WSJ: FHFA approves principal reduction plan

After years of speculation and equivocation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will begin to cut the mortgage balances for a number of homeowners later this year, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal report, written by Joe Light, states that the Federal Housing Finance Agency recently approved a plan for the government-sponsored enterprises to engage in principal reduction on a large scale for the first time since the housing crisis.

For years their leaders claimed this would never happen. They all said the GSEs were in conservatorship, not receivership, and so a reduction in asset values would be counterintuitive to that status.

Perhaps this is why the scale of the reduction program is not as significant as some might expect, as Light reports.

From the WSJ:

Fewer than 50,000 “underwater” homeowners, who owe more than…

see http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/id=1202752360518/Defense-Questions-Courts-Silence-on-Standing-in-Foreclosure-Cases?mcode=0&curindex=0&curpage=ALL

Sometimes you need to take a risk when you believe passionately enough about something. Mark Stopa who has broken  ground several times in defense of foreclosures is among those lawyers who are challenging the Florida 3rd DCA. Tom Ice has joined him in complaining about PCA opinions from the 3rd DCA. It seems this appellate court is refusing to give opinions or guidance on key elements of the foreclosure suits filed by “strangers” to the action. And the way they are doing it is by issuing rulings that merely say “Per Curium Affirmed” (“PCA”) in favor of the banks. Thus the appellate panel avoids getting into the complex issues involved with the false securitization of mortgage loans. This District Court of Appeal is steadfastly avoiding giving their rationale, reasoning or basis for their ruling leaving virtually all lawyers within their district with zero guidance on what to tell…

Banksters: Living the thug life…

Here are each CEOs pay ranked from smallest to largest, according to the article:

Perhaps trying to burnish his legacy on financial reform, President Obama has recently trumpeted his signature steps to transform Wall Street in the years since the financial crisis that confronted him as he began his term eight years ago.

But there are reasons to doubt that his efforts will have the profound effect he hopes they will.

After a March 7 meeting at the White House with the top Wall Street regulators, including Janet L. Yellen, the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Obama praised the Dodd-Frank reform law, the Volcker Rule that seeks to prevent proprietary trading and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is intended to make the world as safe from bad mortgages as it is from bad toasters.

“I want to emphasize this because it is popular in the media, in political discourse — both on the left and the right — to…

Senior House Financial Services Committee member, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) told a conference of bankers Wednesday morning that they needed to “find a way to neuter” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, according to Politico. Luetkemeyer was at an American Bankers Association conference in Washington when he made the remark, also calling Warren “the Darth Vader of the financial services world.”

According to Allied Progress, Luetkemeyer is an old friend to the banking and predatory lending industry, receiving more than $1 million in campaign donations from the industry.

He’s also scored more than $63,000 from predatory payday lenders which Senator Warren sought to put out of business with a bill she proposed in 2014 that would replace them with the United States Post Office. Nearly one in ten service members end up taking out loans from these sketchy lenders with high interest rates and end up crushed under the weight of…

Now that’s a start…

(Reuters) – Shareholders of J.P.Morgan Chase & Co (>> JPMorgan Chase & Co.) and Citigroup Inc (>> Citigroup Inc) will get to vote on whether the two banks should break up into smaller pieces, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The question will be included in their proxy filings, and voted on at a shareholder meeting later this year, the Journal reported.

The vote was requested by Bartlett Naylor, a shareholder in both Citigroup and J.P. Morgan, according to the Journal.

J.P.Morgan declined to comment, while Citi was not immediately available for comment.

The breakup of large banks into smaller ones has been an ongoing issue in the U.S. campaign trail.

Read on.

Jeoffrey Jenkins, a former employee of Wells Fargo Bank, and Vaughn Chambers, a former employee of SunTrust Bank, were sentenced for their roles in a two-year long tax refund fraud scheme that generated hundreds of false tax returns and sought more than $2.8 million in fraudulent tax refunds.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Jenkins and Chambers, both bank employees, stole personally identifying information from bank customers and used that information to open bank accounts to receive the fraudulent tax refunds.

Read on.