Bill Black On Foreclosuregate: Calls For The Immediate Termination Of Bernanke, Geithner And Holder

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bill-black-foreclosuregate-calls-immediate-termination-bernanke-geithner-and-holder

Bill Black, who will soon, together with Neil Barofsky, be a guaranteed shoe-in for the POTUS/VP position (both as independents, of course), was on the Ratigan show today, following on his op-ed from last week (here and here) calling for the long-overdue nationalization of Bank of America, and discussing the rampant fraud at the heart of mortgage gate. And contrary to ongoing lowball estimates from the like of JPM and Goldman, Black provides numbers about the bank liability that are simply stunning: "Credit Suisse says that by 2006 49% of all mortgage originations were liars loans. When independent folks study fraud, it is in the 80-90% fraud range. That means there were millions of acts of fraud. Those loan frauds occurred because the banks created incentive structure for the loan brokers to bring them the absolute worst of the worst loans, and to lie on the application forms... These frauds came from the banks, and they propagated through the system in a series of echo epidemics...The fraud spread through the system and that's why we have a crisis in foreclosures. This stems by the underlying fraud by the lenders in mortgage loans to the tune of well over a million cases a year by 2005."

Furthermore, Black points out the glaringly obvious, that the Fed should not be in charge of any investigation into mortgage fraud, due to its "massive" conflict of interest, to the tune of $1.5 trillion in MBS/agencies held on the Fed's books, which would be immediately null and voided if rampant MBS fraud is indeed uncovered. Which is precisely why the entitlement of the Fed as supreme regulator (as inspired by the financial generosity of the Wall Street lobby) as part of Frank-Dodd was the one single most destructive decision ever made, and equivalent in many ways with electing America's very own tyrannical despot, whose only interest is making the multi billionaires, into trillionaires, and leaving everyone else in the cold through the eliminating of the savings class and the destruction of the reserve currency.

And it goes much further... to the very top of the US ruling oligarchy in fact. Which is why, as we have claimed from day one, nothing less than a complete reset of the entire kleptocratic system can give any hope for a fresh start. The general public is starting to finally realize this, unfortunately with the dawning realization comes anger, and with anger comes aggression. And from there, broad civil "discontent" is merely a thin white line away. Which is why, we again reiterate our belief, now that America has completely missed its chance for a peaceful resolution, that the reset will have to go first and foremost through the Fed, whose end however will be precipitated by nothing less than an all out social upheaval. We agree with Black's conclusion: "fire Holder, fire Geithner, fire Bernanke, get people in who will enforce the rule of law." Alas, it is too late. America has proven it has failed as a society in which checks and balances work when Wall Street dangles billion dollar bribes to corrupt and greedy individuals. And just like the market is stretched so far, it is always seconds away from a flash crash, so the entire US society is now mimicking our stock market, and the possibility for an all out social flash crash is no longer trivial.

Video at the link ---

[Bitwit1234]

1. I am glad that someone else thinks Holder is a wimp.

[lamp_shade]

2. Who's Bill Black?

[CountAllVotes]

3. that is my question too

WHO? WHO? WHO? Who is capable of getting out of this mess.

Answer: END THE WARS IN IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN NOW!!!

:dem:

[Donnachaidh]

5. see the previous reply and watch the video on the link n/t

[Donnachaidh]

4. former bank regulator

wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black

William Kurt Black (born 6 September 1951) is an American lawyer, academic, author, and a former bank regulator.<1> Black's expertise is in white-collar crime, public finance, regulation, and other topics in law and economics. He developed the concept of "control fraud", in which a business or national executive uses the entity he or she controls as a "weapon" to commit fraud.

[CountAllVotes]

7. He developed the concept of "control fraud"

interesting, a professional that knows all about professional finance crime. Just what we need eh? :nuke:

[nashville_brook]

6. here's Bill Black's full bio from HuffPo -->

William K. Black

Bill Black is an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

He was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and Senior Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. His regulatory career is profiled in Chapter 2 of Professor Riccucci's book Unsung Heroes (Georgetown U. Press: 1995), Chapter 4 (“The Consummate Professional: Creating Leadership”) of Professor Bowman, et al’s book The Professional Edge (M.E. Sharpe 2004), and Joseph M. Tonon’s article: “The Costs of Speaking Truth to Power: How Professionalism Facilitates Credible Communication” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 2008 18(2):275-295.

George Akerlof called his book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One (University of Texas Press 2005), “a classic.” Paul Volcker praised its analysis of the critical role of Bank Board Chairman Gray’s leadership in reregulating and resupervising the industry:

Bill Black has detailed an alarming story about financial - and political - corruption. The specifics go back twenty years, but the lessons are as fresh as the morning newspaper. One of those lessons really sticks out: one brave man with a conscience could stand up for us all.


Robert Kuttner, in his Business Week column, proclaimed:

Black's book is partly the definitive history of the savings-and-loan industry scandals of the early 1980s. More important, it is a general theory of how dishonest CEOs, crony directors, and corrupt middlemen can systematically defeat market discipline and conceal deliberate fraud for a long time -- enough to create massive damage.


Black developed the concept of “control fraud” – frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a “weapon.” Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined and kill and maim thousands. He recently helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae’s former senior management.

He teaches White-Collar Crime, Public Finance, Antitrust, Law & Economics (all joint, multidisciplinary classes for economics and law students), and Latin American Development (co-taught with Professor Grieco, UMKC – History).

[Angry Dragon]

8. Fire holder, geithner, bernanke

and then put Warren and Black in charge

[PufPuf23]

9. Fire Geithner, Bernanke, and Holder and investigate

for prosecution Geither, Bernanke, (already gone) Summers, and Paulson (from GWB).

These individuals have known the score when they took office. They allowed $ billions in bonuses to be paid from TARP to cronies based upon questionable financial statements

The TBTF financial institutions should have been broken into component parts that were sound.

The temporary Resolution Trust Agency worked well to unwind the S&L meltdown.

The S&L meltdown had over 1000 white collar prosecutions and many (Neil Bush) banned from the financial industry.

Have a transaction tax on all trades of securities.

There will be what economists call Moral Hazard until Glass-Steagall is re-instated.

The mortgage mess is surreal in scope.

Obama and Congress (including the obstructing GOP) have blow financial reform.

Holder should get his ass in gear about war crimes as well with most recent revelations about Iraq.

I am a dreamer but not the only one.

Neo-liberals suck and are part of the problem and not so good at solutions. If we lose Congress, the fault is with the neo-liberals because of their actions and not with the liberals and left in general (who will be scapegoated).

The recent poll questions at DU should have been between Neo-liberals, social democrats (FDR), and the far left. Alter's BS about Action versus Movement Democrats is blowing smoke.

Fortunately, I have good Dems on my ballot (Brown, Boxer, Thompson) this election.