Not Too Big To Fail

Aug 2, 2018 – Statement 1302: “Abuses in the mortgage-backed securities industry led to a financial crisis that devastated millions of Americans. Today’s agreement holds Wells Fargo responsible for originating and selling tens of thousands of loans that were packaged into securities and subsequently defaulted.”, Alex Tse, acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California…

July 31, 2018 – Statement 1301: Mr. Angelides: “Our goal was to create a record (The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Final Report) and history that could not easily be rewritten by ideologues or by Wall Street and its flunkies.”

July 11, 2018 – Statement 1300: Not Too Big To Fail: Mike Perry talks about IndyMac Bank and the financial crisis ten years on

June 3, 2018 – Statement 1299: “Trustees acting on behalf of those investors had brought claims against the Lehman bankruptcy estate for breaches of representations and warranties in which the bank vouched for the accuracy and quality of the underlying loan documents. The trustees blamed losses in the mortgage-backed securities on so-called liar loans in which borrowers were largely taken at their word…

May 15, 2018 – Statement 1298: “The Real Clear Investigations 5/14/18 article attached is a MUST READ. There are a LOT of parallels in how the Obama government behaved and lied about the financial crisis and scapegoated crisis era bankers and Wall Street and this phony Russian-Trump collusion…

April 17, 2018 – Statement 1297: “It’s the Establishment versus the rest of us folks. My #2 (President) at IndyMac Bank was part of this Establishment. Stanford undergrad, Harvard Law, liberal Democrat, law clerk, who had worked for a time at the State Department. Even though he ran 90%+ of IndyMac’s mortgage/real estate lending, he wasn’t sued by anyone…

September 12, 2017 – Statement 1296: “If you intentionally manipulated an asset’s marketplace by artificially restricting its supply, causing the asset’s price to rise to astronomical levels and then you sold a chunk of your supply (raising $359 million for yourself) near the top, to hardworking and largely uneducated immigrant American entrepreneurs,…

August 2, 2017 – Statement 1295: “It is ironic that the Great Depression was produced by government but was blamed on the private enterprise system. The Federal Reserve System explained in its 1933 annual report how much worse things would have been if the Federal Reserve had not behaved so well, yet the Federal Reserve was the chief culprit in making the depression as deep as it was. So the government produced the depression, the private enterprise system got blamed for it, and there was a tremendous change in attitudes…

July 24, 2017 – Statement 1294: “And it is quite fitting that “volatility” comes from volare, “to fly” in Latin. Depriving political (and other) systems of volatility harms them, causing eventually greater volatility of the cascading type. This section, Book II, deals with the fragility that comes from the denial of hormesis, the natural antifragility of organisms, and how we hurt systems with the very best intentions by playing conductor. We are fragilizing social and economic systems by denying them stressors and randomness,…

July 14, 2017 – Statement 1293: “Can anyone explain to me how the Italian banking crisis, which has been swept under the rug for years, fits the liberal American, Bernie/Warren narrative that greedy and reckless U.S. mortgage lenders and Wall Street’s greedy and fraudulent securitization of these “risky” mortgages caused the financial crisis? As I understand it, Italy didn’t have a housing bubble/bust…

July 11, 2017 – Statement 1292: “Nobel Laureate in economics (for asset prices like housing/stocks/bonds & bubbles) Robert Shiller says we still (in 2017!) don’t know what caused the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, housing bubble, but liberal politicians like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, FCIC Chair Phil Angelides and their friends in the liberal Press, had no trouble calling (and continue to this day) for crisis era bankers to be jailed anyway, like totalitarian societies like Russia or Cuba (or like American McCarthyism),…

July 5, 2017 – Statement 1291: “In high school English, most of us were taught to write essays by developing a thesis and providing three or more facts, to support this thesis. I’m not sure, but I suspect this has created a huge problem and a lot of fake news. Today, there were articles in my LA and NY Times discussing individual “victims” of the Trump Administration enforcing our existing immigration laws (which Congress, the people’s representatives, can change at anytime and has chosen not to). The “spin” was negative for Trump and his immigration policies…

June 10, 2017 – Statement 1290: “Thanks to overbearing post-crisis government mortgage regulation, not only can’t many get the mortgage they want and deserve (costing 2 million jobs per JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon), but as I pointed out recently, it costs roughly double ($4,000 pre-crisis vs. $8,000 today) for a lender to make a home loan. And now, on top of that, because of reduced competition caused by the crisis and government regulation (which acts as a barrier to entry), mortgage lenders today make almost 2.75 (60.5 bps divided by 16.2 bps) times the profit margin they did pre-crisis…

May 24, 2017 – Statement 1289: “The political and media hysteria surrounding the Trump administration lies somewhere on the repulsiveness scale between the Jacobin excesses of the French Revolution and the McCarthy era. Thus far the public knows of no presidential action that would justify impeachment. Never mind, the crowd cries, let us have the verdict now…

May 22, 2017 – Statement 1288: “If you read this, I know it sounds like very boring, very detailed “political stuff”, but if you have ever had to deal with these federal agencies, like I have, and find out that they “hold (almost) all the cards” over individual American citizens, in violation of our Constitution, you would understand how important and powerful these Bills are for America…

May 20, 2017 – Statement 1287: “The liberal mainstream media lied about the root-causes of the 2008 financial crisis, and time/historical evidence has either disproved their claims or not proved them…

May 10, 2017 – Statement 1286: “JPM Chairman and CEO Dimon says President Trump’s economic and national security people and policies (even some of the tough trade talk) are pretty fabulous. He also says that inappropriate government mortgage regulations have cost the economy 2 million jobs. Don’t believe me? Read this article. Who is responsible for those lost 2 million jobs? Clearly, #1 on that list would be US Senator Elizabeth Warren, the architect of the CFPB…

May 3, 2017 – Statement 1285: “Long, but excellent National Review article and right on point. I became interested in this issue, when I (shockingly) saw how our liberal government and the media who support it, lied about me, IndyMac Bank, and the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. It woke me up to the Left’s lies about much of what is really important,…

April 27, 2017 – Statement 1284: “The well-intended federal government is no better a lender to Americans than the private sector. In fact, you could argue that with inability to discharge federal student loans in bankruptcy…

March 26, 2017 – Statement 1283: “Chevron is a widely cited precedent, and precedents should never be casually overturned. But Chevron deprives Americans of their right to have judges who exercise their own independent judgment without systematic bias. Chevron is thus grossly unconstitutional — not least, a persistent denial of the due process of law…

March 17, 2017 – Statement 1282: “Here’s the deal, either we believe in the limited liability company or we don’t…

March 17, 2017 – Statement 1281: “NY’s Sen. Schumer’s 2008 public attack on IndyMac Bank and its management was also unwarranted and a fraud.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO IndyMac Bank

March 17, 2017 – Statement 1280: ““If we’re not bringing a certain kind of case, it’s because the evidence is not there — pure and simple,” Mr. Bharara said in 2014 in a wide-ranging interview with Worth magazine about why he never prosecuted a bank C.E.O…

March 17, 2017 – Statement 1279: “In this 3.12.17 article, an uber-liberal NY Times biz reporter documents how the Obama Administration likely lied about the reason they changed the financial terms of Fannie/Freddie’s conservatorship…

March 11, 2017 – Statement 1278: “Ask yourself, when you read this recent article about Spain’s housing bubble and bust (which also mentions Ireland’s), how does the uber-liberal…Bernie-Warren Democrat’s view (not a single Republican signed onto Obama’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s Democratic-majorities findings) that reckless and greedy American bankers, Wall Street, and mortgage lenders, FORCED(!) and/or deceived Americans into taking out risky homes loans…

March 8, 2017 – Statement 1277: “This WSJ OpEd by Minn. Fed President Kashkari proves, as Greenspan also said in his “Crisis” paper, that The Fed and other central banks deliberately, in favor of lending/economic activity, set bank capital levels too low (70% chance of bank bailout every 100 years, even today),…

March 7, 2017 – Statement 1276: “Economic forecasts on the eve of the credit crunch and the Great Recession were, he says, “not just wrong but spectacularly so.” The overall trajectory of precrisis forecasts was upward; the reality was a brutally deep capital V…

March 7, 2017 – Statement 1275: “I don’t believe in settling cases,” Trump told me yesterday. “I’m not Jamie Dimon, who pays $13 billion to settle a case and then pays $11 billion to settle a case and who I think is the worst banker in the United States.”…

February 8, 2017 – Statement 1274: “Having spent a lot of money and a half-dozen years of my life defending myself against meritless federal (both private and government) civil litigation and dealing with several federal judges and the 9th Circuit and reading a lot about it, it is clear to me that the judicial branch of our government is in serious need of reform…

February 8, 2017 – Statement 1273: “Here’s some good news, unless you work for the SEC. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dropped the last two remaining civil fraud charges in a long-running federal case against Larry Goldstone and Clarence Simmons, former executives of Santa Fe-based Thornburg Mortgage…

February 1, 2017 – Statement 1272: “Multiply the cases of Messrs. Childs and Pilger by a few thousand and you have the runaway administrative state. Sad to say, the government has no trouble finding Americans happy to do this work-happy to treat everyone in the private economy as a criminal…

January 30, 2017 – Statement 1271: “The idea that federal courts are required by law (Chevron Deference), to take the side of an often highly-politicized federal administrative agency (like the SEC, FDIC, etc.) over individual citizens and private institutions…

January 26, 2017 – Statement 1270: “This is wrong on so many levels. Fannie Mae, still in government conservatorship since 2008 (when they and Freddie Mac were bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of $190 billion), is going to guarantee (a taxpayer guarantee!!!) huge Wall Street firm Blackstone’s debt secured by rental homes…

January 26, 2017 – Statement 1269: “Washington’s many agencies, bureaus and departments propagate rules that weigh down businesses, destroy jobs, and limit American freedoms. Career bureaucrats who never face the voters wield punishing authority with little to no accountability…

January 24, 2017 – Statement 1268: “Mr. Gilbert (CEO of Quicken Loans) said that his company has been unfairly targeted. “You want to know what this case is about?” he said. “Somebody probably put up a whiteboard and said, ‘Here are the 10 largest F.H.A. lenders, now go and collect settlements from them, regardless of whether they did anything wrong.’”…

January 24, 2017 – Statement 1267: “The Troubled Asset Relief Program may have been the least of the rescue measures, but it was the highest risk, because the people’s bipartisan representatives were required to put their imprimatur on unpopular bailouts…

January 24, 2017 – Statement 1266: “U.S. consumers and businesses have enjoyed ultralow borrowing costs since the financial crisis because the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero. At the same time, regulators and lenders intent on fortifying the financial system have clamped down on risk-taking, making it harder for many borrowers to get loans…

January 24, 2017 – Statement 1265: “The Justice Department last year sued the Detroit-based mortgage lender on charges that it knowingly approved loans that violated Federal Housing Administration rules for government mortgage insurance. The charges didn’t make Quicken Loans unique, as the Obama Administration has spent years wringing settlements out of lenders without having to prove its charges in court…

January 24, 2017 – Statement 1264: “Treasury Secretary-designate Steven Mnuchin made a fortune buying mortgage company IndyMac in a distressed sale about eight years ago. The government was so anxious to unload, it protected Mr. Mnuchin and his group from almost all losses over 30% on many mortgages. Nice deal if you can get it.”, WSJ, December 28, 2016

January 24, 2017 – Statement 1263: “Fan and Fred’s owners feasted for decades on an implied taxpayer guarantee before the housing crisis. Since everyone knew the two government-created mortgage giants would receive federal help in a crisis, they were able to run enormous risks and still borrow cheaply as they came to own or guarantee $5 trillion of mortgage paper…

January 24, 2017 – Statement 1262: “The abusive SEC investigates most public companies whose stock declines materially or fails, and often sues the CEO and CFO using SOX, accusing these officers (who relied on lawyers and other experts) of violating vague and/or subjective civil securities disclosure laws, with no real proof other than stock losses…

January 24, 2017 – Statement 1261: “When 2008 rolled around, Fannie and Freddie were deemed insolvent and put into conservatorship. Taxpayers are now responsible for more than $4 trillion in guarantees…

December 14, 2016 – Statement 1260: “What’s striking here is that the same folks who see in Mr. Trump a Mussolini in waiting are blind to the soft despotism that has already taken root in our government. This is the unelected and increasingly assertive class that populates our federal bureaucracies and substitutes rule by regulation for the rule of law…

December 9, 2016 – Statement 1259: “The real financial risks are from Mr. Carney’s (Bank of England Governor and FSB Chair) attempt to turn certain kinds of legal investments into political targets. The political allocation of capital into housing was one of the root causes of the 2008 panic. Let’s not politicize energy investing in the same way.”, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, December 9, 2016

December 9, 2016 – Statement 1258: “I don’t really have a problem with the deal Mr. Mnuchin struck with the FDIC, to buy my bank, IndyMac during the crisis. I and many others would have done the same, if we had been “sitting on the sidelines” and had access to the capital he did,…

December 6, 2016 – Statement 1257: “All this makes clear why Fannie and Freddie cannot be privatized and returned to the markets in the form they were before their 2008 insolvency. The fiction that Fannie and Freddie weren’t government-guaranteed has now been exposed…

December 6, 2016 – Statement 1256: “Reading this WSJ piece about “The Admiral who Took the Fall for Pearl Harbor”, it reminds me a lot of our government’s refusal to take any responsibility for its primary role in causing the 2008 financial crisis…

December 6, 2016 – Statement 1255: “The whole cause of the financial crisis has been attributed to the failure of market capitalism,” Mr. Allison (former CEO of BB&T Bank and the Cato Institute) said. “I don’t think that’s true. Government policy caused the financial crisis…but that’s not the message that’s out there.”…

December 6, 2016 – Statement 1254: “First, Dodd-Frank ignores all of the others complicit in creating the subprime (mortgage) crisis, including the Fed and the other financial regulators who failed to see it coming, our government which, while the crisis materialized, cheered on the creativeness of the financial industry in making homeownership plausible for all…

November 30, 2016 – Statement 1253: “In regards to The 2016 Economist article on the state of U.S. mortgage market it is spot on, except for one issue, mortgage defects/”fraud”. The headline figure for the government in its settlements has been 25% to 45% serious mortgage defects/”fraud” during the crisis…

November 30, 2016 – Statement 1252: “Seriously, Gretchen? Does it make any sense that the liberal Obama Administration would protect crisis era bankers/Wall Street from jail, when key Democratic party officials like uber liberal Senators Sanders and Warren were calling for prosecutions? It doesn’t to me…

November 30, 2016 – Statement 1251: “The new Minneapolis Fed President and his team recently calculated that under pre-crisis regulations (bank capital rules set by the government, not by bankers) there was an 84% chance of a crisis requiring taxpayer bailouts over a 100-year period…

November 30, 2016 – Statement 1250: “John Paulson’s subprime (mortgage) trade led to historic fortune. His drug-company investments? Big losses and plunging assets…

November 30, 2016 – Statement 1249: “Strikingly for such important legislation, there was no significant debate in (Democrat-controlled) Congress about whether the cause of the (financial) crisis had been correctly identified…

November 30, 2016 – Statement 1248: “It’s 2016 and the U.K. still hasn’t sold its stakes in Too Big to Fail banks, yet the dummies at the FDIC fire-sold IndyMac Bank in 2008, in less than six months, right at the worst possible moment of the financial crisis!”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

November 16, 2016 – Statement 1247: “As the head of the S.E.C., you’ve got to get back into reffing the game properly and end the demonization of Wall Street,” Mr. Scaramucci said in an interview last week…

November 16, 2016 – Statement 1246: “Despite Mnuchin’s New York business credentials, one of his most notable financial bonanzas came via a regional commercial bank based in sleepy Pasadena…

October 19, 2016 – Statement 1245: “She (Hillary Clinton) detailed her time working with Wall Street as a senator from New York and confided that the “conventional wisdom” of blaming Wall Street banks for the financial crisis was an “oversimplification.”…

October 4, 2016 – Statement 1244: “The truth is emerging, that well-intended government mandates (housing/mortgage policies, bank risk-based capital requirements, and national statistical rating agencies) and manipulation of money and rates (the Federal Reserve), over many years, massively-distorted private lending, borrowing, and investment decisions/markets…

September 30, 2016 – Statement 1243: “Imagine if our President forced America’s biggest banks to funnel hundreds of millions – and potentially billions – of dollars to the corporations and lobbyists who supported his agenda, all while calling it “Main Street Relief.” The public outcry would rightly be deafening. Yet the Obama administration has used a similar strategy to enrich its political allies,…

September 30, 2016 – Statement 1242: “In especially strong language for an academic, Professor Ball (Laurence M. Ball, chairman of the economics department at Johns Hopkins University and author of “Money, Banking and Financial Markets”) takes issue with the established narrative that the Fed was powerless to lend to Lehman in its waning hours: “Fed officials have not been transparent about the Lehman crisis. Their explanations for their actions rest on flawed economic and legal reasoning and dubious factual claims.”…

September 30, 2016 – Statement 1241: “Read this Aug 2016 WSJ on SF-based First Republic Bank’s long-time mortgage lending business model; primarily to wealthier jumbo borrowers. Could it be any clearer that the FDIC and others are pressuring FRB to lower their mortgage lending standards (and increase their defaults and credit losses)…

September 30, 2016 – Statement 1240: “Between 2004 and 2014, black borrowers’ applications for Fannie- and Freddie-eligible mortgages fell 82%…

September 30, 2016 – Statement 1239: “…Mr. Clinton took a different tack (than public sentiment at the time). At a conference in Washington the week of the Senate hearing (April 2010), he said derivatives trading needed better oversight, but he was skeptical of the (SEC’s) commission’s charges (against Goldman Sachs). “I’m not at all sure they violated the law,” the former president said…

September 30, 2016 – Statement 1238: “…along came Sen. Warren’s bravura performance in last week’s Wells Fargo hearing. Unfortunately, she completely falsified the scandal, insisting that fraudulent sales inflated the company’s stock and the CEO’s pay. It didn’t happen that way…It might not be too reductionist to say that lying for money is what a lot of people in and around government now do for a living…

September 30, 2016 – Statement 1237: “These bank robberies are political. The Obama Administration has also been merrily plundering American banks to satisfy the retribution demands of the Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party. The evidence hardly matters…

September 30, 2016 – Statement 1236: “In a looping debate rant, Mr. Trump argued that an increasingly “political” Fed is holding interest rates low to help Democrats in November, driving up a “big, fat, ugly bubble” that will pop when the central bank raises rates. This riff has some truth to it…

September 22, 2016 – Statement 1235: “What is it about today’s monetary and banking arrangements that seems to impel us to more and more desperate policy gambits? The nature of modern central banking and the pseudoscience of modern monetary economics are themselves surely part of the problem. Interest rates are prices. They impart information…

September 6, 2016 – Statement 1234: “It’s maddening. It’s disappointing. It’s clear that this comes from a political place…When you’re accused of doing something so foreign to your values it brings out an outrage in you…

September 5, 2016 – Statement 1233: “Do you believe the tragic 2010 San Bruno gas explosion was caused by a criminal PG&E? I doubt it, but this recent LA Times Editorial Board article has no doubt (after a federal jury found PG&E guilty on six felony counts) and in fact, they believe that PG&E and its officers, directors, employees, and shareholders got off way too easy. Given my hard experiences with false government allegations,…

September 5, 2016 – Statement 1232: “It’s not as if the bond bubble is fun while it lasts. It’s painful for savers and corrosive for society to have governments systematically punishing thrift. It also encourages reckless governments to spend further beyond their means when they are rewarded for borrowing in this way. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the government-engineered bond bubble hasn’t delivered…

September 2, 2016 – Statement 1231: “The settlement (with the SEC) includes a $100,000 payment – to be paid by Fannie Mae, which already pays its profits to the U.S. Treasury because it landed in government conservatorship in 2008. “One could see this as the government paying itself $100k to end the case,” Mr. Mudd said in an email…

August 17, 2016 – Statement 1230: “It’s hypocritical for the Obama administration to have demagogued and attacked crisis-era private bankers and mortgage lenders, when his federal government has made far worse lending decisions, for student borrowers and taxpayers, since it nationalized the federal student loan program.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

August 11, 2016 – Statement 1229: “But the greatest engine of change has been…capital requirements, set by the central banks of governments around the world…In 2010, central banks agreed that the large commercial banks needed double or even triple their capital buffers…

August 9, 2016 – Statement 1228: “Few words define this administration better than “abuse” – in particular the oppressive tactics of Barack Obama’s turbocharged bureaucratic state. We interrupt your regular election broadcasting to present another example, this one courtesy of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The specifics of that case are long, complex and best weighed by a court of law. But they aren’t being settled by any outside court – and therein rests the abuse…

August 9, 2016 – Statement 1227: “The Osbornes say they are the victims of a for-profit school that made false promises and a predatory lender – the (federal) government. Mr. Osborne said Abdill provided a low-quality education and exaggerated the likelihood that they would find career success. And he said the government should have never extended them so much debt for jobs that are in low demand. The typical phlebotomist makes just under $32,000 a year, according to the Labor Department…

