Reason Writers Around Town: Anthony Randazzo in Forbes on Robo-Signed Foreclosures

Reason Foundation policy analyst Anthony Randazzo talks about foreclosure-gate in Forbes:

Nearly six months after banks were caught rubber stamping foreclosures and wrongly evicting families from their homes--a scandal since dubbed "robo-gate"--state attorneys general have indicated that an agreement on restitution could be near. But a devil lurking in the details of the settlement agreement with the major mortgage servicers could make a housing recovery much further off than it needs to be. If regulators get their way, and their proposed $20 billion pound of flesh, we could see another huge wave of  mortgage defaults, shred confidence the enforcement of contracts, and potentially stop housing lending all together for the time being.

Read the whole thing here.

Comments

[Aresen]

So the circle will close.

They pushed lenders to grant mortgages to people who didn't qualify.

Then they freaked when the bubble burst and gave the lenders capital so that they wouldn't go under on all the bad loans.

Now they are going to make it impossible for a lender to realize on their security, so the mortgage lenders won't lend to anybody anymore.

[Pro Libertate]

We'd be in a full recovery in the housing market by now if the stupid government had left things alone. Some bank and mortgage failures would've occurred, but we wouldn't have propped up failure.

[Danny]

Oh, look. The banks will "Go Galt." Horrors!

If the private system of banking has been set up in such a way that the banks cannot be held accountable for their wrong-doing without the consequences being "passed through" to innocent parties, then it is time the rethink the whole system.

If the banks are too big to fail and too important to be punished, maybe the banks need to be fundamentally reorganized by something akin to antitrust law.

[Episiarch]

Or maybe they shouldn't be bailed out by your buddy in the White House, huh, Danny?

[Danny]

And your record of pointlessness remains unblemished.

[Episiarch]

That's pretty funny coming from you, Danny. When one of your posts isn't pointless, let us all know. We'll be waiti...uh, no we won't.

[Danny]

You wound me so deeply. What will I ever do with Epi hounding my every post with his devastating ridicule?

"Obama bailed out the banks!" Except that the bailout happened before he was president???

Bailout, stimulus bill, it's all the same to Epi.

[Episiarch]

Where did I ever specifically say "Obama", you subhuman retard? I said "your buddy in the White House". If you're too fucking stupid to understand the breadth of that insult, that's your problem, not mine.

It doesn't surprise me, though.

[shrike]

You never say anything of import - Episiarch.

You are a fucking human crater of nothingness.

[Episiarch]

This coming from you, shriek, is the most amazingly un-self-aware thing you're ever written, and that's saying something. Hey, tell me about your e-trade accounts again!

[shrike]

You're only "virtue" you brine-filled misanthrope. is that you hate all and everything to your optimal hate level.

That, and nothing else, I respect.

[DNS]

You never say anything of import - Episiarch.

"Bushpigs", "Christfags" and "Fat Rush" have a certain elegance and panache all their own.

[shrike]

Of course they do! I should have my own AM radio show.

[sevo]

shrike|3.14.11 @ 6:56PM|#
"Ad hom with 'fucking' tossed into the spittle"

Great job, shriek, keep it up.

[Danny]

You purport to read my postings, and yet you would presume that GWB could be my "buddy in the White House?"

I guess the umbilical cord was wrapped around your neck a lot longer than I thought.

[Episiarch]

Sigh. I called you a statist fuck, but it was too complicated for you to understand. You're not even fun to play with. You're like a crippled puppy.

[Michael Ejercito]

"Obama bailed out the banks!" Except that the bailout happened before he was president???

That must be why he voted against it when he was in the Senate.

[shrike]

The fact the banks HAD to have emergency capital is lost on the Bushnecks who led to this Fin Meltdown.

[Episiarch]

Hey, shriek, tell us about how much money you made in the market! I love a good fantasy story.

[sevo]

shrike|3.14.11 @ 7:31PM|#
"Unsupported claim, backed with ad-hom"

Shriek, you're a master at it!

[Pro Libertate]

The mistake was bailing out the banks in the first place. The government did that, and did it for purely venal reasons. So long as the government continues to basically run mortgage lending, we'll face this destructive incest between large lenders and regulators.

[sevo]

Danny|3.14.11 @ 6:12PM|#
"If the private system of banking has been set up in such a way that the banks cannot be held accountable for their wrong-doing without the consequences being "passed through" to innocent parties, then it is time the rethink the whole system."

Yep, darn 'unintended consequences' mean we should junk the market.
We know this since the alternative *never* causes those sorts of problems, right, brain-dead?
Oh, and if the government hadn't screwed with the market to begin with, why there might not have *been* those 'unintended consequences'.

[Danny]

Is this "sevo" the same 'tard who was cutting and pasting "sit down and shut up" or something like that a few weeks back, or did he get handle-jacked?

Either way: hey 'tard -- there is a "reply button" on this comment board, so you don't have to separately post a reply with a caption of a name-date-and-time-stamp when you want to respond to a specific comment. You can just hit the "reply" button and reply in-thread, y'know?

In the meantime, why don't you and Epi get together and have a racoon's afterbirth for dinner with a nice bottle of Pepsi.

