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Is the Mortgage Settlement Deal Starting to Unravel?

The Administration had thrown its weight behind getting the mortgage settlement deal done shortly after the State of the Union address. Eric Schneiderman joining a Federal task force that seemed unlikely to accomplish much, given its staffing and the history of Federal investigations, seemed to secure it getting done, as Schneiderman, the de facto leader...

Daniel Alpert: Tinkerbell Economics – The Confidence Fairy, Pixie Dust and a Sleeping Dragon

By Daniel Alpert, the founding Managing Partner of Westwood Capital. Cross posted from EconoMonitor While we may be hours away from a partial (and certainly a stopgap) agreement in the talks among the Greek government, the troika and private sector creditors, it is doubtful that a deal will emerge in a fully constructed fashion that...

Obama’s SOTU, authoritarian followership, and civil society: Part II

lambert strether is an old school blogger from Corrente. Last week in Part I of this piece, I argued that Obama's recent State of The Union speech endorsed a particular model of military organization named the "warrior ethos" by its DOD developers, and that this ethos and American soldier's oath of enlistment (

Obama’s SOTU, authoritarian followership, and civil society: Part II

lambert strether is an old school blogger from Corrente. Last week in Part I of this piece, I argued that Obama's recent State of The Union speech endorsed a particular model of military organization named the "warrior ethos" by its DOD developers, and that this ethos and American soldier's oath of enlistment (

Links 2/6/12

Cathy O’Neil: Women in Math

By Cathy O'Neil, a data scientist who lives in New York City and writes at mathbabe.org A study recently came out which was entitled “Can stereotype threat explain the gender gap in mathematics performance and achievement?”. One of the authors created and posted a video describing the paper, which you can view here....

More on the Role of Second Liens and the Mortgage Settlement as Stealth Bank Bailout

Readers who missed the post over the weekend entitled "Schneiderman MERS Suit and HUD’s Donovan Remarks Confirm That Mortgage “Settlement” is a Stealth Bank Bailout" are advised to read it first, since it provides important background and context for this piece, which clarifies some issues I skipped over.

Philip Pilkington: Facebook – The Second Birth of a Mighty Titan or the Withering of a Weary Giant?

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland Over the past few days Facebook has once again been getting an awful lot of attention. The Facebook company, of course, loves the attention. After all, Facebook’s business model is almost entirely built upon the amount of attention they can garner for themselves....

Quelle Surprise! New York and California Attorneys General Look Ready to Sign on to Mortgage Settlement

The New York Times reports that two attorneys general of states regarded as important for the Obama Administration to declare the mortgage settlement a success have rejoined the negotiations, which says they are likely to sign the pact. Kamala Harris, the California AG, was widely seen as "political" and therefore was not seen as...

Schneiderman MERS Suit and HUD’s Donovan Remarks Confirm That Mortgage “Settlement” is a Stealth Bank Bailout

In case you had any doubts about what the mortgage settlement was really about and why banks that were so keenly opposed to it are now willing to go ahead, the news of the last two days should settle any doubts. As we had indicated earlier, one of the many leaks about the settlement showed...

Links 2/5/12

Fannie Ignored 2006 Warnings About Widespread Mortgage Abuses (Updated)

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times reports on an ugly bit of mortgage market history: that Fannie Mae was told in 2006 to address the derelict behavior of its servicers and foreclosure mills yet chose to do pretty much nothing about it.