Doesn't this seem to be a bit too late? Are they really saying that only now they're investigating fishy lending practices? Where the heck was the oversight when we needed it?
Now-defunct IndyMac Bancorp Inc. is under investigation by the FBI for possible fraud in connection with home loans made to risky borrowers, The Associated Press has learned.
It was not immediately clear how long the FBI's probe of the bank has been ongoing.
The investigation is focused on the company — which was taken over last Friday by the FDIC — and not individuals who ran it, a law enforcement official said Wednesday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
IndyMac Bank's assets were seized by federal regulators after the mortgage lender succumbed to the pressures of tighter credit, tumbling home prices and rising foreclosures.
As this video link mentions at the end, the growers who are talking about incalculable financial losses due to this outbreak are the same group who have fought any changes in regulation. They have lobbied the Bush administration and Republicans to let self-regulation control this process despite repeated failures. Now they're losing millions and thousands of people across 42 states, DC and Canada are getting sick and consumers are afraid to buy tomatoes, cilantro, peppers and who knows what else.
It's hard to believe that the US still doesn't have traceability for food so instead of limiting the problem, the large food producers are dragging down everyone, making the financial losses much more than they have to be. How's that self regulation thing working out?
Not so surprisingly, if the federal government fails to provide basic guidelines, contractors will provide the cheapest solution regardless of the health impact or quality. Were their no regulations because of the half-baked GOP idea of industry self regulation or because they really don't give a damn what happens to people left homeless due to situations beyond their control? Let's just call it compassionate conservatism, without the compassion, as usual.
An analysis by researchers for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that four Katrina trailers emitted the toxic chemical at levels four to 11 times as high as those found in typical U.S. homes. The study looked at both commercially available units and ones custom-built for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2005 and 2006.
The new findings appear to confirm the role that manufacturers' practices and weak federal regulation played in the public health disaster after the August 2005 storm. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has called trailermakers to testify Wednesday.
Are they sure? It sounded like such a good idea and thankfully regulators saw no problem with it either. Just because real estate is hitting new lows every week and the bank's stock price has dropped around 70%, there's no reason they should give in to common sense. Such practices would only encourage more common sense and then where would the banking industry be? Well, that's why they're paid the big bucks, courtesy of the American middle class. No matter how stupid or how costly or how ridiculous their half-baked ideas are, taxpayers will always be there to bail them out and fund their lifestyle. Ain't life grand for bankers?
The choice to pay less was one of the options of Wachovia's controversial Pick-A-Payment mortgages, which offer customers four different payment options each month. Wachovia (WB, Fortune 500) told The Associated Press that it will no longer offer the less-than-full interest payment option on all new home loans.
Critics have said paying less than the amount of interest charged can lead to negative amortization. That means the borrower owes more than the value of their home, increasing the chance of foreclosure.
Listening to anyone on Wall Street get on their high horse and complain about regulation really shows why that bunch needs to be firmly swatted on the back of the head. Maybe if Wall Street had shown an ounce of interest in following traditional common sense instead of gambling like Bill Bennett in Vegas we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Merrill Lynch is right up there with the rest of the overpaid Wall Street types who want everyone else to prop them up when they fail instead of falling to the ground and being homeless when they gamble with other peoples money.
Back in the old days that Merrill CEO Thain seems to love so much, Merrill Lynch and others would be nothing more than a name, with tens of thousands of people out of work so let's not even talk about the hassles of government regulation. Thain is part of today's problems and it would be nice to hear one goddamn person on Wall Street fess up to this very important point. Thanks to the bailout without debate, Wall Street still doesn't really get it and we have Congress to thank for this problem.
Those poor lenders. It's just not easy to cut a break these days after riding high and doing as they please thanks to Republicans who did not think regulation was a very good idea. Now it's the lenders who are crying about "mortgage fraud" as buyers ditch their old house and buy newer, cheaper houses. Isn't a regulation-free market exactly what they wanted a few years ago? What's that old saying about paybacks?
