KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Tuesday December 20 Housing and Economic stories

Monday, December 19, 2011

Tuesday December 20 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Mortgages In Foreclosure Have Risen To An All-Time High - (www.businessinsider.com) From LPS Applied Analytics: LPS' Mortgage Monitor Report Shows Delinquencies Down Nearly 30 Percent from Peak, Foreclosure Inventory at an All-Time High: The October Mortgage Monitor report released by Lender Processing Services, Inc. (NYSE: LPS) shows mortgage delinquencies continue their decline, now nearly 30 percent off their January 2010 peak. Meanwhile, foreclosure inventories are on the rise, reaching an all-time high at the end of October of 4.29 percent of all active mortgages. The average days delinquent for loans in foreclosure extended as well, setting a new record of 631 days since last payment, while the average days delinquent for loans 90 or more days past due but not yet in foreclosure decreased for the second consecutive month.

Did banks illegally foreclose on 4,500 active-duty troops? - (www.mcclatchydc.com) The U.S. Treasury Department is investigating whether Bank of America, Wells Fargo and eight other major banks may have illegally foreclosed on about 4,500 active-duty servicemen and women. Bank of America has agreed to review more than 2,400 foreclosures of homeowners who indicated they were eligible for relief under a federal law called the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, according to the Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Wells Fargo has agreed to review 871 foreclosures of homeowners who indicated they were eligible under the act. The law is intended to postpone or suspend certain civil obligations to allow active-duty servicemembers to devote their full attention to their military duty. The other banks being investigated are Aurora Bank, Citibank, EverBank, HSBC, MetLife Bank, OneWest, Sovereign and U.S. Bank. Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., called the alleged improper foreclosures a "flagrant disregard for a law that has been on the books continuously since the First World War."

Hank Paulson Tipped Off The Goldman-Led "Plunge Protection Team" - (www.zerohedge.com) The gathering comprised some of Wall Street's most storied investors. Mindich, a former chief strategy officer of New York- based Goldman Sachs, started Eton Park in 2004 with $3.5 billion, at the time one of the biggest hedge-fund launches ever. [Dinakar] Singh, a former head of Goldman's proprietary-trading desk, also began his fund in 2004, in partnership with private- equity firm Texas Pacific Group Ltd. Lone Pine's [Stephen] Mandel worked as a retail analyst at Goldman before joining Julian Robertson's Tiger Management LLC, one of the most successful hedge funds of the 1980s and 1990s. He started his own firm in 1997. [Daniel] Och was co-head of U.S. equity trading at Goldman before founding Och-Ziff in 1994. The publicly listed firm managed $28.9 billion in November. One other Goldman Sachs alumnus was at the meeting: Frank Brosens, founder and principal of Taconic Capital Advisors LP, who worked at Goldman as an arbitrageur and who was a protege of Robert Rubin, who went on to become Treasury secretary. In other words the point of the meeting was nothing short of the former Goldman CEO telling all his former Goldman colleagues just what he was planning on doing in his capacity as Treasury Secretary.

How Wealthy are President Barack Obama and His Cabinet? - (www.opensecrets.org) President Barack Obama may be the leader of the free world, but he’s far from the wealthiest person in his cabinet, according to research by the Center for Responsive Politics. One of the many members of Obama's cabinet wealthier than he is his former presidential primary opponent and current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s estimated average net worth in 2010 was $31 million -- more than four times that of Obama’s $7.3 million -- making her among the wealthiest cabinet members. Even Obama’s chiefs of staff are worth more than he is -- current chief of staff Bill Daley 's average net worth was an estimated $28.7 million last year, while Daley's predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, had an average worth of about $11.4 million in 2010.

Banks cannot prove they own the loans - (deadlyclear.wordpress.com) In the recent filing November 9, 2011 of an Ohio case, Deutsche v. Holden, in the Court of Common Pleas in Summit County, (Akron) Ohio, defense attorneys submit that the note had not been transferred pursuant to the PSA therefore the foreclosing entity (Deutsche) did not own the note and mortgage. Holden‘s Motion to dismiss cites the November 16, 2010 Congressional Oversight Panel’s (COP) report titled “Examining the Consequences of Mortgage Irregularities for Financial Stability and Foreclosure Mitigation” as well as the PSA and New York trust law. Senator Ted Kaufman warned that the COP investigation found evidence that he stated as the worse case scenario, “considerably grimmer” where “robo-signers served to conceal the fact the banks cannot prove that they own the mortgage loans that they claim to own.”