August 5, 2016 – Statement 1226: “Twelve years later, as the president of a small liberal-arts college, I more fully appreciate the upside-down government policies that precipitated that woman’s remarks. With federal student debt exceeding $1.2 trillion, I am dismayed at how government programs discourage families from saving for their children’s educations…

August 5, 2016 – Statement 1225: “I learned the hard way in 2008 that well-established algorithms (computer models) for my industry were fatally flawed and did not properly consider statistically rare, Black Swan events. This fabulous NYT’s article points out that as a society we are using computer algorithms to help us make big decisions, more and more…that’s generally good, but it can be very bad if these algorithms are unaccountable, “black boxes”…

July 26, 2016 – Statement 1224: “This is nonsense. Rather than reviewing people’s actual payment performance on their debts and/or rent, utility bills, etc. (if they don’t have any debts), let’s look at their internet search history…

July 20, 2016 – Statement 1223: “This is similar to what IndyMac and I were dealing with in 2007 and 2008 and these guys, one of the largest and most respected money managers in the U.S., had Fannie/Freddie collateral, which was made 100% whole later in 2008, when Fannie/Freddie were placed in conservatorship and bailed out by the U.S. government for something like $180 billion…

July 20, 2016 – Statement 1222: “This article is filled with bullshit “phony stats” produced by a biased consumer advocacy group (not any legitimate source or the government). We have learned nothing from our recent past. Here we go again, pressuring banks and mortgage lenders (using absolutely false allegations of racism) to make more mortgage loans to less financially-qualified minorities…

July 16, 2016 – Statement 1221: “As Charles Kindleberger taught, the essence of a credit mania is that everyone follows everyone else and thinks it will never end. Regulators are no better than bankers. As late as March 2008, then New York Fed President Tim Geithner was telling his colleagues on the Open Market Committee that banks were in good shape…

July 16, 2016 – Statement 1220: “Doesn’t the bond market have to be a bubble? And yet because many investors, both sophisticated and unsophisticated, have been “winning” with bonds for decades (and “rational short sellers have been crushed”), most still don’t believe there is a bond bubble. Isn’t that the classic definition of a bubble? If the bond market isn’t a bubble, then the pre-crisis U.S. housing market (which in key markets, home prices have fully recovered or more, despite inflation being nil) wasn’t a bubble either…

July 16, 2016 – Statement 1219: “Eight years ago, unsustainably high debt was the root cause of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Yet world debt overall now is far above 2008 levels. And as with millions of American home buyers back then, many of today’s borrowers owe amounts that could become crushing burdens if the global economy should careen into a new recession…

July 14, 2016 – Statement 1218: “What policy makers should be doing, instead, is accepting the markets’ offer of incredibly cheap financing. Investors are willing to pay the German government to take their money; the U.S. situation is less extreme, but even here interest rates adjusted for inflation are negative. Meanwhile, there are huge unmet demands for public investment on both sides of the Atlantic…

July 14, 2016 – Statement 1217: “Could it be any clearer? Who sets (and has for decades) bank capital requirement in the U.S. and around the world? Governments and their institutions not bankers!!!”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

July 8, 2016 – Statement 1216: “From July 12, 2016 front-page of The New York Times: The core issue that caused (and is causing) the Black Lives Matter-type protests; blacks being shot (more than whites) by police is found to be false (another false narrative that the mainstream press and as a result many Americans have latched onto) in an objective study of 1,332 American police shootings from 2000 to 2015, by Harvard-tenured and honored (he won the John Bates Clark medal for the most promising American economist under 40) black economics professor Roland G. Fryer, Jr…

July 8, 2016 – Statement 1215: “The New York Time’s Sunday Business Columnist Gretchen Morgenson’s June 26, 2016 “hit piece” on Mr. Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide belongs on the editorial page, not in a fact-based, truth-telling newspaper…

July 6, 2016 – Statement 1214: “The federal government’s FDIC-R sued me (alone) civilly five years ago this month seeking $600 million in damages, related to IndyMac Bank’s July 11, 2008 seizure by the FDIC, as a result of a U.S. Senator’s remarks that caused a “run on the bank”, during the unprecedented financial crisis. They did not claim I was “extremely careless” or that “any reasonable person in my position should have known it was wrong” (as the FBI Director did of Hillary Clinton and her State Dept. emails on Tuesday and many legal experts have said is no different than “gross negligence”). They also did not claim I committed fraud, misappropriated funds, or had a conflict of interest…

July 6, 2016 – Statement 1213: “J.C. Flowers was one of the lucky distressed buyers of IndyMac Bank (from the FDIC, who unwisely fire-sold at the very bottom of an irrational and highly-illiquid market in January 2009). Below is a July 1, 2016, WSJ article about Flowers and one of its big pre-crisis funds, that did terribly. In other words, just before the crisis, he and other large and sophisticated investors in J.C. Flowers II L.P., had no idea either that the crisis would soon be upon us all…

July 6, 2016 – Statement 1212: “In the first few years, post 2008 crisis, the Italian banks were touted by the WSJ and others as being smarter and safer than the U.S. and other global banks, because they avoided securitization and other capital markets activities. Wrong! Also, some have blamed pre-crisis U.S. mortgage lenders and Wall Street for the U.S. banking and global financial crisis? Yet clearly that’s not the case with Italian banks or many other foreign banks and their financial crises. It makes no sense that all the worlds’ bankers were greedy and reckless at exactly the same time. So what’s really the cause? (That’s what this blog has described in its posts, especially those in 2013-2016.)…

July 6, 2016 – Statement 1211: “But the bigger problem with the regulatory state is today’s trend of politicians and government officials pursuing their personal, political or ideological agendas by demonizing private citizens and using the vast powers and resources of the state to do so. Enough is enough. This government persecution must end so we can make New York and America more attractive places to do business and create jobs…

July 1, 2016 – Statement 1210: “I have never seen a time of forecasting reliability. Since the 1960s, every five years or so the same old chart has come out showing the world running out of oil in a few decades. Never happened. Forecasters failed to forecast the late 1970s inflation. The year 2000 market bubble burst. The 2007 housing bubble burst. Economic forecasts have been bogus all my life…”, Kim C. Korn, Woodbury, Minn.

July 1, 2016 – Statement 1209: “G.E.’s current chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, initially backed the growth of GE Capital when he took over in 2001, increasing its business in commercial real estate loans and subprime lending…

June 30, 2016 – Statement 1208: “Sloppy or deliberately false journalistic accounts of the U.S. housing/mortgage crisis, like the June 27, 2016, front-page New York Times article below, are one of the key methods that has been used by mostly liberal propagandists to further the false narrative that greedy and reckless bankers caused the financial crisis. U.S. rules on foreclosures are not (and never were) the responsibility of banks or private mortgage lenders, but of each state’s laws…

June 30, 2016 – Statement 1207: “…Title II of the act (Dodd Frank), contrary to Prof. Blinder’s account, doesn’t apply to banks at all, but only to nonbank financial firms. Banks are specifically excluded from the title and left to resolution by the FDIC. The FDIC doesn’t have the resources, financial or otherwise, to keep open a failing trillion-dollar bank and of course cannot sell it to a healthy trillion-dollar bank—the agency’s usual tack—without making the TBTF problem worse. So the only recourse under Dodd-Frank is a taxpayer bailout…

June 30, 2016 – Statement 1206: “In summary, there is an upper limit to the amount of equity capital a financial firm could be required to hold without pressing its rate of return on equity below what history suggests is the average minimum competitive 5%. Because financial intermediation requires significant leverage to be profitable, risk, sometimes large risks, are inherent to this indispensable process. And on very rare occasions, it will break down and may require the temporary substitution of sovereign credit for private capital…

June 28, 2016 – Statement 1205: “Below is my email conversation with The New York Times Sunday Business columnist Gretchen Morgenson (start at the bottom and read up, it is short) who wrote a false hit piece this past Sunday (June 26, 2016) on my friend and former mentor Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide. This blog will respond to her false article (really just an anti-banker, anti-mortgage lender propaganda piece) later this week…

June 28, 2016 – Statement 1204: “…Christopher Maloney with Bloomberg News wrote up a piece titled, “FHA Should Impose ‘Cap’ on Riskier Borrowers, NY Fed Says.” “A ‘sustainable’ housing policy would necessitate ‘the FHA impose a cap’ on borrowers’ expected default rates, NY Fed economists W. Scott Frame, Kristopher Gerardi and Joseph Tracy write in a blog post…

June 17, 2016 – Statement 1203: “In the 21st century, the United States has reinstated a broad system of debtors’ prisons, in effect making it a crime to be poor. If you don’t believe me, come with me to the county jail in Tulsa. On the day I visited, 23 people were incarcerated for failure to pay government fines and fees, including one woman imprisoned because she couldn’t pay a fine for lacking a license plate…

June 12, 2016 – Statement 1202: “The party of Franklin Roosevelt through Lyndon Johnson and its alliance with private-sector industrial unions made Democrats aware that their fortunes ultimately were joined to the success of the private sector. The Democrats are now the party of Bernie Sanders, the progressive icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren and—make no mistake—of Barack Obama, a man of the left from day one. Rather than distrust the private sector, they disdain and even loathe it…

June 12, 2016 – Statement 1201: “Here you go. One last posting related to the mortgage underwriting defect issue. A few years ago, the government made similar bogus claims related to mortgage servicing and the Big Banks caved and settled for billions, without any facts being determined. However, my former bank, fought these bogus claims in the normal adversarial fact-finding process and it was found that only 5.6% of borrower’s in foreclosure had suffered any damage as a result of their mortgage being serviced improperly…

June 9, 2016 – Statement 1200: “Why crisis era mortgage defect rates cited by the government (and others) are false, a massive Red Herring. Part 3: FHA’s Post Endorsement Technical Review (PETR) Quarterly Loan Summary Report, from 2012-2016, is the second of two Smoking Gun documents that are both publicly-available from FHA itself, that definitively proves this contention of mine…

June 9, 2016 – Statement 1199: “Why crisis era mortgage defect rates cited by the government (and others) are false, a massive Red Herring. Part 2: FHA’s Post-Crisis Quarterly Loan Review Findings, from 2012 to 2016 are one of two Smoking Gun documents that are both publicly-available from FHA itself, that definitively proves this contention of mine…

June 9, 2016 – Statement 1198: “Why crisis era mortgage defect rates cited by the government (and others) are false, a massive Red Herring. Part 1: The General Logic Behind My Argument…

June 9, 2016 – Statement 1197: “The government and others have claimed that high pre-crisis mortgage defect rates, were a major problem. I believe this is a bogus, Red Herring Claim and will prove it. As I have said before, most major human endeavors have some waste, error, and even fraud. Here is our government’s: $136.7 billion in improper payments by Federal Agencies in 2015 (a 4.8% error rate),…

June 9, 2016 – Statement 1196: “Mike: I was present with you the entire time in 2006 and 2007 through July 11th (2008) and with Indymac until July 18th when I resigned from Indymac Bank because I believed the US government had made a mistake by allowing Indymac to fail (due to unrealized paper losses and a bank run triggered by a senior US senator) and because I felt the FDIC’s actions and announcements when putting Indymac into conservatorship maximized the loss on Indymac instead of minimizing it which I understood to be their responsibility…

June 9, 2016 – Statement 1195: “…But perhaps more ominously than making us either less prosperous or less stable, Dodd-Frank has also made us less free. Dodd-Frank moves us away from the equal protection offered by the impartial rule of law towards the unequal and victimizing rule of political bureaucrats…

June 9, 2016 – Statement 1194: “The 49-year-old mother of two became a face of housing-crisis misdeeds when the Justice Department pursued civil-fraud charges against her for her work at Countrywide. A jury in 2013 found her liable, and a federal judge ordered her to personally pay $1 million, making her one of the few financial executives to be held to account for the housing bust. Until last month: A federal appeals court threw out the verdict against Ms. Mairone,…

June 6, 2016 – Statement 1193: “He could direct the Department of Justice to investigate his critics by prioritizing categories of crimes they may have committed. Political opponents could be accused of campaign finance law violations. Former government officials, like Hillary Clinton, could be accused of violating secrecy laws. Even if the charges come to nothing, the legal fees for defendants will be hefty…

June 6, 2016 – Statement 1192: “Where homeownership is concerned, Americans have fallen behind their northern neighbors (Canada)…How did this happen? (Government) Incentives matter. The U.S. tax code allows homeowners to deduct the interest paid on their mortgages, which encourages borrowing and debt…

June 6, 2016 – Statement 1191: “The U.S. government over the last 15 years made a trillion-dollar investment to improve the nation’s workforce, productivity and economy. A big portion of that investment has now turned toxic, with echoes of the housing crisis…

June 6, 2016 – Statement 1190: “Switching gears to the cause and result of the financial crisis, WB writes, “I think it’s important that given the massive media spin and lack of knowledge regarding the cause of the financial crisis that at least we in the industry need to be educated on the issues. I have spent more than one BBQ defending our industry and educating friends and neighbors…

June 2, 2016 – Statement 1189: “In 2014, the number of mortgages to blacks and Hispanics combined was down 52% from 2007 across all bank and nonbank lenders, compared with a 37% drop for other racial groups combined. Among all approved mortgage applicants from the 10 (largest) banks, 5.3% were black in 2014, down from 7.8% in 2007; 7.4% were Hispanic, down from 10.6%…

June 1, 2016 – Statement 1188: “This LAT reporter laments (“Few developments could be more frightening.”) a billionaire’s deep pockets and the damage he can do through civil litigation in America today. I think it’s a lot worse that we let small groups in our federal government (the deepest pockets of all) agencies sue individual Americans civilly, with no ability (if they win in court) for these individuals to recover the funds they spend defending themselves and/or damages for the loss of their good name, reputation, and livelihood? P.S. Did you know that government officials can publicly defame individuals Americans and are protected by sovereign immunity? That’s not right!”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

June 1, 2016 – Statement 1187: “I contend that public pension plans pile on the risk for two reasons: 1) they, like everyone, are forced to because, both pre and post crisis, The Federal Reserve manipulated market rates too low, for too long in almost a perpetual attempt to stimulate economy activity, and 2) U.S. government accounting standards, allow them to use unrealistic…

May 27, 2016 – Statement 1186: “Mortgage Credit Risk #2: Mortgage underwriting (the activity of underwriting a mortgage loan to ensure it meets an investor’s loan program guidelines) defect rates and mortgage fraud DID NOT cause the U.S. mortgage crisis, so what did?…

May 27, 2016 – Statement 1185: “Mortgage Credit Risk #1: Mortgage Underwriting Did Not Cause the Crisis: Some important thoughts on why claims by the government (and others) that mortgage underwriting deficiencies by banks and private mortgage lenders, were a material cause of losses to mortgage securities investors and insurers (including FHA, VA, Fannie, and Freddie) is largely bogus, a Red Herring…

May 27, 2016 – Statement 1184: “…“recap and release” is rubbish. In an election cycle when private enterprise is often accused of crony capitalism and participating in a “rigged” system, it is forgotten that Fannie and Freddie were the very embodiment of crony capitalism. Granted charters by the federal government, they benefited from presidential appointments to their boards, lines of credit at the Treasury, exemptions from taxation and securities registration, and minimal capital requirements, even as they accumulated enormous, undiversified portfolios of mortgage assets…

May 27, 2016 – Statement 1183: “To me, this new mortgage program is further proof that Wells Fargo’s management and board admitted to acts in its recent DOJ/FHA mortgage settlement that they did not and do not believe are true. How so? If they believed their admissions, they would repair their ways, rebuild their relationship with FHA, and continue to do business with FHA and not initiate the loan program below, which undercuts FHA and the need for its mortgages…

May 27, 2016 – Statement 1182: “Like Bernie, officials in the Obama Justice Department love to throw around the word “fraud” when a case involves a bank. In 2013 they even convinced a jury that fraud had occurred when Countrywide sold some mortgages to Fan and Fred that didn’t meet the quality standards required under its contracts with the two mortgage giants…

May 27, 2016 – Statement 1181: “Three U.S. Federal Appeals Court judges unanimously ruled that BofA/Countrywide (and an individual manager) DID NOT commit mortgage fraud, overturning a jury’s erroneous decision in the government’s civil case alleging that Countrywide ripped off Fannie and Freddie by selling shoddy mortgages to them and this reporter devotes an entire article to refuting this ruling and bad-mouthing it as a “legal technicality.” Since when did the LA Times Business Section become a liberal OpEd page…

May 24, 2016 – Statement 1180: “Speaking of legal matters, Guild Mortgage grabbed the headlines yesterday as the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Guild under the catch-all False Claims Act. The action is captioned United States ex rel. Dougherty v. Guild Mortgage Company (D.D.C.). It continues to be interesting why smaller lenders seem to continue to originate this product wholeheartedly whereas the big banks, such as Chase, have moved away from the program given the potential liability…

May 24, 2016 – Statement 1179: “These policies (The Fed’s ultralow interest rates) are toxic for financial stability. They force retired people to curtail spending and discourage the young from saving for retirement. They force people into making risky investments and don’t stimulate economic growth. Worse, they gradually undermine personal responsibility and ensure that future generations are more dependent on government programs…

May 19, 2016 – Statement 1178: “What the chart does accurately represent is the pullback of traditional banks from the mortgage lending business, primarily due to the federal government’s onerous and over-the-top enforcement regime that is extracting hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and settlements.”, David H. Stevens, President and CEO, Mortgage Bankers Association, May 19, 2016

May 19, 2016 – Statement 1177: “How could a small business loan (or any loan) that regulated banks won’t approve, that new online marketplace lenders won’t approve, and that no other private lender will approve, on the same terms and conditions, without a government credit guarantee from the SBA, possibly be a responsible loan?…

May 19, 2016 – Statement 1176: “Time said, noting that Citigroup itself required multiple government rescues costing $45 billion. In 2010 testimony before a congressional panel investigating the meltdown, Mr. Weill minimized the role of Glass-Steagall’s repeal, saying it “had nothing to do with the financial crisis.”…

May 16, 2016 – Statement 1175: “S.E.C. Chair Mary Jo White, I want to make a slightly different and important point (vs. your recent NYT OpEd). I think civil law enforcement should be for corporations and other institutions, not individuals. If our government/government bureaucracies believe an individual American has done something wrong, charge them with a crime, so that they are afforded the proper legal protections under the Constitution and The Rule of Law…

May 12, 2016 – Statement 1174: “Just because government bureaucrats ban banks, or threatens them with litigation, from offering certain mortgages….like equity-based mortgages, where income/”ability to pay” can’t be documented….doesn’t mean they won’t get made. Some won’t, but most will get made at worse rates and terms for consumers and small businesses by loosely-regulated private lenders and investors…

May 10, 2016 – Statement 1173: “In capital markets news, Wells Fargo was approved as a “primary dealer” for US Treasury debt. Many wonder what the advantages are anymore of being a primary dealer, but it is the first bank to be accepted to bid at US Treasury auctions in more than two years.” Excerpt from April 2016 mortgage industry newsletter, just after Wells admitted in a U.S. Justice Department settlement to having poor FHA mortgage underwriting standards and deliberately causing FHA to insure mortgages that did not meet their standards and resulted in losses to the government’s FHA insurance fund…

May 10, 2016 – Statement 1172: “Certainly the government continues to be involved in the (FHA) program. The Senate recently voted 66-31 to adopt an amendment that would include energy costs in FHA’s mortgage underwriting process. The amendment, offered by Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, would reduce the amount of energy used in homes and help create energy efficiency retrofit and construction jobs. “The mortgage underwriting process, as we all know here, is about evaluating a borrower’s ability to afford a mortgage, and history tells us that if we play around with it, it does not end well when we forget this,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said on the Senate floor in opposition of the amendment. “This amendment would weaken FHA’s underwriting standards, leading to greater safety and perhaps soundness concerns for the FHA portfolio, which received a $1.7 billion bailout in 2013…

May 10, 2016 – Statement 1171: “Leaning forward in his chair, Obama described the profound structural shifts in the economy over the past two decades that voters often don’t appreciate or acknowledge. “If you are a blue-collar worker, you saw manufacturing head out to China,” he said. “You’re in a town, the plant closes. But…in part because of the housing bubble….a whole bunch of blue-collar manufacturing workers could suddenly shift into construction.” The underlying economic decay was covered up by cheap credit, as homeowners made up for the shortfall in wage growth with low-interest second mortgages and unprecedented loads of credit card debt…

May 10, 2016 – Statement 1170: “(President) Obama, though, was unable or unwilling to rhetorically underscore the severity of the crisis as it unfolded, so perhaps what should have been seen as successes were seen as failures. “It was a delicate balance throughout 2009 and 2010 to be straight with the American people about the depths of the problem, how close we were to disaster, without scaring the heck out of them,” Obama said.”, Excerpt from Andrew Ross Sorkin’s, The Obama Recovery, The New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2016

May 6, 2016 – Statement 1169: “Why would the government sue what is arguably the most taxpayer-friendly issuer of federally backed loans in the country? The Detroit-based lender put it this way in a filing last year: “Quicken Loans appears to be one of the targets (due to its large size) of a political agenda under which the DOJ is ‘investigating’ and pressuring large, high-profile lenders into paying nine- and ten figure sums and publicly ‘admitting’ wrongdoing, including conceding that the lenders had made ‘false claims’ and violated the False Claims Act.” That sounds like a fair summary…

