Posts Tagged ‘banking’

Facebook IPO: Why It Went Wrong and Why It Matters

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

FacebookI foolishly hoped the Facebook IPO might actually bring some confidence back to Wall Street.

What was I thinking?

Turns out it’s just another example of how the soulless Wall Street culture is destroying American style capitalism.

We have barely gotten past JP Morgan Chase’s $3 billion catastrophe, and the outrage over their foolish decisions, but here we are again. The attention span on Wall Street seems equivalent to that of a small child.

Scott Udine, a broker friend of mine, said it best, “The brokerage firm community is made up of salesmen and people that mainly care about THEIR bottom-line….not yours!!! They will sell anything, say anything and do anything.”

Morgan Stanley over sold and over hyped too many shares of Facebook to an unsuspecting public, while quietly telling large institutional investors another story. And to add insult to injury NASDAQ had such huge headaches processing all the buy, sell and cancellation orders that they now admit the whole IPO was an unmitigated disaster.

So once again its heads, the banks win, and tails, you lose.

Morgan Stanley changed the game as the lineup was being announced. It reeks of impropriety. Anybody in the stock business will tell you it is practically unheard of.

I can only add this to the mounting list of evidence against the too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-jail banksters and sigh in disgust.

If you’re wondering why a foreclosure defense attorney is up-in-arms about a stock offering, it is because the same shady tactics that have led homeowners to my office are the same ones on display here.
(more…)

How Some States Are Spending Foreclosure Settlement Money Is Far From Settling

Friday, May 18th, 2012


States are taking settlement money right from under us!

It’s pretty hard to find a single housing advocate or foreclosure defense attorney, myself included, who didn’t find the national mortgage settlement to be, at the very least, flawed.

It may have been a necessary step to getting the housing market back on track, but we know that it didn’t come close to compensating homeowners who had been illegally kicked out of their homes, and in the end, the banks are getting off remarkably light for their robosigning crimes.

Which is why what a multitude of states are doing with some of the banks money is downright revolting.

At least a dozen states are taking tens of millions of dollars in direct payments from the settlement and treating them like a slush fund.

Let me explain.

Part of the settlement included $2.5 billion that was given outright to the states. Florida took in just over $334 million.

The settlement calls for these dollars to be used to “to avoid preventable foreclosures, to ameliorate the effects of the foreclosure crisis, to enhance law enforcement efforts to prevent and prosecute financial fraud, or unfair or deceptive acts or practices and to compensate the States for costs resulting from the alleged unlawful conduct of the Defendants.”

But much like much of the settlement overall, there is nothing in this language that has any real measure of enforcement. Some states are flat out ignoring these instructions and doing whatever they want with the money they are getting off the backs of good honest homeowners.
(more…)

Roman Pino Case Imperative to Florida Supreme Court’s Integrity

Friday, May 11th, 2012

The Court's Integrity Must Be Beyond ReproachI’m not a reader of tea leaves, so I am not about to guess how the Florida Supreme Court will ultimately rule on Roman Pino vs. The Bank of New York.

But listening to the justices attack Amanda Lundergan, Roman Pino’s attorney, while seemingly going much easier on Bruce Rogow, the bank’s very well-respected lawyer, was at best, discouraging.

It’s common for the justices to try to poke holes in an attorney’s case, and it does not always mean that you can predict what their decision will be.

But with the thousands surely watching Thursday’s hearing, I was hoping the Court would have been a little more sensitive to the perception that they were most certainly creating, that the banks already have this one in the bag.

As a whole I found the Supreme Court judges flippant to the obvious fraud that Bank of New York has brought before the court in this case.

And for the Court to downplay the importance of that fraud, and what it means to the integrity of the judicial system, was offensive.

If you were an average homeowner watching yesterday’s hearing, I am pretty sure you came away with a feeling that the playing field is not level, and there are two different sets of rules for the banks and for the rest of us.

That is truly unfortunate.

The Supreme Court has to be above the fray, and they must not abdicate their responsibility to police their own system.

Which is exactly what would happen if the Court allows the phony documents, the fraudulent backdating, the bogus notes and assignments to be brought before them without penalty.
(more…)

Landmark Foreclosure Case Goes Before Florida Supreme Court; Has Banks Terrified

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

The banks are terrified they might actually be held accountable for their actions!

If you haven’t already heard, there is a monumental case that was heard Thursday morning in the Florida Supreme Court, and every single homeowner should be paying close attention to this case.

To watch a replay of the oral arguments, please click here.

The case is Roman Pino vs. Bank of New York. It involves all the customary fraud I have seen in countless cases.

Missing documents, fraudulent assignments, fraudulents notaries, and forged documents, and a bank once again trying to shuffle it’s dirty deeds under the rug like loose dirt.

When Bank of New York first tried to foreclose on Pino, a regular working guy from Greenacres who fell behind on his mortgage when his business dried up, there was no assignment of mortgage.

So Bank Of New York’s lawyers tried to re-file with a new assignment, one which was fraudulently backdated (AKA robosigned).

The bank’s original lawyers, by the way, were from David J. Stern’s office. You know their story.

When our good friend and colleague Tom Ice, Pino’s lawyer, challenged the documents, Bank of New York suddenly decided they didn’t want to foreclosure anymore, dropped their lawsuit and scurried back into their hole.

End of the story??

Not even close. Ice continued to dog Bank of New York like a pitbull, because he, believe it or not, also thinks the banks need to actually be held accountable! (Remarkable I know.)

He tried to have the voluntary dismissal overturned, so that Bank of New York could face sanctions for the forged documents they tried to use to swindle Roman Pino and the court.
(more…)


PHP/MySQL Components, WordPress Plugins, and Technology Opinions at TravisWeston.com

Bad Behavior has blocked 2372 access attempts in the last 7 days.