"I can find the same exact house as what I live in right now for half the price," says Ms. Augustine, 44 years old, who runs a child-care service out of her home. She says she soon will be unable to afford her monthly payments, which will jump to $4,000 from $3,300 in August, and she doesn't want to continue to own a home that is now worth $200,000 less than what she paid for it two years ago.
In markets hit hardest by falling home prices and rising foreclosures, lenders and brokers are discovering a new phenomenon: the "buy and bail," in which borrowers with good credit buy a new home -- often at a much lower price -- then bail out of the "upside down" mortgage on their first home.
The Republican economic model at work. Notice the common theme of big talk about savings before it becomes law and then higher costs when rubber hits the road. This is precisely the kind of economics that McCain and his lobbyist friend Phil Gramm want to expand in Washington. Corporate profits increase and the once-promised customer savings disappear.
Average monthly bills for summertime usage have made a steady climb and are now at about $220 in Houston.
Compare that to the national average for the same usage: about $160.
That means electricity in Houston is 38 percent more expensive. Consumer advocates call the difference startling.
“And that is to us is why deregulation is a failure and we ought to think about ending this experiment,” Slocum said.
A failure for consumers but for the electricity industry?
“The industry looks at Texas as a success story,” Platts Energy News reporter Tom Tiernan said. “If you’re a generating company, Texas is a good market to be in.”
Someone really needs to tell the US airline industry to stick it. They consistently offer some of the worst service in the world, throw charges on to the customer at every corner, pay management excessive salaries for terrible products, jam customers in to smaller and smaller spaces, receive billions in taxpayer handouts yet it's never enough. Now it's the fault of the FAA for insisting that the US airline industry actually maintains their planes properly instead of providing the maintenance quality usually expected in the developing world. Sorry that Congress is forcing the FAA to finally step up and demand improvements, but if the airline industry doesn't like it, get out of business.
For anyone that flies on a regular basis, do we really want the airline industry telling us what level of maintenance is enough? This is an industry that is struggling with high fuel costs and cutting corners. Maybe others are comfortable with this overpaid bunch of executives calling the shots with safety but considering how well self-regulation has worked in the past across multiple industries, thanks but no thanks. They can go Cheney themselves.
But remember, they love the free market. That's what Wall Street and the GOP tell us anyway. Just make sure the "free" is free money from taxpayers. What a sad bunch of freeloaders. The only thing that's worse is that nobody is getting serious yet about the strings that ought to be attached. If we're going to subsidize these bums then what are we getting in return? Another CEO making millions in stock sale profits? Sorry, not interesting.
What is so difficult about talking money now, as in today? Give me specifics about the new regulations that will safeguard our investments. Tell me how we're going offer plans to help investors from getting ripped off by Wall Street charges on their retirement plans. Maybe even put a hold on executives from selling any of their shares until we have a clear picture of what is happening. These are extraordinary times so let's not miss the window. Let's talk about this now. Today. Not tomorrow. Today.
If the Federal Communications Commission were a cop on the beat, congressional watchdogs contend, it would have a lousy conviction record. They find that most of the government agency's investigations fail to result in any enforcement.
According to a report released on Thursday by the General Accountability Office, only about 9% of the completed investigations resulted in enforcement action, while 83% resulted in no enforcement.
This in response to deaths and an inability to prosecute GlaxoSmithKline in relation to those deaths allegedly linked to the GSK drugs because there were no specific laws related to the alleged actions by the company to hide test results. Interesting how those laws work in the favor of such companies though it's good to see the UK cracking down. My only caution is that ethics have little to do with this industry so until you speak to the almighty bottom dollar profit, they may not listen.
GSK could not be prosecuted for concealing results which proved the antidepressant Seroxat caused children to become suicidal because the law only obliges companies to hand over safety data from trials when drugs are being licensed. That loophole will now be closed.
Woods said yesterday he could not rule out the possibility that other companies were sitting on unpublished data that could cause them commercial damage.
