Matt Taibbi is as brilliant as they come, but he’s wrong here. This development is classic bankster bait and switch.
The important thing for them -the banksters – right now, is for foreclosures to proceed. This “preserves” the “value” of the mortgaged backed securities (MBS’s), the collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s), and the endless derivatives that have been piled on top of them, and which together form one of the most important bearing walls of the house of cards-casino-make believe financialized “global economy” structure.
The robo-signing thing was an imminent and deadly threat to that. And now it isn’t. It doesn’t matter that they did all that robo-signing before, and more importantly, they can keep doing it. And for this, to preserve (however temporarily) their trillions or quadrillions worth of ponzi derivative architecture on the backs of millions of families who will be made homeless, they paid a mere $25 billion? What a deal.
The country’s AG’s were taken to school on this one.
Oh sure, the AG’s can now subpoena and investigate and prosecute. Good luck with that, guys. If you get even a thousand banksters convicted of anything over the next twenty years I’ll be impressed. They won’t make it easy, of course. And unlike typical criminal defendants, these guys will have millions upon millions to defend themselves and drag it out, not to mention the ones you actually get will probably be surreptitiously served up by the other banksters you should really be prosecuting.
But hey, these things are a challenge.
Rule #1 when dealing with these creeps: whatever they seem to be bargaining for, that is exactly the thing you must not agree to.
At least now we know, if we’re paying attention. The most necessary thing right now, in the short term, before we do anything else in this whole mess, is a formal, dejure and indefinite moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. Nationwide. Worldwide, if you ask me.
If the Occupy thing is looking for some focus there it is. Right now they are occupying houses that are being or have been foreclosed to stop the evictions. The effort would be better directed at Washington to get a moratorium law passed. Occupy Washington until they do, says I.
Update: New York’s AG Schneiderman continues to remain in play by filing this lawsuit. He’s hitting all the right notes, but is he lip-synching the tune? Dunno yet. Filing a complaint isn’t much. We’ll see where it ends up.
Lawyers on Strike 