On a side note: Lehman Brothers was turned down by then NY Fed President Tim Geithner to be a bank holding institution yet Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were not turned down. If Lehman was not turned down, like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, Lehman would have received a bailout…

The collapse of Lehman Brothers in a record-setting bankruptcy could have been avoided, but the political will was lacking at the Federal Reserve to rescue the troubled investment bank, according to newly published research.

“Fed officials have not been transparent about the Lehman crisis. Their explanations for their actions rest on flawed economic and legal reasoning and dubious factual claims,” says Laurence M. Ball, chairman of the economics department at Johns Hopkins University and author of the report.

Lehman’s $639 billion bankruptcy filing occurred as a bubble in the U.S. housing market contracted from a 2006 peak. The U.S. economy…

By William Hudson

The number of Americans that own a home has fallen to its lowest recorded level ever. The second quarter of 2016, reflected that the non-seasonally adjusted homeownership rate fell to 62.9 percent, the same percentage reflected when the U.S. Census began tracking homeownership rates back in 1965.

Since the recession, and through the Obama presidency, the percentage of Americans that own a home has decreased significantly. The American middle class is now a minority- for the first time ever. Homeownership and consumer demand are driven by the middleclass purchaser who holds a middle class job. The United States economy is suffering from income stagnation, flat wages, and inflated consumer and home prices. The average median household income of only $51,939 only goes so far after half of that income goes to some type of tax.

An after tax salary of 30k doesn’t buy much, and forget any…

David Dayen

July 28 2016, 10:38 a.m.

And yes, Wall Street and big corporation donors are crawling around at the DNC event. Money needs to be out of politics for good. And a definite NO for Hamilton “Tony” James, Blackstone COO, for U.S. Treasury head if there is a Clinton Administration!!! Great reporting, David!

Blackstone, the giant Wall Street private equity firm, will hold an invitation-only reception before the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The event, at the swanky Barnes Foundation art museum, includes the usual perks for attendees: free food, drink, and complimentary shuttle buses to the final night of the convention.

What’s unusual is that the host is precisely the kind of “shadow banker” that Hillary Clinton has singled out as needing more regulation in her rhetoric about getting tough on Wall Street.

But Blackstone President and Chief Operating Officer Hamilton “Tony” James doesn’t seem…

The problem for everyone involved is that in reality the investors made nothing and merely received a portion of their own money as though it had come from the trust. But it didn’t come from the trust because the trust didn’t even have a bank account. If the banks had disclosed the truth of the matter the investors would have known this is a Ponzi scheme. Imagine what would happen if someone claimed sub S treatment when the corporation they had formed did no business, had no bank account and never had any business activity, never had any assets or liabilities and never had any income or expenses.

It is official that Hillary Clinton had clinched the nomination for President. But, this roll call vote for Larry Sanders, Bernie Sanders, who cast the final vote as a representative of Democrats living abroad was very emotional. Yes, Bernie Sanders has lost the Presidential nomination. But the media tend to forget that candidates have family and parents too and may have been the first of their family to run for President or any other public office position. Indeed, any parent would be proud of his or her child that wanted to make a difference in this world.

Huffington Post:

“I want to read, before this convention, the names of our parents, Ely Sanders and Dorothy Sanders,” said Larry. “They did not have easy lives, and they died young. They would be immensely proud of their son and his accomplishments. They loved him.”

“They loved the new deal of Franklin Roosevelt and…

The bank has agreed to pay $335 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has preliminarily approved a settlement of a lawsuit brought by Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System against Bank of America over the bank’s mortgage-back securities program.

The lawsuit, originally filed in 2011, claims the defendant violated federal securities law by allegedly misrepresenting and concealing the magnitude of the bank’s potential exposure to demands to repurchase mortgage-backed securities that had been sold by Bank of America and Countrywide Financial Corporation, and about alleged risks to the Bank arising from its use of and reliance on a national database that tracks changes in mortgage servicing rights and beneficial ownership interest in loans secured by residential real estate. The lawsuit claims the misrepresentations caused Bank of America stock to trade at…

The court held that the FDCPA unambiguously requires any debt collector – first or subsequent – to send a section 1692g(a) validation notice within five days of its first communication with a consumer in connection with the collection of any debt.

Judges are thinking the unthinkable — that none of the trusts ever acquired anything and that the foreclosures were and are a sham.

It isn’t “theory. It is facts, or rather the absence of facts.

As shown in the two articles by Jeff Barnes below, we are obviously reaching the tipping point. First, the presentation of a Trust instrument means nothing if there is no proof the trust was active — and in particular actually purchased the subject loan. And Second, Judges will deny all objections to discovery and will rule for the borrower if the Trust did not acquire the loan.

In ruling this way the two Judges — thousands of miles apart — are obviously recognizing that the long standing bank objection to borrowers’ defenses based…

By The Lending Lies Team

The Goldman’s bought their house months prior to 9/11. For a decade before they had been able to supplement their income by restoring old homes and returning them to their original condition. On average they netted about 27k a home after taxes and expenses. They were so credit-worthy they were granted signature loan status.

Then 9/11 occurred and the markets froze. All of a sudden the Goldman’s had two homes and couldn’t sell either.   Within six months the markets started correcting and although they had gotten behind on their payments they had enough equity in each property- that they could have sold the homes and paid the banks back in full. The banks had different plans.

In fact, the servicer didn’t want to work with the Goldmans- they wanted their homes. The Goldman’s could easily make good on both loans with a little assistance based…