WGN TV:

CHICAGO — The Chicago Teachers Union closes accounts at the main Bank of America in the Loop on Wednesday. The union claims it’s an institution that’s adding to the budget crisis.

This is the latest move as the union and CPS battle over a new contract.

The union had more than $700,000 in the Bank of America at 135 S. LaSalle. It’s protesting against the bank’s so-called toxic interest rate swap deals with CPS.

SAN FRANCISCO — Wells Fargo must defend itself against a class-action lawsuit brought by homeowners who accuse the banking giant of failing to modify mortgages that the residents sought to change amid the foreclosure crisis unleashed by the Great Recession, attorneys said Tuesday.

The plaintiffs in the case believe that Wells Fargo did not keep the promises it had made to homeowners in terms of modifying the terms and conditions of their mortgages.

Read on.

William K. Black
February 2, 2016     Bloomington, MN

It is time to break out one of our two family rules again – it is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody.  How fraudulent is finance even now?  The Wall Street Journal reports that “big money managers” want to bring back “liar’s loans.”  I am trying to write much shorter columns, so there will be many columns in this series because the WSJ article so beautifully exemplifies the lies that the industry and the media told about liar’s loans before and after 2008.

Spoiler alert:  liar’s loans, as the name admits, are pervasively fraudulent.  Only fraudulent lenders make liar’s loans as a regular business practice.  These home loans make the officers wealthy through the “sure thing” of the “fraud recipe” for “accounting control fraud.” The WSJ, of course, ignores these facts and presents instead falsehoods provided by fraudulent officers.

The following is a script from “Anonymous, Inc.” which aired on Jan. 31, 2016. Steve Kroft is the correspondent. Graham Messick and Kevin Livelli, producers.

If you like crime dramas and movies with international intrigue, then you probably have a basic understanding of money laundering. It’s how dictators, drug dealers, corrupt politicians, and other crooks avoid getting caught by transforming their ill-gotten gains into assets that appear to be legitimate.

They do it by moving the dirty money through a maze of dummy corporations and offshore bank accounts that conceal their identity and the source of the funds.

And most of it would never happen without the help — witting or unwitting — of lawyers, accountants and incorporators; the people who actually create these anonymous shell companies and help move the money. In fact, the U.S. has become one of the most popular places in the world to do it.

When you’re going through the often-tedious process of refinancing your mortgage, getting some bad information can only serve to make things worse. That’s why a West Virginia woman is suing Wells Fargo, alleging that the bank told her to stop making loan payments then put her into collections and foreclosure.

For the second time in just over six months, First Tennessee Bank, the regional bank for First Horizon National, is settling with the federal government over allegations that it violated U.S. lending laws.

In June 2015, First Tennessee Bank agreed to pay $212.5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by “knowingly originating and underwriting mortgage loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration that did not meet applicable requirements.”

That settlement resolved allegations that First Tennessee failed to comply with FHA origination, underwriting and quality control requirements.

As part of the settlement, First Tennessee admitted that from January 2006 through October 2008, it “repeatedly certified” for FHA insurance mortgage loans that did not meet the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s underwriting requirements.

Read on.

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.