The folks at the Fed who run our economy apparently believe in the Easter Bunny. And Casper the Friendly Ghost. And Santa Claus.

I mean, I can only conclude the folks over there are completely unhinged from reality given their claim that no people–not a single homeowner–was wrongly foreclosed.

Liveblogging of the Senate Banking Committee hearing on foreclosure fraud continues. Senator Richard Shelby was actually pretty good, but then Sens. Mike Johanns and Bob Bennett went to some length to try to pretend the banksters weren’t doing what they were doing.

This hearing is the latest example of national policymakers getting involved in the foreclosure fraud issue. The Congressional Oversight Panel warning of the enormous risk from the failures of servicers was the first report of its kind at the federal level to take full measure of the situation, and this is the first Congressional hearing. Senators on the Democratic side like Jeff Merkley and Sherrod Brown are sure to press the bank representatives aggressively on why foreclosure mitigation programs have failed, and why they used false documents to evict people from their homes. The ranking member on the Republican side, Richard Shelby, wants to investigate failures at the major loan servicers.

I wanted to return to a detail I mentioned in yesterday’s book salon. As I noted, in his book on the auto bailout, Steven Rattner described Citi as being worried during the Chrysler negotiations that retail customers would retaliate if Citi played hard ball.

I come to Steven Rattner’s Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry from a very particular perspective. As a Michigander whose husband still works in the auto industry and whose town has benefited from battery subsidies, I’m a grateful direct beneficiary of the work the Obama Administration did to save the auto industry. But that also means I read this book, which might have been subtitled, “Wall Street gapes at Detroit” from the perspective, “Detroit gapes back at Wall Street.”

Quick, let’s all raise our hands: How many of us could live on less than $10 an hour?

That’s a take-home pay of roughly $300 a week. Most one-bedroom apartments cost at least $1,000 a month. Ooops. There goes nearly the entire salary in one rent check.

So how do the nearly 33 million U.S. workers who make less than $10 an hour survive?