Police State

Mortgage companies and big banks reach settlements with the Justice Department over bad mortgages, foreclosures and bad loan modifications. Nobody goes to jail.

"Concerns about the Independent Foreclosure Review began to mount in within the comptroller’s office, according to the people familiar with the matter. The alarm, these people said, was that the reviews were taking more than 20 hours a loan file at a cost of up to $250 an hour. Since the start of the review, the banks, which are required to pay for consultants to review the files, had spent an estimated $1.5 billion."

In other words, the plutocrats are sucking up most of this money, so homeowners won't see very much.

The LA Times explains how corrupt this deal is.

Local implications.

"Eligible borrowers could get $500 to $125,000 if their case shows mistakes or wrongdoing, according to information from government regulators."

That's a big range. Why is the Federal Reserve in charge of this?

In an unrelated related story, Massachusetts fines Morgan Stanley over Facebook IPO.

Chicago immigrant lottery winner killed by cyanide poisoning. The autopsy failed to uncover the poisoning the first time, so asking Chicago government agents in the murder capital of America to solve this crime is a futile.