Let me make a rare statement: I agree with just about everything Richard Shelby said in his call for an investigation of mortgage servicers. The Federal Banking Regulators should immediately review the mortgage servicing and foreclosure activities of Ally Financial, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America. The regulators should determine exactly what occurred at [...]

Remember WhereIsTheNote? In the face of mounting evidence that the banks foreclosing on homes did not comply with legal requirements during securitization of mortgages and therefore don’t have legal standing to foreclose, the SEIU and some community organizations teamed together last month to create an online tool that anyone can use to ask their mortgage [...]

This whole title insurance thing is getting confusing. Fidelity National Financial Inc., the largest U.S. title insurer, canceled a requirement for lenders to guarantee proper foreclosure procedures amid “heightened review” processes by banks. The company won’t require an indemnity agreement before insuring individual foreclosed properties, according to a memorandum to employees yesterday. It will continue [...]

The other day, I noted that Administration claims that they were helpless to affect what they now depict as loan servicers’ “sloppiness” but what really amounts to fraud ignores their decision to stop pushing for cramdown–and with it, leverage over the loan servicers. I think (though I’m less sure of this) they’re ignoring one other [...]

The Federal Housing Administration Commissioner, David Stevens, has joined David Axelrod in stating that the Administration sees no reason to halt all foreclosures. That’s not a surprise in itself–it was pretty clear that Axe’s statement reflected official Administration policy. But I’m particularly interested in how Stevens justified this position in an email sent to the [...]

I have long maintained that we will eventually learn that Citibank took over where BCCI and then Riggs Bank left off: serving as a money laundering vehicle used by drug cartels and other organized crime, terrorists, and spooks. But this article (h/t scribe) on the role of big banks in laundering Mexican drug money reports [...]

New York City District Attorney Robert Morgenthau lands a broadside Morgenthau on the Federal oversight and investigation of financial fraud. Morgenthau’s criticism has important implications in light of the recent travails on Wall Street, including powerful allegations currently lodged against Goldman Sachs.

Tim Geithner is now instructing publicly traded companies to hide data about their financial health.

The evidence mounts that Citi and Bank of America are so stressed they couldn’t make it through earnings season honestly.

Ken Lewis let Merrill Lynch aware $3 billion dollars in bonuses just as Bank of America–with financial support of you and I–took over Merrill Lynch. Which, in itself, is reason why Lewis deserves to be fired at least as much as Rick Wagoner.