Banks Plead They Can’t Follow Rules

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: The New York Times

As the mortgage mess grows, we are learning more and more about just how sloppy things were in the mortgage-issuing business as loans were churned out, carved into securities and sold off.

Judges have blocked some foreclosures with rulings that purchasers of mortgages could not prove that they owned them. The buyers of the mortgages complain that it is unfair to ask them to have complied with detailed rules.

And now the banks are begging the accounting rule makers to allow them to ignore a rule that has been on the books for almost 15 years. They explain that they never had any idea that they would have to restructure a lot of home mortgages, and thus had no reason to develop systems to deal with the accounting for such restructurings.

“No one anticipated a day when potentially hundreds of thousands of residential mortgage loans would be modified,” said Alison Utermohlen, an official of the Mortgage Bankers Association who has led the effort to get the accounting rules relaxed.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/business/11norris.html?ref=business

[BridgeTheGap]

1. Yeah, they hate following the rules BUT they want us consumers

to tow the line by the book!

[Hugin]

8. Yeah, it didn't seem to be any problem for them to reset the rates on all of those ARMs...

Like they were planning to do.

[wellstone dem]

19. And someone makes a $20 mistake on their checking account and get charged

a $30 fee. That sure makes sense for the little folks. Good to see them getting a taste of their own medicine.

[BridgeTheGap]

20. But if they make a mistake on your account all they say is "sorry"

why don't we get to charge them something when they fuck up? Oh yeah, they have almost all of the power (and money).

[ananda]

2. Eejits or liars all

“No one anticipated a day when potentially hundreds of thousands of residential mortgage loans would be modified,” said Alison Utermohlen, an official of the Mortgage Bankers Association who has led the effort to get the accounting rules relaxed.
---

Oh pulleeezzeeee give me a break!

[gratuitous]

3. "No one anticipated"

Yep, the gravy train was rolling along so profitably, we didn't have time to notice those "Bridge Out" signs. You're not going to get all snitty about that paperwork, are you Your Honor?

A lot of people deserve to go to jail over this, but you can bet that none of them will for this mortgage industry equivalent of running a crack house.

[Cassandra]

9. "No one anticipated"

The Official Motto of the Republican Party

[Hugin]

11. "mortgage industry equivalent of running a crack house"

HAHAHAHAHA! :rofl:

*wipes tears of mirth from eyes*

Ah, you don't know how much I needed that! :D

[PassingFair]

16. "Who could have foreseen?"

"You think too much".
"Just DO IT"

:puke:

[TankLV]

27. "You're doing a heckofa job"...

[underpants]

18. It's the phrase of the early 20th Century

[tranche]

24. "No one could have anticipated..." - definition of modern day conservatism

Conservatism is awesome! You can lie, cheat, steal, and just plan f%#k up and if it all blows up in your face... voila.. "No one could have anticipated"!

[gratuitous]

25. One other thing is necessary

You have to make a LOT of money to make your claim of "no one could have anticipated/foreseen" to be credible. See, if you're making a lot of money, you're not being paid to anticipate problems or look down the road, or anything. Money just fell out of the sky into your pocket, and the less you knew, the better everything was going to turn out. Sure, some people froze to death, unable to afford basic electrical service; some other folks might have lost their homes and been forced into bankruptcy; but you should see the yacht I pilot into the marina twice a month!

[Highway61]

4. Oh Really?

approving loans with NO income verification may be a slight indicator that they went belly up, no?

edit: spelling

[rodeodance]

5. Another they just could NOT imagine--now more Ballouts for banks

“No one anticipated a day when potentially hundreds of thousands of residential mortgage loans would be modified,” said Alison Utermohlen, an official of the Mortgage Bankers Association who has led the effort to get the accounting rules relaxed.

[fasttense]

6. Taking away the rules

and not following them is what got the banks into this mess in the first place. So their solution - more of the same.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

[Hugin]

7. Tough noogies, dude.

And take note Corporatists Dems... Don't you even THINK about allowing it.

[UpInArms]

10. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will," *Co said.

I am sick and tired of these visionless blinded by greed and destructive to the max cretins.

[drm604]

13. "I don't anybody could have anticipated terrorists flying planes into buildings." n/t

[UpInArms]

15. thanks! here's the link

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would...try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile"— then-National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice, White House briefing, May 16, 2002.

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees"— President Bush about Katrina, on ABC's Good Morning America, Sept. 1, 2005

"I don't think anyone could have anticipated the sectarian violence"— Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, to The New York Times, Aug. 6, 2006.

——

As the unfortunate statements above show, President Bush and people who work for him have a disheartening habit of being astonished by the arrival of disasters they didn't see coming but others did.

...more...

[dkofos]

12. Let them eat cake!!

You know what comes after that!

[truthisfreedom]

14. Oh please, don't make us lose money! Not THAT!

As a penalty for screwing up the entire nation, banks should be forced to allow free use of ATMs everywhere, no more charges on either end. It costs $5 to get $20 out of an ATM. Most people don't realize they're paying $2.50 at the machine and, although the machine never tells you, your bank is charging you at the other end as well.

[Hugin]

17. I'd add to your freebies... No Insufficient Funds fees.

Goose... Meet Gander. ;)

[depakid]

21. “No one anticipated..."

Please.

[Hugin]

22. ...

:kick:

[flashl]

23. What happen to the RESCUE?

It’s Time for the Banks to Face the Hangman | Mike Whitney | October 19th, 2007


How can one defend a system that creates wealth by making the majority poor? – Henry C. K. Liu

Officials in the Treasury Department — working with their colleagues at Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America — have concocted a scheme to rescue the banks from their massive losses in mortgage-backed securities. The group is planning to set up a $100 billion emergency fund that will purchase non-performing assets for short-term debt. In truth, the fund is a bailout that provides the financial giants with an excuse for not reporting their enormous losses from bad bets.

The story first appeared in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal and was followed on Monday with a second headline piece:

“RESCUE READIED BY BANKS IS BET TO SPUR MARKET”

WSJ: “The high stakes plan to RESCUE BANKS FROM LOSSES on mortgage securities amounts to a big bet that a consortium of financial giants — AT THE PRODDING OF THE US GOVERNMENT — can PERSUADE INVESTORS TO POUR MORE MONEY INTO THE TROUBLED CREDIT MARKET.”

[damntexdem]

26. If you can't stand the heat, you need to get out of the ....

;-)

[TankLV]

28. Privatizing the REWARDS and SOCIALIZING the RISKS...AGAIN...

ENOUGH of the CLASS WARFARE!

BAN interest rates over 12 Percent.

BAN extra fees.

BAN the ability of ONE party to a loan to UNILATERALLY change the rules ONCE THE LOAN IS UNDERTAKEN - like raising rates...

GODDAMN - we need a DEMOCRATIC President to RE-ISSUE the New Deal!!!!

THAT would be a START...

[lovuian]

29. They need creative book keeping and where is it

Enron did it and Arthur Anderson is no more

but this is our BANKING system

[Gormy Cuss]

30. Bank customers plead that they can't follow the rules

Bank response: tough cookies, pay up.

[Paula Sims]

31. A friend of mine is a bank examiner

and he sites them for this stuff all the time. There are too many "bankers" that have no idea what they're doing opening up a bank, many of them from the dotcom field that took there money and developed another "toy". If you have the capital, it's relatively easy to open a bank, however to run one properly, that's another story. I suspect it's uglier than the public knows.