Have we really gotten that far?

We have come a long way in six years. Back in 2007 almost everyone thought that the mortgage bonds were valid instruments issued by a valid entity that owned valid mortgages.
Now we have Reuters news service reporting that “home loans underlying securities were rotten from the start.” Thus we are crossing that line where the critical mass of thinking is changing the assumptions and presumptions about whether the mortgage bonds were real and about whether the mortgage loans were real. It is becoming increasingly apparent that neither the mortgage bonds nor the mortgage loans had any basis in reality.
Paperwork was all fabricated for the purpose of allowing the banks to pretend ownership over the bonds and the underlying loans plus justifying the purchase of insurance and other hedge products and justifying the claim of a loss on investments the banks never made. The government rescued the banks from a loss they never incurred — basically money that should have been refunded to the investors and lowering or negating the balance due on any loans made to homeowners. Currently the banks are selling these nonexistent investments consisting of nonexistent mortgage bonds issued by nonexistent trusts with nonexistent assets based upon nonexistent loans.
The largest buyer of this crap is the Federal Reserve. This would be the same agency that declared that the collapse in the mortgage markets was “contained.” That was in 2007. The question could legitimately be asked whether the government officials were stupid or simply lying. And the same question could be asked now.
So we really have several issues that are now due to go in reverse despite the apparent drumbeat of foreclosures that continue to be rubberstamped by judges who don’t know or don’t care to know the truth about mortgage loans today.  The two main issues are ownership of the alleged loan and the actual balance of the unpaid account receivable.
Regulators and officers of law enforcement are just on the cusp of understanding that the money that showed up at the time of the closing with the borrower/homeowner  was stolen and that the theft was covered up under layers of paperwork. Alan Greenspan, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time the banks were on a spree of highway robbery, admitted that neither he nor the 100 economists employed by the Federal Reserve understood one word of the so-called securitization instruments. It was his opinion that the “free market” would correct whatever was wrong. He now concedes that he was wrong to conclude that the market was “free” and he was wrong to conclude that any self correction mechanism could or would work.
As the stench rises from the mortgage bonds and the details are revealed as to how the banks handled the money one might be convinced that this awareness will “trickle down” to the homeowners and borrowers. Don’t hold your breath. Most people in the marketplace and most judges have somehow reached the conclusion that they can lift a stick that is burning on one end and still say “the stick is not burning” because they are holding the end that is not burning.
It may be years yet before there is general consensus that the entire mortgage process was rotten from top to bottom. Thus it is an absolute requirement to litigate, admit nothing, and seek discovery from each key point in the illusion that was called the “securitization chain.” On nearly all “self evident” points there is a lack of corroboration, evidence or truth despite all appearances to the contrary that were carefully constructed by the banks. This illusion is what keeps lawyers from feeling comfortable about denying the documents that were apparently signed, about the default on a loan that was apparently made, and consigning themselves and their clients to the inevitability of the foreclosure.
In the end, when the accounting is done in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, it will be understood that millions of people were forced out of homes they owned based upon loans with no balance due — documented by loan documents with no validity possessed by strawmen who were covering for the Wall Street banks as they diverted investor money from mortgages to insurance and from loans to credit default swaps. These strawmen were covering for the Wall Street banks as they diverted the loan documents from the investors to the banks themselves, enabling the banks to sell counterfeit bonds based on counterfeit mortgages securing counterfeit notes referencing counterfeit account receivables —  all for 100 cents on the dollar and then another hundred cents on the dollar and then another hundred cents on the dollar.
With Wall Street banks sucking up all the money existence somebody had to lose a lot of money. The answer was of course the investors who were tricked and deceived into buying investments that the investment bank would never buy for its own account, based on loans that the investment bank would never have approved if they were using their own money. In fact, the investment bank would never have approved the loans even if they were  not using their own money —  but for the fact that they were making 100 cents on the dollar several times over on each loan regardless of whether it was a good loan or a bad loan.
And the investment banks knew for a fact that the fund managers of pension funds and other investors would not and indeed could not invest in high risk securities. So they it look like these were low risk securities exempt from securities regulation when in fact they were running a PONZI scheme that diverted the money from the investment vehicle to the pockets of the bankers.
In the end it is the little guy, the common man, who suffers the consequences. If he owns a house he’s going to lose it even though there is no balance due on the loan he received. If he manages to keep the house he’s going to pay a loan that does not exist to a creditor that never loaned him the money but who received payment on the fictitious loan several times over. It is not just the taxpayers who are getting hit and who are entitled to restitution from the financial services industry. It is everyone who lives and works (or who wants to work) who pays the price. It is a society based upon freedom and fair play that has turned into debt bondage and foul play.



ROTTEN FROM THE START: REUTERS
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-07/bofa-put-toxic-debt-in-bond-as-staff-resisted-u-s-says.html