Trump Appoints ‘Foreclosure King’ As Treasury Secretary

President-elect and self-proclaimed swamp-drainer Donald J. Trump has named Goldman Sachs alum and former hedge fund partner Steve Mnuchin as his Treasury Secretary. Mr. Mnuchin, who was finance chair of the Trump campaign and the producer of Suicide Squad, became infamous as the “Foreclosure King” when his OneWest Bank foreclosed on over 36,000 family homes during the financial crisis. OneWest specialized in “harsh, repugnant and repulsive” foreclosures on the homes of minority families and the elderly, and in one celebrated case foreclosed on a 90-year-old woman over a 27 cent error.

The Department of the Treasury controls mortgage guarantee agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and runs the MHA mortgage relief program and the Hardest Hit Fund, which helps homeowners most in danger of foreclosure due to the financial crisis. Oh, it also regulates banks.

More:

“Trump Treasury pick made millions after his bank foreclosed on homeowners,” Lorraine Woellert, Politico

“Steve Mnuchin: Evictor, Forecloser, and Our New Treasury Secretary,” Peter Dreier, American Prospect

“Trump Was Always Going to Be a Gift to Wall Street. His Pick for Treasury Secretary Proves It.,” Jordan Weissmann, Slate

“Donald Trump voter who lost her home to new Treasury pick Steven Mnuchin has ‘no faith in our government anymore,’” Josh Boak and Jeff Horowitz, AP via Salon

“Angus King: Trump’s not draining swamp, he’s adding alligators,” Mark Hensch, The Hill

Bonus:

“Before heading to the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin will grace the silver screen in ‘Rules Don’t Apply,'” Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times

“The fiancée of Trump’s twice-married new Treasury Secretary, 53, is 35-year-old actress who sparked fury after she ‘invented parts of her memoir about nearly being killed in Africa,'” Jennifer Newton, Daily Mail

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Regulators Take a Coffee Break

Way back in 2005 the U.S. economy was in high cotton under the leadership of America’s first MBA president, financial genius George W. Bush. No one was worried about the White House climate of deregulation and non-enforcement since the country’s industrial capacity had been successfully converted to the manufacture of huge paper profits instead of boring, useful things.

The economy was one big teenage beer bash, but there was no anxiety because we had an adult chaperone. Alan Greenspan was still Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

A newly-released transcript of a 2005 Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting, however, shows Mr. Greenspan’s reaction to warnings of impending Housing Bubble doom by the Fed’s Board of Governors:

“Let’s take a break for coffee.”

The full meeting transcript is here, but Salon’s Andrew Leonard details key excerpts, including Fed Governor Mark Olson’s prescient view of mortgage-backed securities.

 

Related: “The Fed Has Spoken: No Bailout for Main Street,” Ellen Brown, Truthout.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

MERS = Mortgage MERSA?

Who “abetted a fly-by-night, pump-and-dump, no-accountability model of structured mortgage finance”? An obscure corporation in Reston, Virginia. You probably should know more about the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS). It may own your house.