Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Houses of Cards

Commentary By Ron Beasley


Yesterday CNBC's Diana Olick gave us a short course on the legal issues surrounding the mortgage crisis.



The issues are securitization, modernization and a whole lot of cut corners. Real estate law requires real paper transfer of documents and titles, and a lot of the system went electronic without much regard to that persnickety rule. Mortgages and property titles are transferred several times in the process of a home purchase from originators to securitization sponsors to depositors to trusts. Trustees hold the note (which is the IOU on the mortgage), the mortgage (the security that says the house is collateral) and the assignment of the note and security instrument.



That sound you hear is a collapsing house of cards:



JPMorgan exits electronic mortgage tracking system




NEW YORK � JPMorgan Chase's CEO says the bank has stopped using the electronic mortgage tracking system used by major financial institutions.


Lawyers have argued in court proceedings that the system is unable to accurately prove ownership of mortgages.


JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other banks have suspended some foreclosures following allegations of paperwork problems in thousands of cases.


JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, made the announcement in a conference call Wednesday to discuss the bank's quarterly earnings.


The Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, acts as a trading house for millions of mortgages. Lawyers for homeowners say the system lacks the required paper trail to prove mortgage ownership in foreclosure proceedings.



Does this represent a de facto admission that millions of mortgages processed through MERS are invalid?  Let the lawsuits begin followed by bank failures.  The lawmakers are going to have to make a tough decision - are they going to piss off the "Masters of the Universe" on Wall Street or piss off the voters who will be furious at anything that even looks like another bank bailout?


More here and this from the MSM.



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3 comments:

  1. CurmudgeonOctober 13, 2010 at 8:26 AM

    Do you really need to ask whether Washington will side with the banks or the public?
    Banks have votes that count. The public doesn't.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ron BeasleyOctober 13, 2010 at 11:48 AM

    In normal times you would be correct - but these are not normal times. Anything that even looks like a bailout for the banksters would spell political death by teabags. The Oligarchs may yet regret their creation of the teabaggers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tibia GoldOctober 14, 2010 at 6:46 PM

    Lawyers have argued in court proceedings that the system is unable to accurately prove ownership of mortgages.
    JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other banks have suspended some foreclosures following allegations of paperwork problems in thousands of cases.

    ReplyDelete

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