Category: Finance

Economics Update

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The paradox of thrift continues

It’s jobless Thursday, and initial unemployment claims fell out of the 450K-485K sweet spot that they have been bouncing around in for most of the year. Initial claims fell by 11,000 to 445,000, better than forecast, with the 4-week moving average falling by 3,000 to 455,750, with continuing claims falling by 48,000 to 4.46 million, and emergency claims rising by 257K to 5.14 million.

So fewer people are losing work, but hiring has not picked, so overall unemployment has increased (257K – 48K – 11K = 198K more people collecting unemployment).

We also had good news on the retail front, with better than expected same store retail sales in September, though I am unclear how consumers are financing this, since wages are stagnant, and consumer credit fell in August. (See graph pr0n)

I guess that it could be that people took out their credit cards more in September, and that the conflicting figures are simply the result of month to month changes.

In Europe, both the Bank of England and the ECB held rates steady, and the BoE says that it will continue quantitative easing (printing money).

ECB bank president Jean-Claude Trichet went further full inflation idiot in statement to the press, tut-tutting other central banks easing moves, andstating that the ECB will be, “gradually phase out its non-standard liquidity measures.”

Yes, we are seeing more pronouncements from the pain caucus about austerity, and the most vocal of these folks, Tory PM David Cameron, has apparently succeeded in pushing UK house prices down by 3.6% in the month of September.

Note that I am not talking about a -3.6% annual rate, I am talking about a £6,000 drop in home prices in just that month. (!)
UK home prices -3.6% in a month (!)

Veto

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The White House has announced that Barack Obama is vetoing HR 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act, which created a South Dakota/Delaware credit card processing style race to the bottom, only this time with forged foreclosure paperwork.

They are actually claiming that it is a pocket veto, but they are also sending it back to Congress with a notice of disapproval, since the Senate is entering into pro forma sessions, making that whole “pocket veto” thing dicey, as you can only pocket veto a bill when Congress is in recess.

This is his second veto, his first was when he vetoed a stop-gap spending bill when the regular bill came in on time, so this is his first real veto, the last one was about cleaning up the bookkeeping.

I would note that there is an important lesson here: If you hold the White House’s feet to the fire, the Obama administration will do the right thing ……… at least occasionally.

It’s why the Fanboi who maintain that it’s all eleventy dimensional chess are so wrong.

Were it not for the firestorm that erupted in the past 72 hours or so, largely due to the efforts of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, not only would have Obama not vetoed it, but he probably would likely have seen it as an innocuous bill streamlining interstate commerce.

If there is not vigorous criticism from liberals directed toward the White House, then they will continue to follow the path of least resistance and do the wrong thing when they can.

Full statement from the White Houseafter the break:

Why President Obama is Not Signing H.R. 3808
Posted by Dan Pfeiffer on October 07, 2010 at 01:15 PM EDT

Today, the White House announced that President Obama will not sign H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010, and will return the bill to the House of Representatives. The Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010 was designed to remove impediments to interstate commerce. While we share this goal, we believe it is necessary to have further deliberations about the intended and unintended impact of this bill on consumer protections, including those for mortgages, before this bill can be finalized.

Notarizations are important for a large range of documents, including financial documents. As the President has made clear, consumer financial protections are incredibly important, and he has made this one of his top priorities, including signing into law the strongest consumer protections in history in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That is why we need to think through the intended and unintended consequences of this bill on consumer protections, especially in light of the recent developments with mortgage processors.

The authors of this bill no doubt had the best intentions in mind when trying to remove impediments to interstate commerce. We will work with them and other leaders in Congress to explore the best ways to achieve this goal going forward.

Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director

And the Winner of the Economics Prize Is

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The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG,Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.

They are, of course winners of the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize, who, in 2009, awarded the prize to, “The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.”

I so want to get one of these prizes, but I think that I lack the requisite imagination.

Your Bank Foreclosure Fraud Update

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Alan Grayson connects the dots

The lede here has to be that the Ohio Attorney General has sued GMAC mortgage:

This is big news. I just got off a conference call with Richard Cordray, the Attorney General for the state of Ohio. He has filed a lawsuit in Lucas County (Toledo) Common Pleas Court against GMAC Mortgage and their parent company Ally Financial, in a suit which names Jeffrey Stephan, the infamous “robo-signer” who signed off on up to 10,000 foreclosures a month across the country with affidavits, without verifying the information in the foreclosure documents. The lawsuit alleges fraud on the part of GMAC, along with violations of the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act, in filing false affidavits to mislead the courts in what they describe as “hundreds” of Ohio foreclosure cases. And, the Attorney General is treating every single false affidavit filed in an Ohio court as a separate violation, with a fine of up to $25,000, plus additional restitution for the homeowner of an unspecified amount.

