RBS Faces Criminal Libor Charges, As Prosecutors Feel Oats: Seven And A Half Things To Know

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Bank Of America CEO Brian Moynihan Sends Letter Telling Workers To Treat Customers Better

This is rich .... at least BoA is acknowledging their employees are treating customers badly? .. or at least, hinting at it.

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Treasury Disregarded Own Guidelines, Allowed Executive Raises At Bailed-Out GM, AIG: Report

Two recent articles on this issue:

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and

TARP Pay Czar Patricia Geoghegan Permitted Excessive Executive Pay At Bailed-Out Companies: Report

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Explosive Charge: Morgan Stanley Peddled Security Its Own Employee Called 'Nuclear Holocaust'

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Foreclosure Review Insiders Portray Massive Failure, Doomed From The Start

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The truth comes out, this time from insiders with the contractors who were performing the :independent review" of foreclosures.  Some tidbits from the article:

"We knew what we were looking at," said one employee. "But we were told under threat of losing our jobs to not report what we saw."

"By the time the reviews were halted, the banks had paid the consultants they hired more than $1.5 billion."  Too bad that money was never considered for helping families ......

"A consultant at Deloitte, hired by JPMorgan Chase to review its loan files, said that his team simply didn't understand many of the bank's processes, and weren't permitted to ask. "It was like trying to read a book written in a foreign language," he said of initial attempts to audit the bank's loans."

"All the while, this Deloitte employee said, regulators were pressuring the auditors to hurry up -- pressure that trickled down to floor-level reviewers. "Just hold your nose and click submit," he said one manager told him."

"When news broke that a new settlement to replace the reviews was in the works, the Republican Chairman and Democratic Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to regulators asking for a meeting to clarify exactly what was going on. Those institutions essentially ignored the lawmakers and, even after they made the official announcement, refused to tell the congressmen exactly what had happened in any detail. “The OCC and the Federal Reserve Board have terminated the independent foreclosure review process without providing any explanation of why or how the process was too costly and time-consuming to be continued,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement. “Even more troubling, the agencies seem unable to provide any details regarding the process by which compensation will be provided to borrowers who have suffered harm."

"It became pretty apparent that the whole project was a facade," said one reviewer, whose job it was to look for improper fees tacked onto borrower accounts.

 
The reviewer said she found some kind of bogus fee in every file she looked at, ranging from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars. Another who looked for errors that violated state statutes estimated that 30 to 40 percent of loan files contained mistakes. These reviewers said they wanted their work to count for something. Last Monday, around 10 a.m., these same contract employees were told to stop what they were doing and leave the building. "Pencils down," one said he was told.

Feds Replace Flawed Foreclosure Review With Vague $8.5 Billion Settlement

From Pro Publica - another great article shedding light on the ability of financial institutions to skirt responsibility for bad acts.

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Taibbi once again peeling away the propaganda about the Bailouts.

Secrets and Lies of the Bailout

The federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy – it created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme. And the worst may be yet to come

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104#ixzz2HKQfivK6
Follow: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout

Contempt of Court: U.S. Bank President Rejects Court Order to Appear

Again, if you or I do what the banks do, we would be in jail.

Maybe this judge is going to do things a bit differently .....

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Surprise, Surprise: The Banks Win - New Settlement Avoids "Independent" Foreclosure Review

As if it were truly independent, the foreclosure reviews are apparently now off the table.

As the author, Gretchen Morgenson notes, the banks win , again.

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