Yves Smith asked that this be cross-posted and I am happy to do it.  

I’m certainly not going to write about it.  I haven’t even read her piece yet and I’m not sure I’m going to.  But, by all means, feel free.  Click link below to read the rest on Yves’ site.  I can’t do what she does and respond to this stuff with thoughtful and indignant outrage.

Here’s the deal… I wrote a year ago when the whole AG/banker political circus started that I was not going to follow it, not going to write about it, and certainly not care about it.  It was a colossal waste of time by childlike participants who set out to embarrass themselves and succeeded.  Now everyone is upset that it didn’t turn out to be more.  Why?  It’s to be ignored… unless anyone feels like wagering on any of its promises, in which case, I’m your huckleberry and we should talk.

Remember how the whole thing started… AGs: We want $30 billion.  Banks: No, $5 billion.  AGs: okay $20 billion. Banks: No, $10 billion.  AGs: $20 billion.  Banks: $10 billion. 20… 10… 20… 10… 20… 10…

Like watching two 9 year olds.  No math involved.  Just a stupid tug of war over nothing.  Might as well have set the $20 BILLION ON FIRE!  That’s not a joke, I mean it… set it on fire for all the impact it will have… assuming it ever gets spent, and I’ll bet a whole bunch that unless the money is going to banks, it’s not getting spent.

Remember HAMP was to be $75 billion… then reduced to $50 billion… then reduced to $37 billion.  And we spent $2.4 billion and essentially all of that went to servicers.  Oh, but I’m sure the money is going to be handled very efficiently.  Just watching the jockeying is enough to turn my stomach.  Children… badly behaved children.  And Obama you have the leadership skills of a gerbil, the instincts towards transparency of a criminal. How dare you trumpet this as a success… treat the American people like their idiots… you should be ashamed.

Sorry, it’s Yves time…

Mandelman out.

The Top Twelve Reasons Why You Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement

1. California, New York, Nevada, Florida? and Massachusetts Among Fraudclosure Deal Holdouts
2. Wall Street is Split Over the Bank Fraudclosure Deal
3. Tammy Baldwin To Introduce Resolution Opposing Immunity For Banks In Fraudclosure Deal

We have not talked a lot about payment protection plans, those great deals where the bank agrees to pay your credit card balance in the event of disability or death in exchange for premiums. They are great for the banks. In an article in the American Banker, Victoria Finkle and Jeff Horwitz reports that the banks only return to the consumer 21 cents of every dollar paid in premiums and earn profit margins of 50% or more on the plans. Finkle and Horwitz report that the FDIC and CFPB are looking into the plans, with a regulatory probe of Discover Financial Services already underway. The article is worth a read, especially for the surprisingly candid assessments of industry insiders.

These plans are another example of "gotcha capitalism"--a business model dependent on sustained miscalculations or mistakes by the other party to the transaction. For everyone but the consumer at death's door, the premiums are way too high to justify the expense.

UPDATE (2/8): More on the CFPB probe of Discovery from Donal Griffin and Carter Dougherty over at Bloomberg.

1. Freddie Mac Seek $6 Billion of Treasury Aid After Executives Get Big Cash Bonuses (MILLIONS)
2. This is Where Many of The Notes Are – Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks Undisclosed $13 Billion
3. Homeowners Seek to Block Bank of America $8.5 Billion Settlement

1. CNBC Tweet | New York AG Schneiderman Expected To Join Multi-State Mortgage Settlement-New York AG Schneiderman To Hold Media Call At 6pm ET
2. David Dayen | The Schneiderman Gambit: Financial Fraud Unit Appears Designed to Fail, and Grease Skids for Foreclosure Fraud Settlement
3. New York AG Schneiderman Comes out Swinging at BofA, BoNY

1. Kamala Harris: National Mortgage Deal Still Not Good Enough For California
2. The Settlement Would Require Massachusetts, Nevada and Arizona, Which Have Sued Banks Involved in the Talks, to Settle those Cases
3. 38 Questions | As Mortgage Settlement Deal Nears, Nevada AG Raises Important Concerns

1. Adam Levitin | The Multistate Foreclosure Settlement
2. Holy Fraudclosure! | Cantwell to Justice Department: Fully Investigate Fraudulent Foreclosures before Bank Settlement
3. $116,785 Each | Department of Justice Announces Compensation for Servicemembers that were Illegally Foreclosed as Part of Settlement with Bank of America