This is a major lawsuit, and as Cordray told reporters, “We’re at the beginning of this, not the middle or end, and we’ll see where it leads us.” For context, approximately 450,000 foreclosures have been filed in Ohio since 2005, and potentially all of them used this robo-signing process. At the outer edge of this, if every one of those foreclosure processes is seen as a single case of fraud, the fines for the entire lending industry would add up to $11.25 BILLION dollars, just in the state of Ohio, not including the extra restitution for homeowners.

Cordray is also requesting information from the other major lenders, and has moved for an injunction against GMC, so it looks like this snowball once he gets to discovery.

Additionally, we have more calls for investigations and a moratorium, with both Nancy Pelosi,the Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper raising concerns. (talk about the odd couple)

Congress has weighed in, sort of, with an unexpected vote in the Senate a week ago approving an electronic notary law which, at least according to Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio Secretary of State, increases the possibility of fraud by creating a credit card style race to the bottom in terms of legal standards.

This growing furor may explain one of the peculiarities of the property meltdown, why banks seem to favor foreclosures over short sales even when the former generate more money.

I was unaware of the fact, but the standards for titles are much lower in the event of a foreclosure sale:

If you know anyone in real estate, you have bumped into countless frustrated agents who were attempting to complete shortsales for their selller clients only to have the whole thing fall apart at the last moment and then they later see the same property go into foreclosure for LESS than what the pre-approved shortsale buyer had offered just weeks earlier. Why, why, why, they moan. Why would a bank or mortgage servicer take less than what they could have had?

Well, now I wonder if one potential answer doesn’t have something to do with the types of deeds that get conveyed in a foreclosure and the tie to title insurance. In foreclosures in many states the buyer obtains a specialized deed – a special warranty deed, or a bargain and sale deed which make fewer guarantees for the buyer than the general warranty deed which is transferred in a normal sale(which I believe a short sale still falls under)

………

Is it possible that the foreclosers realized it was in their best interest to abort short sales in favor of foreclosures in order to pass the more limited deeds conveyed in a foreclosure? Did that decision come back to haunt them once the entire foreclosure process itself became highly suspect and publicized? (There is already a large title insurer who is denying title insurance on some foreclosures.)

Of course, the real elephant in the room is that anyone who has gotten a mortgage in the past decade* is just as likely to have problems with their title.

Foreclosures do not create title problems, foreclosures merely reveal those problems.

This is going to be uglier than David Boehner in a thong.

*Full disclosure, like me.

Economics Update

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There is a lot of news today, mostly in currency and international finance, but the lede, at least for a US focused post, which this is, is the Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index, well above forecast.

In international finance news, we are seeing central banks all over the world beginning to open the spigots again as they see the recovery sputtering.

We have the Bank of Japan engaging in another round of quantitative easing (printing money) by setting up a ¥5 trillion ($60 billion) fund to buy government and private bonds in order to keep interest rates at 0%, and Australia, one of the first countries whose central banks increased rates, has kept rates at 4.5%, surprising the experts who were expecting another rate hike.

Interestingly enough, currency has gone in the opposite direction expects from these actions, with the Australian Dollar approaching a 2-year high, and the US dollar fell.

Generally, interest rate surprises on the low side for other countries would drive the dollar up, but it appears that there is an expectation that the Fed will go heavily back into QE like the BoJ.

There is another potential blip on the horizon, as crude oil appears to be on an upswing again.

Warren Goes European

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In terms of drafting the rules for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren has eschewed a rules based approach to regulating consumer credit, instead choosing to go with the principle based system of regulations favored by European regulators:

In her speech and in an interview earlier in the day, Warren said she hopes to take a more “principles-based approach” to regulation, rather than simply saddling companies with more of what she calls “thou shalt not” rules — which make for burdensome, costly compliance and which banks often start trying to skirt as soon as they are written

“Regulators can make more pronouncements from on high, identifying suspicious practices in the various markets and banning them. Or regulators can layer on more disclosure requirements,” Warren said in her remarks. “But neither restores customer trust.”

Rather, she said, “Let’s measure our success with simple questions” — Can customers understand a product? Do they know the risks? Can they easily figure out what it really costs?

To the degree that this will produce uncertainty for the banks, this is a good thing, because regulatory certainty has been used as a license to rape consumers.

I’m still waiting to see how Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner manages to cut her legs out from under her on November 3, because it’s clear that consumer protection is the last thing that he wants.

