Die, Bank of America

[hondo]

http://consumerist.com/2013/06/17/former-staffers-bank-of-america-rewarded-us-for-lying-to-homeowners-losing-paperwork-denying-modifications/

If just a smidge of this is true, Bank of America execs should occupy their own little circle of hell.

Swine. It's **** like this that keep pushing me away from the Republican party.

 

[old_tony]

Why does a Bank behaving badly reflect on the Republican Party? Just curious.

 

[LongTimeListener]

GAH! I AGREE WITH TONY!!!!!!

Obama hasn't done anything but talked tough and taken their money in campaign contributions. Unleash Elizabeth Warren and we can talk, but until then it's bipartisan failure and the #1 example of what money can do in Washington.

 

[old_tony]

GAH! I AGREE WITH TONY!!!!!!

 

[hondo]

GAH! I AGREE WITH TONY!!!!!!

Because all of the bad economic **** started on W's watch, that's why. And how many Democrats do you think are in the hierarchy of Bank of America?

 

[Starman]

I switched banks TWICE to get away from BOA. Both times they bought up the new bank.

I am in the process of switching to a CU to get away from them altogether.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

My mother and my wife each had BofA accounts, with myself as the secondary owner for both. Several times, my mom would put deposits in her account, only to discover that the money ended up in my wife's account.

Several times, we had to go to our local branch, which told us to contact the national hotline number. So Mom does that, and is told, "Why don't you have your son or your daughter-in-law write you out a check." Mom blew up, told them that it was their own damn fault, and why should we correct something that they screwed up, multiple times. She switched banks.

 

[deskslave]

HSBC has just been penalized in New York for basically stalling the loan modification process for months on end by failing to file the paperwork to put the legal process in motion, often with the result that by the time the process did start, the loan holders were no longer eligible for modifications.

They all do it, in other words. And they have enablers on both sides of the U.S. political aisle. But there really can't be any question on which side of that aisle more of those enablers are to be found. The perception that the Republican Party is the party that defends the banks is incomplete, to be sure. But it's also not entirely inaccurate.

 

[cyclingwriter]

I switched banks TWICE to get away from BOA. Both times they bought up the new bank.

I am in the process of switching to a CU to get away from them altogether.

I did the same thing. Terrible bank.

 

[hondo]

HSBC has just been penalized in New York for basically stalling the loan modification process for months on end by failing to file the paperwork to put the legal process in motion, often with the result that by the time the process did start, the loan holders were no longer eligible for modifications.

They all do it, in other words. And they have enablers on both sides of the U.S. political aisle. But there really can't be any question on which side of that aisle more of those enablers are to be found. The perception that the Republican Party is the party that defends the banks is incomplete, to be sure. But it's also not entirely inaccurate.

You're right. Politicians and bankers on both sides are swine.

 

[The Big Ragu]

HSBC has just been penalized in New York for basically stalling the loan modification process for months on end by failing to file the paperwork to put the legal process in motion, often with the result that by the time the process did start, the loan holders were no longer eligible for modifications.

They all do it, in other words. And they have enablers on both sides of the U.S. political aisle. But there really can't be any question on which side of that aisle more of those enablers are to be found. The perception that the Republican Party is the party that defends the banks is incomplete, to be sure. But it's also not entirely inaccurate.

You're write. Politicians and bankers on both sides are swine.

There are no winners here.

All of the supposed victims are people who had defaulted on loans. You could take out a loan you should have known you couldn't afford, never made a payment, and been living there for, say, two years in default and have been eligible for this subsidy the rest of us pay for.

Bank of America made some of the worst loans prior to the housing collapse, and was in particularly bad financial shape in the aftermath. It should have never been bailed out at our expense, and should have gone belly up. Thank a corrupt government for giving them preference.

By the same token, we shouldn't have "loan modification" programs that are essentially the same thing. If you took out a foolish loan and defaulted, or if you made a risk-reward calculation (in which case you are fully aware of the risk of default and the consequences going in, and had calculated the chances of you defaulting given your financial situation) and chose to take the risk, you shouldn't be bailed out at the expense of everyone else.

 

[LongTimeListener]

It's too bad that Bloomberg cover was such racist trash, because the story connected to it was excellent and predicted the current "resurgence" in the housing market. We are doing many of the same things.

 

[The Big Ragu]

It's too bad that Bloomberg cover was such racist trash, because the story connected to it was excellent and predicted the current "resurgence" in the housing market. We are doing many of the same things.

Our Federal Reserve has more than $3.5 trillion in assets on its balance sheet that it will never be able to unload, and it has been creating false prosperity and several new asset bubbles -- similar to what led to the housing collapse the Fed helped cause in the first place.

Among it, is $1.2 trillion in mortgage-backed securities that the Fed has been buying up as part of QE3. It is the biggest holder of government-backed mortgage bonds -- and it is singlehandedly keeping interest rates artificially fixed low by trying to stoke "economic recovery" that has not been reaching main street five years later anyhow. The money it is creating out of thin air has simply been propping stocks up and creating a false prosperity in the housing market. We still haven't replaced half the jobs lost during the collapse -- REAL economic recovery.

The real purpose here, though, really has little to do with economic recovery. It is to try to inflate away the debt created by our politicians through all the corruption -- with more corruption. Destroying our currency. Our debt is three times what it was before the housing crisis, but our interest government payments are the same thanks to our central bank selling out our future. It is playing a reckless game of trying to inflate away the spiraling debt by loading up its balance sheet with bonds that there is no market for without them propping up these markets and keeping interest rates low to allow your Congressman to keep at it. The minute they step out -- or this reckless game catches up to them (and it has to at some point), interest rates are going through the roof, and we will have a whole new collapse with our government finally dealing with a serious fiscal crisis we can't kick down the road anymore.

You CAN NOT keep interest rates at zero artificially and be out there buying $85 billion in bonds every month to trying to suppress rates, WITHOUT creating inflation -- either inflation that is not being measured by the CPI or a ****storm that is going to be unleashed on the country when we have to finally pay the piper.

Keep in mind, the Fed does not hedge that MBS position. When (and it will be a matter of when -- regardless of whether a Fed Chairman wants it or not) rates spike, it is going to be a mess. The Fed now owns more than 20 percent of all agency mortgage bonds. A decade ago it owned zero. When the market implodes, it is going to be holding the bag and we will all pay the price.

 

[LongTimeListener]

I agree. I think.