Free Republic

Dimon publicly stated that his company’s Morgan Health venture is centered around “producing better health outcomes,” which apparently requires that unvaccinated workers no longer be paid to work from home. They must either get jabbed and come into the office, or else get fired. “To go to the office, you have to be vaxxed. And if you aren’t going to get vaxxed, you won’t be able to work in that office,” Dimon fumed. “And we’re not going to pay you not to work in the office.” This loudmouthed tyrant has been a staunch advocate for in-person work all throughout the...

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is on Hillary Clinton’s short list of potential vice presidential nominees. He’s also actively pushing bank deregulation this week as he campaigns for the job. Kaine signed two letters on Monday urging federal regulators to go easy on banks ― one to help big banks dodge risk management rules, and another to help small banks avoid consumer protection standards. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's ... pick is widely viewed in Washington as a sign of her governing intentions.

For years, homeowners have been battling Wall Street in an attempt to recover some portion of their massive losses from the housing Ponzi scheme. But progress has been slow, as they have been outgunned and out-spent by the banking titans. In June, however, the banks may have met their match, as some equally powerful titans strode onto the stage. Investors led by BlackRock, the worldÂ’s largest asset manager, and PIMCO, the worldÂ’s largest bond-fund manager, have sued some of the worldÂ’s largest banks for breach of fiduciary duty as trustees of their investment funds. The investors are seeking damages for...

Full title: "America's Dumbest Banks: Bank Repos Wrong House, Destroys Contents, Then Refuses To Pay Owner's Losses"Katie Barnett, a 36 year old nurse from McArthur, Ohio, made the mistake of taking her family on a two week trip last month, never realizing when they left home that they would return to find the family residence ransacked, emptied and, for good measure, the locks to the doors changed. A burglary? Or maybe, as the local police theorized, the work of squatters who had taken advantage of the open domicile to have a two-week vacation of their own? It turns out, the...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Thursday will nominate a longtime fundraiser to run the Commerce Department and a top economic adviser as the next U.S. Trade Representative, a White House official said. Commerce nominee Penny Pritzker, a businesswoman, philanthropist and Hyatt hotel heiress, is Obama's final pick to fill vacancies among Cabinet secretaries in his second term. The Commerce post has been vacant since last summer, when former Secretary John Bryson resigned after he said he suffered a seizure that led to a series of traffic collisions. USTR nominee Michael Froman is one of Obama's senior economic advisers and a former...

President Obama has often denounced “fat-cat bankers” for their role in the 2008 financial collapse, the subsequent bailouts and the recession. His strong words on the topic suggest that he would have little sympathy, say, the former chairman of her family’s bank, whose collapse caused 1,400 depositors to lose millions at the time. You’d expect him to have even less sympathy if said bank had collapsed because it had adopted an aggressive subprime lending strategy; if it had tried to sell itself and its subprime packages to low-income borrowers as their only hope of getting loans; if it had fixed...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by former MF Global customers to depose the collapsed brokerage's former chief, Jon Corzine. In a written ruling in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Judge Martin Glenn said the Commodity Customer Coalition, which had sought permission to question Corzine and other former MF Global insiders, lacked standing because it is not a direct creditor in the case. [use link for rest of article.] The coalition, a grassroots group led by Chicago-based commodities trader James Koutoulas, bills itself as representing the interests of thousands of traders whose accounts at...

WalMart has teamed up with a very unlikely partner to reinvent banking for the masses. The nation's largest retailer is now in a new alliance with American Express for a partnership called Bluebird. With Bluebird, you get an essentially fee-free alternative to debit and checking accounts that all starts with a stored value card that's branded with the AMEX logo. It's easy to use. You simply deposit money online, via a smart phone app, or at any Wal-Mart cash register in the United States. Check writing capabilities will be introduced later in 2013. Another nice benefit of the Bluebird card...

Credit unions continue to prove that they offer consumers advantages over banks. According to the latest Bankrate survey, the average monthly fee on noninterest checking accounts offered by a bank rose a record 25 percent. By contrast, credit unions continue to hold the line on checking account fees. “It’s clear that people today are gravitating toward true value when they’re looking for a financial institution. Credit unions offer that true value,” said Fred Becker, president and CEO of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU). Here are some of the benefits of credit unions: 1. People before profits –...

Misuse of the FHA Preforeclosure Sale Program may have cost the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over a billion dollars for claims that did not meet program according to an audit released this week by the HUD's Region 7 Office of Inspector General (OIG). OIG initiated the audit after noticing significant deficiencies in borrower qualifications during an audit of program claims at one large lender. The Preforeclosure Sale Program allows borrowers in default due to an adverse an unavoidable financial situation to sell their home at fair market value and use the proceeds to pay off an FHA-guaranteed...