Foreclosure Fraud Hits Prime Time

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Yesterday, we’ve had a New York Times editorial, and today, Getchem Morgenson hits their front page with a survey of “flawed paperwork” issues:

As some of the nation’s largest lenders have conceded that their foreclosure procedures might have been improperly handled, lawsuits have revealed myriad missteps in crucial documents.

It’s good that this story has hit the big time, but Ms. Morgenson is wrong. There were no flawed documents, this was deliberate fraud, and the dead tree media is behind the curve on this.

We are seeing Fitch making noises about downgrading mortgage servicers over this issue, and on the regulatory front the Connecticut Attorney General has placed a 60 day moratorium on foreclosures, so that paperwork can be reviewed, and the Comptroller of the Currency has ordered 7 of the larges banks to review their paperwork.

On the private side of the business, we are seeing title insurance companies refusing to write policies on foreclosures for some of these banks.

In terms of the irregularities that we are seeing:

If you think that the housing crash is bad, just wait until millions of foreclosed homes hit the market, and no one is willing to buy them, because the title is not clear, than the sh%$ really hits the fan.

My earlier post on the subject is here.

Economics Update

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The lede here is that capital goods orders fell and contracts existing home sales rose in August.

Note that the home purchase data is still well below what it was a year ago, and that capital goods orders ex-airliners was up.

On a slightly more concrete level, bankruptcies have hit the highest level since the congress sold out to the banksters with bankruptcy “reform” in 2005.

Finally, it looks like the invisible bond vigilantes remain in hiding, as, the yield on Treasuries 2-year fell to a record low, 0.37% (!).

These Contemptible F%$#s Are Our Betters?

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Worst Conference Call Ever!

Ireland held a conference call on its debt, and due to an error in the settings, comments from the other participants were heard across the call.

So what did this collection of hedge funds and other investment firms do?

They crudely heckled the Finance Minister of a sovereign nation:

Mr Lenihan had been speaking for less than two minutes on Friday before a mistake by Citigroup meant that the bank’s clients were all able to be heard on the line.

Between 200 and 500 investors are understood to have been on the call, and as they realised their lines were not muted many began to heckle Mr Lenihan.

Some traders began making what one banker on the call described as “chimp sounds”, while another cried out “dive, dive”. A third man said “short Ireland” before adding “why not short Citi too?”

As the call descended into chaos, with one participant heard to say “this is the worst conference call ever”, Citigroup officials shut down the line.

We are not dealing with competent financial professionals here. We are dealing with hyper-competitive frat boys with brains the size of walnuts who are too incompetent to recognize their own incompetence.

This is why these people need to be “hit like a piñata with a stick,” because they are incompetent, overpaid, self-obsessed, morons who have the ability to destroy our economy.

Letting them do what they want is like giving opposable thumbs, assault weapons and espresso to rabid wolverines.

It won’t end well.

Economics Update

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It’s jobless Thursday, and the initial jobless claims are out, initial claims down 16K to 453,000, and the less volatile 4 week moving average fell 6,250 to 458,000, a two month low, with continuing claims falling 83K to 4.46 million, and emergency claims falling 293K to 4.88 million.

Generally, the numbers are good, but still firmly in the 450-480K “sweet spot” where the numbers have lingered for most of this year.

Additionally, the revised GDP numbers have come out, and, for once, the numbers were revised up, from the truly anemic 1.6% annual rate releases last month to a (truly anemic) 1.7% annual rate.

In real estate, mortgage applications fell, despite falling rates, though the home purchase application index nosed up slightly.

In terms of the various indices out there, the Institute for Supply Management’s Chicago PMI rose in September, beating estimates.

Generally a good news day for this economy, this.

We Are Completely Screwed……

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Barry Ritholtz is reporting that Morgan Stanley has frozen hiring at its investment banking division, because of, “low trading and underwirting volume.”

Additionally, the midsized investment bank Jefferies and Company is reporting that it had its worst quarter since last year.

If Jefferies does not ring a bell, there was a spate of stories about them a few months ago lauding how they avoided any damage from the financial meltdown because of their prudence and probity.

What we are seeing here is the slow unwinding of the Geithner/Obama bank bailout, which basically consists of extend and pretend, with the hope that banks will generate enough profits to eventually fill the holes in the balance sheets.

It’s why Geithner has actively fought against transparency in accounting and limits on executive compensation: He is afraid that someone who knows where the bodies are buried will take the whole rotten system down.

The problem with his solution is two fold:

  • There simply ISN’T enough money to allow them to fill their balance sheet hole. I don’t mean that they don’t have enough money, I mean that the whole f%$#ing world as well as Mars and most of Jupiter do not have enough money.
  • The banksters had no intention of rebuilding their balance sheets, they just continued looting, because they make their money this year from this.

