When I was a kid growing up in the Bronx the U.S. Supreme Court always seemed to be above reproach.
Maybe my friends and I were naive, but I think maybe times have really changed. The Supreme Court, once a glaring symbol of constitutional democracy, has now been pulled into the day to day mudslinging of the political process.
To me, as a lawyer that is a true shame. Theaura of neutrality around the Supreme Courthas evaporated, and now the American public views it through the same partisan-colored glasses as it does the other two branches of government.
A new survey out this month shows the Supreme Court ‘s approval rating at a 25-year-low. The Pew Center for the People and The Presssurveyed over 3,000 Americans, and just over half of them (52%) gave the Court a favorable rating. That is down from 58 percent just two years ago, and down from a high of 80% in 1994.
Why? Because the rule of law is no longer the only thing that matters inside the courtroom.
For me it starts with the Court’s ruling onCitizens United vs. FEC. A flurry of Super-PACs and their so-called ‘secret money’ now dominate the national political landscape, because of the 2010 decision that now ratifies their existence and equates corporations with people. If elections are taking an even more negative tone than usual, the court must accept some level of blame.
Some of the language from the recent hearing on health careseemed more appropriate at a Tea Party rally than at our nation’s highest court.Another survey by Bloombergshows 80 percent of Americans believe that politics, and not the cases’ legal merits, will decide the outcome of Obama’s healthcare legislation. (more…)
In the days that followed, his new field general Eric Schneiderman was unveiled and almost immediately action was taken.
When Schneiderman issued subpoenas, just days after the President appointed him to run his new Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, I thought that perhaps, FINALLY, a corner had been turned.
But it’s becoming clear to me now that the train that is the RMBS Working Group hasn’t left the station, and depending on who you believe, there may not even me a station built yet!
After those few weeks of full-court press by Schneiderman, there hadn’t been a peep about the status of the Working Group’s investigation. Yes it may have only been three months, yet I fear that the bold vision you and I were sold might turn out to be just another empty promise.
The press only turned its attention back to the Working Group after a brutal Op-Ed in the New York Daily News. The co-directors of theMetro Industrial Areas Foundation, a citizens coalition group, called Schneiderman out and said they had yet to see any footprint of the RMBS Working Group’s investigation.
The 55 staff members promised by Attorney General Eric Holder were nowhere to be found, the pair claimed.
Yet even this Op-Ed could only draw Schneiderman’s mouthpiece out of the woodwork, rather than the Attorney General himself.
Today’s housing market needs a dramatic overhaul and it’s been long overdue for a fix. So we don’t have the time to be contemplating moral hazards anymore.
So I’m OK with President Obama extending mortgage assistance to owners of multiple homes.
Borrowers who qualify for HAMP can have their monthly payments reduced through lower interest rates, longer mortgage terms and forgiven principal.
Landlords can apply for loan modifications for up to 4 mortgages as long as they rent out the homes or plan fill them, according to Bloomberg, who says about 700,000 landlords might qualify.
This has angered some, who are saying the administration is rewarding speculators who may have caused the housing market to collapse, and should focus solely on those who haven’t been able to pay their mortgages because of financial hardship. In a dream world, they would be right.
The problem with that notion is while speculators may have played a role in the housing market collapse, I still lay most of the blame squarely on the banks. You might say a so called ‘house flipper’ was only buying homes to pad their bottom line, to which I respond, what exactly do you the banks were interested in?
They were the ones engaging in rampant fraud, not the speculators.
I must again go back to this 60 Minutes piece about abandoned homes rotting their neighborhoods from the inside out. Banks response to these vacant properties has been to walk away from homes and allow them to go to waste. (more…)
We here at theSouth Florida Law Blog decided to clock in a few hours this weekend, because if we didn’t we’d probably fall behind President Obama’s new man-in-the trenchesEric Schneiderman.
President Obama only announced this new investigative unit during Tuesday’s State of the Union, yet the “check”, or in this case the subpoena, is already in the mail.
If you were skeptical that Obama was still interested in the status-quo when it comes to the banks and doing business, may we present Exhibit A.
Eric Schneiderman is turning himself into a modern-day Elliot Ness.
You remember Ness don’t you?
The federal agent whose team of “Untouchables” couldn’t be bought off and helped bring down Al Capone?
