The homeowner was a winner ? Uh yeah, so those home equity loans weren't liabilities that had to be paid back? There was no tax on the discharge if that happened? (Sarc)

As I've said time and time again. This is just a plain old rotten guy to the core. Tries to act like your favorite grandpa while he ****s you every which way.

http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20....

More Citi news.

Quote:

NEW YORK – Citigroup, which this month admitted breaking FHA rules and paid a fine, also violated regulations for home loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to a whistle-blower’s complaint.


The bank “defrauded, falsified information or misled federal government entities” by selling or securing insurance for mortgages with defects such as improper appraisals and paperwork errors and not reporting them as required, Sherry Hunt, a Citigroup quality-assurance vice president, said in a complaint unsealed last week. It was filed in August under the False Claims Act in federal court in Manhattan.

Well let's see who gets prosecuted? I'm going to take a big deep breath now, I'm turning purple................

Look, I HATE Warren Buffett and will celebrate the day that greedy ****ing pig dies, but he's partially right about the people who gamed this thing. Certainly to say the banks were victims is utter garbage though.

If you go back and look at some of my posts from over 2 years ago, I was ranting and raving (I backed off that of late) - about the people who WERE taking advantage of the situation, and some still are doing so. I personally know several of them!

Sure, they've blown up their credit and who knows how the future may play out for them, but there are plenty of folks who lived (or still are living) RENT FREE in a pretty nice place beyond what they could normally afford - for well longer than they should be able to. In addition, many folks used their homes as ATM machines and pulled out "equity" and financed lifestyles, etc.

There were plenty of folks who were absolutely NOT victims of anything other than their own ****ing stupidity. The problem is, we ALL end up paying the price for it..........

Karl or anyone, what do you say to those who claim that the banks were forced to make bad loans to people who weren't qualified (community investment act)? I hear this being used as the core excuse for the housing bubble all the time.

Total bull****.

Polokian - Sure, they were "forced" to make the loans by their Bonus-driven greed. Luckily all those crooks are in jail now. Oh wait.......

At last ... people are starting to realize how much bull*** there is in thinking that the banks are your best friends.

I wouldn't confuse banks with bankers. The shareholders (owners) of the banks got hosed and almost wiped out until bailed out. The Bankers on the other hand did quite well. The rest of the Karl's piece is spot on.

Perhaps the corrupt buffoon of Omaha's view is a little conflicted.

Quote:

Berkshire, whose stake in Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), the largest U.S. mortgage lender, is valued at more than $11 billion, invested $5 billion in Bank of America last year.

Buffett, who publicly defended Goldman in 2010 against accusations it misled clients, owns warrants to purchase $5 billion of stock in New York-based Goldman Sachs.

Why there are not bank CEOs literally swinging in the breeze from light poles is beyond me. It must be the narcotic effect of the MSM telling everyone that the economy is on a tear and that happy days are here again. Repeat the lie enough times and it begins to gain a ring of truth.

CRA - was a tiny little part of the problem. The banks were perfectly happy to make all the bad loans they could sell off to pension funds with or without CRA.

That hack should have been put in prison a long time ago.

No LOANS = NO BONUS.

Yes indeed those loans were forced to be made.

If a bankster gave a loan to a deadbeat, did not the bankster fail right at the start?

Only excuse for Buffet is senility.

This guy can't be this stupid, which means he is not only lying, but has his own tit in the wringer. His real game is running insurance companies. Any of you guys heard of any insurance companies going broke because of casualties? Only financial gambling has been the cause of any major despair in that industry. In the meantime, since grandpa got his hands on General RE, insurance on homes has doubled in cost. By doubled, I mean per thousand, meaning we are paying for inflation and for what they call risk. I bet the losses haven't doubled. Instead they have been sensationalized.

Murray Rothbard claimed Buffets old man to be one of the most ethical men in Congress. Looks like the apple fell off the tree and rolled down the hill into the sewer. I'm sure having his old man in Congress where he himself could meet every crook on earth enabled him to feather a nest few could feather. Buffets in the paint business. Anyone price paint over the years? I buy it every year in managing the family properties. Buffet bought Burlington Northern. At least I think that is what he bought. Bet the rates creep up to the moon. Hopefully gas replaces coal. GEICO insurance. When I got into the insurance business years ago, one of the first things I learned was this was the rag of rags in the standard insurance business. If my intuition is correct, a lot of what he has bought lately is invested in war. His old man was an old right guy who hated war because it robbed the people of their liberties.

The business of banking today isn't what it should be, but instead concentrated in blowing speculative bubbles. The government is all about building pyramids, huge investments in useless enterprises. This bubble is also funded by the banks. Banks do stupid stuff like lend Greece piles of money. They funnel money into Ireland to build empty homes. The same goes for Spain and the Inland Empire of California and Las Vegas. In the 1980's, the building boom in Dallas became the economy. Oil industry went bust in 1982 and Houston was in shambles. Not Dallas. They built roughly 20 million sq ft of office in 83, 84, 85 and 86. Little of it was ever over 40% leased. They built 200,000 housing units in the years 83 and 84 combined. We probably needed no more than 60,000. When to build one more unit, one more square foot bordered on absurdity, the banks went broke and the economy went in the tank. The only good thing was you could get down the highways, as the added construction vehicles were no longer present. Those bankers went to jail.

