In a settlement that is the largest involving a single industry since the 1998 tobacco deal, five banks will pay $25-billion to 100-million homeowners.
“This will make a dent in the foreclosure crisis, but it’s not going to stop it,” says Alan White, mortgage lending expert at the Valparaiso University School of Law.
Not only does this not solve problems for homeowners, it doesn’t do much for the banks either.
“The mortgage foreclosure settlement in many ways is just the least of (the banks) problems,” said James Cox, a professor of securities law at Duke University in Durham, N.C. “The banks are not going to see the bright sunlight for some time to come.”
LATimes.com reports that authorities can still investigate various fraud claims, including those involving the mortgage bonds whose meltdown triggered a global financial crisis.
This means that $25-billion changed hands today and nothing happened. Nice.
LaMarcus Aldridge was invited to participate in the Feb. 26 All-Star Game. The first of his career.
The Portland Trail Blazers are considering this a victory. Their first of this week.
Roman Catholic bishops are preparing themselves to fight a decision by the Obama administration that would require religiously affiliated hospitals and universities to cover birth control in their insurance plans.
“Never before,” Archbishop Dolan said, setting the tone, “has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”
A freedom that Dolan does not believe should be available to gay and lesbian people looking to get married.