Schneiderman too has the era of a man who will not be co-opted. If anyone can stay above the fray and not be reeled in by the banks and their money, he can.
Investigation Going After Cause of Housing Crisis
Schneiderman has stood up to the President before, openly opposing the settlement agreement that we here at the South Florida Law Blog have railed against. And now he is Obama’s point man for placing blame and creating accountability for causing the worst economic crisis in the US since the Depression.
Elliot Ness
The Huffington Post is reporting that outside of claims directly relating to robo-signing fiasco, the banks will not be released from the threat of prosecution for the vast majority of securities-related crimes. (more…)
Like the characters in "The Blair Witch Project", the banks are running scared!
Well what a wild week it has been. When we came to work on Monday we feared President Obama would put the housing crisis to bed without ever holding the banks’ feet to the fire.
The settlement with the banks, which we have blogged about ad nauseam this week, seemed as sure as a chip-shot field goal.
But thanks to President Obama’s suddenly get-tough approach, as evidenced by his State of the Union speech, we’ve seen the banks’ kick go wide-right and now all bets are off.
Can There Be Real Change In Mortgage Industry?
Now we are not completely sold that things will play out exactly as homeowners would like, this is of course the federal government we’re talking about, but for the first time we have a true sense of optimism. The President may finally be seeing things our way, and we want to throw our full support behind him.
There is no doubt cages have been rattled in the mortgage industry, and nerves have been frayed. If Obama’s plan to re-write the foreclosure rules didn’t have some kind of teeth, then we doubt we’d be seeing the type of reverberation thorough the media and the top echelons of government that we’ve detected in the last few days.
Banks Are Fearful of Settlement Collapse
The settlement could be falling apart at the seems, at least JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon thinks so. He told CNBC this morning that Obama’s announcement to investigate the packaging and servicing of mortgage loans could stop the settlement cold. (more…)
Leading up to the State of the Union, we heard a lot of chatter that a proposed $25 billion settlement with the bankswould be a selling point in President Obama’s speech.And maybe it would have been, hadPresident Obama delivered the State of the Union. But clearly the person we saw last night addressing Congress wascandidate Obama, who is a very different individual.
The State of the Union, at times, felt more like a stump speech that an address from a sitting president. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Obama finally sounded like someone willing to play tough with the banks with his ‘No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts’ line. Only time will tell if this is a true change in the President’s perspective, or if he’ll go right back to being the same man who handed out bailouts like candy.
We were glad to see Obama acknowledge that Wall Street was playing by its own rules, but he had a hand in allowing them to do so, so we hope he understands if we’re still a bit skeptical.
Right before the State of the Union, the Huffington Post broke the news that New York Attorney General Eric Scheniderman has been named to lead a new Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses, which could be a real game-changer. Like the editorial team at Oppenheim Law, Schneiderman has been a vocal critic of the aforementioned settlement.
He has been very tough on the White House’s foreclosure policies before, so maybe we’ll finally see the accountability and thorough investigation that we’ve been demanding. (more…)
Haunted homeowners finally got some good news this week when the White House announced the re-launching of its 2009 Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). Rising from the dead, the revitalized program features some key costume changes designed to revive the program and help underwater mortgage owners take advantage of today’s low mortgage rates to lower their monthly payments and reduce their loan amount. Homeowners Horrors
Out of the 4 million mortgages in Florida, about 1.25 million are underwater. Although HARP was released two years ago to help 5 million struggling homeowners nationwide, only a very small percentage were able to take advantage of it. The revisions in the program focus on increasing the number of eligible “not so scary” loans.
But Oppenheim Law’s Florida Real Estate Attorney and Legal Blogger Roy Oppenheim calls the revised program too little too late.
“The reality is the government says it’s going to help a million people but ten million people need help and they are not getting help. So many people have had to default and destroy their credit because the government never really came to bail out the homeowners. Instead, they sold out the homeowners and bailed out the banks,” Oppenheim told WSVN TV.
The New Program Requirements: Trick or Treat?
Homeowners are required to be current on their loans and cannot have missed any payments in the previous six-month period. Unfortunately, this means many struggling homeowners still will not qualify for relief under the program.
Other requirements include:
* Loans must be backed by Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac
* Continue to make mortgage payments on time (more…)
When I was a kid growing up in the Bronx the U.S. Supreme Court always seemed to be above reproach.