As I have stated in other posts, I am rereading The Bubble That Broke the World. I read it in 2008, but in 2012 I have a different perspective. Germany was the current PIIGS. Wall Street peddled billions in debt in Germany, despite the fact the country and its localities were broke. We deficit financed foreign trade. By the time the game was up, the financial well being of all involved centered around giving Germany more money to keep the gig going. Wall Street was creating credit to finance exports and to finance competing capacity overseas. Thus we had competing bubbles on both sides of the ocean. Smoot Hawley? Bull****. The system went broke, because that is what happens when the bubble games are up. Buffet was a smart player in the biggest bubble in history. Today, he is just like the banks he is defending. I have yet to have a bank give me the money before I gave them an application for them to approve or disapprove. Consumers didn't invent cash out refinances and 125% financing, bankers and Wall Street did. They created this monster. The bankers and the bankers alone. F**k Buffet.

http://mises.org/document/3313/The-Bubbl....

The second and third chapters of this book are exceptional. A ring side seat at the show that was going on in the early 1930's and an excellent description of faulty economics.

Themortgagedude is right on. CRA was part of the problem. However it was only a tiny part of the problem. The real big problem was the systemic process of obfuscation that happened (especially in 2004-2006) with the end-to-end process of lending->securitization. Too many false premises and lack of skin/responsibility/accountability were being built into this process. For starts the models used in this whole process way underestimated the risks that median home prices nationwide could go down from 4.6 times median household income back down towards the historical 3.1 to 3.5 ratio we saw from 1968 to 2000. That 30% haircut risk was real and its fulfillment was devastating to these overleveraged firms counting on this risk never being realized.

Buffet cannot do anything without the willing help of highly paid expert accountants and expert lawyers.

Why are all of those enablers not on the radar?

You know what?

**** the banks, **** Buffet, **** the Bernanke, and **** oBama too!

Seeing that kind of tripe makes me want to RAGE. Too bad we don't have a proper channel for that rage - YET.

All these guys need a good punch in the face.

Polokian wrote..

Karl or anyone, what do you say to those who claim that the banks were forced to make bad loans to people who weren't qualified (community investment act)? I hear this being used as the core excuse for the housing bubble all the time.

That's not TOTAL BS.. But it's only part of the story.

This RE bubble doesn't get blown sky-high without help from Big Brother. There's definitely been a partnership between Gov and Bankster to blow this baby to the moon.

Banks loved raking in the fees and interest...
Loved selling their chocolate covered, A-rated **** balls to unsuspecting investors...
Loved cashing in on the insurance when the **** balls turned out to be **** balls...
Loved being able to offload their **** balls to the American taxpayer...

Pols loved to claim that they were the ones responsible for our "prosperity"!!!
Loved to claim that their laws made it possible for EVERY American to enjoy the experience of "home ownership" when really, their laws just distorted the market and allowed banksters to get away with doin **** that they otherwise would have gone out of business for doing....

And yep, they all need punched in the face!

“Large numbers of people who have ‘lost’ their house through foreclosure have actually realized a profit because they carried out refinancings earlier that gave them cash in excess of their cost,”

110% true. That doesn't excuse the banks or the government or loan officers who did liar loans, but the fact remains that there are "large numbers" of people whose foreclosed loan was twice (or more) what they originally paid for their house. All of the cash they pulled out paid for a lot of vacations & restaurant tabs over the years. If they'd only made a small down payment originally, many of them did realize a profit.

Mtgmn wrote..

All of the cash they pulled out paid for a lot of vacations & restaurant tabs over the years.

Don't forget a house and garage full of cheap, shiny Chinese ****.. Oh, and a Harley or two. Don't forget the Harleys ;)

I took 'advantage' of the situation - sold my bubble house for ~3x what I paid 10 years earlier...

Do you want to know what is wrong with this thread? The banks did it! No, the banksters did it! No, the government did it! No, the deadbeat borrowers did it! From the above, you might guess that all the self-serving and wrong-doing is in the past - we fixed all that and now things will get better. You see, what is truly wrong with all of this is WE HAVE DONE ALMOST NOTHING TO PREVENT IT HAPPENING AGAIN, AND AGAIN! Those too big to fail banks are still too big. U.S. monetary and fiscal policy has people looking for places to hide their wealth rather than employing it. Indeed, some have postulated that among the reasons for ZIRP is to push people into the stock market. Listen up Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Obama, if you want me to invest in America, you've gotta show me something worth investing in. The stock market? Rigged like a casino. Buy bonds - oh sure, at what, 2%. Or maybe I should go entrepreneur and buy some houses to rent out - I love to catch falling knives. Y'all keep taking your investment advice from the Oracle of Omaha - I'm sure he has America's interest at heart.