1. Enough is Enough – Owners Stop Paying Mortgages, and Stop Fretting
2. Report | WALL STREET AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse
3. Fraudclosure | New York AG Investigates Banks’ Role in Financial Crisis

1. Enough is Enough – Owners Stop Paying Mortgages, and Stop Fretting
2. Report | WALL STREET AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse
3. Fraudclosure | New York AG Investigates Banks’ Role in Financial Crisis

1. Fraudclosure FAIL | State AGs Offer New Settlement Terms to Mortgage Servicers
2. Fraudclosure | States Negotiating Immunity for Banks Over Foreclosure Fraud
3. David Dayen | The Schneiderman Gambit: Financial Fraud Unit Appears Designed to Fail, and Grease Skids for Foreclosure Fraud Settlement

1. Nevada AG, Catherine Cortez Masto, Joins States Balking at Bank Releases in Foreclosure Practices Deal
2. Nevada AG Masto Opposes Provision of Settlement with Big Banks
3. Bloomberg | Proposed 50-State Fraudclosure Accord Deadline Set for Feb. 3

1. Dylan Ratigan | Beau Biden on his Fight to Investigage the Banks
2. Dylan Ratigan | Delaware AG Beau Biden: Fighting Fraudclosure
3. Dylan Ratigan | Fixing America’s Foreclosure Problem (VIDEO)

1. Abigail Field | Seeing Through Team Obama’s False Talking Points On the Latest Bank Giveaway
2. Abigail Field | Hey Californians, Make Sure Your AG Keeps Standing Up for You
3. Abigail Field | Will The Attorneys General Sell Out Pension Funds?

1. Correspondence with Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna Staff RE Multistate Fraudclosure Settlement
2. KABOOM | Washington State AG McKenna Sues Recontrust in State of Washington v Recontrust
3. Another Settlement Fail | FDIC Reaches $64 Million Settlement with 3 Former Washington Mutual Executives, Kinda…

1. Naked Capitalism | Mortgage Settlement Term Sheet: Bailout as Reward for Institutionalized Fraud
2. Naked Capitalism | Banks Win Again: Weak Mortgage Settlement Proposal Undermined by Phony Consent Decrees
3. Naked Capitalism | Is Schneiderman Selling Out? Joins Federal Committee That Looks Designed to Undermine AGs Against Mortgage Settlement Deal

1. David Dayen | The Schneiderman Gambit: Financial Fraud Unit Appears Designed to Fail, and Grease Skids for Foreclosure Fraud Settlement
2. David Dayen | Consequential Monday Foreclosure Fraud Meeting Less than Consequential
3. David Dayen | IG Report Whitewashes Firing of Foreclosure Fraud Investigators in Florida

1. Abigail Field | Dear Attorneys General: If You Want to Be Re-elected, Sue the Banks
2. Naked Capitalism | Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage “Settlement”
3. ATTN: PENSION FUNDS | Where does the money go when the trusts “liquidate” the homes in REO?

1. Action Alert – Taking the Foreclosure Fraud Fight to Des Moines to Meet with Attorney General Tom Miller
2. Action Alert – Foreclosure Fraud – Tell your Attorney General “Don’t Sit Down with the Banks! Stand up Against Fraud!”
3. Press Release | Nadler and NY Delegation Assail Iowa Attorney General for Excluding NY Attorney General from Mortgage Settlement Talks

1. NY Times | Red Flags on NovaStar’s Mortgages Were Unheeded
2. Who’s Your Daddy 101? by: Nye Lavalle
3. Matt Weidner | WARNING, THE BANKS HAVE KEYS TO YOUR HOME!

When it comes to defending homeowners against wrongful foreclosure, or suing banks on behalf of homeowners, Attorney Nathan Fransen, of the firm Fransen & Molinaro in Corona, California is a very smart, experienced and dedicated attorney.  This I know for a fact.

How do I know this?  It’s simple.  Over the last few years, I’ve watched him literally bang his head against the wall as California’s courts have unabashedly approved of MERS, disregarded flaws in the securitization process, not cared one bit who signed what, and in general ignored everything having to do with foreclosure cases except the fact that the borrowers hadn’t made mortgage payments in so many months.  He argued complex legal theory and simple fraud… he was honing his approach, and although he had his share of frustrating days, he was careful which cases he took on, never following an unproductive path twice.  I’d refer potential clients to him fairly often, and in most cases, he’d talk them out of filing suit against whoever they had thought they had wanted to file suit against.

