If the banks weren’t able to robo-sign, they wouldn’t be able to foreclose on anyone, because without fraudulent means they cannot prove ownership. That’s the implication of the slowdown in Nevada, that’s the implication of the ongoing criminal activity. So a settlement then takes the role of really changing the law, and not just any law, but the laws of land ownership, which undergirds the entire system of capitalism, according to economist Hernando de Soto. What you’re doing when you change the law of private property rights to benefit one class is to bend capitalism into oligarchy or feudalism.

Tim Geithner went on CNBC today and said that the Administration is getting right on the whole “prosecuting the people who defrauded the economy” thing.

British newspapers are often sensational and sometimes wrong on big issues, so take this with a grain of salt. But the Telegraph reports that European leaders are constructing a “multi-trillion” euro plan to deal with the banking crisis that has gripped the continent. I very pointedly say “banking crisis” because we should wean ourselves off calling this a sovereign debt crisis. The sovereigns are the pass-throughs to European banks which made bad bets and still never resolved them from the financial crisis of 2008. That’s the problem being solved here:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner forcefully denied the claim in a book by Ron Suskind that he ignored a request from the President to work up a plan to dissolve Citigroup. He further added that the entire theme of the book, about infighting in the White House over economic policy issues, bears “no resemblance to reality.”

Tom Miller’s feewings are huwt. He doesn’t like how he’s being portrayed by those who have actually taken a look at how he’s been handling the 50-state “investigation” on foreclosure fraud. And he’s having his top deputy defend him to major media.

It was bad enough that the Feds stopped enforcing the law. Now they want the State Attorney Generals, including Eric Schneiderman of New York, to stop enforcing the law. But only as to banksters. Pot smokers are still fair game.

I could barely suppress a laugh when reading about Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan begging Tim Geithner to settle the foreclosure fraud issue so they can get out from under their liability. As Yves Smith points out, if Tim Geithner had the power to get Bank of America out of their mess, he surely would have done it by now, before their stock dipped 36% in the last three weeks. Geithner simply doesn’t have jurisdiction.

This is that famous pivot we’ve been hearing so much about, the one that has been attempted at least seven other times by the Administration. Remember that the end of the health care bill was supposed to precipitate a pivot to jobs. Then the end of Dodd-Frank would do the same. And so on.

But this underestimates the malign forces who don’t want to pivot, who want to remain right in the muck of austerity for as long as possible.

To the extent that there’s any fallout from the political gridlock in Washington, it’s that the country cannot execute the simple, fundamental steps to improve economic performance. Contractionary fiscal policy gets combined with an anti-expansionary debt limit deal to magnify the effects of the end of the stimulus.

We don’t really have real debates on much of anything in America anymore, so it’s worth questioning whether this will be the effect. But for what it’s worth, Bernie Sanders’ office has released the major investigation coming out of that amendment – a GAO audit of the emergency lending programs carried out by the Fed in the wake of the financial crisis. These programs – not TARP, which mostly put the Congress on the hook for the bailout politically – represented the bulk of the federal government’s support for the banking sector. And they were carried out largely in secret. This GAO audit provides a window into just what the Fed did.