Update: Well, despite her misgivings, Ellen Segal Huvelle of the Federal District Court in DC has approved the $75 million settlement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission, The New York Times reports.
That said, Huvelle made a few stipulations:But Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the Federal District Court for the District of Read More
In this week’s Observer, I wrote about the former Morgan Stanley mortgage bond trader Howie Hubler, who lost that bank about $9 billion on subprime bets. He’s one of the villains in Michael Lewis’ new book, where last we see him retiring to New Jersey with millions of dollars and an unlisted phone Read More
Halfway through this month’s 60 Minutes interview with the financial journalism deity Michael Lewis, a snapshot of a half-grinning banker in a pinstriped suit filled the screen. With a thick neck and soft face, mouth turned tightly upward, the former mortgage bond trader Howie Hubler smiled out unknowingly at 12 million viewers.
In his nice Read More
From The Times‘ Floyd Norris:
Here’s a milestone: There are now more foreclosures on prime mortgages than on subprime ones.
The Hope Now alliance — the lenders’ group put together at the urging of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr — estimates the number of foreclosure proceedings that begin nationally in each month.
The Read More
"Well, there’s bankers and more brokers/ What do they know know know?/ Go to work in some high-rise/ And vacation out at the Hamptons, oh no!" ["Andrew Cuomo Birthed Subprime Crisis--Or Maybe Not"]
The Village Voice‘s cover story this week slams Andrew Cuomo as a sort of bumbling godfather of the current subprime mortgage crisis that has done so much to damage the American economy and to ruin lives.
A summarizing paragraph from the long story by legendary investigative reporter Wayne Barrett:
Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing Read More
From the front page of today’s New York Times:
The percentage of mortgages in arrears in the category of loans one rung above subprime, so-called alternative-A mortgages, quadrupled to 12 percent in April from a year earlier. Delinquencies among prime loans, which account for most of the $12 trillion market, doubled to 2.7 percent Read More
Dozens of families who risk losing their homes to foreclosure are expected to tell their stories at a Tuesday rally in Albany organized by ACORN.
On May 7, the New York State Assembly overwhelmingly passed legislation to institute a year moratorium on home foreclosure–during which a court would determine an appropriate minimun payment for the Read More
One of the big reasons that real estate is where it’s at now is because subprime mortgage-backed securities got such fabulous ratings from credit-rating firms when, in fact, greater scrutiny was in order.
State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Thursday announced a deal with the nation’s major credit-rating agencies aimed at ensuring such scrutiny. Read More
"Put an end to the Americanization of the Swiss economy!"
So screamed a UBS shareholder at a February meeting of the Swiss banking giant’s top executives and shareholders, according to an excellent report in the Sunday New York Times by Nelson D. Schwartz. The report catalogued the far-reaching effects of the American subprime mortgage Read More