May 3, 2016 – Statement 1168: “Personal tragedies, like losing a spouse (death), divorce, job loss, health issues, etc. are tough, but your mortgage lender/investor isn’t responsible and any help they might provide is not required by the contractual terms of the mortgage. Respectfully, The Los Angeles Times’ widower (now remarried) Mr. Sequeira was not the victim of his mortgage lender. He stopped making mortgage payments in 2010, maybe two years after is wife died, and he has lived “payment/rent free” for six years (now including his new wife), without being foreclosed on or evicted!!! He probably has little to no equity in this home, given it was purchased in the peak housing bubble year of 2006…

April 27, 2016 – Statement 1167: “Phil Angelides, former Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, is at it again. He sent me a second email on April 18, 2016, calling for individual crisis-era bankers/Wall Street to be prosecuted…

April 27, 2016 – Statement 1166: “The market is growing in part because so many would-be home buyers with damaged credit histories cannot get loans. Banks are unwilling to write mortgages to riskier clients after being fined billions of dollars for pushing borrowers into unaffordable subprime mortgages before the crisis…

April 27, 2016 – Statement 1165: “There have been times when I have tried very hard to forget the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. After all, taken at face value, it utterly failed in its mission to provide the American public a clear consensus explanation for what caused the crisis…

April 27, 2016 – Statement 1164: “The FCIC majority (only Democrats, all Republicans dissented) thus seemed to have made up its analysis for why Fannie and Freddie bought all these risky NTMs (mortgages) in order to fit the conclusion it wanted to reach: that insufficient regulation and Wall Street greed — and not government housing policy — caused the financial crisis. This was a gross disservice to the American public, whose view of the financial crisis was deliberately distorted…

April 27, 2016 – Statement 1163: “Real financial stability comes from an economy where businesses are allowed to operate day to day and plan long term with a minimum of government intrusion. The more we impose regulations to eliminate economic cycles (which are fundamental in a free market) and create soft landings, the more we are ensuring a lackluster, low-employment economy.” Carl Schieffer, Dallas…

April 25, 2016 – Statement 1162: “The 2008 crisis did not begin in a handful of too-big-to-fail banks, but in incentives cast far and wide among home buyers, mortgage brokers, lenders and others to underwrite tax-advantaged, one-way bets on home prices. Too big to fail was implicated in only one way: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were too big to fail in the eyes of their own lenders, including the Chinese government, which did no due diligence on the U.S. housing boom because they expected Washington to bail them out…

April 25, 2016 – Statement 1161: “A currency issue, or a monetary problem, must be resolved by a currency and monetary solution. Today’s monetary problem is the floating exchange-rate system, combined with the dollar’s peculiar global role as the world’s chief official reserve currency. Foreign countries use expansive monetary policy to depreciate their currencies relative to the U.S. dollar, hoping to gain a trade advantage by exporting unemployment…

April 21, 2016 – Statement 1160: “Finally!!! The objective truth can be revealed thanks to public court documents my team uncovered last week at uscourts.gov. Here is what IndyMac Bank’s regulators thought about us, just weeks before the financial crisis hit and devastated us and so many others…

April 20, 2016 – Statement 1159: “This LA Times article on pay is fascinating for a lot of reasons, but I am going to just focus on the Pasadena public high school teacher and nominal vs. real wages. The article says, “The past 5 years Californian’s wages increased 15% nominally, but adjusted for inflation 6% (real wages).” In other words, more than half the nominal pay increase, was not real because of inflation; which is fostered by The Federal Reserve, our central bank. They have a goal of 2% monetary inflation a year, but would prefer a little more than less…

April 20, 2016 – Statement 1158: “When the subprime crisis broke in the 2008 presidential election year, there was little chance for a serious discussion of its root causes. Candidate Barack Obama weaponized the crisis by blaming greedy bankers, unleashed when financial regulations were “simply dismantled.” He would go on to blame them for taking “huge, reckless risks in pursuit of quick profits and massive bonuses.” That mistaken diagnosis was the justification for the Dodd-Frank Act and the stifling regulations that shackled the financial system, stunted the recovery and diminished the American dream…

April 15, 2016 – Statement 1157: “This NYT article about Minsky is a joke, right? “Let’s keep these bankers off balance by not telling them all the rules and not telling them when we change the rules!” That’s ”stepping over dollar bills to pick up pennies.” Who creates most of the artificial stability/straight line growth, that leads to imprudent lending and mal-investment? Our government and their central bank, The Fed!!! Why? They are afraid of the political repercussions…

April 15, 2016 – Statement 1156: “I received the March 8, 2016 email below from Phil Angelides, former Chairman of The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and felt I needed to respond…

April 14, 2016 – Statement 1155: “…this is fundamentally a failure of Dodd-Frank to keep its central promise. Six years after the law was passed, and eight years since the financial crisis, regulators given broad authority to remake American finance, with thousands of regulatory officials on their payroll, cannot figure out a system to allow financial giants to fail, even in theory…

April 14, 2016 – Statement 1154: “Mr. Dimon implies that Main Street is “inventing conflicts where none need exist.” From his lofty perch on Wall Street, and with the blessed assurance of too-big-to-fail/too-big-to-jail status, one can forgive Mr. Dimon for not being able to recognize the strife endemic within a system that guarantees an unlevel playing field. Community bank “mistakes” end in financial ruin and criminal referrals…

April 13, 2016 – Statement 1153: “About a decade ago, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s due diligence for a residential mortgage-backed security showed an “unusually high” percentage of loans with credit and compliance defect…

April 13, 2016 – Statement 1152: “I reluctantly watched The Big Short on a plane ride recently. Here is a HUGE, HUGE takeaway: The S.E.C., some private plaintiffs, and mostly liberal government officials/politicians have claimed that sophisticated investors were fraudulently deceived by mortgage securities’ issuers and underwriters (Wall Street) into buying securities that they otherwise would not have bought…

April 12, 2016 – Statement 1151: “The problem all along, with all of these settlements — and this one highlights it even more — is that they are carefully crafted more to conceal than reveal to the American public what really happened here — and what the so-called penalty is.”, said Dennis Kelleher, the founder of the advocacy organization Better Markets, referring to the government announcement…

April 12, 2016 – Statement 1150: “What do you think of the Wells Fargo settlement last Friday? As I understand it, Wells “admitted” to the claims in the settlement, but its “non-response” press release seems like a denial? The government’s harsh claims (that Wells was a poor underwriter of FHA mortgages over a long period of time, that Wells intentionally defrauded FHA by not disclosing QC findings for years, and that Wells’ poor underwriting of FHA loans caused people to lose their homes..) seem mostly false to me, knowing the Democrats/liberals in charge of our government the past 7 years have a goal of cementing blame on Wall Street/the Banks/mortgage lenders for the crisis…

April 12, 2016 – Statement 1149: “F.H.A. and government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been demanding lower credit standards — just as the feds did starting under President Bill Clinton, in pursuit of the same “affordable housing” goal. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently warned that mortgage underwriting standards have slipped and now reflect “broad trends similar to those experienced from 2005 through 2007, before the most recent financial crisis.”…

March 16, 2016 – Statement 1148: “Near-zero interest rates also have encouraged consumers and business to releverage. Cars are now financed with low or no-interest five-year loans. With the 2008 housing debacle forgotten, easier mortgage terms have made a comeback. Corporations also couldn’t let cheap money go to waste, so they have piled up debts to buy back their own stock…

March 16, 2016 – Statement 1147: “The nation’s largest banks paid fines totaling about $110 billion for their role in inflating a mortgage bubble that helped cause the financial crisis. Where did that money go?”, Christina Rexrode and Emily Glazer, The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2016

March 16, 2016 – Statement 1146: “This isn’t Big Banks preparing for higher rates! This is Big Banks using a loophole in GAAP accounting to “window dress” future financial statements. How so? As a result of a self-identified “held for investment” designation on certain loans/securities, as rates inevitably rise future economic losses will likely be hidden from shareholders and others…

March 16, 2016 – Statement 1145: “..over-the-top claims that Mr. Trump is the new Il Dulce may be distracting attention from the soft despotism that Tocqueville deemed the far likelier menace to American liberties. This kind of authoritarianism doesn’t come with goose steps or brown shirts or large populist movements. It prefers bureaucracy to bombast. It presents itself as a solution to the complexities of modern government, and it’s called the administrative state…

March 10, 2016 – Statement 1144: “Touching back on Sanders’s indictment of Wall Street regarding the financial crises, perhaps no entity is more responsible for “rigging” the economy than the Federal Reserve — which not only enabled much of Wall Street’s reckless borrowing in the lead up to the crisis, but actively sought to inflate the stock market (at the expense of risk-averse savers) following it…

March 10, 2016 – Statement 1143: “Fascinating article. Clearly private investors in consumer loans and mortgages believe (correctly) that geography often matters when it comes to predicting credit losses and net returns, yet the government long-ago banned geography (for regulated banks and mortgage lenders), because of its often close association with race and/or lower incomes…

March 10, 2016 – Statement 1142: “Instead of historically generating economic growth via a wealth effect and its trickle-down effect on the real economy, negative investment rates and the expansion of central bank balance sheets via quantitative easing are creating negative effects,” Bill Gross wrote. Negative rates threaten bank profits as well as any business models that depend upon 7-8% annual returns on assets…

March 10, 2016 – Statement 1141: “Clearly, VW is not a sympathetic defendant, but this is why The Rule of Law and respect for The Constitution is so important. These “lynch mob” attacks by liberal government totalitarians (unelected officials and bureaucracies pursuing their own agenda) may eventually get resolved properly after years in court. In the meantime they create tremendous business cost and uncertainty…

March 8, 2016 – Statement 1140: “There is no debate that China’s financial/economic bubbles and busts are caused by their authoritarian government’s central planners. While in the U.S., our own central planners at the Fed and elsewhere in government, attempt to blame asset bubbles and busts…

March 8, 2016 – Statement 1139: “The challenge is that, in practice, this behavior looks an awful lot like the Fed stepping in to bail out the stock market — so much so that financial markets tend to price in lower future interest rates whenever there is a drop in the stock market, as has happened in the early weeks of 2016…

March 8, 2016 – Statement 1138: “”I’m only responsible for my economic decisions, if they turn out well. If they don’t, I must have been defrauded and am going to sue.” This is the new American mentality fostered by the plaintiffs’ bar and our broken civil legal system and it’s so dangerous to the functioning of free and fair markets…

March 1, 2016 – Statement 1137: “Memo to Chris Dodd and Barney Frank: If one of the major parts of Dodd-Frank was to do away with Too Big to Fail, a check on the facts makes you wonder what the heck happened. In 2006 before your legislation, the four biggest banks (JP Morgan, BofA, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo) controlled 44% of total U.S. bank assets. Today, they control 51% of bank assets…

February 24, 2016 – Statement 1136: “See the third to last sentence of Maureen Dowd’s February 22, 2016 NYT’s column below. The liberals/progressives have basically said W. Bush and his Administration committed fraud to lure Democrats like Hillary, Kerry, Biden, Reid, Schumer, Feinstein, etc., to vote FOR the Iraq War. It’s not true. That’s the real fraud…

February 23, 2016 – Statement 1135: “The DOJ sues the big banks on behalf of FHA, using for the first time the False Claims Act, and gets billions in mortgage settlements, to help recapitalize FHA for its own insurance decisions and crisis-era insolvency. So the big banks wisely “drop” FHA loans and now BofA is using the not-for-profit Self-Help Ventures Fund (whose CEO is also the CEO of the Center for Responsible Lending, another non-profit advocacy group), as a “litigation and PC condom”, selling riskier 3% down payment home mortgages to them, and they turn around and sell them to Freddie Mac…

February 23, 2016 – Statement 1134: “…of the six, only Wells Fargo & Co. trades at a price that is more than its book value, or its net worth. In fact, the last time Citigroup or Bank of America traded at a price greater than their net worth was September 2008…

February 23, 2016 – Statement 1133: “The recent steep declines in the prices of stocks and junk bonds are not the precursor of an economic downturn. Instead, they are part of the inevitable unwinding of mispriced financial assets caused by the Federal Reserve’s unconventional monetary policy…

February 19, 2016 – Statement 1132: “It is a truism that ignorance of the law is no defense, but to be convicted, defendants in criminal cases must have an intention or knowledge of wrongdoing, known in the law as mens rea, the Latin phrase for “guilty mind.” This happens to have been a lifelong theme of Justice Antonin Scalia, who worried that the requirement, long a bedrock of Anglo-American criminal law, was being eroded by overzealous prosecutors, vaguely worded criminal statutes and judge-made criminal law…

February 17, 2016 – Statement 1131: “There is courage and leadership at Quicken Loans! They deserve our support and our mortgage business. Why? They aren’t a Too-Big-to-Fail Bank, whose government-insurance and regulation mean they are effectively under the direct control of the government. All the big banks quickly “rolled over” and settled what they knew were mostly bogus Justice Department mortgage claims or risked the government’s wrath. Modern-day “McCarthyism”! Not Quicken Loans. They intend to fight the government in court, with the facts and the truth. Take a look at the government’s ridiculous numbers (facts) below…

February 17, 2016 – Statement 1130: “The government (FDIC) should not insure/guarantee the deposits of a bank that has less than 10% equity capital and another 10% to 20% subordinated debt/COCO’s (subordinated to the government’s guarantee), and the guarantee should be capped at $50 billion in deposits or so, per bank. (Today, it’s capped per bank at roughly 10% of total U.S. deposits! That’s way too high.) In this way, the government doesn’t mandate how big a bank may become, but the government’s risk exposure to any one big bank will be dramatically reduced…

February 17, 2016 – Statement 1129: “The move by the Swedish central bank was intended to counter the dual threat of deflation and an appreciating currency, which poses a threat to the country’s export-driven economy. But many investors saw the rate cut as smacking of desperation and the latest sign that global central bankers are moving toward a round of competitive devaluations — also known as currency wars — as a way to stimulate their economies…

February 17, 2016 – Statement 1128: “She (Hillary Clinton) didn’t often talk about the financial crisis, but when she did, she almost always struck an amicable tone, according to these people. In some cases, she thanked the audience for what they had done for the country, the people said. One attendee said the warmth with which Mrs. Clinton greeted guests bordered on “gushy.”…

February 17, 2016 – Statement 1127: “Yes, but let’s be clear about two things: 1) the FDIC’s DIF “took some big hits”, because they were a poor conservator, who fire-sold into panicked markets and cost the DIF tens of billions in avoidable losses, as a result. No other government conservator, not the Fed or U.S. Treasury, or private one (e.g. the Trustee’s of Lehman’s BK), unwisely did the same. These other, more prudent conservators, waited until markets became less panicked and asset prices recovered/returned to their long-term intrinsic value. And 2) in our U.S. banking system, with government-guaranteed deposit insurance (from the FDIC), private bankers and their boards, and their investors and creditors, DON’T set prudent leverage and capital requirements, government central planners set them…

February 11, 2016 – Statement 1126: “The current European banking troubles, with significant declines in market values and 1 trillion Euro of bad loans, sure doesn’t fit the liberal U.S. narrative, that greedy and reckless bankers and lax regulation caused the crisis, does it? It does fit the libertarian/conservative narrative though, that well-intended government policies and central bankers distorted free and fair markets and disrupted rational decision-making by borrowers, lenders, and others.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

February 11, 2016 – Statement 1125: “Citigroup’s shares, for instance, are down by more than a fourth so far this year. And its stock trades at nearly half of the bank’s book value, which is a theoretical measure of the value that would be left for shareholders if the bank were liquidated. The discount to book value exists at other large banks and effectively indicates that investors have doubts about the banks’ ability to earn a strong return on their capital…

February 9, 2016 – Statement 1124: “They’re the most demonized people in America (bankers and Wall Street). Some six million people work in financial services in America, according to Commerce Department figures. Take only the securities and investment end of the business, and you’re still talking about 900,000 people, a population that considerably exceeds Vermont’s 626,000. Is Mr. Sanders suggesting that some large proportion of those 900,000 is in on the fraud…

February 9, 2016 – Statement 1123: “I knew Steve Eisman (of The Big Short). I disagree with a lot of what he says in his recent NYT’s OpEd about the financial crisis. After reading it, it’s clear to me that Eisman is mostly a “balance sheet” financial analyst, who studied the publicly-available securities information of financial companies and MBS and made the right call to short (Doesn’t this disprove the Red Herring of securities disclosure fraud?), but he is no great sage about the economic decisions (many distorted by well-intended government policies and the Fed) at the root of the financial crisis…

February 9, 2016 – Statement 1122: ”Sen. Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and other progressives don’t like the idea that the Constitution and The Rule of Law could get in their way of prosecuting bankers and other businesspeople, who they judge, in their subjective opinion, to have done something wrong. Aren’t HRC’s supporters claiming lack of knowledge/intent in the e-mail matter?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

February 9, 2016 – Statement 1121: “I would argue that the Fed already has reached its 2% inflation target where possible, namely in the service economy. It is unrealistic to expect monetary policy to raise prices as rapidly for goods…

February 9, 2016 – Statement 1120: “Doesn’t this recent New York Times’ article show that the conservative/libertarian view that government and central bank intervention in and manipulation of free and fair private markets, was the root-cause of the global financial and banking crises?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

February 9, 2016 – Statement 1119: ““Liquidity” belongs in quotes in this context because no one knows which securities will enjoy a liquid market come the next financial crisis. A significant contributor to the 2008 financial panic was regulators’ insistence that financial firms follow the judgments of government-anointed credit-ratings agencies…

February 9, 2016 – Statement 1118: “Now, big money managers including Neuberger Berman, Pacific Investment Management Co. and an affiliate of Blackstone Group LP are lobbying lenders to make more of these “Alt-A” loans—or even buying loan-origination companies to control more of the supply themselves—according to people familiar with the matter…

February 1, 2016 – Statement 1117: “The inquiry found that the central bank, the I.M.F. and the European Commission, would not have agreed to bail out Ireland had the government decided to burn so-called senior bondholders, the investors who own bonds that are supposed to be the last in line to suffer losses. The E.C.B. was determined that no bank in Europe would be allowed to fail.”, Douglas Dalby/Jack Ewing, “Report Faults E.C.B. in Irish Banking Collapse”, NYTimes, January 28, 2016

February 1, 2016 – Statement 1116: “The U.K. government wisely delays its sale of Lloyds Bank shares, even years after the financial crisis. The U.S and Fed took years to sell its crisis era investments in banks, auto companies, mortgage securities, etc. Why then did the FDIC-R sell IndyMac Bank and others right into the teeth of the financial panic in 2008/2009…

February 1, 2016 – Statement 1115: “Each of these government divisions is headed by someone nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The lesson is clear: Personnel is policy (including enforcement).”, Senator Elizabeth Warren, The New York Times, January 29, 2016

February 1, 2016 – Statement 1114: “A jury in London put the brakes Wednesday on an attempt to pin the world’s ills on “criminal bankers,” and not a moment too soon. That should cause a broader rethink on both sides of the Atlantic about political efforts to target bankers and fine banks for allegedly manipulating a benchmark interest rate…

January 27, 2016 – Statement 1113: “Attached is a recent Howard Marks/Oaktree note discussing markets and the financial crisis. Two points: 1) How dumb was the FDIC-R to sell IndyMac Bank (and other banks), at the peak of the 2008/2009 panic? and 2) Mr. Marks implies that the financial crisis short sellers (maybe watching the recently-released Big Short movie prompted his comments?) intentionally manipulated banks stocks, mortgage securities, and other financial assets…a “bear raid”, driving them well below their intrinsic value…

January 27, 2016 – Statement 1112: “It took a bigger shock (than a housing bust) to the economy to bring the financial system down. That shock was tighter money. Through acts and omissions, the Fed kept interest rates and expected interest rates higher than appropriate, depressing the economy. This point is easy to miss because the Fed lowered interest rates between September 2007 and April 2008. But raising rates is not the only route to tighter money…

January 27, 2016 – Statement 1111: “Could it be any clearer? The world’s central bankers (including our Fed, both pre and post crisis) manipulate market interest rates artificially low and foster risk-taking/speculation, borrowing, asset bubbles and busts, and financial instability.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 27, 2016 – Statement 1110: “Pre-crisis, my core business, the multi-trillion dollar private-label MBS market collapsed abruptly in 2008 and has not recovered 7+ years later.” Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1109: “Marks/Oaktree is one of the great distressed debt investors of the past 20-30 years and he says very humbly, “I don’t really know the future.” I might be right 80% of the time. I hope to be, but I might not. Also, he makes clear that TIMING was the KEY. He points out that of their funds invested post-crisis, they invested MOST of their tens of billions raised in the quarter after Lehman failed and a lot less since then.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1108: “These 2010 FOMC minutes (like so many other facts) make clear that the “experts” at The Federal Reserve really have no better idea what the future holds than the activities of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of free market participants. Let’s stop the central planning of our money and rates and let the free markets decide!”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1107: “The overpriced share values are a direct result of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE) policy. Beginning in November 2008 and running through October 2014, the Fed combined massive bond purchases with a commitment to keep short-term interest rates low as a way to hold down long-term interest rates. Chairman Ben Bernanke explained on several occasions that the Fed’s actions were intended to drive up asset prices, thereby increasing household wealth and consumer spending…

