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| Wells Fargo (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Perhaps the U.S. doesn't have any more large banks, it has large FINANCIAL SERVICES HOLDING COMPANIES...largely UN-REGULATED ONES ( although Wells Fargo is said to be going through a Community Reinvestment Act audit by the OCC in California at the moment, in case you wish to complain to the OCC about the type of service and the activities of this 'banking institution' - please see Wikipedia's article on Wells Fargo for a rather revealing autobiography on how 'Wells' characterizes itself. ** ALTHOUGH the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has refused exact numbers to us without a Freedom Of Information Act request, which could cost thousands of dollars, it appears the OCC has 9/10 (less than ONE ) examiner for each banking institution it is supposed to regulate
The people at the top of the American government are a who's who in the world of money manipulation and insider ties to the 'financial services' industry. From Hillary Clinton and her activities to keep her friends Jim and Susan McDougal's Madison Guaranty and Thrift afloat longer than it should have stayed in business, to Rahm Emanuel's stunning 18.5 million two and a half year stint in the industry, to Henry Paulsons' mega-wealth building years at Goldman Sachs, and even Obama's pick for Treasury Secretary, who will also oversee the IRS, not paying his full income tax for a period of years, to Chris Dodd's and Barney Franks ( and Barack Obama's ) being the three top recipients of industry 'contributions', ..the list is long, and the numbers large.
If voters thought the Obama-Biden ticket would bring change to Washington in favor of the average consumer and citizen, ProPublica.org reports ".... there's renewed scrutiny of ( Vice-President-elect) Biden's connections to the credit card industry. Biden has been particularly cozy with MBNA, a financial services company from Delaware, [and] now a subsidiary of Bank of America".
Over the past 20 years, MBNA has been Biden's single largest contributor . And as theNew York Times and Wall Street Journal note, Biden's son Hunter was hired out of law school by MBNA and later worked as a lobbyist for the company [MBNA].
The Times also details just how helpful Biden has been to MBNA and to the credit card industry. The senator was a key supporter of an industry-favorite bill -- the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005" -- that actually made it harderfor consumers to get protection under bankruptcy.
As the Times notes, Biden was one of the first Democratic supporters of the bill and voted for it four times until it finally passed in March 2005.
"....[Biden] was one of five Democrats in March 2005 who voted against a proposal to require credit card companies to provide more effective warnings to consumers about the consequences of paying only the minimum amount due each month.... Senator Obama voted for it".
Mr. Biden also went against Mr. Obama to help defeat amendments aimed at strengthening protections for people forced into bankruptcy who have large medical debts or are in the military. Mr. Biden argued that the amendments were unnecessary because the legislation already carved out exemptions for those debtors. And he [Biden] was one of four Democrats who sided with Republicans to defeat an effort, supported by Mr. Obama, to shift responsibility in certain cases from debtors to the predatory lenders who helped push them into bankruptcy.
The Washington Post's David Broder detailed other [banking] industry-friendly aspects of the bill back in 2005. One proposed amendment to the bill would have stoppedcorporations from "judge-shopping" and going to the most-friendly venues for their bankruptcy cases. The amendment was introduced by Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and appeared to have wide bipartisan support. But it never passed. Broder writes that Biden helped kill it.
( article source :
Biden’s Cozy Relations With Bank Industry by Eric Umansky )
Republicans have their share of banking insiders to be sure, but the line-up at the 'new' White House is over-flowing with 'banking' friendly folks...folks who are crying for money to be released to their industry friends so that new amounts may be requested, and who have done little for the "little guy" in their struggle economically...there has been NO "rush to assist" the citizens of this country while the "rush to asisst" the
financial services industry with massive handouts of cash to a relatively few industry insiders has occurred with dazzling lightning speed.
Advantage financial insiders - disadvantage everyone else and our economy as a whole.
IMPORTANT NEW DEVELOPMENTS AS OF FEBRUARY 10, 2009
THIS SITE IS FOLLOWING THE DEVELOPMENTS IN THE BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA lawsuit wherein Thomas Heinrich, the voice of Real Estate Financing Today, has filed suit against Wells Fargo and it's alter ego America's Servicing Company which it runs from its Wells Fargo offices but has failed to register with State's Secretary of State offices or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which Heinrich maintains makes Americas Servicing Company ineligible to transact business using the name Americas Servicing Company, and claims 'Americas Servicing Company' induced him into refinancing his small first mortgage he took out with People's Choice Home Loan, Inc back in 2004 by offering him a fixed rate loan with no closing costs at about half the rate his current mortgage was at, but used that deliberately as a ruse to increase their $25 to $35 a month servicing income from his loan to additonal thousands of dollars of additional income for themselves at worst, and at best to steal his $100,000 plus equity in his property and leave him still being nearly $100,000 in debt to them, which is part of what Heinrich claims is the largest financial fraud operation in the history of mankind.
The last payment Heinrich made on his mortgage was for December 2007. In January 2008 Wells Fargo instructed him to stop making his mortgage payments until they set the first payment on his new mortgage as being conditions for giving him a 6.200% fixed rate loan with no closing costs.
On January 29, 2009, Heinrich received a modification agreement from Wells Fargo requiring him to accept within four days their offer to move his January 1, 2008 payment to April 1, 2009. He would have to pay them $3,299.97 closing costs, which they did not break down, in order to do so, but they would keep his high rate adjustable loan the same interest rate as it had been all along and it would otherwise stay fluxuating the same as if nothing had been changed on his loan, except they were reducing his monthly payments to a pay rate at 5.99%,making his loan into a Negative Adjustable for 25 years with a huge balloon payment at the end. The Comptroller of the Currency admitted that neither "Americas Servicing Company" nor "Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Inc" (which Wells had previosuly identified as being the owner of ASC) had been properly registered with the OCC. Heinrich says that even Wells Fargo's defense lawfirm, Carlton Fields, seemed surprised by Wells Fargo's moves. The litigation now ramps up with what assuredly will become a case of national significance.
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