Tag Archives: banksters

Roger Cohen’s Ode to Colonialism and Imperialism: Why is it “Insidious” to Want Justice for Banksters?

By William K. Black

In another proof of our family rule that it is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody, Roger Cohen has penned “The Great Unraveling.”  What makes the article perfect is that it brings together Cohen’s worst traits – and ends with praise for Rudyard Kipling, who set the bar for those traits.  Cohen is distressed about many things, but the first one that I focus on is his claim that the Scots’ response to the City of London’s elite financial criminals is “insidious.”  In the passage that he makes this claim Cohen denounces the Scots as childish Celts.

“The northernmost citizens were bored. They were disgruntled. They were irked, in some insidious way, by the south and its moneyed capital, an emblem to them of globalization and inequality.”

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Things About Mortgage Fraud that Holder Should End Today: Suspect Ethnic Groups

By William K. Black

I am returning to my series of articles about the pathologies that have caused the Department of Justice (DOJ) to suffer a strategic failure in prosecuting the banksters that led the three fraud epidemics that caused the financial crisis and the Great Recession.  I have been inspired by Tom Frank’s column in Salon covering our successful defense of a mortgage fraud case in Sacramento.  This column addresses the single most offensive thing I learned in the course of that case.  Under U.S. Attorney Ben Wagner’s leadership the Eastern District of California has begun targeting immigrants of Russian descent for mortgage fraud prosecutions.

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Unintentional Self-Parody: The Failed Banks Warn Scotland Against Independence

By William K. Black

I do not know whether the Scots should vote for independence.  I assume that the odds are they will vote against it.  I do know that the reasons advanced for voting against independence by business interest are false.  Indeed, the opposite of what they claim is far more likely to be true.  What I find a joy to behold, however, is the suggestion by the banksters that the Scots should get their economic advice about independence from a group of failed and often fraudulent parasites and that they should avoid any action that creates “uncertainty” or would cause them to act as a Nation rather than a U.K. province.  There is a serious effort to make independence from the Brits sound like the path of economic madness.

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Floyd Norris’ Apologia for Citi’s Frauds

By William K. Black

I have just written a column about the New York Times’ financial journalist, Floyd Norris’ August 20, 2014 column decrying attacks on those who detect and seek to sanction elite frauds.  Norris’ focus was on the Chinese government attacks on whistleblowers who “detect” elite frauds.  Norris bemoaned that those who detect elite fraud suffer far more than those that commit it.

My column pointed out that the practice of elite frauds, in league with their protectors in government and the media, attack those that detect and seek to sanction elite frauds in every country.  Indeed, I showed that Norris had aided and abetted the SEC’s leadership’s smears of Gary Aguirre, the SEC whistleblower who detected evidence of what he (and his superiors) considered likely fraud by elites.  His SEC superiors, however, blocked the investigation when they discovered it would lead to John Mack, the soon-to-be CEO of Morgan Stanley, one of the world’s largest investment banks.

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The Wall Street Journal Claims that only the “Left” is Willing to Prosecute Banksters

By William K. Black

This is my third installment in my series of columns discussing the WSJ’s rant against even feeble actions by Attorney General Holder to hold the banks and (a pittance of banksters) even slightly accountable for leading the three epidemics of mortgage fraud that caused the financial crisis and the Great Recession.  The WSJ is enraged not at how feeble Holder’s efforts have been, but that Holder dared to take any action against the elite frauds.  The WSJ explicitly frames the question of accountability for the banks and banksters as a left v. right divide.  Only the “populist left” is in favor of not granting the banks and banksters immunity from the criminal and civil laws for leading the most destructive fraud epidemics in history.

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The WSJ Rages that Bank of America Was Sued for “Only” Committing a $9 Billion Fraud

By William K. Black

The Wall Street Journal is deeply upset that almost none of the banks and none of the banksters that became wealthy by leading the three epidemics of mortgage fraud that drove the financial crisis are being subjected even to prosecution-lite cases.  The WSJ wants us all to know that “almost none” and “prosecution-lite” are both excessive.  The WSJ rant demands that we bestow the thanks of a grateful nation to the banks and banksters that committed the frauds.  This financial crisis is the first Virgin Crisis – conceived without sin in the C-Suites.  This second column in my series on the WSJ rant responds to the WSJ’s claim that mortgage frauds that are “only” $9 billion in magnitude do not warrant even civil sanctions.

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The Wall Street Journal’s Choleric Rant about Cholera and Bank Fraud Epidemics

By William K. Black

I wrote this column in Bogota, Colombia where I was presenting five talks at the Universidad Central’s economics conference, so I was struck by the title of a choleric rant by the Wall Street Journal entitled “Banking in a Time of Cholera.”

The WSJ’s title is a play on words on the title of a novel, “Love in the Time of Cholera,” by Colombia’s greatest writer, Gabriel García Márquez (“Gabo”).  The novel is set in a city that appears to be based on Cartagena, the city famous for being looted repeatedly by pirates.  In this first of several columns responding to the WSJ rant I discuss its failed literary allusions and tie these failures to some of the WSJ’s analytical and factual errors that render their rant risible.

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UPDATE: Bank of America Fined Another $16 Billion for Fraud

By L. Randall Wray

Bank of America just agreed to pay another $16 Billion fine for one of its frauds—selling trashy securities to its investors. Another day, another fraud exposed. No surprises there. This is so routine it barely deserves a headline.

According to Bloomberg, that raises the total it has agreed to pay for its mortgage lending frauds to $70 billion. Most of this is related to its purchase of Countrywide, where Mairone oversaw much of the fraud. See here.

BofA rewarded Mairone for creating Countrywide’s “Hustle” fraud by hiring her. So far that woman’s criminal expertise contributed toward mounting costs to BofA of $70 billion. Quite an accomplishment!

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IT’S OFFICIAL: TOO BIG TO FAIL IS ALIVE AND WELL

By L. Randall Wray

Thank heaven for Tom Hoenig, the only proven-honest central banker we’ve got. Yes, I know he’s moved on from the KC Fed to serve as Vice Chairman of the FDIC. He actually might do a lot more good over there, anyway.

In recent months, we’ve heard how Wall Street’s Blood-sucking Vampire Squids have reformed themselves. They no longer pose any danger to our economy. They’ve written “living wills” that describe how they’ll safely bury themselves without Uncle Sam’s help next time they implode.

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Setting the Record Straight One More Time: BofA’s Rebecca Mairone Fined $1Million; BofA Must Pay $1.3Billion

By L. Randall Wray

Now here’s Déjà vu all over again. You might remember the name Rebecca Mairone from a few years ago. She’s back in the news:

“Rebecca Mairone, formerly a top official at Countrywide Financial, has been named in an amended complaint filed earlier this month by Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, against Countrywide and its parent Bank of America. The suit alleges that Mairone, as chief operating officer for Countrywide’s Full Spectrum Lending division in 2007, set up a program dubbed the “High Speed Swim Lane,” or “HSSL,” or “Hustle,” to speed up the origination of mortgage loans, including increasingly shady subprime loans. The government claims the alleged Hustle ultimately cost its sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more than $1 billion in losses.

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