Mortgage Mess: Could it Bring on Another Crisis?

Oct. 13 (CNBC) -- Assessing whether the foreclosure freeze could bring on another crisis, with CNBC's Diana Olick, David Faber and David Cho, Washington Post.

An Open Letter To Our President, Congress, And The States

"The underlying issue is that many of these so-called "securities" (MBS, CDOs, etc) were issued "light" of the required legal mandates to keep the chain of assignments and actual consent signatures required for enforcement. Many people charge that the reason behind this was simple volume. I disagree.

I believe that a large part of the root cause of these "lost" documents is to cover up blatant and in many cases outrageous fraud. It is difficult to prove that a bank or other lender knew and ignored stated-income fraud (or allegedly "investigated" and "underwrote" a file when it did not) when the original file has been turned into ticker-tape confetti courtesy of the closest paper shredder!

MERS has thus given cover to a tremendous amount of fraudulent conduct - the very conduct that predatory lending statutes, "wet signature" and "chain of title" laws are supposed to prevent.

The real bottom line here is that securitized bondholders may in fact be holding worthless pieces of paper."

We have been treated through the last few weeks to repeated claims that the reported foreclosure problems are "just a technicality."

I believe this claim is not only false, it is knowingly false and maliciously intended to deflect attention from the actual scandal: a multi-year fraudfest that was absolutely essential to inflating the bubble in housing, and without which it would have been flatly impossible to do so.

These acts, in short, are both responsible for the bubble and for the economic crisis we find ourselves in today.

It is time for action, not promises, and you have one month to demonstrate that you mean what you say, disassembling these edifices of fraud, bringing indictments, and in the housing sector, calling a full-stop to all foreclosure and REO resale activity until the provenance of each and every note contained in these securitized deals, including those at Fannie and Freddie, can be proved up. FULL LETTER

CNBC: How Deep Does It Go? (Foreclosuregate)

Discussion about the true issues related to Foreclosuregate – gee, we bloggers were in front of this, but finally, after hammering on the issue for more than a year with MERS, and more than three and a half in total, we are getting some mainstream media coverage.

My only question: What the hell took you so long? Sticking your head in the sand at the direct behest and perhaps orders of your corporate backers – until you couldn’t any more?

Now add to this that it is being reported that JP Morgan/Chase – one of the founders of MERS – has walked away from it. If the legs under that stool get kicked out all of the MBS trusts created using this mess are recognized as being invalid and over $6 trillion dollars of this crap, including a whole lot of Fannie and Freddie paper along with virtually all private-label MBS - all blows up at once.

No, The Fed can’t contain that, and neither can the Government. Not in their wildest dreams can they put a cork in the litigation alone, say much less the rest. FULL STORY