Free Beacon:

Here is a list of 31 fundraising events that have been put on or will be put on for the Clinton campaign by the financial industry since she started campaigning early last year:

April 28, 2015 in New York, New York, hosted by Richard Perry. Perry is CEO and president of Perry Capital, a hedge fund worth roughly $11 billion.

April 28, 2015 in New York, New York, hosted by Doug Teitelbaum. Teitelbaum is the founder of Homewood Capital, a private equity investment firm.

May 13, 2015 in New York, New York, hosted by Steve Rattner. Rattner is chairman of Willett Advisors, the investment arm of billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s personal and philanthropic assets. He previously worked at Morgan Stanley and founded his own investment firm, the Quadrangle Group.

May 13, 2015 in New York, New York, hosted by Marc Lasry. Lasry is president and CEO of Avenue Capital Group…

William K. Black
January 29, 2016     Bloomington, Minnesota
Revised January 30, 2016

I am writing to announce the formation of a new pro bono group and a policy initiative that we hope many of our readers will support and help publicize.  Gary Aguirre, Bill Black, Richard Bowen, and Michael Winston are the founding members of the Bank Whistleblowers United.  We are all from the general field of finance and we are all whistleblowers who are unemployable in finance and financial regulation because we spoke truth to power and committed the one unforgivable sin in finance and in Washington, D.C. – being repeatedly proved correct when the powerful are repeatedly proved wrong.

So here is my theory. Administrative findings have a presumption of validity. This fine is for continuing false, fraudulent and defective claims, like all the banks did. So it seems to me that the fine and the charges against JPM Chase constitute a finding of fact — the fact being that Chase is continuing to violate the law and is using fraudulent and defective claims against unsuspecting borrowers. Judges seem to be viewing this as a one-off — “You must owe the money to somebody so why not Chase?”

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In my opinion this presumption by the Judges needs to be challenged aggressively. But it gets easier as the evidence piles up with administrative agency findings that what the borrowers are saying is true. It seems to me that it is better and more credible to give a presumption of truth to the administrative findings of fact than the presumption…

The Intercept:

After Hillary Clinton spoke at a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday, I asked her if she would release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. She laughed and turned away.

Clinton has recently been on the defensive about the speaking fees she and her husband have collected. Those fees total over $125 million since 2001.

Her rival Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, has raised concerns in particular over the $675,000 she made from Goldman Sachs, an investment bank that has regularly used its influence with government officials to winfavorable policies.

And Hillary Clinton’s final day as Secretary of State was February 1, 2013. From Zerohedge,the following list is of her 92 private speeches raking in $21.7 million in just the past three years.

RICHMOND (KCBS) – Richmond city leaders were moving ahead with a plan to head off the foreclosure crisis, a plan that is not without controversy.

The city has offered to buy more than 600 underwater mortgages at below the homes’ current value.

“If they are unwilling to negotiate a sale of the loans, which we want them to do, then we will consider using eminent domain as another option topurchase these loans at fair market value,” said Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.

Read on.

TRENTON – Legislation died this month that would have let superstorm Sandy-impacted homeowners delay foreclosures and put off mortgage payments until 2019.

Gov. Chris Christie conditionally vetoed the proposal on the last day of the now-expired legislative session, and lawmakers didn’t take up his recommended changes. That means the idea must start the legislative process from the beginning if it is to become law.

People whose homes are being repaired or elevated and have been juggling rent payments and mortgage payments would have been able to apply to postpone mortgage payments for up to three years. Any foreclosure proceedings would have been delayed for three years, as well.

Christie’s conditional veto would have had judges, rather than the state Department of Community Affairs, decide whether to include a mortgage in the program. That’s how the idea was structured when it was originally advancing, but the details were changed in the…

Marketwatch:

1. My favorite cartoon this week sums up this problem nicely:

2. Here’s one for U.S. investors preparing for the expected weekend blizzard:

Criticism of US government leniency on Wall Street legal transgressions is now being covered widely – even by trade publications such as the National Mortgage Professional Magazine. On January 18, the trade publication ran an article about Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) condemning the most recent US government settlement with a “too-big-to-fail” financial firm, in this case Goldman Sachs, for illegal abuse of the mortgage market:

Sen. Warren used her Facebook page to denounce the agreement, noting that the settlement sum was “barely a fraction of the billions investors lost” while arguing that Goldman Sachs was not properly penalized for its actions.

“That’s not justice – it’s a white flag of surrender,” she wrote. “It’s time to end this farce. These companies think they’re above the law – and too many government officials go along with them. A first step would be to pass the bipartisan Truth in Settlements Act to…

Chinese officials predict economic turmoil for the global economy.  State Councillor Yang Jiechi told G-20 representatives in Beijing that recent volatility and “constant changes and intense transformations” will lead to unprecedented challenges to the world.  “It is not possible to completely discard the possibility that an economic crisis could once again take place, and the problem should not be neglected,” he said in the meeting, adding “preventing or reducing negative effects from countries’ domestic policy measures is a pressing task.”

A China Problem?

A growing number of analysts are fearful that a new economic downturn may gin, not because of a drag from the United States, but from disappointment in China. Prior to Yang’s comments, data from China’s 2015 two-way trade report showed that the country’s trade had fallen 8 percent on a year-over-year basis to $3.96 trillion, far below the 6 percent growth that the government had hoped for.