Dog bites man, I know, but read this piece from ProPublica’s Paul Kiel on how Nevada “dramatically expanded” its lawsuit today against BofA/Countrywide:
Nevada’s attorney general charges that Bank of America and the now-defunct mortgage giant Countrywide acquired by the bank in 2008, deceived borrowers and investors at almost every stage of the process.According to the suit, borrowers were duped into unaffordable loans and then victimized again through a misleading mortgage modification program that homeowners tried to use to avoid foreclosure. Finally, the bank filed fraudulent documents to move forward with the foreclosures.
“Taken together and separately, [Bank of America’s] deceptive practices have resulted in an explosion of delinquencies and unauthorized and unnecessary foreclosures in the state of Nevada,” the suit alleges.
Gretchen Morgenson on the Nevada suit:
In her filing, Ms. Masto contends that Bank of America raised interest rates on troubled borrowers when modifying their loans even though the bank had promised in the settlement to lower them. The bank also failed to provide loan modifications to qualified homeowners as required under the deal, improperly proceeded with foreclosures even as borrowers’ modification requests were pending and failed to meet the settlement’s 60-day requirement on granting new loan terms, instead allowing months and in some cases more than a year to go by with no resolution, the filing says…
One worker said in a deposition cited in the complaint that employees were punished if they spent more than seven minutes or 10 minutes with a customer. Even though these limits allowed almost no time for assistance, Bank of America employees who did not curtail their conversations with troubled borrowers were reprimanded or fired, this employee said.
Then there’s Lauren Tara LaCapra’s Reuters scoop that Bank of America knew for seven months that AIG was weighing a massive lawsuit against it for seven months but didn’t tell investors.
Oh yeah, and U.S. Bank wants a piece too. It said today it’s suing Bank of America over a $1.75 billion pool of toxic loans because it was misled on more than two-thirds of the loans.
It is obvious that we need to loosen the regulations on the banks and other financial institutions. Bank of America had its hands tied by excessive regulation. If only we had Phil Gramm's vision of absolute deregulation. It least we have heroes like Pete Hoekstra wanting to dismantle Dodd-Frank so that we will unbound Prometheus and have the economy soar like we did in 2006-07-08. We could create ten of jobs. All those people at B. of A. and Wall Street could afford their own car detailers. That B. of A. would fire people for not explaining mortgage provisions to their customers is just the type of whiny, nanny-state crapola that we need more of. Why should we worry about another financial meltdown?
#1 Posted by Bob not the Builder, CJR on Wed 31 Aug 2011 at 02:01 PM
"Boyd also raises questions about whether the Defense Department has been overpaying for Blackboard’s software."
Yes, but the DoD overpays for every contract.
How? Why?
One reason is that, by law, the DoD can not be audited. Another reason is this.
"The Naval War College pays $100.55 per student—far more than what other colleges pay. Interesting."
Interesting indeed. Now, how about we draw a conclusion?
Let's see. (1) The federal govt intervenes in said market by, among other ways, contracting out companies such as Blackboard; (2) Blackboard appears to be overvalued in relation to what the market would suggest.
Looks like the typical results of market intervention (a.k.a., manipulation, predation, etc.) by the federal govt: eliminating competition, driving up cost, destroying the price mechanism, lowering efficiency, and on.
#2 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 1 Sep 2011 at 03:04 AM
It's the same commie/liberal mantra we get from Ryan all the time..
The government is paying too much for something... So blame the vendor.
Don't blame the 74 GS-15's who sign-off on the contract. Don't blame the government for meddling in the market.
The answer, I'm sure, is to form a few new government agencies and hire a few more bureaucrats.. That'll knock the price down, right? Or better yet, just have the government take over the companies, and then everyone will get everything for free.
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Thu 1 Sep 2011 at 01:03 PM