And former Congressman Barney Frank disagree with some of Bernie Sanders’ stance of breaking up the banks and the Glass-Steagall and defended Hillary Clinton’ Wall Street reform plan. But, what I find interesting from Chris Hayes’ interview with Frank is that Congressman Frank stated that Lehman Brothers was an investment banks and Glass-Steagall would not have helped Lehman.

Yes, Lehman Brothers was an investment firm but what Congressman Frank left out from the interview is that Lehman Brothers had a subprime mortgage company called BNC Mortgage and Aurora Loan Services LLC:

Lehman Brothers took an ownership stake in BNC in 2000 and acquired the lender in 2003. Founded in 1995, BNC Mortgage had its initial public offering in 1998. Two years later, BNCM Acquisition, a group including the company’s top managers, took the company private. In 2004, one of its partial owners, Lehman Brothers, bought it. In addition to…

Bloomberg:

China’s stock exchanges closed at 9:59 a.m. local time, just 29 minutes after markets opened, as the CSI 300 Index fell more than 7 percent. Trading was halted for half that time after a 5 percent drop triggered an earlier suspension. China’s markets are normally open from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a 90 minute break in the middle.

The Housing Justice Foundation website:

Dual Tracking, which occurs when a mortgage servicer continues to pursue foreclosure even after loan modification negotiations with the homeowner have begun, remains a destructive and wide-spread industry practice. While the loan modification process can result in mortgages avoiding default, it is too often the case that homeowners find themselves caught between two departments of the same servicer, leading to uncertainty and miscommunication.

Here is an example of the straightforward work of Activist Ron Gillis, who has fought lender abuses and fraud since 2008, and has been filing amicus briefs in cases of dual tracking. This example could prove to be a useful template or resource for those experiencing similar issues.

A debtor can bring suit in federal court to challenge collection practices under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for a debt that has been discharged in bankruptcy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Monday.

Overturning a lower court, the Second Circuit said plaintiff debtor Donna Garfield is not precluded by bankruptcy law from suing in district court on claims under the act (FDCPA) after her discharge in bankruptcy.

In Garfield v. Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC, 15-527, Judges Jon Newman, Ralph Winter and Jose Cabranes reversed Western District Judge Elizabeth Wolford, who had held Garfield could only seek relief in bankruptcy court.

Garfield failed to make payments on a mortgage for the home she obtained from Ocwen’s predecessor-in-interest, and she filed for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in 2009. She obtained a discharge of her personal obligation for the loan in August 2013, agreeing to pay…

Housingwire:

On Tuesday, Sanders again took on the Fed in a wide-ranging speech on Wall Street and the economy, but the Fed got off easy compared to the rest of Wall Street, especially the country’s biggest banks.

In his speech, Sanders detailed just how different life would be for the “too big to fail” banks under a Sanders administration. In fact, there would be no life for the “too big to fail” banks if Sanders is elected president, only death.

In the speech, Sanders said “if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”

According to Sanders, in his first 100 days as President, he would order the secretary of the Treasury Department to establish a “too big to fail” list of “commercial banks, shadow banks and insurance companies whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk to the United States economy without a taxpayer bailout.”

see http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-mortgage-meltdown-20151229-story.html

The article in the above link pretty much says it all. It highlights two movies — The Big Short and 99 Lives — to show the proliferation of scams that enabled the government and the banks to make it appear that there was government intervention. Like securitization, servicing, and trusteeship of fake trusts, it was and remains a complete illusion.

The bitter truth is that the Banks intentionally convoluted their scheme such that it would take intensive study, experience, training and knowledge to even pierce the first layer of their bogus scheme based mostly on a conventional Ponzi Scheme. Practically nobody in government, law enforcement or anyone else was willing to invest the time and energy. I am currently writing my own book designed to help people understand but more importantly what they can do about their situation when some stranger comes to evict them from their home.