What is going on now is that banks like Morgan Stanley are running out of suckers, who are increasingly realizing that they are just being taken, and banks like Jefferies are running out legitimate knowledgeable customers, because these customers are coming to realizing that, with the exit of the rubes, cash is going to be in very short supply.

If I am right, and I think that I am, when the sh%$ hits the fan this time, they won’t be able to panic congress into another TARP, and the Fed will be constrained by both its own hawks as well as the lack of buy in from the Congress, which will limit the legitimacy of any actions that they take.

It will be ugly, even if the next collapse is not as bad as Lehman, because there is much less capacity to accommodate such a shock.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Haven Trust Bank Florida, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fl
  2. North County Bank, Arlington, WA

Full FDIC list

It’s a 2 closure Friday again for banks, which these days qualifies as low key, but the credit union world was far more active, with NCUA taking 3 wholesale credit unions into receivership today, they are not showing up on the full NCUA list, which only covers retail institutions:

Nearly two years after Wall Street’s giants were rescued by the federal government, regulators on Friday took over three financial institutions that provide the underpinning for hundreds of the nation’s credit unions.

The three entities, known as wholesale credit unions and located in Connecticut, Illinois and Texas, were seized by regulators from the National Credit Union Administration, which supervises about 7,500 credit unions that provide basic banking services to millions of Americans. Most of those customers are linked to credit unions through their employers or through membership organizations.

Although the overwhelming majority of those credit unions are financially sound, some of the wholesale entities behind them have been hobbled by losses on subprime mortgage bonds and other complex investments. Of the 27 wholesale credit unions operating in the United States, five have been seized by regulators over the last 18 months.

…………

…Wholesale credit unions provide payment clearing and investment services to retail credit unions. They also give the retail credit unions a place to put their cash.

So there have been 14 retail credit unions closed, and 3, wholesale ones.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):

I would note that are now at the point where the utility of the least squares trendline is diminishing, but I’m keeping it here for historical purposes.

Senators Ask the Right Question

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And the question is, “why aren’t the people who broke banking and our economy going to jail?”

Senators pressed investigators on a lack of prosecutions of top Wall Street executives in the wake of the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression.

“I will say right now that I’m frustrated,” Sen. Edward Kaufman, a Delaware Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said on Wednesday.

“We have seen very little in the way of senior officer or boardroom-level prosecutions of the people on Wall Street who brought this country to the brink of financial ruin. Why is that?”

The reason that there have been no prosecutions is because the the Cossacks work for the Czar, and the Czar, Obama, does not want the prosecutions, and instead wants to “look forward.”

The technical term for this is “cowardice reinforcing rewards for moral hazard.”

More Federal Reserve Kremlinology

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The FOMC met and issued its report, and their policy remained unchanged, though they did say that they might engage in more quantitative easing (printing money) because they believe that the economy may be trending down.

Basically, they won’t do anything this time around, but they might later, even though, “Measures of underlying inflation are currently at levels somewhat below those the Committee judges most consistent, over the longer run, with its mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability.”

So, unemployment is higher than their mandate allows, and inflation is lower than their mandate allows, and so they will do ……… nothing at all for now.

As Atrios so aptly noted, “The sociopaths at the Fed have spoken.” (Emphasis mine)

It’s the only way you can describe their behavior: They are essentially saying that we are in, or entering, a recessionary spiral, but doing their job is hard.

That being said, the US dollar weakened following the fed statement.

The full Fed statement is after the break:

Press Release
Federal Reserve Press Release

Release Date: September 21, 2010
For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in August indicates that the pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months. Household spending is increasing gradually, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software is rising, though less rapidly than earlier in the year, while investment in nonresidential structures continues to be weak. Employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Housing starts are at a depressed level. Bank lending has continued to contract, but at a reduced rate in recent months. The Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability, although the pace of economic recovery is likely to be modest in the near term.

Measures of underlying inflation are currently at levels somewhat below those the Committee judges most consistent, over the longer run, with its mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to remain subdued for some time before rising to levels the Committee considers consistent with its mandate.

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. The Committee also will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings.

The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and is prepared to provide additional accommodation if needed to support the economic recovery and to return inflation, over time, to levels consistent with its mandate.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; James Bullard; Elizabeth A. Duke; Sandra Pianalto; Eric S. Rosengren; Daniel K. Tarullo; and Kevin M. Warsh.

