Treasury Secretary Designate Ran A "Foreclosure Machine"

The emerging assminstration of neo- fascist sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump has a new member swamp thang: Treasury Secretary- designate Steve "27 Cents" Mnuchin, a Rump fundraiser and former Goldman Sachs executive who gained notoriety during the 2008 financial meltdown for running a "foreclosure machine" that caused untold misery to thousands of home owners. That machine, OneWest Bank, carried out more than 36,000 foreclosures in California under Mnuchin, who later profited handsomely (as much as $200 million?) from the sale of the bank. Some of the bank's shady practices under Mnuchin look all too familiar.

Here's some background from Bloomberg:

Dubious lending practices. Bailouts. Foreclosures. Robo-signing. Huge executive paydays. If Steven Mnuchin is nominated for Treasury secretary, his confirmation process promises to dredge up every controversy of the U.S. mortgage meltdown almost a decade ago.

Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner and movie financier with no government experience who spent the past six months working as Donald Trump’s chief fundraiser. Trump’s transition team recommended Mnuchin for the Treasury job, people with knowledge of the matter said last week, and a decision could come any day. The part of his background that’s likely to get the most scrutiny is the six years he spent running OneWest Bank, a Southern California lender. [snip]

The bank carried out more than 36,000 foreclosures during Mnuchin’s reign, according to the California Reinvestment Coalition, a San Francisco-based nonprofit whose deputy director, Kevin Stein, dubbed the bank a “foreclosure machine.” The group has accused OneWest of shoddy foreclosure practices and avoiding business in minority neighborhoods, claims the bank has denied. 

Then there are these victims of Mnuchin's bank:

If Mnuchin gets the nod, the world will hear more about people like Leslie Parks, who found the locks on her Minneapolis home changed during a blizzard in December 2009 after OneWest foreclosed. Or Rose Gudiel, who was evicted from her Pasadena home under circumstances she claimed were improper and inspired about 100 people to march on Mnuchin’s Bel Air, California, mansion in 2011.

Now, there's someone who fits the profile of a "populist," amirite?

One wonders how the nomination of banker, hedge fund millionaire and former Goldman Sachs "globalist" financier (we leave to your imagination the right- wing dog whistle there) Mnuchin will go over with the neo- Nazi/ white nationalist segment of Rump's base.  Or, perhaps we're expecting too much consistency from a mob that has a larger goal in mind -- that of implementing a white nationalist agenda regardless of the individual moving parts -- and who'll likely continue to "Heil Trump."  For the low- information, run- of- the- mill Rump voter (as Steve M. has noted regarding the likely demise of Obamacare), we don't see them blaming Rump or Republicans for any disaster that a Mnuchin- led Treasury may someday call down on their "economically anxious" heads.  That would be too reasonable.

BONUS: This sums it up nicely:

Trump doesn’t have a coherent view of policy. But he does have an ethos of plunder. And he’s stacking his cabinet w like-minded jackals https://t.co/MB9VJQw6hT

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 30, 2016

BONUS II:  Of course, he's a believer in supply- side, trickle down economics.

BONUS III:  Charles Pierce on the like-minded jackals Rump's stacking his cabinet with.

(Photo:  Protesters outside of Mnuchin's Bel Air estate in October 2011.)

Less Bailout, More Job Stimulus?

The financial system bailout is soaking up less taxpayer dollars than originally anticipated - about $200 billion less. That according to a Treasury department official who cites faster repayment and lower spending by the bailed-out institutions as reasons for the unexpected funds availability. The funds are now potentially available for reprogramming by Congress for an enhanced job stimulus effort, barring an effort by Rethugs to derail it for "deficit reduction" (their holy grail, now that they're not in power to create trillion dollar deficits themselves). Let's hope the Dems get it done, because as Speaker Pelosi says, a jobs creation program is the best deficit reduction program.

Rethuglican Treachery

Reports are swirling that the Rethuglican National Committee sent ads to the media on Monday morning - - before the failure of the bailout vote - - wrongly presuming the bill would pass the House. It didn't, of course, and the Rethug message in the ads was clearly "the Dems are at fault", wasting your taxpayer dollars. They assumed that the bill would pass with few Democratic dissenters (not true), and that most of the Rethug votes would oppose the bill (true, despite McLame's bragging that morning that he had "won" the day - - oops!). In other words, instead of trying to resolve the crisis that their laissez faire, cut-the-regulations financial policies had brought about, they chose to lay back and let the Dems try to explain why this had to pass, ugly as it was, to save the financial and credit markets.

Now the question is how deep and how long the coming severe recession will be. It shouldn't be about who is to blame.

Accountability

The New York Times has news on the accountability front concerning St. John McBush's campaign manager, Rick "Chinless Wonder" Davis, and his complicity in the "deregulation" of the financial markets that has led to our current state of affairs -- all while the McBushies are desperately trying to spin tall tales to distract voters from the most obvious conclusions (h/t to TPM). Let's hope this and other evidence of McBush's history of "trusting the market" (i.e., looking the other way), not to mention relying on the lobbyists who contributed to the debacle, is pounded on from now until November 4.

"Financial Meltdown"

The news over the weekend and this morning about the financial meltdown going on on Wall Street is more than disconcerting. Lehman Brothers filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Bank of America buying (bailing out) Merrill Lynch means big trouble for many who have invested in those firms and certainly for their employees (people with brokerage accounts are protected by something called the SIPC - comparable to the FDIC).

Meanwhile, St. John McMaverick is vowing to clean up Wall Street after he's elected. [Pause for uncontrollable laughter.] Really?! Where has Sen. McMaverick been for the last 26 years? Oh, right. In Congress and the Senate. We don't recall him pushing for reforms during that quarter century. This is the man who claims not to know much about the economy (he'll have to leave those questions to his expert on all things, Gov. Who?). Remember also McMaverick's role in the Keating Five scandal of the 1970's involving the savings and loan meltdown - yeah, he's got experience with meltdowns!

(In a bit of unfortunate timing, one of McMaverick's financial advisers, Donald Luskin, had a piece in the WaPo over the weekend. Message: economically, this could be the best of times! With advisers like that, how can McMaverick go wrong?!)

Not a small reason for the current state of affairs is the deregulation so religiously pursued by the Rethuglicans since St. Ronnie the Government is the Problem was in office. E-coli conservatives. Bridge collapse conservatives. Katrina conservatives. Now financial meltdown conservatives. Quite a series of accomplishments!