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1106: “Several GOP candidates have pinned blame for the crisis on Fannie and Freddie. The firms successfully used their lobbying clout to resist tougher capital standards before the boom, but the loans they backed still performed better than mortgages that were packaged into securities by the Wall Street firms, which steadily eroded Fannie and Freddie’s market share…

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1105: “Republicans and Democrats still have wildly different interpretations about what caused the bust. GOP candidates fault government policies and low interest rates for fueling the housing bubble that preceded the crisis. Democrats say the crisis was fueled by private-sector and regulatory failures, not government policy…

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1104: “Could it be any clearer that The Federal Reserve’s monetary policies, massively distort our ability as consumers and other market participants to operate rationally in a free market economy????”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1103: “What’s causing these new housing bubbles in top cities around the world? Not mortgage loans. It’s very low interest rates and old-fashioned supply and demand. For decades, these cities have severely restricted their supply of new housing (through zoning laws and anti-development sentiment/litigation)…

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1102: “…numerous agencies are self-funding, raising money without having to worry about Congress’ power of the purse. For example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gets its revenue from a skim of the profits from the Federal Reserve. Not only are such arrangements a hate-crime against the Constitution, they also make agencies less accountable to Congress, and by extension, the people…

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1101: “The business of capital formation has been changing dramatically right before our eyes. For years when companies were formed, founders had dreams of going public and growing world-changing organizations. That dream has all but disappeared as rules, over-reactive regulations…

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1100: “This kind of policy-making process—or, rather, policy-making without process—is unlawful and wrong. The country ought to be embarrassed when officials who make law exempt themselves from legal requirements, as they too often do…

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1099: “It is federal money that corrupts: take their money and they own you. Most people probably know this but are willing to take the money anyway. I once heard Frank Sinatra say on a talk show that it was easy enough to get along with the Mafia. “Just don’t ever let them do you a favor.” The same advice applies to the federal government…

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1098: “Deflategate and the N.F.L.’s inappropriate behavior reminds me of the liberal politicians and press views that the 2008/2009 financial crisis was caused by greedy and reckless Wall Street/bankers. The data and facts don’t bear either out.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 25, 2016 – Statement 1097: “Robert Gates was a government bureaucracy “polisher” who never had any competition. Steve Jobs built private sector businesses from scratch, employed tens of thousands, created tens of billions in shareholder value and built highly desirable products and services for the World…

January 9, 2016 – Statement 1096: “Greed. Someone pointed out that blaming economic crises on “greed” is like blaming plane crashes on gravity. Certainly planes wouldn’t crash if it wasn’t for gravity. But when thousands of planes fly millions of miles every day without crashing, explaining why a particular plane crashed because of gravity gets you nowhere…

January 6, 2016 – Statement 1095: “Here we come, then, to the first lesson of The Big Short: the inconsistency between events recounted in the book and the narrative about the financial crisis that powered the regulatory legislation that Congress is considering…

January 6, 2016 – Statement 1094: “This isn’t to say that the financial system has healed: Monetary policy made itself ineffective with low interest rates, which were seen as a cure rather than a transitory painkiller. Zero interest rates turn monetary policy into a massive weapon that has no ammunition. There’s no evidence that “zero” interest rates are better than, say, 2% or 3%, as the Federal Reserve may be realizing…

January 6, 2016 – Statement 1093: “Your Dec. 31 editorial “Fannie and Freddie Forever” rightfully raises concerns over the types of credit-risk transfers (CRT) that are being conducted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the government-sponsored enterprises), and the residual risks they pose to the taxpayers.”, David H. Stevens, President and CEO, Mortgage Bankers Association

January 6, 2016 – Statement 1092: “This New Year’s Eve WSJ Editorial is pretty much the concern I expressed in my blog posting statement #1022. I agree, it’s been too long, Fan and Fred need to go.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 5, 2016 – Statement 1091: “Anyone who confuses this entertaining film with valid history should resolve to read “Missing the Point: Lessons from ‘The Big Short,’ ” by American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Peter Wallison, an essay published in June 2010 when the book came out…

January 5, 2016 – Statement 1090: “These Manhattan “residential experts” only get paid if you buy and so they never ask and answer the most important and obvious question for their prospective, first-time, home-buying customers:…

January 5, 2016 – Statement 1089: “For those of us pessimists who believed that the eurozone structure was leading to an unsustainable bubble in the periphery countries, Edward Hugh was a must-read,” said Albert Edwards, a strategist based in London for the French bank Société Générale…

December 23, 2015 – Statement 1088: “In the accuracy department, however, The Big Short falls far short. The movie suggests that bankers securitized subprime loans and passed off this dross as gold simply because they ran out of higher-quality paper. But it ignores the fact that blame for the housing bubble begins not with Wall Street but with Washington –

December 23, 2015 – Statement 1087: “Even when everyone’s intentions are good, politics can get in the way of science. Special interests work the refs, but the refs often have an agenda as well. Winners of policy fights hate to lose — or admit they’re wrong. And people who shout about a settled consensus are often only shouting to drown out those who might disagree.”, Jonah Goldberg, The Los Angeles Times

December 23, 2015 – Statement 1086: “I can’t get those years back,” Mr. Hopkins said after being cleared of allegedly misleading investors ahead of the financial crisis. “But there seems to be no consequences for the SEC.”…

December 23, 2015 – Statement 1085: “Take a look at this recent NYT chart of the Federal funds target rate since 2000, managed by The Federal Reserve Bank (The Fed). In hindsight, don’t these volatile manipulations of rates by government central (money) planners at The Fed…

December 23, 2015 – Statement 1084: “After the Dot Com (Tech) bubble burst early this century, the federal government tried to blame and destroy investment banker Frank Quattrone. He had the truth behind him and the mental toughness and financial resources to fight them, and he eventually won every matter. I don’t know him,…

December 22, 2015 – Statement 1083: “The Fed has other reasons to press ahead with raising rates. One longstanding concern is that low rates will distort investment decisions, encouraging excessive speculation and even asset bubbles…

December 17, 2015 – Statement 1082: “In your (FOIA) appeal, you set forth a number of reasons why you believe the OCC should make a discretionary release of the Summary, including the fact that the Summary is approximately 7 years old; relates to an institution that no longer exists; and, the CAMELS ratings contained in the Summary are already in the public record…

December 17, 2015 – Statement 1081: “The extended period of (Fed-manipulated) ultralow interest rates encouraged both companies to lever up and investors to take risk; the inevitable result is that capital has been misallocated…

December 16, 2015 – Statement 1080: “Although it would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago, the U.S. has shot up to rank as one of the “big three” petroleum producers, along with Russia and Saudi Arabia…

December 16, 2015 – Statement 1079: “Widely lauded for many virtues, especially comedic, the film (The Big Short) nevertheless dwells mistakenly on an asset class that represented just 2% of bank assets and whose role in the global crisis has been grossly distorted…

December 16, 2015 – Statement 1078: “The Federal Reserve has kept short-term interest rates near zero for seven years and bought trillions in bonds to push all bond rates down—in a deliberate effort to encourage investors to seek out higher rates and accept the risk that goes with them. Investors obliged…

December 16, 2015 – Statement 1077: “It is simply not true that we are forced to choose between one system dominated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and another dominated by a few huge banks…

December 16, 2015 – Statement 1076: “And those $0 down (home) loans? They are primarily drawn from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Guaranteed Loan program. Unlike mortgages guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration, or those from most private lenders, the USDA offers 100% financing…

December 16, 2015 – Statement 1075: “All of these markets saw historic highs during the Fed’s quantitative-easing, near-zero heyday. The Fed wanted investors to lift financial-asset prices, chasing risk along the yield curve. That’s exactly what they did, pouring into the likes of emerging-market debt, commodity plays and riskier corporate bonds…

December 16, 2015 – Statement 1074: “The preachy, hectoring tone writer and director Adam McKay takes at the end of the ‘The Big Short’ is not only discordant, it’s also hugely misleading…

December 14, 2015 – Statement 1073: “Never let anyone say that Wall Street history lacks irony. Remember those “toxic” mortgage bonds at the epicenter of the 2008-09 financial crisis? Turns out they’ve been nothing but tonic to a select group of mutual fund managers’ portfolios ever since…

December 14, 2015 – Statement 1072: “But it is an incomplete picture. By dwelling so intensively on mortgage finance, “The Big Short” underplays the more complex economic forces that produced the bubble and intensified the crisis…

December 14, 2015 – Statement 1071: “(In 2000), Realty Times was having none of it. The bank campaign (against Fannie and Freddie), it said, posed a direct threat to the “U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s vow to boost home ownership to 70 percent this decade.” So important was this initiative,…

December 14, 2015 – Statement 1070: “Federal Reserve officials participating in a “war game” exercise this year came to a disturbing conclusion: Six years after the financial crisis ended, the central bank remained ill-equipped to quell the kind of dangerous asset bubbles…

December 14, 2015 – Statement 1069: “Of course a drop in the housing market would bring the whole thing crashing down like a Jenga tower. It was obvious. We knew it all along. In fact, almost none of us did…

December 9, 2015 – Statement 1068: “The harm of licensing rules shouldn’t be underestimated: By one assessment, such regulation has prevented the creation of nearly three million jobs and lowered entrepreneurship rates…

December 9, 2015 – Statement 1067: “IMF reports that a credit union in San Francisco rolled out a no money down, $2 million jumbo loan program that doesn’t require mortgage insurance. Called the Poppyloan, critics immediately used terms such as “we’re in another race to the bottom”…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1066: “From a recent conversation we had with a client about one of their aggregator investors: “______ has a diversity guy who calls on us and who’ll pay extra for CRA loans.”…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1065: “Since 2011, Wells Fargo Bank has donated about $200 million a year to schools and non-profits. By comparison, giant tech company Oracle gives out about $20 million a year, only 10% as much as Wells Fargo.”, Excerpt from December 2015 Mortgage Industry Newsletter

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1064: “Values of civility, mutual respect and harmony are rightly prized within the university. But….When the goals of harmony collide with freedom of expression, freedom must be the paramount obligation of an academic community…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1063: “But Hélène Rey, a professor at the London Business School, stands firmly by her claim that the Fed’s propensity to spur speculative — and at times damaging — investment flows remains underappreciated…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1062: “I think this recent NYT article re. meal plan costs for students shows that many not-for-profit institutions aren’t any more virtuous than our government or for-profit institutions. I agree with the President…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1061: “New research shows a preponderance of the millions of borrowers who have defaulted on student loans in recent years are poor, were unprepared for college, and attended troubled schools that offered little hope of leading to a decent job…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1060: “Two points re. Shiller’s recent NYT’s article below about potential Fed action and the markets’ unknown reaction:…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1059: “A House Financial Services Committee investigation last week does a good job exposing the multiple dishonesties behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau crackdown on supposedly racist auto loans…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1058: “Your character acts as the moral center of the movie. At one point, he says that it won’t be the big banks that pay the price for the mortgage collapse, but…

December 8, 2015 – Statement 1057: “Mr. Turner holds the conventional view, expressed often and forcefully by former Fed chief Ben Bernanke, that deflation—a fall in the general price level—is to be avoided at all costs. Yet recent research from the Bank for International Settlements finds no statistical link…

December 3, 2015 – Statement 1056: “Let’s examine what our fossil-fueled growth has provided us. It has delivered gains in living standards in even the poorest regions of the world…

December 3, 2015 – Statement 1055: “I have thought for some time that Australian-born Rupert Murdoch is one of the greatest living Americans. Thank you Mr. Murdoch, for an alternative to the liberal press and thank you for preserving and nurturing the Wall Street Journal Editorial pages!”, Mike Perry

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1054: “Sounds a lot like Modern Liberalism’s imaginary and unproven (in a court of law) views regarding the root-causes of the financial crisis.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1053: “In the crisis, the Fed played a huge role in determining which firms lived and which died. Its loans helped save the American International Group, but it declined to provide similar aid…

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1052: “One of the CFPB’s big threats is to charge a mortgage lender with Unfair, Deceptive and Abusive Practices (UDAP), yet doesn’t that describe some of their practices? We have no problem at all with regulatory bodies that protect the American public,…

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1051: “Post-crisis, the banks, especially the big, diversified ones have learned the hard way, from having to pay billions in mostly bogus and arbitrary False Claims Act mortgage settlements to the government, and have deliberately ceded riskier FHA and VA mortgage loans to smaller, private mortgage lenders…

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1050: “This NYT article re. government student debt is right on point and balanced. Why weren’t the private sector banks and mortgage lenders covered the same way? The government is clearly not a better or morally superior lender.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1049: “The Fed’s stress tests theoretically judge whether the country’s largest banks can withstand economic downturns. So the Fed’s (inspector general) identifying a problem with its own management of the stress tests…

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1048: “I don’t believe we should prosecute businessmen who made legitimate business decisions in a competitive environment (“Executives at RBS, J.P. Morgan Probed,” Money & Investing, Nov. 18). The 2008 financial crisis was due to a government-mandated reduction in underwriting standards of residential mortgages, which led to a real-estate bubble…

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1047: “The Obama administration didn’t create Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for instance, or the government’s affordable-housing goals—both of which fueled the 2008 financial crisis…

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1046: “The fact that someone has full legal authority to act in the way he does gives no answer to the question whether the law gives him power to act arbitrarily…

December 1, 2015 – Statement 1045: “I both love (income) inequality and am terrified of it. Inequality is partly a marker of success, so that if someone thinks of something, some new innovation that benefits us all, and the market works properly, they get richly rewarded for that…

November 24, 2015 – Statement 1044: “Adam Smith at Plymouth Rock: When the pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock in 1620, they tried what they called “farming in common.” They farmed the land together as a community and shared the food equally. This might sound good in theory, but it was a complete failure…

November 20, 2015 – Statement 1043: “The Fed’s monetary policy must be made clear and credible, and its regulatory activities must comport with the rule of law and be subject to public scrutiny…

November 20, 2015 – Statement 1042: “Any serious Fed follower needs to read Mr. Thornton’s (of the Cato Institute), Requiem for QE. It’s sure is a lot different than Bernanke’s historical account in The Courage to Act! I believe it shows exactly why The Fed fights so hard not to be audited…

November 20, 2015 – Statement 1041: “How many times did I say this on my blog? A lot! Financial services entrepreneurs (even very smart, well-capitalized ones) can’t compete with federally-guaranteed deposits, federally-guaranteed mortgages, and federal student loans…

November 18, 2015 – Statement 1040: “When the (campus) leftists lacked power, they embraced free speech. Now that they have power, they don’t need it.”, Charles R. Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, The Wall Street Journal

November 18, 2015 – Statement 1039: “Consider the average California Highway Patrol officer who now earns $105,000. Taxpayers currently contribute $47,000 a year for that officer’s pension. If calculated using an expected investment return of 6.5% instead, according to CalPERS documents, the taxpayer contribution would be $68,000…

November 18, 2015 – Statement 1038: “Was it really in American homeowners’ best interest to “catch a falling knife” (falling home prices in 2008-2011), with a nearly no-down payment FHA loan and then rapidly have a mortgage that exceeds the home’s value? I don’t think so…

November 18, 2015 – Statement 1037: “The investment committee at my firm estimates that roughly $1.3 trillion in retiree assets are currently misallocated (as a result of The Fed’s market-distorting monetary policies) into equities based on the historic 16-year average price-to-earnings ratio for the S&P 500…

November 16, 2015 – Statement 1036: “My main answer would be that the Friedman compromise — trash-talking government activism in general, but asserting that monetary policy is different — has proved politically unsustainable…

November 16, 2015 – Statement 1035: “And where exactly is Mr. Ackman’s investment thesis taking his investors if he’s more concerned with which products consumers should buy than which products they actually choose to buy? It may be time to recall that CEOs and fund managers are not Jesus…

November 16, 2015 – Statement 1034: “You might say, “well, the world’s private bankers could have held more capital than what their government/central bankers told them to hold.” That’s just not true, economically. No large, publicly-traded bank could hold materially more capital than their government regulators demanded,…

November 16, 2015 – Statement 1033: “Even if you had rich parents, it probably won’t be enough for your kids. President Kennedy’s father was one of the richest men in America, and his kids, Jack, Bobby, Ted, Eunice et al, had plenty of money…

November 16, 2015 – Statement 1032: “All of us have been frustrated trying to understand voluminous laws, rules, and regulations, and I just ran across something the remarkable James Madison and Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper 62,…

November 16, 2015 – Statement 1031: “Whenever we read that a bank or lender has been charged with redlining, we’re immediately skeptical. Almost all mortgage loan originators are heavily if not entirely commissioned, and in all our years in and around this business, we can’t imagine a single one foregoing a commission…

November 13, 2015 – Statement 1030: “November 12, 2015, Mr. Thomas J. Curry, Comptroller of the Currency, Subject: Appeal of FOIA Denial #2016-XXXX-F: Dear Mr. Curry: I understand Exemption 8 of the FOIA and appreciate its importance for examination reports for existing financial institutions…

November 12, 2015 – Statement 1029: “November 10, 2015, Dear Mr. Perry: This in response to your letter dated November 6, 2015, which was received in my office on November 9, 2015, for processing under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552…

November 12, 2015 – Statement 1028: “So a commitment to tolerance can coexist on campus with a commitment to free speech and open debate. What a concept.” The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

November 12, 2015 – Statement 1027: “This is sensitivity but also intolerance, and it is disproportionately an instinct on the left. I’m a pro-choice liberal who has been invited to infect evangelical Christian universities with progressive thoughts, and to address Catholic universities where I’ve praised condoms and birth control programs…

November 12, 2015 – Statement 1026: “As the Washington Post economist Robert Samuelson reported last week, a Brookings Institution study found that even if the top income tax rate were increased to 50 percent from 39.6 percent, it would cover less than a quarter of the deficit for the 2015 fiscal year, let alone generate funds for increased investment…

November 12, 2015 – Statement 1025: “Mrs. Fiorina was in the ballpark when discussing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But the GOP hopefuls could stand to practice explaining how liberal economic policies—not conservative principles of limited government –

November 12, 2015 – Statement 1024: “Disparate Impact: Government and Governed, Federal agency after agency seems to be ignoring laws…

November 12, 2015 – Statement 1023: “In the postcrisis environment, most in Washington had a strong incentive to scapegoat Wall Street. Former Sen. Chris Dodd and former Rep. Barney Frank, champions of the federal government’s deleterious affordable-housing goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,…

November 9, 2015 – Statement 1022: “I said I thought Fannie and Freddie’s attempts to transfer some mortgage guarantee credit risk to the private sector, were probably not in their financial interest (and ours, as the U.S. is still their conservators), but I didn’t have any facts,…

November 9, 2015 – Statement 1021: “At 6:30 a.m. on April 24, 2012, federal agents, wearing Kevlar vests and with guns drawn, raided my home in Katy, Texas, with a warrant for my arrest. This was as shocking to me as it would be for any normal, law-abiding citizen…

November 9, 2015 – Statement 1020: “(Not Too Big to Fail) Banks are uppermost in the minds of most people when we think of crony capitalism…

November 6, 2015 – Statement 1019: “If our government is allowed to conduct commercial activities: providing a necessary product or service (including a government guarantee), it can ALWAYS create legal or other barriers against private-market competitors and generate monopoly profits for politicians to spend…

November 6, 2015 – Statement 1018: “What little (Bernanke) knew about Fannie and Freddie appears to come straight from the left’s history of the financial crisis…

November 5, 2015 – Statement 1017: “As a result of the liberals in our government (and elsewhere) inappropriately scapegoating Wall Street, banks, and mortgage lenders for the 2008 financial crisis, the measures we have adopted don’t really address the core risks (of another crisis)…

November 5, 2015 – Statement 1016: “The narrative that it was Wall Street, the banks and other private sector mortgage lenders that caused the 2008 financial crisis is objectively false…

November 5, 2015 – Statement 1015: “The narrative that pre-crisis U.S. mortgage lenders were predators and frauds, and mortgage borrowers were their victims is objectively false.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

November 5, 2015 – Statement 1014: “There continues to be movement in banking, and valuations have slid over the last several years. Looking at banking deals over time, the data shows price-to-tangible book multiples have declined from around 3.0x from 2000-2006 to 1.0 to 1.5x since 2008…

November 4, 2015 – Statement 1013: “We’ve got to get off the current boom-bust-bailout cycle, and I fear that with the status quo, it’s déjà vu all over again when it comes to Fannie and Freddie,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services committee, in a statement. “It’s past time to put them on a wind-down path to prevent future taxpayer-funded bailouts.”, The Wall Street Journal

November 4, 2015 – Statement 1012: “Had Meshal suffered these injuries in the United States, there is no dispute that he could have sought redress under Bivens,” Judge Pillard wrote. “If Meshal’s tormentors had been foreign officials, he could have sought a remedy under the Torture Victim Protection Act. Yet the majority holds that because of unspecified national security and foreign policy concerns, a United States citizen who was arbitrarily detained, tortured, and threatened with disappearance by United States…

November 3, 2015 – Statement 1011: “ANOTHER PROBLEM to which there is no good solution: tracking the “price” of living in the home you own. While 36.5% of U.S. households are renters, and thus pay rental prices that can be sampled and compiled, the other 63.5% are their own landlords and therefore pay no recordable rent…

