The problem with your term “swindle” and the socialist website’a (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/bank-f20.shtml) analysis of the settlement is this:
“Thus, far from punishing the banks for their violations of state and federal laws, the settlement is merely another means of handing taxpayer funds to the biggest banks.”
1st: The Fed’s and the state AGs settlement is based on ALLEGATIONS concerning the “robosigning” issue. Allegations, not trials in the courts, and no where, regarding the robosigning issue, any factual identification that persons who were not behind on their mortgage were foreclosed on by a bank due to that issue.
2nd: The concept that the government should promote “principal reductions” or any other “foreclosure reduction” programs IS a political, not economic requirement and if the citizens won’t stop their government from authoring these programs it will be, and it ought to be, the taxpayers that are going to subsidize the programs, whether the subsidies go directly to undeserving homeowners or undeserving banks. Yes, that’s our fault, in the collective sense, not that the banks are getting any subsidies, but that we have allowed the government to establish the programs on the pretense that the programs, not the natural course of market conditions are going to “save” the housing markets.
The “swindle” is that the whole thing is political and has little to do with “saving” housing. The “swindle” is that any politician is playing with the public and attempting to buy votes on the idea that THEY are going to “save” the housing markets by such policies. They’re not.
I think we are on the same frequency, but wonder why your emphasis on “swindle”, for that just what thay govt bailout is. The banks get off the hook CHEAP. They can use the money “lost” from write-downs as payment towards that fine, conceivably meaning no real payment at all.
Dunno about the 1st statement as I have read here and elsewhere of major fraud and corruption by everybody associated with these sales. (Buried in the archives now.)
I concur with the 2nd statement and am in full agreement with the last paragraph.