Fat Cats Successfully Fighting Big Daddy Banks for Compensation after the Mortgages They Bought for Investment Purposes Went Bad — but Still No Justice for People whose Homes Were Taken Away — Now Ain’t that Just Like the New American Plutocratic Way?

© 2011 Peter Free

 

29 June 2011

 

 

I keep addressing these issues, so that “we the people” don’t get too accustomed to living at the bottom of the toilet bowl

 

The Associated Press reported that:

 

Bank of America and its Countrywide unit will pay $8.5 billion to settle claims that the lenders sold poor-quality mortgage-backed securities that went sour when the housing market collapsed.

 

The deal, announced Wednesday, comes after a group of 22 investors demanded that the Charlotte, N.C. bank repurchase $47 billion in mortgages that its Countrywide unit sold to them in the form of bonds.

 

The group, which includes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Pimco Investment Management, and Blackrock Financial Management, argued that Countrywide enriched itself at the expense of investors by continuing to service bad loans while running up servicing fees.

 

© 2011 Associated Press, Bank of America to pay $8.5 billion settlement over mortgages, Washington Post (29 June 2011)

 

 

Think about it — this is a graphic example of what’s wrong with the United States these days

 

One group of rich guys sues another group of rich guys using the expensive American court system to get compensated for their own stupidity in buying obviously flawed investment vehicles from deliberately duplicitous banks.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, ordinary taxpayers and homeowners who did not realize that lenders were not demanding appropriate assurances of borrowers’ ability to repay mortgage loans are left holding the bag for the greed of both rich guy groups.

 

“We the people” lost twice:

 

(1) Some of us lost our homes,

 

most of us lost billions in the value of our real estate and from our pitiful investments and retirement plans,

 

and

 

(2) we have been simultaneously required fork over money to bail out the very institutions that stole all of this money from us.

 

 

If that doesn’t infuriate you, there’s something wrong with your survival psyche

 

Get mad.

 

Reclaim our democracy from these de facto slave-owners.