There’s already a financial fraud task force. In fact, this Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses will be part of Obama’s “new” Financial Fraud Task Force. That originated in November 2009, based on legislation from Congress. And the same ineffective enforcement people are on the original group.

This isn’t a victory. Schneiderman may be trying to work from within, but he’s saddled with a panel full of co-chairs tied to banks with a history of obstructing accountability. The united front of Justice Democrats has been nicked. And progressive critics of the Settlement sellout are praising the mechanism that seems structured to fail while letting the Settlement proceed.

The CFPB has worked to bring clarity to mortgage, student loan and credit card statements with their “Know Before You Owe” program. But with the appointment of Cordray, now they get the full regulatory authorities of the agency.

Earlier this month, the Center for Responsible Lending put out a study asserting that the foreclosure crisis is only half over. We got some more data from the Case-Shiller report showing declining home prices and over 10.7 million mortgages under water.

The balance sheet recession – collapsing wealth, underwater homes, student loans – is creating a major part of the crappy economy. Everyone’s waiting for things to get better, and by extension ensuring that nothing will. In this instance, only repairing balance sheets – such as through debt forgiveness – can get the economy on a better path. And then the kids move out of their parent’s house and housing construction starts jumping and we get some relief.

The Obama administration’s new proposals to help struggling home owners avoid foreclosure will help some, but they’re too limited. Here are some ideas that would accomplish a lot more.

In a major setback for Bank of America, a federal judge has moved the venue for their $8.5 billion settlement with investors on mortgage-backed securities issues to federal court. In so doing, the judge criticized the arrangement on a variety of fronts.

BofA hoped to do away with all of their investor liability on Countrywide MBS in one fell swoop with the settlement, negotiated with only a small sliver of institutional investors through the trustee, Bank of New York Mellon. Other investors, as well as the Attorneys General of New York and Delaware, criticized the deal and took BofA and BNYM to court over it. Keep in mind that the $8.5 billion settlement represented around 2-3 cents on the dollar for the total pool of mortgage securities affected.

Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto just reached a settlement with investment bank Morgan Stanley for up to $40 million, over deceptive practices in mortgage lending and securitization.

This may seem like a small number, but Morgan Stanley was not a big player in Nevada, and the case itself involves just a small slice of mortgages.

There’s the issue of trade. Now this starts unexceptionally. Romney supports the existing trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia (on this point, the President agrees). And he wants to finish off the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Obama also supports. He also wants to pursue a “Reagan Economic Zone,” which I assume is important because it has the word “Reagan” in it. But then he starts in on China.

Let’s briefly look at the numbers. A $300 billion scheme would amount to around 2% of total GDP, and that’s being charitable by saying that this would all be used up in one year. That would have an impact, but half of this would be supply-side solutions that haven’t inspired much confidence during the recession. The question of whether temporary tax cuts are spent is a good one to ask. Especially on the employer side; if minimum wage increases have no effect on jobs, then surely tax subsidies to make hiring cheaper wouldn’t either.