Don’t tell him I said it, but he’s also just generally a very smart person, you know, paid attention in school kind of person… fairly well-read… knew about things outside his area of expertise… the whole bit.  He also had both the patience and ability to explain things about the law to me when I was frustrated over how things weren’t working.  When someone can keep complicated things simple, you know they understand them inside and out… and when they can hold their own in a debate with me… well, I’m sorry but that’s saying something.

So, he called me a few weeks back and told me quite nonchalantly that he’d had a very good week.  I was happy to hear that someone had.  What was so good about it?  Well, he had won two of his cases and at least one would result in his client getting a “free house.”  The other might be a free house too, or maybe just a pretty good size pile of money.  It’s true… Nathan had gone in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals… his first time, by the way… and beaten US Bank, hands down… in Causey v. US Bank.

It seemed to me to be an impressive win, because he was appealing after losing in the lower court.  He’s smart, patient and methodical… three things that tend to pay off eventually, but he wasn’t just going up against US Bank… no, he was going up against the dreaded “free house,” meaning that if the court ruled in his favor, his client would no longer have a mortgage secured by real property.  At best, the amount owed would be unsecured debt, like credit card debt, and that would mean it could potentially be discharged in bankruptcy.

But, don’t jump to conclusions because it’s not what you’re thinking.

He showed me how I could actually listen to him argue the case in court, the 9th Circuit has audio files of the courtroom proceedings online, and listening to it was fascinating.  So I figured out how to download it and then convert it to a file format that I could put inside a podcast.  Then I asked him to comment before and after the case so listeners would really get valuable information and be able to learn from his experience.

I don’t want to spoil it, so I won’t say anything more… well, okay I’ll say one more thing.  As I listened to him argue his case in court, one thing came through loud and clear: Judges hate the dreaded “free house.”

This is one Mandelman Matters Podcast that you definitely don’t want to miss.  Nathan sets it up in the beginning, then you hear the audio of the actual courtroom arguments, both his and the lawyer for US Bank… and then he and I argue various topics such as whether robo-signing should be prosecuted and by whom, along with several other things that I know are frustrating homeowners today.

This is the real deal… you could call it “reality podcasting.”  Turn up your speakers, sit back, relax, and listen as three justices from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struggle to balance the rule of law against the dreaded “free house.”  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did… 

CLICK BELOW:

Mandelman Out.

1. Rep. Grayson Asks the Financial Stability Oversight Council to Require a Special Capital Buffer to Large Banks Due to Foreclosuregate
2. Fraudclosure | Large US Banks Submit Plans To “Fix” Foreclosure Operations
3. NY Times – How the Banks Put the Economy Underwater

1. Bloomberg | Proposed 50-State Fraudclosure Accord Deadline Set for Feb. 3
2. Fraudclosure | As Government Nears Accord With Banks, Questions Swirl Over Scope Of Investigation
3. New York Investigating BofA’s $8.5 Billion Mortgage-Securitization Accord

1. Lynn Szymoniak and Jeff Thigpen Video | Mortgage Fraud Investigation in Guilford Co.
2. Occupy Palm Beach Foreclosure Fraud Teach-In Sunday Jan 29 1-3pm
3. Open Letter to Sheila C. Bair of the FDIC from Lynn Szymoniak (60 Minutes) RE Compensation for Foreclosure Fraud

1. Lynn Szymoniak and Jeff Thigpen Video | Mortgage Fraud Investigation in Guilford Co.
2. Occupy Palm Beach Foreclosure Fraud Teach-In Sunday Jan 29 1-3pm
3. Open Letter to Sheila C. Bair of the FDIC from Lynn Szymoniak (60 Minutes) RE Compensation for Foreclosure Fraud

1. Bloomberg | Bank of America Said to Target Individual States to Block Foreclosure Deal
2. Nevada AG, Catherine Cortez Masto, Joins States Balking at Bank Releases in Foreclosure Practices Deal
3. Kamala Harris: National Mortgage Deal Still Not Good Enough For California

1. Guess the Money is too Good to Pass Up – Introducing the Cullaros New Replacement – Expert Witness for Reasonable Attorneys Fees for FDLG Florida Default Law Group
2. Foreclosure Fraud Video Tutorial 5 Part Series – HOW THEY STEAL YOUR PROPERTY
3. Helping Big Banks Help Themselves…To Your Money! (VIDEO)