November 3, 2015 – Statement 1010: “As government policy goes, the one-child policy was as repressive and illiberal as it gets: the ultimate invasion of privacy; the ultimate assault on the human rights of women and girls. Naturally, liberals loved it…

November 3, 2015 – Statement 1009: “It is fantastic in theory, except that, in Denmark, the quality of the free education and health care is substandard: They are way down on the PISA [Programme for International Student Assessment] educational rankings, have the lowest life expectancy in the region, and the highest rates of death from cancer. And there is broad consensus that the economic model of a public sector and welfare state on this scale is unsustainable…

November 3, 2015 – Statement 1008: “Nevertheless, one of the things that I think people don’t always understand is how accountable a CEO actually is…

November 3, 2015 – Statement 1007: “Here are 3 important crisis-era documents (one never made public before). They speak for themselves. Do they show any evidence of a negligent bank CEO, as the FDIC-R alleged in its bogus civil lawsuit against me? Of course not…

November 2, 2015 – Statement 1006: “The (German) state banks, collectively known as landesbanks, have benefited from low-cost government-guaranteed funding that some critics have said encouraged them to overreach in the past. One of them, Düsseldorf-based WestLB, lost billions of euros during the housing crisis;…

November 2, 2015 – Statement 1005: “With a gold-based currency up and running north of the border, why not offer Americans a monetary choice as well? The proposition is simple. Americans who prefer the incumbent monopoly provider of money are free to keep their accounts as is. Those who prefer gold are free to switch. And the Fed is free to defend its market share with sound monetary policy…

November 2, 2015 – Statement 1004: “As far as I know, the government teams in Britain and the United States that have focused on nudging have followed these guidelines (“nudging for good”) scrupulously. But the private sector is another matter. In this domain, I see much more troubling behavior.” Richard H. Thaler, The New York Times

November 2, 2015 – Statement 1003: “Central Banks have chosen to set Bank capital and reserve standards that exclude once or twice in a Century crisis. Is the current crisis a 100 year flood? It is the most severe global financial crisis ever.”, Alan Greenspan, “The Crisis, February 2010

November 2, 2015 – Statement 1002: “Please find below a link to the AEI’s Alex Pollock’s article “If income is going up, can median household income go down? It’s possible.”…

November 2, 2015 – Statement 1001: “Big American investors who are sharing the pain include the billionaires Wilbur L. Ross and John A. Paulson, whose investment funds made big bets on Greek banks. They have already sustained sizable losses, and they could lose more if bad loans wipe out more bank capital…

November 2, 2015 – Statement 1000: “Sen. Kirk and Rep. Fincher’s endorsement of the beggar-thy-neighbor mercantilism practiced by Communist China is inconsistent with the GOP’s professed faith in American exceptionalism and free markets. The authors evidently believe that America is no longer capable of competing globally without government subsidies…

November 2, 2015 – Statement 999: “Unfortunately, new research also shows that academia has itself stopped short in both the understanding and practice of true diversity — the diversity of ideas — and that the problem is taking a toll on the quality and accuracy of scholarly work…

October 30, 2015 – Statement 998: “I didn’t know that FHA “invented” red-lining, did you? Look, pre-crisis, as a result of government-mandated CRA requirements and pressure from consumer-advocacy groups, most banks and mortgage lenders fully-embraced lending to minorities (in predominately minority communities), because they could lay off the credit risk to FHA, VA, Fannie, Freddie, and/or the private securitization market…

October 30, 2015 – Statement 997: “Untangling the effect of red meat from all these other risk factors is extremely difficult. And relying too heavily on relatively small associations to draw conclusions can lead health authorities down the wrong path…

October 30, 2015 – Statement 996: “U.S. Senators like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and other uber-liberals/progressives in the U.S. like them, love to plan our society in their vision and then tell us all what to do. Don’t be fooled. They aren’t that different than the socialist, totalitarian, leaders of China.”, Mike Perry

October 30, 2015 – Statement 995: ““How 4 Federal Lawyers Paved the Way to Kill Osama bin Laden”: I don’t know about you, but I was bothered by this front-page headline in the New York Times. To me, its more evidence of how our great nation is being bogged down with CYA legal and compliance issues…

October 30, 2015 – Statement 994: “We should change the (banking) regulations so that these (poor) customers could stay in the financial mainstream and not leave banks where they already have accounts just to go borrow a few hundred dollars…

October 30, 2015 – Statement 993: “(Former Fed Governor) Kevin Warsh and (Nobel Economics Laureate) Mike Spence wrote a good primer that should be read by all presidential candidates (“The Fed Has Hurt Business Investment,” op-ed, Oct. 27). I especially like it because it repeats everything I said for years as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas…

October 30, 2015 – Statement 992: “(Public company) Directors are now preoccupied with (securities) regulatory compliance at the expense of time spent growing their companies. That’s bad for business, and bad for the U.S. economy.”, William R. Baker III and Joel H. Trotter

October 29, 2015 – Statement 991: “Any publicly-traded bank that doesn’t earn its cost of capital, generally has a stock price that trades at a discount to book value per share…

October 29, 2015 – Statement 990: “What all of the above really illustrates is the difference between superficial observation and deep, nuance analysis. The fact that something worked doesn’t mean it was the result of a correct decision, and the fact that something failed doesn’t mean the decision was wrong…

October 29, 2015 – Statement 989: “From: YYY To: Michael Perry Cc: AAAA, BBBB, CCC Date: Sun, 6 May 2012 08:11:18 -0500 Subject: Re: Daily Stock Price in 2008 and Daily DSPP Issuance in 2008 Mike — I’m going back over your DSPP emails in prep for XXXXX’s deposition tomorrow in NYC. This one, which relates to the immateriality of the DSPP, is great…

October 29, 2015 – Statement 988: “I am totally onboard with getting the government and American taxpayers out of the business of guaranteeing most U.S. mortgages. That said, I am skeptical that FHFA mandating that Fannie and Freddie lay off some of their credit risk to private market participants is really a good way to do this…

October 29, 2015 – Statement 987: “Those who remain in Cuba say they are also reluctant to have children, citing the strain of raising an infant in a country where the average state salary is just $20 a month.”, The New York Times

October 29, 2015 – Statement 986: “I think there are plenty other ways to expand opportunity in this country, and corporate welfare is not one of them,” Mr. Ryan said…

October 29, 2015 – Statement 985: “The University of Phoenix – whose students owe more in cumulative student debt than any institution of higher education in America—is the very definition of corporate welfare, receiving nearly $3 billion in federal funding last year (including $300 million from the Tuition Assistance and GI Bill programs).”, Sen. Dick Durbin (D. Ill.), The Wall Street Journal

October 29, 2015 – Statement 984: “I am a libertarian who mostly sides with conservatives on economic matters. With that said, assuming the facts of the article below are in fact true, I think Republicans and conservatives are absolutely wrong to short-change the poor…

October 28, 2015 – Statement 983: “THE “NEW” TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED IN BEER…Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

October 27, 2015 – Statement 982: “One reliable way to mint money is to charge customers hefty prices for your services without ever itemizing the bill. Welcome to the corporate-bond market, where the costs of trading are about as transparent as the waters of the Big Muddy River after a hard rain…

October 27, 2015 – Statement 981: “What explains the apparent divergence between earnings and asset prices? The unusual conduct of monetary policy…

October 27, 2015 – Statement 980: “If you live in a rural state (especially a rural state), where there are mostly single family homes and not “many bodies around the campfire” or in a state that’s very cold in the winter, it’s almost impossible to be a low carbon emitter today…

October 27, 2015 – Statement 979: “I agree with all of this…but for me, these lines are particularly important: “He seizes upon the fact that, in Lehman’s subsequent bankruptcy, creditors took sizable losses, so the Fed would have had to court losses it supposedly was legally prohibited from courting. First, it doesn’t follow that the Fed would have taken losses. Lehman, after all, was liquidated in a world in which Lehman had been allowed to fail.”…

October 27, 2015 – Statement 978: “…the debate over how much faith the Fed puts in the Phillips curve shows the broader dilemma of economic policy. For all the researchers over the decades and centuries who have tried to understand how the economy really works and to predict its course with precision, our ability to know where the economy is heading next year is no better than the ability of weather forecasters to predict whether it will rain three weeks from today…

October 27, 2015 – Statement 977: “We’re not supposed to understand how the Federal Reserve works? That’s ridiculous, un-Democratic and why we MUST Audit the Fed and/or End the Fed”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

October 27, 2015 – Statement 976: “Interest rates are prices. Far better that they be discovered in the marketplace than administered from on high.”, James Grant reviewing America’s Bank, by Roger Lowenstein for The Wall Street Journal

October 27, 2015 – Statement 975: ”The incoming (Canadian) prime minister is the 43-year-old son of charismatic former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Justin Trudeau has been a snowboard instructor, schoolteacher, bartender, bouncer, speaker on environmental and youth issues, and advocate for avalanche safety…

October 27, 2015 – Statement 974: “The San Francisco company said Mr. Khosla was planning to relinquish his board seat because he prefers not to hold that role on publicly traded companies. He will step down when Square files its registration statement and remain an adviser to the company.” , The Wall Street Journal

October 27, 2015 – Statement 973: “As a 53-year old, fifth generation (Portuguese farm laborers from Sacramento and Italian ones from Hollister) Californian, who has lived in California my entire life, I get that it is a lot more crowded…

October 27, 2015 – Statement 972: “Over time, the truth is being revealed. Housing bubbles are mostly caused by limited supply and demand from vibrant economic activity. Mortgage lending isn’t fueling it, it’s following it.”, Mike Perry

October 26, 2015 – Statement 971: “Things have gotten so bad in the world of finance that banks are now charging some clients a fee to hold their money. The banks say that it is too expensive to warehouse large “hot-money” deposits—funds thought likely to flee in hard times—given low interest rates and new, postcrisis regulations that make it more costly for them to hold certain kinds of cash…

October 26, 2015 – Statement 970: “I am so angry at GE’s un-American tactics here. The U.S. taxpayers saved GE Capital’s ass in the financial crisis. It would have had to file for bankruptcy, without federal loans/guarantees. And this is how GE repays us? Outrageous…

October 26, 2015 – Statement 969: “So, to the glib critics of America’s gun culture: You cannot continue to have it both ways. If vast reductions in the supply of guns are the key to stopping mass shootings, tell us precisely what policies you propose. And then tell us how you intend to square those policies with the fact that Americans already own hundreds of millions of firearms…

October 26, 2015 – Statement 968: “It’s nice of Mr. Bharara to invoke justice years after he damaged so many lives, but the reality is that these were wrongful prosecutions…

October 26, 2015 – Statement 967: “Despite their fondness for playing them on Twitter, venture capitalists aren’t macroeconomists. And to those who seem to believe that the current state of affairs is sustainable,…

October 22, 2015 – Statement 966: “Since most big banks are federally insured, and many large health care companies do business with Medicare or Medicaid, barring an executive from that work can be a professional death sentence…

October 22, 2015 – Statement 965: “The L.A. Times article below about CalPERS is exactly what I have been saying about state and local public pension plans. They have deliberately taken on excessive investment risks…

October 22, 2015 – Statement 964: “The finding is another blow to one of the bedrock principles of standard physics known as “locality,” which states that an object is directly influenced only by its immediate surroundings…

October 22, 2015 – Statement 963: “This (economic) model’s estimations aren’t fact. Moreover, these models completely missed the serial financial bubbles we have experienced in the last decade and failed to anticipate the anemic recovery we remain embroiled in at present…

October 22, 2015 – Statement 962: “Ex-Goldman executive Steve Mnuchin was never going to take OneWest and build a real, long-term banking business…

October 22, 2015 – Statement 961: “In these modern times, where almost no individual, in good faith, can possibly understand, let alone comply with all of our government’s complex laws and regulations, is it any surprise that a trial “by a jury of our peers”, has become a farce?…

October 22, 2015 – Statement 960: “I found an almost perfect sports analogy to the national statistical rating agencies’ ratings vs. market yields for debt securities…

October 21, 2015 – Statement 959: “Gold is denominated in U.S. dollars, meaning its price is quoted as the amount of dollars required to buy or sell one ounce of gold. The price of gold rises and falls with supply and demand for gold…

October 20, 2015 – Statement 958: “Without a mandate for gold or silver to back a currency, most nations can freely increase or decrease the supply of money with few restrictions…

October 20, 2015 – Statement 957: “The McCarthyist excerpt below, by the NYT’s Krugman, an economic uber-liberal, is false. It’s statements like this and the false lawsuits against me by the FDIC, SEC, and scummy plaintiffs’ lawyers…

October 20, 2015 – Statement 956: “What if Atlas shrugged? The premise of the novel Atlas Shrugged is the question, “What if the producers of the world went on strike.” In a move that mirrors the novel, J.P. Morgan Chase has essentially stopped making FHA loans…

October 20, 2015 – Statement 955: “Recently, the banks were forced to bulk-up on U.S. Treasuries, as a result of new liquidity regulations. Now, the money-market mutual funds are having to do the same, even though T-bills have NO current YIELD…

October 20, 2015 – Statement 954: “Low or zero interest rates it seems do wonders for asset prices and for a time even stabilize real economies, but they come with baggage…

October 20, 2015 – Statement 953: “The fundamental producer of income inequality is freedom. Individuals have different aptitudes and attitudes. Not even universal free public education, even were it well done, could equalize the ability of individuals to add value to the economy…

October 20, 2015 – Statement 952: “A bank with volatile profitability (in moderate economic times), like Morgan Stanley, is not generating the bulk of its revenues and profits from its balance sheet, but from off-balance sheet activities…

October 20, 2015 – Statement 951: “The right answer is not to recap and release (Fannie and Freddie).” U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, October 19, 2015

October 16, 2015 – Statement 950: “More than a half dozen years after being saved/bailed-out by the U.S. government, Bank of America still isn’t a viable, for-profit entity, that earns a return sufficient to cover its cost of capital.”, Mike Perry

October 16, 2015 – Statement 949: “The Fed’s lack of accountability as the nation’s dominant regulator is at odds with our commitment to the rule of law and the principle of checks and balances, and is a growing threat to our economic freedom.”, Phil Gramm and Thomas R Saving, The Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2015

October 16, 2015 – Statement 948: “More than a half dozen years after being saved/bailed-out by the U.S. government, Citigroup still isn’t a viable, for-profit entity, that earns a return sufficient to cover its cost of capital.”, Mike Perry

October 16, 2015 – Statement 947: “I saw some of this on my trip to India in the mid-2000’s. We are so lucky to be Americans. To me, the reasons, despite a pretty developed democracy, are as follows:

October 15, 2015 – Statement 946: “Seriously? Dean Judy Olian and UCLA’s business school has an “unconscious bias” against women? In this day and age? I don’t believe it and I think the Dean and Korn Ferry (who produced the report) should be embarrassed about this “PC” conclusion…

October 15, 2015 – Statement 945: “(Brookings Institution President) Mr. Talbott will learn that the left’s goal is not more disclosure. The left’s goal is silencing critics. In Washington, that’s especially true for research such as cost-benefit analysis that highlights risks from too much regulation. “, L. Gordon Crovitz, WSJ

October 15, 2015 – Statement 944: “Unregulated free markets are Pareto-optimal? Almost no one believes in that. This NYT article by Nobel Laureate Shiller is intellectually light-weight. It’s really nonsense. Mr. Shiller what about our criminal and civil laws…

October 15, 2015 – Statement 943: “This is anti-free market capitalism and anti-American. A graduate business school that is essentially saying that they want to change the “complexion” of their M.B.A. students and are therefore going to value not-for-profit and government career aims, more than for-profit career aims,…

October 15, 2015 – Statement 942: “Mr. Bernanke and his Fed predecessor kept real interest rates below zero, creating a housing bubble that caused an economic meltdown…

October 9, 2015 – Statement 941: “It is true that the international monetary system since 1971—when Richard Nixon ended the dollar’s convertibility to gold—has been corrupted, as in the 1930s, by countries devaluing their currency to boost their exports and economies…

October 9, 2015 – Statement 940: “The IMF warned that asset prices around the globe aren’t adequately reflecting the hazards from investors moving into riskier markets with support from central banks’ extraordinary action in recent years…

October 9, 2015 – Statement 939: “One of the things we look at is the way you fill out an application,” said ZestFinance Chief Executive Douglas Merrill. “If you are typing your name in on an application in all upper cases you are slightly higher risk than someone who types in all lower case or upper and lower case.”, Los Angeles Business Journal, October 6, 2015

October 8, 2015 – Statement 938: “Rockstrom begins his argument with a reminder that for most of the earth’s 4.5-billion-year history its climate was not very hospitable to human beings, as it oscillated between “punishing ice ages and lush warm periods” that locked humanity into seminomadic lifestyles…

October 8, 2015 – Statement 937: “What??? I thought the science was long-settled that neutrinos have no mass? Of course not, because true science is never settled. It’s always open to debate and challenge.”, Mike Perry

October 8, 2015 – Statement 936: “Fundraising is getting easier because pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign-wealth funds and other institutions increasingly are seeking the kind of yield the riskiest real-estate funds – known as “opportunity funds” – are offering…

October 8, 2015 – Statement 935: “…the next attorney general will be confronted with a department that’s prepared to resist policy changes. This will require great patience and dedication by the new political appointees in their efforts to return the department to its true mandate—not doing justice according to your own lights, or even according to the lights of the president who appoints you, but defending law and having enough faith in law to believe that the result, more often than not, will be justice.”, Michael B. Mukasey, Sept. 2015

October 8, 2015 – Statement 934: “But there is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to new comers. This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights…

October 7, 2015 – Statement 933: “Philanthropists (even billionaires like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg) will not be able to change education and improve student outcomes unless they can circumvent the bureaucracies and interest groups (mainly teachers’ unions and their politicians) that are responsible for the problems they hope to solve…

October 7, 2015 – Statement 932: “(Bernanke) writes that it was simply impossible to save Lehman, pointing to the nearly $200 billion of losses that Lehman’s creditors have since suffered.” , Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times

October 7, 2015 – Statement 931: ““The magnitude of the panic at the height of the crisis was the most important reason for the severity of the Great Recession,” (Bernanke) writes. Without that panic, he argues, housing prices would not have fallen as far and economic activity would not have contracted as sharply.”, Binyamin Appelbaum, NYT

October 7, 2015 – Statement 930: “Some economists don’t seem to understand “bank math”…one in particular at Stanford has said “banks should have a lot more capital and it won’t cost anything.” Let’s do the math to refute her contention. Banks today report net income that is roughly about 1% of their assets…

October 7, 2015 – Statement 929: “How about if the Fed, rather than trying to predict and prevent future financial crises, stops creating so many of them?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

October 5, 2015 – Statement 928: “Fed critics sometimes argue that you can’t “print your way to prosperity,” and I agree, at least on one level. The Fed has little or no control over long-term economic fundamentals—the skills of the workforce, the energy and vision of entrepreneurs,…

October 5, 2015 – Statement 927: “What good is a think tank if thinking isn’t allowed? That’s the question the hard-left senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, forced on the soft-left Brookings Institution by getting one of its top economists fired…

October 5, 2015 – Statement 926: “At the same time, the governor issued a blunt warning against the proliferation of laws criminalizing behavior…..In a forceful veto message, Brown said lawmakers were unnecessarily complicating California’s criminal code, which he said had grown to more than 5,000 provisions “covering every conceivable form of human misbehavior.”…

October 5, 2015 – Statement 925: “I AGREE WITH Senator Elizabeth Warren!!! HUD and FHFA are nuts to allow FHA, Fannie and Freddie to auction off their distressed loans at big discounts to private equity firms and hedge funds…

October 5, 2015 – Statement 924: “As one Nobel Prize-winning economist wrote in 2000, “The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and – among economists, anyway – one of the least controversial…

October 5, 2015 – Statement 923: “Should we really care about new and better government mortgage forms? They say they’re great, but they said the same about the last ones (and now they say they’re terrible). Are these forms really going to make any material difference? Are buyers and borrowers really going to make wiser decisions, as a result of a form? I don’t think so…

October 2, 2015 – Statement 922: “Can’t anybody here play this game? Three-quarters of all U.S. stock mutual funds have failed to beat the market over the past decade. Last year, 98% of economists expected interest rates to rise; they fell instead. Most energy analysts didn’t foresee oil’s collapse from $145 a barrel in 2008 to $38 this summer…

October 2, 2015 – Statement 921: “Mr. Weinstein pleaded with the pension fund to allow him to pay it back in installments over several quarters, arguing that it would be difficult to get top dollar for some of the most illiquid assets – like corporate bonds – which would otherwise be valued at fire-sale prices…

October 2, 2015 – Statement 920: “Our greatest financial challenge today is the exploding cost of our unpaid pensions,” (Mayor Rahm Emanuel) told the Chicago City Council on Tuesday. “It is a big dark cloud that hangs over the rest of our city’s finances.” Without raising taxes, he warned, Chicago will have to finance its pension promises by laying off thousands of police officers and firefighters,…

October 1, 2015 – Statement 919: “If low interest rates were just that simple of a panacea, we would never have recessions. We would never have these crises. We would never have these panics…