Barney Frank, former chairman of the Financial Services Committee, was very cozy with the financial sector for a very long time. This should serve as indictment of legislative record. For the New York Times' leading Frank sanitizer, David Firestone, however, the Frank-Bank friendship is a sign of Frank's "moderation." Firestone blogs at the NYT, "economically, Mr. Frank is essentially a centrist." Firestone's evidence, point by point:  Frank "talks often of the need for a 'grand bargain' between business and liberals." This has a name. It's called corporatism. Call it corporate socialism, or corporate welfare. It's also not a crazy idea, when you...

It was only a matter of time. A few weeks after every money losing firm in the US and the kitchen sink disclosed it would sue Bank of America in an accelerating attempt to salvage something through litigation, the worst case scenario for Brian Moynhian just got real. As of minutes ago, Norway's Government Pension Fund, which is another name for its Sovereign Wealth Fund, has just announced it is suing Bank of America for mortgage fraud. Not only that but it is also going after Countrywide, obviously, but far more importantly, is also suing KPGM, the auditor on the...

My last post on Michael Lewis’ scatological screed at Vanity Fair drew a fair number of comments regarding German bankers’ problems with toxic-waste securities sold by American investment banks. Why the world supported America’s housing bubble by purchasing derivative securities (collateralized debt obligations, or CDO’s, backed by sub-prime mortgages) is a separate question. For years, I gave presentations to German money managers (often in German) on these securities, as head of Credit Strategy at Credit Suisse (1998-2002) and head of debt research at Bank of America (2002-2005). B of A, to its credit, stayed out of the subprime origination business...

Searchlights on this now, so it doesn't just slip by unattendedApril 29, 20011 @ 8:48am CTPlease pardon me for being so ignorant. I knew that one Ed R. (Edmund Leopold de Rothschild) was a primary backer of the man-made global Marxofascism of Maurice Strong. What I did not know was that it was another Eddie R's loot, whatever set of objectives were coupled with it, which fed George Soros' rise to power. Ignorant, that is, till a flitting tweet presented Arnaud de Borchgrave's April 28th article, "Geneva Gnome's Global Dread." And this is how his editor's report in the Washington...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a decision that may slow foreclosures nationwide, Massachusetts' highest court voided the seizure of two homes by Wells Fargo & Co and US Bancorp after the banks failed to show they held the mortgages at the time they foreclosed. Bank shares fell, weighing on broader stock indexes, on fears the decision could threaten lenders' ability to work through hundreds of thousands of pending foreclosures. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts' unanimous decision on Friday upheld a lower court ruling. It is among the earliest cases to address the validity of foreclosures done without proper documentation....

Here are two depositions of Foreclosure Mill attorneys .. If you have the time read through them ,, they are fascinating and eye opening... http://mattweidnerlaw.com/blog/2010/11/fascinating-read-deposition-of-foreclosure-mill-managing-attorney/ http://mattweidnerlaw.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Deposition-of-Hollan-Fintel-From-Florida-Default-Law-Group.pdf Oh and by the way there was a class action filed in Maryland today that is going to rock the banks world... http://livinglies.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/11-10-10-maryland-class-action-bgww1.pdf

(GREAT YOU MUST SEE) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbRzt7ORnhs

From the headlines of the Wall Street Journal: “Banks Aiming to Play Both Sides of Coin — Industry Lobbies FDIC to Let Some Buy Toxic Assets With Taypayer Aid From Own Loan Books (subscription required, but Calculated Risk has an excerpt). I thought the headline had to be a mistake until I read the article. To recap: The Public-Private Investment Program provides subsidies to private investors to encourage them to buy legacy loans from banks. The goal is to encourage buyers to bid more than they are currently willing to pay, and hopefully close the gap with the prices at which...

Banksters in DC: “The King is Dead, Long Live the King” Kafkaesque tragic-comedy continues to pervade Washington as sources tell us that Citi Chairman Richard Parsons met with Secretary of Treasury Geithner on Friday. Sources suggest Parson’s trip appears not to have been previously scheduled and, wile the subject of their meeting is not known, several sources advise us that his name is likely on the short list for the yet to be announced economic recovery board. We hear Treasury, FDIC, OCC and Fed principals and staff worked together all weekend on the question of aggregator (“bad bank”) versus “insurance...