And it's just the tip of the MBS iceberg that destroyed the Amerikan and European economies.
"Bank of America nearing $8.5b investor settlement" by Associated Press / June 29, 2011
LOS ANGELES — Bank of America Corp. was close to finalizing a deal late yesterday that calls for it to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims from a group of investors who bought mortgage-backed securities from the lender, according to a person familiar with settlement talks.
The Charlotte, N.C., bank was near an agreement with the investor group and was expected to announce a done deal as early as today, the person said on condition of anonymity because the matter was still developing.
Calls to the bank were not immediately returned.
The investors, which include the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Blackrock Financial Management, have been pressing the lender for almost a year to buy back defaulted mortgages made by its Countrywide unit.
So the banks take money the Fed "loans" them and then repays the Fed?
The Fed is involved because it took over assets held by American International Group, which faltered under the weight of bad home loans....
And it doesn't stop there.
The proposed payout goes well beyond other settlement deals entered into by the bank to resolve mortgage buyback disputes....
A Wall Street Journal report estimated the group of 22 high-profile investors holds more than $56 billion in mortgage-backed securities that are at the center of the dispute....
By continuing to service bad loans rather than speeding up foreclosures, the group has claimed, Countrywide ran up servicing fees, enriching itself at the expense of investors....
Well, foreclosures set a record so that has certainly turned around.
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"Bank puts end to some mortgage claims for $8.5b" by Pallavi Gogi, Associated Press / June 30, 2011
NEW YORK — Bank of America’s $8.5 billion settlement with investors is the largest any bank has ever paid.
It might help assuage worries about how deep the bank’s mortgage problems might be and how long it might take to settle them. But for the largest US bank and its chief executive Brian Moynihan, the slate is far from clean.
The payout settles claims by just 22 investors who said Bank of America Corp. sold bonds based on substandard home mortgages.
The problem here is THEY KNEW THEY WERE BAD and PEDDLED 'EM as GRADE A s***.
The bonds fell in value when the housing market collapsed and left the investors with losses on $424 billion worth of mortgages. The $8.5 billion settlement eclipses the last three years of earnings at the Charlotte, N.C., bank.
Actually, the TRUE FIGURE could reach 27 TRILLION -- yeah, trillion with a T -- or MORE!
The uncertainty about just how bad Bank of America’s mortgage issues might be has scared investors and led to a 31 percent decline in Bank of America’s stock price since January of last year when Moynihan took over.
‘‘This is a major step forward for our company,’’ Moynihan said in a conference call yesterday.
???
Wall Street is cheering the move, sending the stock up 3 percent, to $11.14 yesterday.
All that is important to the paper.
But that rally could be short-lived. Analysts say the $8.5 billion is about double the amount they had expected. The bank continues to fight other investor groups that are demanding similar settlements....
Yes, according to the article above there are still BILLIONS and BILLIONS to BUY BACK!
And as the Fed printing press runs the dollar falls in value. That is why PRICES are RISING, Americans -- not because of the no-longer functional "supply-and-demand" doctrine you have been taught your whole life.
And Bank of America is likely to be ordered to pay a hefty portion of the estimated $20 billion multibank settlement over the mishandling hundreds of thousands of home foreclosures.
Isn't that low-balling it a bit?
Paul Miller, a bank analyst at FBR Capital Markets, says he’s concerned about the bank’s ability to increase earnings at a pace that would make up for these higher costs.
Yeah, you can only enter so many blood-sucking puncture wounds in a host.
These worries are magnified by the fact that the economic recovery in the United States is slowing.
What recovery because.... sigh
That could reduce the number of loans the bank is able to make to consumers and businesses.
They scarfed up all the "loan liquidity" money Bernake printed them so the the above fart mist is just that.
Bank of America is in worse shape than other major banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. because of its purchase of Countrywide for $4 billion in 2008. What seemed like a bargain price for the country’s largest mortgage lender has cost the bank tens of billions more in mortgage losses, regulatory fines, repurchases of poorly-written loans, and expensive litigation.
That they SOLD as a GOOD INVESTMENT to STATE PENSION FUNDS among other things (but it's those greedy public unions bankrupting us).
At the same time, Bank of America itself had written a fair amount of bad mortgages. As it stands, the bank services one out of every five US mortgages.
So even though most of the major banks sold the same kind of securities and have bad mortgages on their books, analysts say they are in better shape.
Yes, we KNOW THEY WERE all in it together down on WALL STREET!
The other banks don’t have the same pressure to put the mortgage woes behind them. In March, the Federal Reserve didn’t allow Bank of America to increase its dividend, citing uncertainty about the depth of its mortgage problems. It was the only denial issued to any of the four largest US banks. And it raised questions over whether the bank was strong enough to withstand another downturn.
The combined effect of the losses and the uncertainty prompted a reversal in the bank’s longtime strategy of fighting claims from investors, Moynihan admits. Since the beginning of the year, the bank has struck large settlements with multiple investors totaling $12.7 billion.
Oh, so the real total has been almost $13 billion so far.
Hey, what's another $5 billion give or take?
Most of the settlements are with investors that had purchased mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. They want banks to buy back mortgages that had misinformation about qualifications of borrowers who received them....
It is a DELICATE and DECEPTIVE WAY of saying MASSIVE FRAUD, dear readers!
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Related:
"Bank of America Corp. earned $1.7 billion in the first quarter"
"Bank of America has agreed to pay $137 million to resolve allegations that it paid for information that helped rig the bidding process and win business from cities and towns in 20 states, including Massachusetts....
Looks like they BOUGHT THEIR WAY out of a BRIBERY CHARGE, 'eh?
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And it wasn't just them:
"JPMorgan to settle fraud case; Company will pay $153.6 million" June 22, 2011|By Marcy Gordon, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex mortgage investments just as the housing market was collapsing.
But Casey Anthony LIED!
J.P. Morgan Securities, a division of the Wall Street bank, failed to tell investors that a hedge fund helped select the investment portfolio and then bet that the portfolio would fail, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
Related: Goldman Sachs' Rigged Gambling Game
Of course, they were ALL DOING IT!
Among the investors who lost money on the deal were autoworkers at General Motors, a Lutheran financial organization in Minneapolis, and a retirement services company in Topeka, Kan.
You know, REGULAR PEOPLE!
The settlement, announced yesterday, is one of the most significant legal actions targeting Wall Street’s role in the 2008 financial crisis. It comes a year after Goldman Sachs & Co. paid $550 million to settle similar charges.
Still, the settlement amounts to less than 1 percent of the bank’s 2010 net income of $17.4 billion — or less than what JPMorgan earns in one week.
Like I said, CHUMP CHANGE CRUMBS!
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And now they are on pace to do even better?
"JPMorgan Chase made $5.56 billion in the first quarter."
Looks like CHUMP CHANGE KICKBACKS that are going to decrease in value to me. That's why the same class of creeps are receiving record bonuses again.
"Mortgage fraud reports rise sharply" by Associated Press / June 29, 2011
VIENNA, Va. — Reports of likely mortgage fraud increased sharply during the first quarter as big banks took another look at loan documents questioned by mortgage insurers and investors, according to the Treasury Department bureau that tracks such reports....
Mortgage fraud reports increased sharply because mortgage investors and insurers are demanding that banks to buy back billions of dollars in loans that appear to be fraudulent, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said....
And yet it is ROGER CLEMENS in the COURTROOM today?
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