October 1, 2015 – Statement 918: “All the pope could say in Havana was, “Service is never ideological, for we don’t serve ideas, we serve people.” The comment was at best a cop-out. If a religious leader and his church don’t serve ideas, they serve nothing…

October 1, 2015 – Statement 917: “Americans who knowingly use the awesome and coercive power of our government in a manner that is either unconstitutional or statutorily illegal, against their fellow citizens, are the most dangerous and very worst of us and should be dealt with accordingly.”, Mike Perry

October 1, 2015 – Statement 916: “Back in 1965 the Federal Government spent about 17% of GDP and the politicians annually controlled almost 70% of that spending; the other 30% being (mandatory) entitlements and interest on the national debt. The CBO projects that by 2025 Federal Government spending will be about 22% of GDP…

October 1, 2015 – Statement 915: “Does the New York Times really have a mortgage victim in the Hubbards from Sacramento, California? They bought their home back in 1994 for $146,500 and pulled just under $300,000 in cash out of their home in six different mortgage transactions…

September 28, 2015 – Statement 914: “Sen. Rand Paul and Mark Spitznagel have warned that one of the Fed’s Congressionally-proscribed dual-mandates: Full Employment…results in the Fed, via it monetary policies, distorting “natural”, free-market business cycles…

September 28, 2015 – Statement 913: “Many Republicans thought (Jack Kemp) was too fixated on the plight of the poor. What he advocated was a war on poverty by conservative means: education choice, and lower taxes and fewer regulations to attract investment to blighted neighborhoods…

September 25, 2015 – Statement 912: “In the Americas “thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities,” the pope said. “Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers,…

September 24, 2015 – Statement 911: “The Constitution prevents U.S. socialists/progressives from nationalizing the private, for-profit sector; a key goal, if they are to achieve their aim of dictating and controlling the means of (economic) production. But have they found another way? By over-regulating profit-making enterprises with voluminous and vague rules and regulations…

September 24, 2015 – Statement 910: “The Founding Fathers never expected the Supreme Court to become a rubber stamp for Leviathan (a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy). But counting on the Supreme Court to defend your freedom is like trusting a politician to keep his campaign promises…

September 23, 2015 – Statement 909: “For decades before the crisis, SEC staff had recognized a small group of private credit-rating agencies—including Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch—as official judges of risk. Federal regulators referred to these favored companies in their rules and even forced financial institutions to invest in paper rated highly by this anointed cartel…

September 23, 2015 – Statement 908: “I wonder if Amazon and other firms like them are now using the USPS for some shipping, because the USPS is mispricing the business? In other words, it’s being done at a loss to keep its people busy and justify its relevance in this internet age…

September 23, 2015 – Statement 907: “What is the morality of our declining to fully support and cooperate with the national defense effort, that it enable us to sleep serene in our virtue at night while leaving others to defend us? If we do not like the policies of our country we have plenty of ways of seeking redress…

September 21, 2015 – Statement 906: “Keynes’s supposed antagonism toward bullion arises from a misunderstanding of his famous statement in 1924 that the “gold standard is already a barbarous relic.” Many take this pithy remark to mean Keynes wanted to discard gold entirely from the international monetary framework…

September 21, 2015 – Statement 905: “The owners and employees of Uber are crazy or stupid (or both) to pay billions in capital gains and other taxes to California, when the State’s liberal labor and political leaders are fighting their business model tooth and nail.”, Mike Perry

September 21, 2015 – Statement 904: “As long as we’re making education about the adults and not the children, that’s a problem. There are a lot of agendas being pursued at a cost to our kids, and resources are irrelevant if there’s no accountability…

September 16, 2015 – Statement 903: “…a close reading of the Yates memo and her remarks at NYU have us wondering if the point of this exercise is not better targeting of prosecutions but simply a desire to take more corporate scalps to appease the progressive left. This crowd has never forgiven former Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer for not jailing more bankers after the financial crisis…

September 16, 2015 – Statement 902: “…it is the Fed’s artificially low interest rates that set up the economy for the 2008 crisis, not to mention previous crises. In 2000 the stock market, bloated by earlier Fed rate cuts, started falling when the tech bubble burst. Markets bottomed out in 2002, as the Fed slashed rates. Although people hailed then-chairman Alan Greenspan as “the Maestro” for providing a so-called soft landing, in hindsight he simply replaced the dot-com bubble with a housing bubble…

September 16, 2015 – Statement 901: “Far from a proslavery compact of “racist principles,” the Constitution was based on a repudiation of the idea of a nation dedicated to the proposition of property in humans. Without that antislavery outcome in 1787, slavery would not have reached “ultimate extinction” in 1865…

September 15, 2015 – Statement 900: “Roughly ten years ago, everyone was gaga over real estate, especially residential. This was underpinned by some bits of “accepted wisdom” that seemed compelling, such as “you can always live in it,” “home prices always go up” and “real estate is a hedge against inflation.” Conservative debt investors…

September 15, 2015 – Statement 899: “Dean Keep told me when we spoke. If the government had rules about where the line was between an illegal pyramid scheme and a legal multilevel marketing company, there wouldn’t be any such dispute. It’s ridiculous that we have to guess what’s illegal…

September 15, 2015 – Statement 898: “My wife and I had a few days with no kids at home (our youngest, the only one at home these days, went on a high school retreat), for the first time ever, and so we went up to Santa Barbara for a few days last week…

September 14, 2015 – Statement 897: “Whenever a Government assumes the power of discriminating between the different classes of the community, it becomes, in effect, the arbiter of their prosperity, and exercises a power not contemplated by any intelligent people in delegating their sovereignty to their rulers. It then becomes the great regulator of the profits of every species of industry, and reduces men from a dependence on their own exertions, to a dependence on the caprices of their Government…

September 14, 2015 – Statement 896: “In Africa, a human being is more important than an animal. I don’t know about the Western world,” she added, echoing a complaint in affected parts of Africa that the West seemed more concerned with the welfare of a lion in Zimbabwe than of Africans themselves…

September 14, 2015 – Statement 895: “Remember, this war against us did not start that September day in 2001. It had been going on for a long time. The plane hijackings and killing of innocent people by Islamist terrorists, and their murderous attack on the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the late 1970s, Iran’s theocratic rulers began killing hundreds of thousands of their own people and took American hostages that the regime held for 444 days…

September 14, 2015 – Statement 894: “It’s the black poor – the primary victims of violent crimes and thus the people most in need of effective policing – who must live with the effects of these falsehoods…

September 8, 2015 – Statement 893: “The rate at which family businesses fail is astonishing,” said Ude, who is the Director of the USC Marshall Family Business Program. “When it gets to the second generation, only 40 percent of the businesses have survived…

September 8, 2015 – Statement 892: “At issue are the additional protections against defaults, known as “credit overlays,” that banks impose on top of the 580 credit score and 3.5% down payment the FHA requires to insure home loans…

September 8, 2015 – Statement 891: “The essential nature of capitalism is social harmony through the pursuit of self-interest. Under capitalism, the individual’s pursuit of her/his own economic self-interest simultaneously benefits the economic self-interests of all others…

September 8, 2015 – Statement 890: “Sowell has been teaching economics to Americans through his books and articles for four decades. So it seems like a natural question: Have we learned anything? Has the level of economic thinking in political debate gone up at all? “No—in fact, I’m tempted to think it’s gone down,” Mr. Sowell says…

September 7, 2015 – Statement 889: “’Rent extraction’ is economist-speak for the tax in many forms that government places on people trying to go about their business and engage in voluntary transactions. Rent extraction is the activity that defines elites…

September 4, 2015 – Statement 888: “The fashionable tendency to blame every change in climate and every extreme-weather event on human emissions is doing a grave disservice to the scientific tradition. We know that the climate has been changing for millions of years due to a multitude of perfectly natural factors…

September 3, 2015 – Statement 887: “As soon as the parties got in front of Berman, he chided the NFL, asking, “What is evidence of scheme or conspiracy that covers the January 18 game? I’m having trouble with that.” There never was any…

August 30, 2015 – Statement 886: “The article below is the most realistic I have ever seen re. energy. It has solar and wind combined being about 15% to 25% of global electric energy needs by 2040, with the other 75% or so coming from natural gas, oil, and yes even coal. The author points out that coal was only 5% of the world’s energy supply in 1840 and it took until 1900 for it to be just 50%, and the oil industry started in 1859, but it took more than a century for oil to overtake coal as the world’s largest energy source in the 1960s, and even with that global coal consumption has tripled…

August 30, 2015 – Statement 885: “The case for raising rates is straightforward: Like any commodity, the price of borrowing money — interest rates — should be determined by supply and demand, not by manipulation by a market behemoth (The Fed). Essentially, the clever Q.E. program caused a widespread mispricing of risk, deluding investors into underestimating the risk of various financial assets they were buying…

August 23, 2015 – Statement 884: “This particular cycle has been affected by the actions of the Fed and the many unintended consequences of what the Fed has done,” Mr. Gannon said. “We think we are at a point where that is beginning to change.”…

August 23, 2015 – Statement 883: “Federal programs allow grad students to borrow essentially unlimited amounts—whatever their schools charge—while requiring only a scant credit check and no assessment of their ability to repay…

August 23, 2015 – Statement 882: “What’s reasonable to expect is something else: CEOs who make conscientious choices and diligently execute them, knowing that superlative results will happen only if a lot of things beyond their control fall into place too. Look at HP’s stock chart under Ms. Fiorina, who had the misfortune to arrive eight months before the tech bubble burst: It’s indistinguishable from Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Cisco, etc…

August 23, 2015 – Statement 881: “The first risk is near-term. Financial decisions depend on real—that is, net-of-inflation—interest rates. If the public believes the Fed has lowered its inflation goal, all real interest rates in the U.S. will be higher. This will discourage people from borrowing money for homes and autos…

August 23, 2015 – Statement 880: “The Fed’s adherence to a negatively sloped Phillips curve — predicting lower unemployment obtained by higher inflation — is a flawed model for monetary policy…

August 19, 2015 – Statement 879: “The Libertarian Cato Institute co-publishes a Human Freedom Index (HFI) and the most recent one (2012) ranked the United States #20 out of 152 countries (down from #17 in 2008). Shouldn’t this concern every liberty loving American? It’s not just theoretical. Citizens in countries in the top quartile (the top #38) of the HFI, earn a little over $30,000 a year, while citizens in just the next (lower) quartile of freedom earn just 1/5th this amount…

August 17, 2015 – Statement 878: “I was not a banking expert, but after studying it (post-crisis), I found that a lot of policymakers and people commenting on it didn’t actually know what they were saying or were saying wrong things or misleading things…

August 17, 2015 – Statement 877: “All this will seem impossibly weedy to some, but banking is risk-taking; without risk-taking, there is no investment and no growth. Bureaucratic overkill inevitably has become a factor in our slow-growth recovery. If a bank makes a loan and the loan goes bad, regulators may come with charges of fraud. If a bank makes a loan and the loan doesn’t go bad…

August 17, 2015 – Statement 876: “But no Ivy League University has ever awarded such a degree (honorary) to anyone sitting now on the right of the (Supreme) Court. What makes this performance even more obviously ideologically driven is that these academic institutions have neglected the one who has had the most academic influence – Antonin Scalia…

August 17, 2015 – Statement 875: “This issue (the plight of the worlds refugees) should be one of the most important roles of developed countries’ (and related world organizations) governments. Yet most are too busy fighting internally over who gets what in their own economies. Helping these people is the right thing to do and it is in the United States’ interest to do so. ”, Mike Perry

August 12, 2015 – Statement 874: “To restore the liberal arts, those of us who teach should begin by thinking about students. Almost all of them have serious questions about major issues, and all of them are looking for answers. What is right? What is love? What do I owe others? What do others owe me? In too many places these are not questions for examination but issues for indoctrination…

August 12, 2015 – Statement 873: “…expect the Obama mileage rules to be felt widely—in the steepening price of new cars, in reduced revenues for traditional auto companies and their workers, in growing wealth for Tesla founder Elon Musk. One place the rules won’t have meaningful impact is climate change. Tesla is a compliance company. Don’t take our word for it. Mr. O’Connell said if other makers don’t want to build electric cars, “they can buy credits from us, and we will invest in electric vehicles for them.”…

August 7, 2015 – Statement 872: “Iran will use its $150 billion windfall to spread terror around the region and exert its power. It will incrementally but dangerously cheat on the accord. Armed with money, ballistic weapons and an eventual nuclear breakout, it will become more aggressive. As the end of the nuclear delay comes into view, the 45th or 46th president will decide that action must be taken…

August 4, 2015 – Statement 871: “Imagine a scenario in which the federal government helps households pursue the American dream with ultra-loose credit, only to see prices skyrocket and families take on loads of debt they can’t repay. Yes, it sounds like the housing market of a decade ago, but some say it is also the challenge of today’s higher-education system…

August 4, 2015 – Statement 870: “There is a LOT that I don’t agree with in this NYT Magazine article, but there are three important issues that it raises that I want to highlight: 1) The author states that investors in this particular 2009 Greek bond knew exactly the risks they were taking, just as the author notes, “wildly reckless bond investors who poured billions of dollars into subprime mortgage bonds” did. In other words, this author confirms my numerous statements that pre-crisis, MBS investors were not fooled or misled by issuers or underwriters into buying these securities…

August 3, 2015 – Statement 869: “Debtors and creditors in the end never have a good relationship,” said Hans-Werner Sinn, a leading German economist. “It is like between friends. If you have a friend you don’t give him a loan, you give him a gift. You make a gift and don’t expect to get it back. But when you become his creditor he stops being your friend.”, New York Times

August 3, 2015 – Statement 868: “…Hoover economist John Cochrane, spoke of fears that America is drifting toward a “corporatist system” with diminished political freedom. Are rules knowable in advance so businesses can avoid becoming targets of enforcement actions? Is there meaningful appeal? Are permissions received in a timely fashion or can bureaucrats arbitrarily decide your case simply by sitting on it?…

August 3, 2015 – Statement 867: “It seems to me that this company’s “$70,000 salary for all” is a well-intended, but wrong way to address labor inequality. You can’t pay everyone the same, because everyone does not have the same skills, creativity, and work-ethic (their individual capabilities). Capital and labor combine to produce valuable products and services, and if successful a return that exceeds the cost of labor and capital. The real question is how to split this profit…

August 3, 2015 – Statement 866: “Uber and other sharing-economy innovations create more productive capital and create more capitalists. Government interventions against Uber and other sharing-economy innovations are, therefore, government interventions aimed not only at protecting the value of existing capital (and established capitalists) from the forces of creative destruction,…

August 3, 2015 – Statement 865: “Are mortgage lenders and investors in mortgages and mortgage securities supposed to be financially responsible for every trouble that befalls an American home borrower during the 30 years of a typical mortgage? I don’t think so. The NYT’s article below highlights a woman who became disabled and could no longer work and pay her mortgage, as a result. That’s terrible,…

August 2, 2015 – Statement 864: “With so many questions still unanswered, why are many climate scientists, politicians—and the left generally—so anxious to lock down the science of climatology and engage in protracted name-calling? Well, one powerful explanation for the politicians is obvious: self-interest…

July 29, 2015 – Statement 863: “It’s really hard to analyze these RTO programs (without more information), but my instincts tell me they aren’t economic for most consumers. Think about it, you have ex-Goldman and Lehman folks in this business; they aren’t there because they expect their profit margins to be small!!! If home prices fall, people would be better off being renters (because they would pay lower market rents). If home prices rise,…

July 29, 2015 – Statement 862: “When it comes to purchasing a home, timing really is everything. Some recent buyers have been extraordinarily lucky, with home values that have roughly doubled in as little as four years. When the real estate bubble burst, they bought at the lowest point in their local markets.”, Laura Thompson, Zillow, July 21, 2015

July 29, 2015 – Statement 861: “I agree with Mr. Fink, who is advising Hillary and probably is responsible for most of her negative views about the “quarterly capitalism” of public company managers and boards. But capital gains tax treatment alone is not enough. The SEC has moved in the opposite direction by empowering short-term shareholders and board elections. If you want to meaningfully address this issue, only allow long-term shareholders to vote on the most important matters.”, Mike Perry

July 28, 2015 – Statement 860: “By its very nature, the Export-Import Bank is corporate welfare, and its beneficiaries have no interest in seeing the taxpayer money dry up. Their claims about the bank’s importance are a reflection of this fact; what they want is for the American public to bear the risk for private companies’ profit…

July 28, 2015 – Statement 859: “As two former chief economists of the U.S. Chamber, we know whereof we speak when we point out that it’s the same old battle between the chamber’s large-members’ crony-capitalist cabal versus its small-business and entrepreneurial members and free marketeers inside the chamber. We were two of the free marketeers who fought that fight from the inside…

July 27, 2015 – Statement 858: “Extravagant expectations do lurk in parts of the market. In the 2015 Yale School of Management survey of recent home buyers that Karl Case of Wellesley College, Anne Thompson of Dodge Data and Analytics and I direct, our preliminary results confirmed the overall Pulsenomics conclusion yet found that some people have strikingly unrealistic expectations…

July 27, 2015 – Statement 857: “To limit abuse by the rulers, ancient Rome wrote down the law and permitted citizens to read it. Under Dodd-Frank, regulatory authority is now so broad and so vague that this practice is no longer followed in America. The rules are now whatever regulators say they are…

July 27, 2015 – Statement 856: “As my progressive young students listened to me explain why government was preventing them from using their cell phones to get home from the bars on Saturday night, I could see their minds change. Before I knew it, I was talking to a bunch of 20- and 21-year-old anti-government activists.”, United States Senator Marco Rubio

July 27, 2015 – Statement 855: “MBA’s July 10th chart of the week highlights retail mortgage applications per underwriter with a ten-year trend in average monthly underwriter productivity for the retail production channel. For large lenders, generally in the top 25 nationwide, u/w productivity is 5 times lower than it was ten years ago, dropping to 33 applications per underwriter (per month) in 2014…

July 27, 2015 – Statement 854: “The U.S. Department of Education makes loans without regard to the borrower’s future ability to repay the debt. Federal Perkins and Stafford loans, for example, do not consider the student’s credit history. Aggregate loan limits are not based on the student’s likely income after graduation…

July 27, 2015 – Statement 853: “John (Doe), I am the CEO and owner of a privately held bank in the Southeast. Over 90% of my and my family’s, net worth is tied up in this institution. Through your commentary I have continued to follow the enforcement actions, penalties, and fees levied by the CFPB, HUD, and other government regulators. As the months have gone on I find it harder and harder to defend my bank originating (home) loans…

July 27, 2015 – Statement 852: “Once those benefits begin flowing all around, the pressure on world governments will only increase to ignore Iranian violations, or to treat them as minor or inadvertent, certainly not warranting the reimposition of major sanctions. The ayatollahs have dusted off Lenin’s barb that “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them,” and applied it to the age of nuclear proliferation…

July 27, 2015 – Statement 851: “One-third of the public credit ($375 billion) that has flowed to Greece since 2008 has been used to bail out private creditors; one-third went to finance the Greek current account deficit (the excess of imports and net interest payments to foreigners over exports and transfer payments from abroad); and one-third vaporized by financing the capital flight of Greeks.”, Hans-Werner Sinn, The New York Times, July 25, 2015

July 24, 2015 – Statement 850: “It’s nuts that banks and other regulated financial institutions are offering 4%, 30-year, fixed-rate, jumbo mortgages…

July 24, 2015 – Statement 849: “For much of the last 40 years, planning in Los Angeles has been guided by the idea that growth is bad, that more people mean more congestion, pollution and social ills. The city has emphasized “downzoning” — reducing the number of units allowed to be built on properties — to actively curb growth. It hasn’t worked…

July 22, 2015 – Statement 848: “The original coinage act established the United States Mint and declared the dollar as the “money of account” for the new republic. It defined the dollar as 3711/4 grains of silver or the equivalent in gold; the penalty for debasing coins struck under the law was death. When LBJ signed the 1965 act, the value of a dollar was almost exactly the same as it had been in 1792—0.77 ounces of silver…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 847: “An institution’s clear articulation of underwriting policies regarding income derived from public assistance programs; training of underwriters, mortgage loan originators, and others involved in mortgage loan origination; and careful monitoring for compliance with such underwriting policies can all help the institution manage fair lending risk…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 846: “Now its French towns that knowingly (despite false claims otherwise after it didn’t work out) and greedily (so they could spend more) took the risk to borrow in Swiss franc’s instead of their own currency, the Euro, because they could get a lower rate!!! How can government possibly regulate all the stupid financial decisions we humans make? It seems to me that there are two simple approaches…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 845: “It is an axiom of modern American life: Offer a new service that is wildly popular with the public, and sooner or later you will find yourself labeled an enemy of the people…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 844: “It’s not anti-competitive oil and gas companies, its California’s liberal politicians who are responsible for our high gas prices. Californians are effectively paying a tax of roughly $1 billion a month (a month!!!) for a special kind of gas that no other state seems to want and to subsidize alternative energy…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 843: “AFTER the financial crisis of 2008, there was one thing that almost everyone agreed on. The government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had to go. While shareholders and executives reaped the profits from Fannie and Freddie in good times, taxpayers were stuck with the bill in a crisis…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 842: “I am not aware of a single case against a major U.S. mortgage lender where our federal, state, or local governments and/or their regulators and/or private plaintiffs have proven in court that their allegations of systemic predatory mortgage lending were in fact true. Why?…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 841: “Nonconforming mortgages weren’t a primary cause of the last (pre-2008 crisis) housing price boom. Their expanded availability and use was a symptom of the housing price boom. Today’s housing price boom is mostly about supply and demand and low mortgage rates (distorted low by the Fed), just like it was last time…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 840: “It wasn’t deregulation that caused the (financial) crisis, it was dumb regulation. Among the dumbest were Washington’s affordable-housing mandates, beginning in 1977, that led to a loosening of underwriting standards and put people into homes they couldn’t afford. The Federal Reserve played its part in the 2008 financial crisis by keeping interest rates too low for too long, inflating the housing bubble…

