than any other, and now, the state’s two senators are asking why the problem is so bad and what can be done about it.

In a letter sent last week to the heads of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Reserve Board, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, theFederal Housing Finance Agency and others, Sens. Cory Booker, D-NJ, and Robert Menendez, D-NJ, say that the prevalence of zombie foreclosures in the state is seriously impacting the state’s residents and its economy, and they want to know what the federal regulators are going to do about it.

“One of the enduring lessons of the Great Recession and the resulting foreclosure crisis is that economic problems are not confined with the four walls of a home,” Booker and Menendez…

The chief executive officers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will have to wait two more weeks to see if Congress will vote to install limits on their compensation, after a busy Congressional calendar delayed a scheduled vote on the compensation packages of Fannie Mae CEO Timothy Mayopoulos and Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton.

The House of Representatives was due to vote last week on limiting the pay of the Fannie and Freddie CEOs, but that vote was delayed by a combined house budget vote, a vote on reopening the federal Export-Import Bank, and a vote on electing Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as the newSpeaker of the House.

Now, the vote on limiting the pay of the GSE CEOs is tentatively scheduled for the week of Nov. 16, according to the office of Rep. Ed Royce, R- Calif., who authored the House’s Equity in Government Compensation…

NY Times:

On Page 5 of a credit card contract used by American Express, beneath an explainer on interest rates and late fees, past the details about annual membership, is a clause that most customers probably miss. If cardholders have a problem with their account, American Express explains, the company “may elect to resolve any claim by individual arbitration.”

Those nine words are at the center of a far-reaching power play orchestrated by American corporations, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

By inserting individual arbitration clauses into a soaring number of consumer and employment contracts, companies like American Express devised a way to circumvent the courts and bar people from joining together in class-action lawsuits, realistically the only tool citizens have to fight illegal or deceitful business practices.