Nom de Plumber is a Nom de Plume

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First read this: Obama: Subprime lending immoral, not illegal

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Demonizing un-repaid lenders as immoral while sanctifying delinquent borrowers as innocent victims, such sure-fire means to discourage the credit creation vital for economic growth.

Thank you.

I am attending the Chicago MBA.   email signup  Receive MNC in RSS news reader

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Inspector General: FHFA Was Aware of Robo-Signing and Other Abuses - BY: CARRIE BAY - DS News 
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(more than Twist?) Bernanke Testifies: Fed Is Prepared To Do More, "The Economy Is Close To Faltering" - Simone Foxman - Money Game at Business Insider
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Eye on Loan Modifications - Secret Docs Show Foreclosure Watchdog Doesn’t Bark or Bite - by Paul Kiel - ProPublica   Yves Smith comments: ... The frame here is to blame Treasury for a poor job of oversight and suggest they should have imposed penalties. But HAMP was a voluntary program ... The better frame would be to criticize Treasury for cooking up such a lame, bank-skewed program in the first place, and to take the angle Nevada is pursuing ... – Naked Capitalism

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CFPB Mortgage Complaint Portal for Consumers, Coming Soon - by Elizabeth Ecker - A database for consumer complaints launched by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will soon include mortgage products, the CFPB has announced. The good news? Companies will have access to those complaints about their company, and can report back to the database once the complaint has been resolved. - Reverse Mortgage Daily

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Recent data on housing show things looking up - by Catherine Reagor - "One month doesn't make a trend" is a favorite comment among economists and housing analysts. Let's hope that theory applies to August housing numbers for metro Phoenix. In August, foreclosures climbed and home prices slipped to their lowest level this year. But data for September show foreclosures fell significantly in the region, and the median home price ticked back up. - Arizona Republic

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(will cause a crash or drive trading offshore? - BC) Wall St. trading could generate taxes - By JOSH BOAK - Brace yourselves Wall Street: Rep. Peter DeFazio is angling to tax the trading of stocks, bonds and derivatives. The Oregon Democrat has teamed up with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to introduce the measure — a sequel to their 2009 bill — before the November G-20 meeting in Cannes, France. - Politico 

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The reluctant California home seller – 35 percent of homes bought pre-2000 in California yet sellers still expect unrealistic prices. Market dominated by distressed properties of foreclosures and short sales. La Mirada wakes up to mid-tier shadow inventory correction. - Dr. Housing Bubble

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Private mortgage mods perform worse than HAMP - by JON PRIOR - Mortgage modifications completed through private bank programs redefaulted at a rate nearly twice as high as the government's. More than 34% of the 129,000 private workouts completed in the first quarter of 2010 went two months without a payment within the first 12 months, according to recent data from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. That compares to 19.4% of the roughly 100,200 Home Affordable Modification Program mods completed that same quarter that fell into delinquency again within a year. - Housingwire
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Goodman: Feds must move rep and warranty risk for new refis - by JON PRIOR - ... Laurie Goodman, a senior analyst at Amherst Securities Group, will detail how the government could allow more borrowers in negative equity to refinance into a lower rate in prepared testimony before a House subcommittee Thursday. ... But eliminating fees and caps won't be enough. The largest spark the Obama administration could provide is by forcing Fannie and Freddie to waive future representation and warranty claims. ... - Housingwire

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OCC Servicing Settlement--Will Homeowners Get Screwed (Again)? - posted by Adam Levitin - ... here's a real danger that the "independent" consultants will come in with low-ball damage figures when they do in fact find problems (which itself is likely to be rare). Indeed, I would suggest that this sort of practice would be precisely the sort of thing that might fit under the new Dodd-Frank UDAAP rubric, as the banks would be using their superior knowledge to take advantage of consumers who lack the legal expertise to evaluate their options. ... - Credit Slips

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Denmark Will Fight Haircut on Covered Debt That Basel Seeks - By Frances Schwartzkopff - Denmark isn’t satisfied with European concessions that seek to protect its mortgage bonds from international liquidity rules and will fight to ensure the securities get the same status as sovereign notes. ... “We want the same treatment as government bonds for covered bonds,” Morten Frederiksen, a director at the Copenhagen-based Danish Bankers Association, said in an interview. “The liquidity of Danish covered bonds is so high -- and even higher than some government bonds.” ... – Bloomberg

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(special servicing good interview) LenderLive's David Vida On The New World Of Servicing - BY MORTGAGEORB.COM -  The ever-evolving world of loan servicing is facing big questions: How many distressed borrowers can actually be kept in their homes? What's a responsible, yet efficient way to trim real estate owned (REO) inventories? What will future default servicing arrangements look like? Is the pay scale always going to be like this? ... industry veteran David Vida, chief strategy officer and executive vice president of loan servicing for LenderLive Network Inc. The Denver-based mortgage service provider has tapped Vida, founder and former CEO of Acqura Loan Servicing, to lead its servicing unit, which expanded into subservicing and specialty servicing earlier this year. ... 