July 21, 2015 – Statement 839: “How is Greece’s current political and economic system, which is anti-free markets and competition, and has impoverished their people (see F.A Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom”), any different than the one envisioned by America’s leading progressives like Senators Sanders and Warren?”, Mike Perry

July 21, 2015 – Statement 838: “Greek banks have lots of Greek sovereign debt on their balance sheets (which is exacerbating their financial insolvency), so did other European banks in 2010 and prior. I am thinking that all the world’s banks (whose deposits are mostly guaranteed by their governments), as a matter of safety and soundness and because it is a serious conflict of interest, SHOULD BE PROHIBITED from owning their countries’ (or others in a group, like the Euro zone) sovereign debt on their balance sheets…

July 16, 2015 – Statement 837: “A system failure is only a matter of time. At some point, what Democrat Erskine Bowles has aptly labeled “the most predictable crisis in American history” will be upon us, as the federal government defaults by one means or another on its unpayable promises…

July 14, 2015 – Statement 836: “Some Republicans and white-collar defense attorneys believe the pendulum at times has swung too far, leading to a quest for penalties to create a perception of being tough on an unpopular industry. Defense lawyers said the political attacks on the SEC’s purported enforcement weakness are at odds with what they see as the agency’s increasingly hard-line approach to policing. They worry pressure on the agency to prove its credentials may be leading to some unfair settlements…

July 14, 2015 – Statement 835: “I have posted a lot about the Greek crisis, because I see a direct line from the Greeks and their politicians to the fairly large group of Americans who now support self-proclaimed socialist and progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren and their anti-capitalist policies…

July 14, 2015 – Statement 834: “Excuse my “French”, but NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman is either an intellectual lightweight or an ideologue, liberal liar or both. I find it amazing and disturbing to think that he was once awarded a Nobel Prize in economics!”, Mike Perry, July 13, 2015

July 14, 2015 – Statement 833: “Only eight companies backed by VC have gone public in 2015 (down from 115 in 2014), Yes it’s SOX and an unfair S.E.C.. Yes it’s that California corporate officers are not protected by the Business Judgment Rule, so they could be personally sued if something goes wrong. Yes it’s the short-termism of public company investors. And Yes it’s easy money and bubble valuations in the private capital markets for tech.”, Mike Perry

July 13, 2015 – Statement 832: “But as to Mr. Trump’s words, throughout our history other nations never sent their “best” to America. My people and my friend’s, the Irish, were not Ireland’s elite when they came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They had nothing back home; that’s why they left. The landed gentry, the high-born, the educated and established—they didn’t come here. They didn’t have to! The wretched refuse did…

July 13, 2015 – Statement 831: “Capitalism, (AEI’s Brooks) insists, succeeds not because it is based on greed, but because the freedom to trade and do business with others is in harmony with our God-given nature. So he has no patience for those who fear the moral argument. Mr. Brooks puts it this way: “Capitalism has saved a couple of billion people and we have treated this miracle like a state secret.”…

July 13, 2015 – Statement 830: “Ireland was the second eurozone member after Greece to receive a bailout from the EU and the IMF. Unlike Greece, it stuck closely to the economic program agreed with its creditors, which it completed in late 2013. It has since taken advantage of low borrowing costs on the international bond markets to repay most of its debts to the IMF, and in 2014 boasted the fastest-growing economy in Europe.”, WSJ, July 11, 2015

July 13, 2015 – Statement 829: “I’ve often said, if I had one drive to win a game to this day, and I had a quarterback to pick, I would pick Kenny,” John Madden, Stabler’s coach with the Raiders, said in a statement upon his death. “When you think about the Raiders, you think about Ken Stabler.”, The New York Times, July 10, 2015

July 9, 2015 – Statement 828: “Good thing for Steve Ballmer that Microsoft isn’t a California corporation, which UNBELIEVABLY does not apply the common law Business Judgment Rule to corporate officers!!! If it had been, he could be personally sued for billions, alleging simple negligence for his horrible business decisions (only obvious with the benefit of hindsight) re. smartphones that has cost Microsoft shareholders’ billions in actual losses and tens of billions more in lost shareholder value.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bancorp

July 9, 2015 – Statement 827: “Panicked doesn’t begin to describe how people feel,” said Antonis Mouzakis, an Athens accountant. “I have a huge number of customers wanting to file their taxes right here, right now, to have the tax calculated and paid instantly before a possible haircut. Even if the tax is 40 to 50 thousand euros, they pay it off in one go.”…

July 9, 2015 – Statement 826: “With the dawning of the new century, the former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was chairman of a convention in Brussels that proposed a constitution to enhance the power and legitimacy of the European Union. But French voters (of all people) rejected this initiative in 2005. Since then, European elites have been enhancing their power through treaties and agreements that did not require popular ratification.”, New York Times, June 9, 2015

July 9, 2015 – Statement 825: “I thought the science was settled long ago? The Federal government told us for decades that fat was bad and published dietary guidelines that essentially became mandates that radically changed our food supply and diets (for the worse). What happened? It’s not possible. The government doesn’t make mistakes. The science was settled!!!!”

July 9, 2015 – Statement 824: “Few Democratic leaders will choose the austerity recommended by Mr. Hanson before every other policy door has been slammed shut. The first and least painful option to sustain deficit spending is currency debasement that facilitates repayment of debt. Greece’s tie to the euro and Puerto Rico’s tie to the U.S. dollar eliminated the luxury of printing devalued money to pay debts…

July 8, 2015 – Statement 823: “If you read Howard Marks, Co-Chairman of Oaktree’s June 8, 2015 client letter, “Risk Revisited Again”, two things are clear: First, allegations by the S.E.C. and private securities litigants that pre-crisis investors were fraudulently tricked by issuers and underwriters into buying securities (mortgages, financial firms, etc.) as a result of misleading and omitted disclosures is a false narrative. It didn’t happen……..

July 8, 2015 – Statement 822: “Just two-tiers (Fannie/Freddie and FHA) of mispriced, below-market, government mortgage rates is fabulous!!! In a free market for mortgages, everyone would receive an individual risk-based price (like we do for life insurance), and many at a much higher rate (especially FHA and VA borrowers). And post-crisis, now that we know home prices can fall dramatically, I don’t think it makes sense for Americans with subprime FICOs (and little emergency savings) to get 3% down mortgages from FHA (the government) to buy homes that might easily fall in value and result in their mortgage exceeding the home’s value…

July 8, 2015 – Statement 821: “DOES democracy trump debt? Of course not, not even in Europe. No bank clerk here would be impressed if a family told her that they had voted to have the terms of their housing loan renegotiated — that’s not how loans, either personal or international, work…

July 8, 2015 – Statement 820: “Hurtado-Sokolow told me she had sold a South Pasadena house for $1,100,000 less than two years ago to owners who made improvements and then put the house back up for sale recently. It was listed at $1,398,000, drew 11 offers, and sold for $1,750,000…

July 7, 2015 – Statement 819: “Greece is on the verge of defaulting on 490 billion euros ($540 billion) in loans, bond obligations, central-bank liquidity assistance, and interbank balances. Who will bear those losses? Greece’s creditors, which are all public entities across the euro zone, and that are on the hook for some €335 billion in loan guarantees…

July 7, 2015 – Statement 818: “For most of the past several years, Greece has received considerably more cash than it has paid out. Although you would never know it from the world press, the so-called austerity that Greece has experienced since 2010 is almost entirely a result of having to rein in budget deficits that were wildly out of control…

July 7, 2015 – Statement 817: “…he first tackles the pervasive (Greek) issues of disability and pension fraud, rampant tax evasion, and public worker job protections. These are the very problems that Greece’s European lenders sought to remedy through a series of supposedly helpful but also punitive and ineptly administered reforms…

July 7, 2015 – Statement 816: ”Greece wanted to be prosperous without being competitive. It wanted to run a five-star welfare state with a two-star economy. It wanted modernity without efficiency or transparency, and wealth without work. It wanted control over its own destiny—while someone else picked up the check…

July 7, 2015 – Statement 815: “And let’s be clear: if Greece ends up leaving the euro, it won’t mean that the Greeks are bad Europeans. Greece’s debt problem reflected irresponsible lending as well as irresponsible borrowing, and in any case the Greeks have paid for their government’s sins many times over…

July 7, 2015 – Statement 814: “Fun fact about the Greece bailout: cutting through all the noise, there was an enormous wealth transfer from citizens across Europe to the French banking sector.”, JP Morgan, July 6, 2015

July 7, 2015 – Statement 813: “In truth, though, they also saw her (Marva Collins) as a powerful rebuke to the failure of this city’s public schools, especially those in black neighborhoods. Gang violence is rampant at many of those schools. As for achievement, the average eighth grade student in the Chicago public schools lags by about a year-and-a-half the national average in reading comprehension, math and language skills…

July 7, 2015 – Statement 812: “The co-founder of Microsoft (Bill Gates) said it was “fantastic” that the UN, national governments, and environmental campaigners had raised awareness of climate change and were taking steps to counter it. However, he argued that current technologies could only reduce global CO2 emissions at a “beyond astronomical” economic cost…

July 6, 2015 – Statement 811: “Justice Antonin Scalia put his criticism in populist terms. His message seemed a warning to the court. “Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers of the Supreme Court…A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”…

July 6, 2015 – Statement 810: ““Fannie and Freddie made a profit until they didn’t,” Mr. Hensarling said. “We are becoming a backstopped, bailed-out, bankrupt society.” Hensarling argues, all those loan guarantees make taxpayers vulnerable, just as the federal flood insurance program and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation have weighed down the government’s balance sheet…

July 1, 2015 – Statement 809: “After years of neglect, state officials estimate it will cost $59 billion to fix the now-crumbling roads and freeways that Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown championed more than five decades ago. And it’s up to his son, Gov. Jerry Brown, to find the money.”, The Los Angeles Times, July 1, 2015

July 1, 2015 – Statement 808: “When Puerto Rico’s governor told lawmakers and citizens on Monday that the commonwealth could not pay its $72 billion in debt, many wondered how a small, seemingly low-key American island in the Caribbean could have amassed a debt big enough to crush it…

July 1, 2015 – Statement 807: “I don’t believe the U.S. allows domestic transactions to occur in foreign currencies either? And while the rupiah has depreciated against the U.S. dollar about 7% in the past year, the U.S. dollar has depreciated against gold about 8% a year since 1971; the year the U.S. reneged on its promise to redeem dollars held by foreigners in gold and became a fiat currency…

July 1, 2015 – Statement 806: “We know the basic conditions in which strong economic growth occurs. Chief among them is a government that does not do too much—unlike the way the U.S. government has been overreaching since at least 2008 (arguably since 1990 or 1965 or 1933)…

July 1, 2015 – Statement 805: “Puerto Rico’s biggest hedge fund cheerleader in New York has been the billionaire John A. Paulson. Mr. Paulson told investors at an investment conference in San Juan last year that Puerto Rico’s economy was turning a corner. He went as far as to predict it would be the Singapore of the Caribbean,…

June 30, 2015 – Statement 804: “Industry regulations and requirements are having an adverse effect on new 1-4 family mortgage loan originations, which are at a 12 year low. Commercial banks are also exiting the 1-4 family mortgage origination market as almost 80% of the compliance costs for small banks derive from residential lending.”, Kroll Bond Rating Agency, June 2015

June 30, 2015 – Statement 803: “Puerto Rico’s debt crisis is the result of years of government mismanagement. Dozens of agencies and publicly owned corporations have run deficits year after year, making up the difference by borrowing from bond markets…

June 30, 2015 – Statement 802: “‘Let me get this straight,’ I (Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S.) began. ‘We inadvertently slight the vice president and apologize, and I become the first foreign ambassador summoned by this administration to the State Department. Bashar al-Assad hosts Iranian president Ahmadinejad, who calls for murdering seven million Israelis, but do you summon Syria’s ambassador? No, you send your ambassador back to Damascus.’”, Bret Stephens, WSJ

June 29, 2015 – Statement 801: “A number of hedge funds have also made big bets on Greek banks, despite their thin levels of capital and nonperforming loans of around 50 percent of assets…

June 29, 2015 – Statement 800: “If you use (as a customer), work for, and/or invest in firms like Uber and AirBnB, you are making an affirmative and free market choice to help (succeed) companies whose core business model is less about technology and more about using technology to destroy traditional, often bureaucratic work rules and regulations that have resulted in huge inefficiencies, poor service, and higher costs for a variety of consumer products and services…

June 29, 2015 – Statement 799: “Given that administrative law judges are employees of the S.E.C., defendants wonder if they can be fair. And is it right for defendants to be investigated, prosecuted and judged by officials of the same agency?…

June 28, 2015 – Statement 798: “It’s pretty hypocritical for Calpers to constantly lecture publicly-traded companies about governance when they don’t even know what the private money managers THEY hire are charging them?”, Mike Perry

June 25, 2015 – Statement 797: “Often overlooked in the success of American start-ups is the even greater number of failures. “Fail fast, fail often” is a Silicon Valley mantra, and the freedom to innovate is inextricably linked to the freedom to fail. In Europe, failure carries a much greater stigma than it does in the United States. Bankruptcy codes are far more punitive, in contrast to the United States, where bankruptcy is simply a rite of passage for many successful entrepreneurs…

June 25, 2015 – Statement 796: “A company’s profits are the minimum value of the work it does for you and for society. Google, to take another example, generates huge profits. CEO Larry Page has an estimated net worth of $30 billion. But Google offers you a valuable service, and society benefits to the tune of trillions, yes trillions, of dollars in commerce that happens thanks to Google searches, mail and maps. Similarly, an iPhone 6…

June 25, 2015 – Statement 795: “Jack Lew’s announcement about having a woman on the $10 bill is another example of how identity politics has reached a new high in this country, and it is practically ruining the core of America. How is it a sign of progress if the best way we can honor a woman is to diminish the importance of an highly accomplished man?…

June 24, 2015 – Statement 794: “Given my experience (as a publicly unsympathetic defendant, because I was a banker) with federal judges and the U.S. civil legal system, I don’t want judges who think they know what the right answer or outcome should be or what’s fair or just (like a wise King Solomon). That’s “The Rule by Men/Women” not “The Rule of Law.” In truth, some judges are biased, some are not very smart and no judge today can truly understand the myriad of complex cases before them…

June 24, 2015 – Statement 793: “As dismal as the performance of BofA stock has been since 2008, it still has performed way better than Citigroup. Adjusted for its post-crisis 1-for-10 reverse split, Citi was a $557 stock in 2008. It’s now about $56, which represents a 90% drop from its peak.” Excerpt from June 2015 Mortgage Industry Newsletter

June 24, 2015 – Statement 792: “Cordray watch: As you know, the Judge Cameron Elliot ruled that PHH Mortgage should be fined $6.4 million with CFPB head Richard Cordray overruling the judge and raising the fine to $109 million. Cordray stated that the judge had “misunderstood” the case. Please read this last sentence again…

June 24, 2015 – Statement 791: “But is the private label market coming back, at long last? Issuance of mortgage backed securities has increased to $32 billion this year from $18 billion last year. Much of this new paper is tied to rentals or distressed mortgages from the bubble years. To put the $32 billion into perspective, the private label market was $1 trillion before the crash…

June 24, 2015 – Statement 790: “I am mostly sad from this situation because I have memories of growing up in a (Greek) society where we were raised with strong moral beliefs and values. I feel that this has been lost through the corrupt political system we have. Politicians throughout the years have given jobs for votes and inflated the public sector because of this…

June 24, 2015 – Statement 789: “The irony of this (Bernanke blogging for Hamilton to stay on the ten-dollar bill) is that while chairing the Federal Reserve, Mr. Bernanke traduced every principle Hamilton held dear, particularly the idea of sound money defined by Congress…

June 24, 2015 – Statement 788: “The authors (including a former Obama administration chief economist) compared the energy consumption and thermostat settings of households who signed up for the U.S. Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) with those who didn’t. The energy consumption of program participants dropped by 10% to 20%, barely 40% of what engineering models predicted. The savings equated to $2,400, less than half the $5,000 spent on the energy efficiency investments…

June 24, 2015 – Statement 787: “As Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry has explained: “One argument that President Obama hasn’t tried to make explicitly is that the U.S. commitments to emissions reductions will actually slow down warming in a meaningful way. If you believe the climate models, the U.S. emissions reductions would reduce the warming by a fairly trivial amount, that would get lost among the natural variability of climate.”…

June 24, 2015 – Statement 786: “Hardest to accept, though, is the moral premise implied throughout the (Pope’s) encyclical: that the only legitimate human relationships are based on compassion, harmony and love, and that arrangements based on self-interest and competition are inherently destructive…

June 22, 2015 – Statement 785: “Hurrah for former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg and his courage (and money). Three cheers for Judge Wheeler who has restored our faith in our country as a beacon of free enterprise, the rule of law and individual liberty.”, Sam Baker, “The Wall Street Journal: Letters to the Editor”

June 19, 2015 – Statement 784: “Dear XXXX and Mike, One would have to understand that the Pope is only deemed infallible in matters of faith and morals and even then only under some very narrow guidelines…

June 18, 2015 – Statement 783: “(Treasury Secretary) Lew noted that prior to 2008 there was no explicit backstop (for Fannie and Freddie). Many even denied there was an implicit one. (Rep. Michael) Capuano shot back: “Who denied that?” As it turns out, one denial came from another member of the Massachusetts delegation…

June 18, 2015 – Statement 782: “Pre-crisis, as a result of vibrant competition, mortgage bankers made a profit of just 0.156% ($312 on a $200,000 mortgage), as a result of substantially reduced competition (from failures and dramatically increased regulation), post-crisis mortgage bankers made a profit of 0.615% ($1,230 on a $200,000 mortgage). That’s a whopping 294% increase in profits post-crisis…

June 17, 2015 – Statement 781: “I wonder whether fiat money and the absence of monetary rules played a role in the buildup of the imbalances that brought down AIG and others in 2008.”, Seth Lipsky, “Will Congress Now Rein in the Fed?”, The Wall Street Journal

June 17, 2015 – Statement 780: “Judge Thomas C. Wheeler of the United States Court of Federal Claims only stated what we all understood at the time: Officials were loath to let AIG fail for the effect it would have on banks and Wall Street firms, but equally loath to receive the brickbats they would receive if they just flat-out guaranteed AIG liabilities (as they would do for just about every institution shortly)…

June 17, 2015 – Statement 779: “Higher capital doesn’t contribute to lower lending. The data show that the opposite is true: Banks with stronger capital positions maintain higher levels of lending over the course of economic cycles than those with less capital…

June 17, 2015 – Statement 778: “Of concern is a groupthink mentality, both at the institutional level and at granting agencies, such that demonstration of amyloid alteration is a de facto requirement for experimental models, preclinical studies, nearly all clinical trials and diagnosis at autopsy. This could aptly be viewed as a systemic defect in postmodern scientific investigation…

June 17, 2015 – Statement 777: “Government doesn’t always know best, nor do its friends in “public health.” The story has often been told of how dietary reformers touted trans fats from the 1950s onward as a safer alternative to animal fats and butter…

June 17, 2015 – Statement 776: “Without expressing an opinion on global warming, I believe the reason that Americans became less concerned about global warming and more skeptical post-financial crisis and are now becoming more concerned is that the government stopped its global warming propaganda during the economic downturn and now that we are experiencing a recovery, they have now ramped it back up…

June 16, 2015 – Statement 775: “On Monday Judge Thomas Wheeler of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s seizure of a controlling stake in AIG during the financial crisis was “an illegal exaction under the Fifth Amendment.””, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

June 16, 2015 – Statement 774: “There is nothing in the Federal Reserve Act or in any other federal statute that would permit a Federal Reserve Bank to take over a private corporation and run its business as if the Government were the owner.”, Judge Thomas C. Wheeler, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, The New York Times

June 16, 2015 – Statement 773: “Citing an affordable housing crisis of “epic proportions,” the California Supreme Court made it easier Monday for cities and counties to require developers to sell some housing at below-market rates.”, The Los Angeles Times

June 16, 2015 – Statement 772: “When austerity pressures caught up to debt-laden sovereigns in recent years, however, the less leveraged—and not coincidentally, less (income) equal—member countries grew a lot faster than their peers. From 2011-13, according to the World Bank, the five most unequal countries grew nearly five times faster (3.9% cumulative annual average) than the others (0.84%)…