"I think there is a tension between marketing considerations and the ethical dimension of making health products," he said. "We have to look again at that. The pharmaceutical industry has to look again at that. You could even say there is a positive disincentive to explore the data as fully as it could be explored."
Who would have ever guessed? When bubble buyers stopped buying into the bubble, the bubble money going to bubble developers and bubble construction businesses might be at risk of the bubble bursting. Gosh, it almost seems unimaginable. Almost as unimaginable as the never ending real estate bubble bursting, that is. Do we actually pay people at the Fed to monitor this or do they just go to meetings with Wall Street to chat about what Wall Street wants? How do "experts" accept any theory that revolves around the good times never ending?
As commercial and residential real-estate prices decline, banks of all sizes face a growing number of loan defaults from builders unable to sell houses, and from developers whose malls and other properties turned out to be less desirable than anticipated.
The industry self-regulation game has been played and has failed. The trust-but-verify system implemented by the GOP no longer includes trust, nor do they have the budget to verify. Industry and their GOP lapdogs in Congress are completely uninterested in protecting the food source for Americans. Their policy is to churn out product as quickly as possible for as little as possible all with the understanding that the Republicans have stripped resources from the FDA, making it impossible to provide acceptable levels of monitoring.
Industry calls the downer cow video an anomaly though that doesn't explain the all too regular recalls across the factory food industry, does it? Industry knows that it has gamed the system and was not planning on Democrats stepping up pressure or dragging industry in front of Congress to explain their actions. At a very minimum we need what Congresswoman DeGette is asking for in Congress, which is to allow the US government to issue food recalls. Food safety is much too serious to be left to self-regulation.
Following the law is for chumps, the banks might say. When industry complains about the dreaded class action lawsuits (which have not yet been raised) they always skip around situations like this, where they are in violation of the law but don't really care. They collection millions, perhaps even billions and it's not as though they're going to cut their own bonus plans when there are millions of people out there who will pony up extra fees without even knowing about it. During the GOP Congress and Bush years, it's not as though anyone ever asked big business to follow the rule of law or think about consumers.
It would be great if Democrats in Congress can make progress on this issue but realistically, the banks are in one of their worst down turns in decades and are looking for every cent under every stone so it would be surprising to see them fall in line just by asking. Is it really so difficult for business to follow the laws they helped write in the first place? If regulators go too far (which I doubt they would, even if they wanted to) it will all come back to industry stonewalling previous attempts to be reasonable.
It's refreshing to hear a voice of reason on such a critical issue Congresswoman DeGette may finally be helping Congress turn the corner on food safety. The current system has been cracking for a long time courtesy of the GOP "let industry self regulate" programs. Even the USDA and FDA are unable to make food recalls and instead, rely on the violators themselves to do this. Amazing, isn't it? To compound the problem, the Bush administration has equipped those federal agencies with industry people who are more interested in letting business do as they please rather than think of consumers. Budgets have been slashed, regulation has disappeared and the problem gets worse every year despite big talk by industry and their friends in the GOP.
DeGette's call for federal mandatory recall authority is the right thing to do for painfully obvious reasons. While I don't see the current administration showing any interest in taking action even if they did have the authority, we are only months away from a new administration that hopefully will care about consumers. The Big Food execs will continue to tell everyone that they are in control but history tells us something different. Providing regulation authority is a great first step.
I'd say it's being generous to refer to this so-called "largest ever" recall as being half-assed. While it's good to see the USDA actually showing interest in regulation of a dodgy industry instead of the usual practice of waiting until someone gets sick or dies, ordering a "recall" and then admitting that "almost all of this product is likely to have been consumed" is not exactly impressive. How many other meat packing shops are slaughtering "downer cows" and putting the country at risk? What took so long here?
This specific shop was only discovered thanks to former workers who provided secret tapes to the Humane Society. The Bush-USDA doesn't really care what goes on, as long as the money keeps on flowing. Compassion always seems to be limited to the almighty dollar instead of consumers. You know, those 300 million people who represent 70% of the US economy. Don't they count?