[shrike]

"sevo" is a misfit from Free Republic - a scathing indictment on human advancement.

A retrovirus in the parlance of biology.

[sevo]

shrike|3.14.11 @ 7:00PM|#
"Truly ignorant ad hom, with no "fuck" tossed in"

Shriek, you're falling down on the job.

[sevo]

Danny|3.14.11 @ 6:54PM|#
"Comment worthy of a kindergarten recess"

Way to go Danny! You're improving.

[sevo]

Danny|3.14.11 @ 6:54PM|#
"Either way: hey 'tard -- there is a "reply button" on this comment board, so you don't have to separately post a reply with a caption of a name-date-and-time-stamp when you want to respond to a specific comment. You can just hit the "reply" button and reply in-thread, y'know?"

Either way, asshole, I love causing you difficulties.

[R C Dean]

Jeebus. I can barely imagine an AG-brokered global settlement that won't make things even worse.

First off, nobody will go to jail, which is remarkable considering that, at a minimum, tens of thousands of perjuries were committed. The lack of jail time means that the disincentive to commit massive fraud will be less than it should.

Second, individual justice will not be done. Thousands of people (probably) were wrongfully evicted. They won't get their houses back. Hundreds of thousands or millions more believe (falsely) that there is a valid mortgage on their house, when in a lot of jurisdictions, the ways MERS operated essentially invalidated those mortgages. Justice would mean that they now owe an unsecured debt, unless and until some kind of perfected security is reimposed.

Third, no banks will be destroyed. The banks who engaged in this deserve to be destroyed. See above re incentives. Although I do hold out hope that the bondholders will take out some banks.

[Pro Libertate]

When the bubble burst, and lenders were getting bought for pennies on the dollar, I thought we'd get the correction we needed. Instead, the government stepped in and made a temporary crisis into a sustained one. Maybe even a permanent one.

[DNS]

Instead, the government stepped in and made a temporary crisis into a sustained one. Maybe even a permanent one.

Are you suggesting that government intervention in the name of "fairness" actually made the problem worse? And the only correction to the inflated problem is more government intervention? Intentionally? Piffle. I don't believe that for a second.

[Pro Libertate]

Maybe I am being too cynical. Because this government is beautiful and pure and makes me feel like Puff the Magic Dragon.

[shrike]

Yep, True Progressives were all giddy about the hackers at Anonymous taking down the evil "banksters" at Bank of America today.

What did they get?

Nada. Nothing - exactly what you would expect when hackers rip some e-mail so steeped in FinTalk they can't read.

Another fail.

Oh - and the teabagging dipshits at ZeroHedge were led off this cliff too.

Stupid fucks.

[Episiarch]

You really should never, ever call someone else stupid, shriek. Unless you're looking for solidarity.

Do you wear adult diapers, shriek, or did you finally learn how to use the toilet by yourself?

[sevo]

shrike|3.14.11 @ 6:52PM|#
"Ignorant comment followed with "Stupid fucks.""

There ya go!

[Teabagging Dipshit]

I'm not dead yet!

[P Brooks]

First, I'd just like to say I'm not getting suckered into clicking any more links to Forbes.

some banks may exit the business altogether,

making it "impossible" to do away with Fannie and Freddie.

[P Brooks]

Third, no banks will be destroyed.

Worse, the biggest banks (Thanks, Sheila Bair!) just keep getting bigger.

But the administration is going to put an end to Too Big to Fail.

[Scruffy Nerd Herder]

If only they'd start with themselves.

[Pro Libertate]

A few big banks should be gone, replaced on a somewhat smaller scale by less stupid and venal medium-sized banks. But, of course, that couldn't be allowed.

[P Brooks]

there is a "reply button" on this comment board

OMFG dude, you didn't follow teh rulez!

Your account will now be deleted by the moderator.

[P Brooks]

If the private system of banking has been set up in such a way that the banks cannot be held accountable for their wrong-doing without the consequences being "passed through" to innocent parties, then it is time the rethink the whole system.

I'm going to have to go with, "Don't bail the motherfuckers out!"

[Ted S.]

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but:

Reason Foundation policy analyst Anthony Randazzo talks about foreclosure-gate

Not the f***ing -gate suffix again.

[Scruffy Nerd Herder]

Its suffix-gate

[Aresen]

That dead horse sailed a long time ago, if I may scramble a metaphor.

[Just Dropping By]

Dead horse-gate, if you will.

[Pro Libertate]

I wish the hotel had been something else. Like a Hilton. Foreclosure-ton. Monica-ton.

[Spoonman.]

Think of the surrealism if it had been a Doubletree.

"Foreclosure-tree."

"Monica-tree."

[Ted S.]

And could you link to the print version, not the one that runs to multiple pages?

[Scruffy Nerd Herder]

I seem to recall that the decoupling of perceived risk from investment decisions only leads to bad things or something like that. Maybe Congress can explain it to us all.

[converse soldes]

nice

[NotSure]

I never understand the thinking of dimwits like Danny, he will completely ignore the idea that banks should not have being bailed out, and then rants and rambles how about the banks were being bailed out.

[robc]

a scandal since dubbed "robo-gate"

No it hasnt been. And stop that.