US Politics Mega-thread - Page 373

The Justice Department sued Bank of America on Tuesday, accusing the bank of defrauding investors by vastly understating the risks of the mortgages backing some $850 million in securities.

The lawsuit adds to the hefty legal burden of the bank, which has been badly battered by mortgage-related losses and litigation since the financial crisis. The great bulk of those troubles stem from the bank’s 2008 acquisition of the subprime lender Countrywide Financial.

Yet the latest litigation centers on Bank of America’s own homegrown mortgage operations. And the loans at issue were represented as prime jumbo mortgages — at the time, 2007, loans of more than $417,000 for a single-unit dwelling — rather than subprime mortgages, which were at the heart of the mortgage crisis.

Those new elements were woven into a familiar narrative as the Justice Department’s lawsuit portrayed the bank’s mortgage operations as emblematic of Wall Street’s reckless practices in the heady days before the financial crisis.

Under pressure to generate profits, the lawsuit said, Bank of America pushed employees to churn through mortgage evaluations. The instructions for slipshod standards emanated from the upper echelons of the bank, the lawsuit said.

One employee, according to the lawsuit, said that her job was to “basically validate the loans,” rather than to comb through them to spot flaws. The goal, the employee said, was to get through mortgage applications swiftly. She was told by her superiors, prosecutors said, to “keep her opinions to herself.”

In the end, the prime mortgages turned out to be far more dangerous than investors were led to believe, the lawsuit contends. Bank of America misrepresented the quality of the loans, and five investors lost about $100 million, the government said.

On August 07 2013 08:55 kwizach wrote:

No, that argument was over Walmart low wages, as you can see by scrolling up the page.

The same definition you are using when you suggest prices would need to go up for wages to also go up.

On August 07 2013 09:08 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

OK, I thought you were referring to the min wage argument in general.

Something would have to change for min wages to go up. Some combination of prices and business income - all of which have consequences.

I'm not going to argue over a $100/yr/employee pay hike.

On August 08 2013 02:03 ZeaL. wrote:


I want to hear your opinion on this as I am not an economist/do not read economic academic journals.

What about the case of Costco vs Sam's Club? Same business model yet Costco pays their employees about 70% higher than what Sam's club pays theirs, and I have no concrete data on this but anecdotally Costco is much more likely to provide benefits/paid time off. Even with that extra expense, Costco's growth and profit stays higher than that of Sam's Club. Somehow, either through increased productivity, reduced turnover, or something Costco can pay more for their floor workers and still make more money.

Is this a case where Costco simply gets better employees by paying more and is non-generalizable to the minimum wage discussion? If the minimum wage was raised, could we expect higher productivity and a corresponding increase in low- skilled unemployment due to fewer workers needed for the same job?

And unrelated to the topic above, minimum wage can be seen as an attempt to reduce the number of working people reliant on welfare to survive. If the minimum wage increases truly just lead to increased unemployment, then the government is stuck with unemployment benefits. If the government wishes to reduce the cost of welfare to the low skilled population, while not having children homeless and starving in the streets, what, in your opinion, is the solution?

I'd say it's a safe bet to say looking back 20 -30 years from now the pride in the dysfunction of congress caused by the republican party will have shifted to shame.

Spending millions of dollars and hundreds of hours holding vote after vote (up to 40 separate times now I believe)to repeal/defund a law which was signed by the president who would have to sign such a repeal is the height of ridiculousness.

When future generations look at a Republican Congress and a senate minority who set record after record for most filibusters, and least amount accomplished, I sincerely doubt it will be with glowing recommendations.

When the #1 goal of your caucus is to make Obama a 1 term president and you measure your accomplishments by how much you're able to prevent the functioning of your own governing body, I must say you are lost.

I rest comfortably knowing those that would advocate a gov, shutdown for sake of preventing such a bill which was signed into law (years ago) from being funded or implemented will be added to the historic pile of those who resisted things like ending slavery, desegregation, women's right to vote, equal pay, etc...

When people look at what republicans have offered to care for people with pre-existing conditions, or for people floating just over the poverty line, etc... it's pretty clear all they have are complaints and ridiculously inane "solutions"

EDIT: (Other than the republican Ideas which ACA was formed with [which are a significant part of the bill {and what republicans have had major problems with}])

Danglars does another great example of what I have been reiterating over and over again: that the Republican Party has been making the extreme elements of their party more mainstream and basically ostracizing the moderate parts of their party.

This is why Boehner has essentially lost control of his party in the house. It's why they decided not to figure out where to cut spending on a transportation bill and instead voting to get rid of Obamacare again.

This is at a time where republicans need to appeal to Hispanics in order to ever have another president. But theres a considerable number of racists and nativists in the party. And they actually gain a considerable voice, like Steve King claiming that immigrants are all drug mules. And I watched the strange conversation in this thread where people actually tried to defend him out of some insane partisan solidarity or something. And we see further how the crazies actually get a national stage.

On August 08 2013 12:33 Roe wrote:
If anything we should be opposed to any automation. But now I'm sounding like a reactionary conservative :o

On August 08 2013 02:20 Danglars wrote:

The repeal votes that are sure to go down in defeat is grandstanding. Moderate Republicans love voting nonsense like this to campaign on their opposition, but will never take a hard step towards defunding. It's political posturing to no effect as usual. My goal is to stop policies that will do great harm to the health care industry. Of course, my esteemed opponents will connect every political opposition to a personal vendetta or the return of racism, sexism, and bigotry. That's almost as old as RINO Republicans; the Left caterwauling about mean mean Republicans and our war on the elderly, the children, and women.

I answered the charge on ACA incorporating Republican ideas well back when that falsehood was originally posted in the thread. You'd think every gun control measure was bipartisan if you spent 10 hours in the office with a member of the opposition party.


The center has been consistently pulled left. The previous positions are pounded by the media as extreme. I'm not going to argue the political taxonomy of the situation. Tea Party and other conservative efforts to elect representatives that reflect their views is a two-party system at its best. The left is fine playing softball with moderates that essentially will cave on command, and playing hardball with everyone that might actually represent a radical departure from their ideas.

The moderate RINO elements of the Republican party are entrenched and ignoring the demands of their base. Their strategy is to label their opponents as extreme nutcases. They are scared of the candidates that beat the RNC-supported candidates in primaries and went on to win the election. The war of words is easy to see through.