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For Rob Chrisman’s latest daily post, click here.

To subscribe to Joe Garrett’s news letter, send an email to  jgarrett at garrettwatts  dot  com

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The Campaign Against the Banks - Written by Bill Berliner - ... Ultimately, all parties must understand that the U.S. banks have huge but finite resources.  Efforts to either punish wrongdoing or compensate investors must not be allowed to destroy the viability of the banking system and create a new, dangerous and unnecessary crisis. ... - Fixed Income Color

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(reinforces my thoughts about algorithmic trading) Light is not fast enough for high-speed stock trading - by Jeff Hecht - ... Now cable company Hibernia Atlantic is spending $300 million to build a new transatlantic cable to shave 6 milliseconds from the present 65-millisecond transit time between London and New York. It will be the first new cable to cross the Atlantic in a decade and trading firms are likely to pay premium rates to use it. ... - New Scientist
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(something new?) NM judge okays MBS class action claims against rating agencies - Alison Frankel - ...  But private class action plaintiffs have struck out every time they've tried to bring claims against the rating agencies. That's no longer true. ...  But if MBS investors can show that the securities emanated from, say, Colorado or Washington State, Judge Browning's order could open a route to claims against the agencies.  ... - Thomson Reuters

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Moody's: Refinancing Is Key to Housing Market Recovery - BY: KRISTA FRANKS - If all of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s borrowers paying interest rates that are higher than the median rate were to refinance at 4 percent, the savings would total $63 billion, according to Moody’s. – DS News

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FBR: Big banks stand to lose billions if FHA refuses claims - by KERRI PANCHUK - ... Analysts at the investment management unit of FBR Inc. said the federal agency could deny claims from lenders due to issues with the underwriting or securitization process of the loans. ... - Housingwire  
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(text and great charts) LPS: Foreclosure Starts increased in August, Seriously Delinquent Mortgage Loans fall to 2008 levels - by CalculatedRisk
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(interesting) The One Stop Shop Strategy, Personal Approach Still King - By Amilda Dymi - Renting to mitigate foreclosure losses is emerging as a work-intensive, yet effective solution for owners of foreclosed homes when delivered by one-stop-shop third-party servicers who offer personalized workouts. - Mortgage Servicing News

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Law Firms Descend on Florida to Take Over Foreclosure Business - Julie Kay - The new law firms are being handed 3,500 to 5,000 transfer files at $1,200 to $1,400 per file, according to a legal headhunter ... The new Florida firms have taken over files from Stern and Ben-Ezra Katz, once two of the largest foreclosure firms in Florida. They left tens of thousands of foreclosure files up for grabs after they withdrew from the foreclosure business following allegations of "robo-signing" and other improper or sloppy handling of residential foreclosures and after being terminated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. ... - Law.com

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Who are the 99 percent? - Posted by Ezra Klein - Washington Post

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Mortgage REITs Rise to Reverse Tumble on Financing Concern - By Jody Shenn and Felice Maranz - ...  erasing losses that had reached the steepest since December 2008 amid concern that their main source of financing could be roiled by European bank woes ... - Bloomberg Businessweek

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Reps and warrants prompt call to rehaul securitization contracts - by KERRI PANCHUK - The language and structure of mortgage securitization contracts made the financial crisis more painful and confusing for all parties involved, Federal Reserve Board Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin suggested in a speech Tuesday. - Housingwire

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Fannie Mae ignored foreclosure abuses - By Les Christie - ... The inspector general concluded that as early as 2003, legal firms retained by Fannie engaged in misdeeds. These included filing false documents and "robo-signing," in which law firm employees signed filings and affidavits attesting to knowledge that they did not possess. Even after mortgage borrower complaints were raised in the press, the inspector general said FHFA and the agency it replaced, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, failed to take adequate corrective action and Fannie continued to use the law firms blamed for the problems. ... - CNN Money

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For Rob Chrisman’s latest daily post, click here.

To subscribe to Joe Garrett’s news letter, send an email to  jgarrett at garrettwatts  dot  com

  Nom de Plumber is a Nom de Plume.

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Suppose that eventually the US government is able to auction Treasury securities at negative yields.   For counterparty-risk and operational purposes, negative coupons
would obviously not work.    So, instead, their coupons must be set at 0%, such that
investors would need to pay above 100:00 at initial settlement, but receive only 100:00 at maturity.   Many investors would then need to recognize principal losses, either
upfront or periodically.  Yet, by charter, many institutions are restricted from buying
principal-risky investments. 

Such is how our Zero-Interest Rate Policy has cornered America.

Thank you.