Discovering that federal government was predatory lender

Washington Examiner:
President Obama’s financial regulators are reportedly negotiating a secret settlement with 14 banks to end an investigation into predatory loans and foreclosures because federal investigators are having trouble finding the evidence they need for a successful end to the probe.

Fourteen banks — such as JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America — would pay $10 billion, under the settlement, that would be used for relief for homeowners and families that have lost their homes.

What do the banks get? “The proposed settlement would also halt a separate sweeping review of more than four million loan files that the comptroller’s office and the Federal Reserve required the banks undertake as part of a consent order in April 2011,” The New York Times reports.

That’s an improvement on the status quo for the banks — it could save the banks as much as $10 billion on the review alone. Based on figures in the Times report, initial estimates suggested that the review would cost $8 billion, but “the costs of the reviews have ballooned” such that it could cost $20 million if it were to be carried out. And that’s just the cost of the review — it doesn’t account for what the banks would then have to do to ameliorate any problems uncovered by the review.
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If they conducted an honest investigation they would discover that HUD and Democrat Presidents were the ones pushing the banks to make bad loans.  It takes real chutzpah to accuse banks you threatened with suits if they did not make loans of then making them.  The investigation was just another diversion to avoid taking responsibility for bad Democrat housing policies.  From Dodd-Frank to investigations like this one the Democrats have been scrambling to avoid responsibility and Republicans have been too timid in criticizing them.

Most of the bad loans were in blue state areas where control freak policies also drove up the price of housing pricing many of the poorer people out of the market were it not for the government forcing lenders to make loans to them anyway.

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