Voting against the policy was Thomas M. Hoenig, who judged that the economy continues to recover at a moderate pace. Accordingly, he believed that continuing to express the expectation of exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period was no longer warranted and will lead to future imbalances that undermine stable long-run growth. In addition, given economic and financial conditions, Mr. Hoenig did not believe that continuing to reinvest principal payments from its securities holdings was required to support the Committee’s policy objectives.

Larry Summers to Resign After November Elections

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It looks like Obama needed to make some change, though it looks like they will be changes for the worse, because they are looking to replace him as director of Obama’s National Economic Council with someone who is even more of a wall street insider than Summers:

Administration officials are weighing whether to put a prominent corporate executive in the NEC director’s job to counter criticism that the administration is anti-business, one person familiar with White House discussions said. White House aides are also eager to name a woman to serve in a high-level position, two people said.…

Because appeasing whining bankers is job 1 at the White House, I guess, because we are all just little people.

… They also are concerned about finding someone with Summers’ experience and stature, one person said.

Well, if they want someone who can match Summers’ record of being right, and his record of moral rectitude, I might suggest Dick Cheney, Ben Stein, or Vlad Tepes.

As I have said many times, remember, the Cossacks work for the Czar, and I think that the basic problem here is top down, not bottom up.

OK, Time to Freak Out

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A few days ago, Yves Smith noted that Wells Fargo has started to spring a last minute contract clause on its foreclosure sales that basically says if the property does not have a clear title, it’s your tough sh%$:

Yves here. Some readers may take this all to be unduly alarmist. But confirmation that this problem is real and potentially serious comes via a new “gotcha” practice by Wells Fargo on foreclosure sales. Wells is sufficiently concerned about the risks of selling properties out of foreclosure that it is springing an addendum on buyers, shortly before closing, which effectively shifts all risk for any title deficiency on to the buyer.

Now why is this a big deal? Go reread the boldfaced sentence above. [“Technically, the foreclosing bank has no recorded title rights to foreclose in the first place“] If a bank like Wells does not have the right to foreclose, it cannot have clean title to the property. So the bank could conceivably be selling something it does not own.

Let’s say you buy a vase from a store. You open the box when you get home and find out the box is empty. You’d clearly be within your rights to get your money back.

With the Wells Fargo addendum, even if the bank has sold you the equivalent of an empty box, you have no recourse to Wells. Zero. Zip. Nada.

So the banks realize that they are selling properties at auction that they do not own or hold the note on.

They want to clear their balance sheets, and they are now more than willing to engage in outright fraud to do so.

Well, it looks like it’s not just Wells Fargo who is freaking out about this, because GMAC has just suspended its foreclosures in 23 states based on similar concerns that the documentation was forged, though they claim that it will be resolved, “within the next few weeks”.

There are also rumors of a criminal investigation, while GMAC has denied any moratorium.

It appears that much of this has to do with the foreclosure mills law firms, largely based in Florida, most notably Watson, Shapiro & Fishman, and David J. Stern. (MoJo has a good tour of their business practices here)

Note also that Congressman Alan Grayson has written a letter too the Florida Supreme Court asking for an immediate suspension of foreclosures, because these firm are doing the paperwork on about 80% of the foreclosures in the state and have already been cited by a judge for blatant fraud.

There are a couple of issues here, the first is that in the mortgage mixmaster, title for a lot of properties may have been lost, and the second is that the law firms doing the paperwork are simply defrauding homeowners and the courts.

Grayson’s letter is after the break:

September 20, 2010

Chief Justice Charles T. Canady
Florida Supreme Court
500 South Duval Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1900

Dear Chief Justice Canady,

I am disturbed by the increasing reports of predatory ‘foreclosure mills’ in Florida. The New York Times and Mother Jones have both recently reported on the rampant and widespread practices of document fraud and forgery involved in mortgage assignments. My staff has spoken with multiple foreclosure specialists and attorneys in Florida who confirm these reports.

Three foreclosure mills – the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson, Shapiro & Fishman, and the Law Offices of David J. Stern – constitute roughly 80% of all foreclosure proceedings in the state of Florida. All are under investigation by Attorney General Bill McCollum. If the reports I am hearing are true, the illegal foreclosures taking place represent the largest seizure of private property ever attempted by banks and government entities. This is lawlessness.

I respectfully request that you abate all foreclosures involving these firms until the Attorney General of the state of Florida has finished his investigations of those firms for document fraud.

I have included a court order, in which Chase, WAMU, and Shapiro and Fishman are excoriated by a judge for document fraud on the court. In this case, Chase attempted to foreclose on a home, when the mortgage note was actually owned by Fannie Mae.

Taking someone’s home should not be done lightly. And it should certainly be done in accordance with the law.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Alan Grayson
Member of Congress