The ProPublica team has researched the causes of the foreclosure crisis. You can read about it here, but there’s a video that explains it all, and you can dance to it:
Posts Tagged ‘mortgages’
Ain’t Got No Home
August 24, 2012Business Professor Charged With Fraud
February 1, 2011
University of Rhode Island professor John K. Dunn, a lawyer, has been charged with three felony counts in an alleged mortgage fraud scheme.
Professor Dunn teaches “Legal and Ethical Environment of Business” in the University’s Entrepreneurial Management & Law program. From the program description:
“The entrepreneur faces unique situations and needs a variety of competencies to meet these challenges. The major in Entrepreneurial Management is intended to provide the student with a background to tackle all aspects of a small business or entrepreneurial endeavor. Our Entrepreneurial Management curriculum builds the skills necessary to successfully develop and manage a business enterprise.”
The enterprise in which the Professor engaged, say State Police, involved mortgage fraud and obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars under false pretenses. And why not? The University of Rhode Island motto is “Think Big. We Do.”
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Regulators Take a Coffee Break
January 15, 2011
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?
October 13, 2010Fast Foreclosures
September 30, 2010
J.P. Morgan Chase acknowledged that employees signed off on thousands of foreclosure documents without really reading them. This was in response to a sworn statement by a Chase employee that her team signed off on 18,000 foreclosures a month without proper document review. The firm just froze the foreclosure of 56,000 homes until their documents are re-examined.
Chase is not alone. An Ally Financial document processor admitted signing off on 10,000 foreclosures a month without reading the paperwork. “That’s barely a minute per case,” notes the Washington Post‘s Brady Dennis, “assuming he works a normal eight-hour day.”
Instead of oversight, banks have “robo-signers.” Still believe that financial institutions can regulate themselves?
Update: “Robo-Signing: Documents Show Citi and Wells Also Committed Foreclosure Fraud,” Abigail Field, AOL Daily Finance.
Image (“American Dream, after Grant Wood”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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