Yup,  a brought and paid for Congress. Congress might as well have an office for Wall Street… The corporation and Wall Street own Washington.

The acrimony that erupted Thursday between President Obama and members of his own party largely pivoted on a single item in a 1,600-page piece of legislation to keep the government funded: Should banks be allowed to make risky investments using taxpayer-backed money?

The very idea was abhorrent to many Democrats on Capitol Hill. And some were stunned that the White House would support the bill with that provision intact, given that it would erase a key provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, one of Obama’s signature achievements.

But perhaps even more outrageous to Democrats was that the language in the bill appeared to come directly from the pens of lobbyists at the nation’s biggest banks, aides said. The provision was so important to the profits…

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Patricia Brown seemed to be living in a bad dream that she couldn’t wake up from. The North Buffalo widow’s house on Edge Park Avenue had been sold at a city foreclosure auction to pay the back property taxes.

With help from family members, Brown paid her bills, even those from City Hall, “Every time a bill came I would pay it, and I’ve done that for my whole life,” said Brown, “There is never anything that I would not pay, because you are supposed to.”

But Brown’s daughter Debra Nasca obtained records showing the property tax bills, and the subsequent foreclosure notices were sent to Pat’s previous address, not the address on Edge Park Avenue, “Losing her house would have been devastating–she would have died.”

Faced with losing her mom’s home that the city auctioned off for less than half of what the property is…

(Reuters) – The New York banking regulator is investigating if Deutsche Bank (>> Deutsche Bank AG) and Barclays Plc (>> Barclays PLC) used algorithms on their trading platforms to manipulate foreign exchange rates, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Benjamin Lawsky, the head of New York’s Department of Financial Services (DFS), has ordered a monitor to be installed at Deutsche Bank and already has one in place at Barclays – a move that will allow him to collect greater evidence of alleged manipulation, said the source who did not want to be named.

Deutsche Bank spokeswoman Renee Calabro declined to comment but cited an earlier statement on the probes.

“Deutsche Bank has received requests for information from regulatory authorities that are investigating trading in the foreign exchange market. The Bank is cooperating with those investigations,” Calabro said, quoting the earlier statement.

Read on.

Executives at the biggest U.S. banks are sharing notes with each other before their next round of tests with federal regulators.

WASHINGTON — Just in time for Christmas, a massive $577 billion defense-authorization bill headed for a vote in the Senate next week is packed with goodies that have nothing to do with national security.

One provision pushes forward a National Women’s History Museum in Washington, DC — long advocated by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).

Also tucked in the bill are pet projects that would establish a Harriet Tubman national historic park in Auburn, NY, and study the creation of federal historic sites in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan.

In all, more than a quarter of the 1,648-page defense bill is dedicated to federal land-use projects, angering some conservatives upset that a critical defense bill is slathered with pork projects.

Sen. Tom Coburn ­(R-Okla.) tweeted that Congress was sneaking through “hundreds of millions worth of pork into unrelated Defense bill via backroom deals.”

He used the hashtag #SecretSanta to drive home the…

Zerohedge:

Suspected metals fraud in China sparked claims of betrayal by both U.S. bank Citigroup and trade house Mercuria over who would absorb about $270 million in exposure to financing deals, a London court heard this week.

The dispute:

Mercuria held copper and aluminium in Chinese warehouses and agreed a series of deals that were effective loans from Citi using the metal as collateral.

Under the repurchasing agreements, or repos, Citi agreed to purchase metal from Mercuria before selling it back at a slightly higher price to include interest on the effective loans.

The two groups were in the midst of several repo deals when the potential fraud in China was uncovered in warehouses in both Qingdao and Penglai. Citi demanded early repayment of the repos and Mercuria refused.

As Bloomberg reports,

Citigroup was in a “state of panic” when alleged fraud was uncovered in two Chinese ports…

Approximately one million homeowners whose mortgage has already been modified under the Home Affordable Modification Program are now eligible for increased benefits as the government continues its push to aid struggling homeowners.

Under the modified HAMP guidelines, announced Thursday in a joint statement by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, all homeowners in the HAMP program will now be eligible to earn an additional $5,000 in the sixth year of their modification.

Prior to the change, homeowners in the HAMP program were eligible to earn up to $5,000 over the first five years of their modification, which is applied in repayment of their outstanding principal balance.

The newly established guidelines will provide an additional $5,000 to borrowers in the sixth year, which will allow borrowers to reduce their outstanding principal balance by as much as $10,000.

Read on.

WASHINGTON — Wall Street lobbyists are trying to secure taxpayer backing for many derivatives trades as part of budget talks to avert a government shutdown.

According to multiple Democratic sources, banks are pushing hard to include the controversial provision in funding legislation that would keep the government operating after Dec. 11. Top negotiators in the House are taking the derivatives provision seriously, and may include it in the final bill, the sources said.

The bank perks are not a traditional budget item. They would allow financial institutions to trade certain financial derivatives from subsidiaries that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — potentially putting taxpayers on the hook for losses caused by the risky contracts. Big Wall Street banks had typically traded derivatives from these FDIC-backed units, but the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law required them to move many of the transactions to other subsidiaries that are not…

Benjamin Lawsky, a relatively unknown New York State regulator, has put the fast-growing non-bank mortgage servicing industry’s business model in jeopardy. Look no further than Ocwen Financial for proof of a servicing segment that remains marred in uncertainty.

Ocwen is reeling following a dispute with Lawsky that killed a promising a $39 billion acquisition of Wells Fargo’s servicing rights. News of the cancelled deal in mid-November sent the company’s shares down as much as 67 percent from their 52-week high. The stock has recovered slightly, but is still off more than 50 percent from a December 2013 high of $58.07.

Now, investors are left wondering whether the servicer – likened to a shark – will be allowed to continue feeding on new mortgages.

Read on.

This is not a surprise to me as I was told by a financial analyst in the ’90’s that there would be four banks that would control the GDP in this country. Wells Fargo and Bank of America were the ones mentioned.

The wreckage of the financial crisis led to pages upon pages of financial reform aimed at ending the era of Too Big To Fail, but six years after the banking system blew up the five biggest firms control 44% of the $15.3 trillion in assets held by U.S. banks according to data compiledby SNL Financial. Those banks — JPMorgan ChaseJPM-0.42%, Bank of AmericaBAC-0.67%, Wells FargoWFC+0.11%, CitigroupC-0.31% and US BancorpUSB+0.23% — collectively held $6.8 trillion in assets as of Sept. 30.

JPMorgan holds just over $2 trillion in assets, or 13.1% of the industry’s total…