Shahien Nasiripous has posted two stories for the Financial Times about the intersection of the foreclosure fraud settlement and HAMP. I wrote previously about how HAMP modifications could count toward the settlement, meaning that banks would get partially paid out. Shahien confirms this.

Along with Dean Baker and a few others, I’ve been fighting a lonely crusade against those who insist that TARP “made money.” In a new report, the GAO faults Treasury for constantly shifting the goalposts on how they report that “profit” from TARP. It’s a slightly different argument, but one that highlights how this illusion of a successful TARP lies in manipulation of the numbers.

In 2010, over 350 members of the House agreed to a bill designed to punish China for their currency manipulation. In 2011, 68 members of the Senate agreed to a similar bill. But in a year-end report to Congress, the Treasury Department voiced their disagreement, refusing to label China a currency manipulator, instead opting for softer language around their failing to “reform” currency operations.

This week, the White House will ask Congress for the second tranche of increases to the debt limit, as negotiated in the August deal. The conditions for the second debt limit increase have been satisfied by the pulling of the trigger, caused by the collapse of the Super Committee. Republicans can only stop this second increase through a “resolution of disapproval,” a vote that the President can then veto. But that deal also constrains how much deficit spending occurs this fiscal year, and thus the “pay-fors” for any stimulus measure.

I actually find it positive that no settlement has been reached, because the driving forces behind the settlement – the Treasury Department, DoJ and HUD – did no meaningful investigation that would dictate the amounts needed for a reasonable settlement. In fact, to the extent that anything has happened on foreclosure fraud over the past year, it has come from the only entities willing to do their jobs and follow the law: a handful of state Attorneys General doing the investigations and handing out the indictments that others won’t. Beau Biden, Eric Schneiderman, Martha Coakley and Kamala Harris, among others, have pointed the way forward for legitimate accountability for banks involved in systematically stealing homes. And Catherine Cortez Masto, the Attorney General of Nevada, needs to be singled out for special praise. Because thanks to the law she helped push in the state, criminalizing wrongful and fraudulent foreclosures, evictions have slowed to a crawl.

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.

Ezra Klein has a very long kind of apologia of the political class for why they failed to return the nation to prosperity after the financial crisis and Great Recession of 2008. I think the article is very good in capturing a point of view of the Administration and its defenders and their litany of excuses.

I could hardly keep up with all the reports on housing that came out over the past 24 hours. So let me try to summarize a couple: • A recently unsealed lawsuit shows that banks cheated military veterans by illegally adding attorney’s fees to their refinancing loans. Illegal fee additions have a rich history, especially [...]

A couple stories today show regulators engaging in the absolutely shameful tactic of looking backward and not forward when it comes to the systemic fraud in the mortgage market, in the mistaken belief that crimes perpetrated in the past should be punished. I don’t know where they got this idea.

Let’s review the bill together! The legislation is an amalgam of two different efforts. A bill co-sponsored by Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) would give unions and industries greater ability to file claims against illegal Chinese trade practices on a case-by-case basis, and would allow the Commerce Department to factor in currency manipulation into any tariffs the US puts up as a result. This would increase duties against Chinese products, which are being effectively subsidized by currency manipulation. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that such a measure would collect $125 million in new tariff revenues, but the main impact would be to put political pressure on China to revalue its currency.