June 16, 2015 – Statement 771: “After the meeting (Milton) Friedman suggested we chat, and proceeded to give me a half-hour lecture on the difficulties inherent in conducting monetary policy. He concluded by asking me to tell then-Fed Chairman Arthur Burns and his colleagues to put all of their economic data in a computer and let the computer decide policy, because “when they do it, things get messed up.”…

June 16, 2015 – Statement 770: “College tuition has outpaced inflation for three decades, and employment prospects for graduates are grim: More than 40% end up with a job that didn’t require a college degree, according to Federal Reserve data. So it’s precisely the right moment for a book to help 18-year-olds and their parents make this important educational and financial decision…

June 15, 2015 – Statement 769: “I believe in the 2nd Amendment and am an avid and lifelong gun owner and hunter (and recently revived bow hunter). That said, generally I think its unsafe to keep firearms in the home, unless they are unloaded AND locked preferably in a safe and I am not a fan of citizens carrying their weapons, even unloaded, out in public (where it is legal to do so), BUT I do believe that EVERY American should own a gun and know how to use it,…

June 11, 2015 – Statement 768: “The money bail system is supposed to curb the risk of flight by requiring defendants to post bond in exchange for freedom before trial. But critics say the system allows defendants with money to go free even if they are dangerous, while keeping low-risk poor people in jail unnecessarily and at great cost to taxpayers…

June 10, 2015 – Statement 767: “In America, I think it should be illegal to require a college degree for any job. Degrees and especially “pedigrees” from elite universities are a little un-American and put too many kids in too much debt right off the bat. I am not anti-education, on the contrary I love it. But today employers can evaluate/test you to see if you have the smarts, skills, and personality to succeed or not…

June 10, 2015 – Statement 766: “If one is successful in having charges dismissed before an administrative law judge, as I was, the SEC can appeal that decision, and that appeal is heard by the SEC commissioners. One doesn’t need to know anything about finance or law to recognize the unfairness in this.”, Jim Hopkins, Wellesley Mass., Letter to the Editor, WSJ

June 10, 2015 – Statement 765: “Could it be any more clear that this real life Greek Tragedy has been caused by decades of liberal/progressive politicians and their imprudent policies and practices, which favored government control of the economy (which led to cronyism, bribery, cheating, and low efforts), over a culture of hard work and entrepreneurial risk-taking necessary for a vibrant private-sector economy…

June 10, 2015 – Statement 764: “The double standard of Sen. Warren’s positions is indirectly presented in your editorial “President Warren Declares” (June 4). Here we see her exercising congressional oversight of the SEC. But the House that Liz Built, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was specifically designed by Sen. Warren to be above the inconvenience of congressional oversight…

June 9, 2015 – Statement 763: “No one wants to hear, “Uh, Mr. Johnson, there’s a Richard Cordray holding for you on line 2.” (Unless your name isn’t Johnson, right?) The CFPB ordered PHH to pay a $109 million penalty related to captive reinsurance…

June 9, 2015 – Statement 762: “I read in Bank Director that since 1990, the share of consumer loans done by community banks has dropped from 79% to just 8%. Community banks used to be the first place people went to get a mortgage, but that’s not the case anymore…

June 9, 2015 – Statement 761: “What few will appreciate, however, is that only five of the 17 dots really matter.”, Benn Steil, The Wall Street Journal

June 8, 2015 – Statement 760: “It’s not immoral or unethical to default on your debts, file for personal bankruptcy, etc., as long as you went into these debts with the strong intention of full repayment and did everything within your control to repay them, and as long as you follow the terms of your loan contracts and the law…

June 8, 2015 – Statement 759: “Mr. Varoufakis agreed that in the Greece example, “the game has multiple equilibriums and, therefore, a failure to agree may trigger a chain of outcomes that no one can either predict or control.” He added, “We have many interlocutors. Some are painfully aware of the disaster that awaits Europe if Greece defaults. Others are less aware. Some are utterly unaware…

June 8, 2015 – Statement 758: “In bond markets, dealers participate in almost all trades when they provide liquidity to their clients. Much trade in these markets is still conducted over the telephone, which means that trades occur as a result of a series of bilateral conversations among human broker-dealers and their clients. In contrast, most equity-market liquidity comes from investors trading directly with each other at electronic exchanges. In other words, equity markets operate in the 21st century whereas bond markets still operate in the 19th century…

June 8, 2015 – Statement 757: “The U.S. commits about $200 billion annually to housing, largely through tax breaks. Nearly three-quarters of that goes toward homeownership, and the biggest piece—almost $100 billion annually—is the mortgage-interest deduction. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the wealthiest 20% of households, those earning more than $160,000 annually, receive 75% of the total tax benefit…

June 8, 2015 – Statement 756: “I think the NYT article below is one-sided, really a “hit-piece” about the U.S. Navy’s very best warriors: Seal Team 6. No human enterprise is perfect (least of all war, where the enemy is among the civilian population and not always clear), but I believe with all my mind and heart that our Navy Seals are great Americans and 99.9% of the time do everything right, including upholding our values…

June 4, 2015 – Statement 755: “Let’s have trials instead, and if a bank really is a criminal enterprise, break it up. And if not, regulators shouldn’t browbeat managers to admit firm-wide guilt for actions they may have known nothing about…

June 4, 2015 – Statement 754: “Ex-Im arranges taxpayer-backed financing to foreign businesses and governments that agree to buy selected U.S. products. This financing largely benefits a handful of Fortune 100 companies here in America, including General Electric, Boeing, and Caterpillar. The companies keep the profits if sales go well; taxpayers bear the risk of loss if not…

June 4, 2015 – Statement 753: “Companies talk all the time about their commitment to their employees, but employees know which companies truly care about them and which ones don’t. Both Disney and Edison, in my opinion, made an economically stupid and unethical decision to layoff American workers (and replace them with low-cost foreigners) to save a few bucks…

June 4, 2015 – Statement 752: “Research from the Fed finds total student loan debt was $1.2 trillion at the end of 2014, with an average balance of $26,700. Meanwhile, 17% of borrowers were behind in their payments or in default and only 37% of borrowers are making payments large enough to reduce their balances.”, Excerpt from June 2015 Mortgage Industry Newsletter

June 3, 2015 – Statement 751: “Okay, so Bernanke thinks the S&P 500 rising about 1.2% a quarter (4.9% a year) since the 2001 recession ended in November of that year is fine and means the stock market today is not overvalued. I don’t agree or disagree. I don’t know. But let’s use this same period and rationale to examine nominal home prices…

June 3, 2015 – Statement 750: “A profit of $1,500 per mortgage, plus $7,195 in costs!!! American homeowners are paying (directly in fees or indirectly in a higher rate) $8,695 on average to obtain a mortgage to buy a home or refinance. That’s outrageous!!! Especially when almost all of these mortgages are government insured or guaranteed. Packaging loans for the government shouldn’t cost this much…

June 3, 2015 – Statement 749: “When is the SEC, the federal courts, and state bar associations going to crack down on these “low-class” law firms who make a living filing bogus securities class action lawsuits every time a company’s stock price declines by a certain percent and extorting financial settlements (where the merits of the allegations are never heard and decided upon by a court of law)? And what in the world is a local police and fire pension fund doing investing in a risky, non-bank, mortgage firm, especially after the 2008 crisis (where nearly all of them failed)? I can tell why,…

June 3, 2015 – Statement 748: “But no single human being, and probably not even the combined effort of thousands of them, seems able to clarify where you can draw a legal line between good banking and bad.”, Adam Davidson, Wall Street Journal Magazine

June 2, 2015 – Statement 747: “If there is a market bubble today, it is in the bond market and the Fed is complicit in the “overvaluation.” Since July (2014), when Ms. Yellen suggested that biotech stocks had “stretched” valuations, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology exchange-traded fund has rallied about 40%. Market professionals (and the Fed) have had an abysmal record in judging whether the market as a whole is “overvalued.”…

June 2, 2015 – Statement 746: “The problem with the bubble question is nobody seems to agree on what exactly a bubble is…And no matter how hard people try to avoid them, bubbles happen again and again, from the Dutch tulip bubble of 1636, to the 1929 stock bubble that resulted in the Great Depression, to the housing bubble that buckled Wall Street in 2008…

June 2, 2015 – Statement 745: “Nobody has found an email from a (big bank) CEO saying, “Go ahead, roll the dice. If the worst happens, we’ve always got the Fed.” Political scientist Jeffrey Friedman points out that 93% of the banks’ housing assets were Triple-A or government guaranteed, when the government’s own capital rules invited them to hold riskier, higher-yielding mortgage assets…

June 2, 2015 – Statement 744: “Wasn’t threatening and/or retaliating against the rating agencies seen as a bad thing when the private sector was accused of this type of activity by the government? In comparison to an individual private firm, isn’t it far worse when it’s the all powerful U.S. Treasury (Tim Geithner and S&P), a state, or a big city like Chicago?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

June 1, 2015 – Statement 743: “And something (from a Federal Reserve study of the non-elderly) that even startled me: 47 percent said that they would not have the resources to meet an unexpected expense of $400 – $400! They would have to sell something or borrow to meet that need, if they could meet it at all.”, Paul Krugman, New York Times

June 1, 2015 – Statement 742: “The left views the Fed as one more government agent of income redistribution. Stated Fed goals of maintaining the purchasing power of the dollar, keeping inflation at a manageable rate and spurring economic growth are superseded by a goal of facilitating Washington’s spending and borrowing needs…

June 1, 2015 – Statement 741: “Moreover, too much blind trust is placed in the predictive power of long-range computer simulations, despite the weak forecasting track record of most climate models to date. This is unfortunate because the topic of man-made global warming, properly taught, would present many teachable moments and provide an example of the scientific method in action…

June 1, 2015 – Statement 740: “Whether by minimum-wage boosts that make them more expensive to hire, licensing requirements that make it more difficult to get a job, or other forms of regulation that will likely mean fewer nail salons and fewer jobs, it’s not hard to imagine displaced nail salon workers in America driven more deeply down into the black market, or into something worse…

June 1, 2015 – Statement 739: “The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond has again done the public service of toting up all the implied and explicit government guarantees backing the U.S. financial system. Are you sitting down? Richmond Fed researchers find that as of the end of 2013 taxpayers were standing behind nearly $26 trillion of financial liabilities. The eye-watering sum represents 60% of the financial industry’s $43 trillion in total liabilities…

May 27, 2015 – Statement 738: “I am pro-immigration (its free trade and morally right given we are a Country of immigrants), but the ends (no matter how right and just we believe they to be) do not justify an illegal means. We can’t bend or ignore the Constitution and “The Rule of Law”, because we don’t like what they say. If we don’t like a part of the Constitution or a particular law, do the hard political work to change them…

May 27, 2015 – Statement 737: “Many states and cities have been doing to a lesser degree what Illinois did: promising pensions without calculating the costs correctly or really preparing to pay them. Other states have pulled back from the brink of fiscal disaster through extraordinary measures, including New York in 1975, to deal with the threat of bankruptcy in New York City, and California in 2012, when Gov. Jerry Brown talked his famously tax-averse voters into approving a tax increase…

May 27, 2015 – Statement 736: “The Nobel laureate (Krugman) must have been horrified in September 2010 when, as the value of the dollar was first plunging below a 1,250th of an ounce of gold, Mr. Greenspan warned at the Council on Foreign Relations that “fiat money has no place to go but gold.” Mr. Greenspan is, after all, the author of an essay titled “Gold and Economic Freedom.”…

May 27, 2015 – Statement 735: “Currency manipulation is the mother of all trade barriers,” said Stephen Biegun, a vice president of international government affairs for Ford Motor Co. Ford, like other U.S. auto makers, is backing lawmaker proposals to punish countries that depreciate their currencies to gain a competitive advantage…

May 27, 2015 – Statement 734: “Critics of currency manipulation see a rare opportunity to elevate currency policy to the level of standard trade issues, like tariff barriers, intellectual property protection and market access…

May 27, 2015 – Statement 733: “The economic impact of the deal (NAFTA) was immediately undercut by the collapse of the Mexican peso in 1994.”, William M. Daley, New York Times

May 25, 2015 – Statement 732: “How can the National Park Service trap and contain animals and not have them get water?” asked Gary Giacomini, a former Marin County supervisor who worked to protect Point Reyes from development. “It strikes me as absolutely preposterous, if not criminal, that the park service would let half the elk herd die by depriving them of water. Imagine if the (private) ranchers did that to their cows – they’d all be indicted.”, Ronnie Cohen, New York Times

May 14, 2015 – Statement 731: “We wanted to reinvent the small-business lending process, but we realized we didn’t have a credit background,” said Mr. Haber, who wants Bond Street to be faster, simpler and more open than banks. His firm offers loans of $50,000 to $500,000 at annual rates of 8 to 25 percent…

May 14, 2015 – Statement 730: “ (Chicago Teachers’) Union President Karen Lewis called the city’s proposal “reactionary and retaliatory” because the union backed incumbent Rahm Emanuel’s challenger in the recent mayoral race. The better description is inevitable. The district faces a $1.1 billion deficit in the next fiscal year, the city’s teachers pension has an unfunded liability of $9.6 billion…

May 14, 2015 – Statement 729: “Let’s say you do eventually find work (Class of 2015). Then you will start paying taxes, mostly to subsidize government programs that increasingly benefit middle-aged and older Americans, many of whom have jobs and assets. The average household headed by an adult 65 or older has nearly 50 times the wealth of the average household headed by an adult younger than 35…

May 13, 2015 – Statement 728: “For the history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to kill, and that a lie well told is immortal.”, Mark Twain

May 12, 2015 – Statement 727: “Pre-crisis (likely 2006 or 2007), I recall that I received a private mortgage insurance report (on home prices) like the one below from IndyMac’s chief risk officer. My recollection was that it expressed concerns about housing prices in certain regions of the country. (I always felt the private MI companies would really have a strong handle on the direction of home prices, because they insure Fannie and Freddie mortgage amounts above 80% LTV, all the way up to or near 100% LTV, for various insurance fees.)…

May 12, 2015 – Statement 726: “The Federal Housing Finance Agency just released the results of the annual stress tests for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Under the severely adverse economic scenario, the companies would need $157.3 billion in capital…

May 12, 2015 – Statement 725: “In the past 50 years, valuations of U.S. stock prices have been higher than they are now for less than 10% of the time, and similar figures hold for bonds and houses. This kind of synchronized boom has never happened, not even before the last two major meltdowns. My research team’s composite valuation for the three major financial assets in America – stocks, bonds and houses – is currently well above levels reached during the bubbles of 2000 and 2007…

May 12, 2015 – Statement 724: “I agree with the NY Times Editorial Board…I have always thought the cost of title insurance was outrageously high, relative to the risk. The reason is simple. There isn’t enough free market competition. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau where are you on this simple, but costly (to American homeowners) issue?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

May 12, 2015 – Statement 723: “In some of his most definitive statements about the postcrisis landscape and the legacy of banks being “too big to fail,” (FDIC Chief) Gruenberg said in an interview that if a major financial firm ran into trouble today “they would be allowed to fail and suffer the consequences of that failure. That was not an option available to us in 2008,” he added.”, The Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2015

May 12, 2015 – Statement 722: “Hand waving is required because there is nothing in the workings of markets that turns otherwise normal human beings into “Econs” (Highly intelligent beings that are capable of making the most complex of calculations but are totally lacking in emotions.). For example, if you choose the wrong career, select the wrong mortgage or fail to save for retirement, markets do not correct those failings…

May 12, 2015 – Statement 721: “Around the world, it’s the era of easy money, hard regulation and slow growth. Central banks have made dollars, euros and yen plentiful, but central governments have restrained businesses from putting that money to its most efficient use. Why take a chance trying to create a new product – and persuading the world’s bureaucracies to tolerate it – when you can buy an existing one?”, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, May 8, 2015

May 12, 2015 – Statement 720: “The (Baltimore) neighborhood was also designated a “homeownership zone” by the feds, who spent $30 million to saddle people with arguably the last thing they needed, a mortgage that tied them down to a community without jobs and decent schools…

May 12, 2015 – Statement 719: “As finance becomes more innovative, money becomes less substantial. It would be nice if a few of Mr. Palmer’s intellectual pioneers could spare some time to improve the quality of the currency – and, while they’re at it, to beat back the depredations of the regulatory state…

May 12, 2015 – Statement 718: “America is no longer the land of the free…The laws setting out these crimes are often so complicated that only lawyers, working in teams, know everything that the law requires. Everyone knows how to obey the laws against robbery. No individual can know how to “obey” laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley (810 pages), the Affordable Care Act (1,024 pages) or Dodd-Frank (2,300 pages). We submit to them…

May 12, 2015 – Statement 717: “Though Wall Street and international financiers have been cast as the villains of the 2008 madness, they are minor actors in the larger narrative of spendthrift habit in which we each played our part. In the past three decades, aided and abetted by the enticements of consumerism, we Americans have been busily retuning our neural architecture…

May 7, 2015 – Statement 716: “Argentina’s government and central bank causes massive monetary inflation (of the peso) and fixes the peso at artificially high levels relative to foreign currencies like the dollar. This creates huge monetary transaction costs for individuals and institutions, and as a result, they are willing to accept the risk of illegal, black-market monetary transactions, bitcoin price volatility, and questionable bitcoin security…

May 7, 2015 – Statement 715: “…today the world’s central bankers are in something like a state of panic. Money is, quite clearly, uncontrollable. This manifests in large ways – like the six years of continuous crisis that have roiled the eurozone – but also in smaller, more technical matters. For example, the Federal Reserve has no idea how much money is out there, at least in all its digital forms, or how fast the overall supply is growing…

May 7, 2015 – Statement 714: “But Greenlining advised the Fed on Tuesday that it supported the deal “after ongoing negotiations with City National Bank to ensure that California’s low-income consumers and businesses of color benefit from the proposed merger.””, James F. Peltz, Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2015

May 7, 2015 – Statement 713: “This Wall Street Journal article today about the SEC’s increased use of in-house judges makes me want to puke. This enforcement process is outrageous, un-American, and hopefully, sooner than later, will be ruled unconstitutional. And if it is, every lawyer who was a part of it and supported it should be disbarred and every lawyer who didn’t vociferously speak out against it should be ashamed.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

April 29, 2015 – Statement 712: “Some Fed officials also see considerable costs in tolerating more inflation. Stanley Fischer, the Fed’s vice chairman, said at a separate I.M.F. event this month that it was important to keep inflation low enough so that people did not need to pay it any attention. At 2 percent annual inflation, a dollar loses half its value in about 36 years; at 4 percent inflation it takes about 18 years…

April 27, 2015 – Statement 711: “This recent mortgage newsletter excerpt on appraisers and related regulations is nuts. It’s all form-over-substance. Nothing has really changed re. the methodology of home appraisals, despite the fact that they didn’t detect or prevent the housing bubble/bust. U.S. homes are still being valued using “market comparables,” which tend to confirm the direction of prices rather than challenge or refute them…

April 27, 2015 – Statement 710: “…the lawsuit (Quicken vs. the DOJ) gives voice to an increasingly popular sentiment among financial institutions: that the government is, for political reasons, extracting hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in settlements for what are at best technically and immaterially incorrect claims.”, Matthew Schwartz, partner, Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, April 2015

April 24, 2015 – Statement 709: “Instead of letting political ideology or climate “religion” guide government policy, we should focus on good science. The facts alone should determine what climate policy options the U.S. considers. That is what the scientific method calls for: inquiry based on measurable evidence. Unfortunately this administration’s climate plans ignore good science and seek only to advance a political agenda.”, Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, April 24, 2014

April 22, 2015 – Statement 708: “As I understand it, some mainstream economists and others think former congressman, presidential candidate, and libertarian icon Ron Paul is “a bit of a nut.” These “experts” point to the current strong dollar and low inflation and interest rates as evidence against Mr. Paul’s anti-Fed and fiat currency (paper money backed only by a government promise) and pro-sound money (backed by gold and/or other commodities) views…

April 22, 2015 – Statement 707: “The problem is that, in the early stages, government economic planning and affirmative action lending look appealing. More homes are built and more people purchase homes that they otherwise would not have qualified for. Home prices soar and borrowing against the inflated prices is something the government and regulations encourage…

April 22, 2015 – Statement 706: “Manipulating the money supply and interest rates rejects all the principles of the free market, and so it cannot be said that too free a market caused this mess (the 2008 financial crisis). The market was not free at all. It was manipulated and distorted…

April 21, 2015 – Statement 705: “In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holdings illegal, as was done in the case of gold…

April 20, 2015 – Statement 704: “So how is Navy Federal pulling in hordes of young first-timers? By offering loans that address their needs — zero-down payments, no private mortgage insurance premiums, plus the standard low-down payment menus of the Federal Housing Administration (3.5% minimum) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (zero minimum) loans.”, Kenneth R. Harney, The Los Angeles Times

April 20, 2015 – Statement 703: “The decision is a reminder of how little has changed in mortgage finance and at Fannie and Freddie despite their central role in the financial meltdown. The housing lobby—the Realtors and home builders and “affordable” housing advocates—want the government to continue to favor housing over other parts of the economy. Taxpayers bear the risk.”, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, April 20, 2015

April 20, 2015 – Statement 702: “In the complaint, Quicken said that the Justice Department based its settlement demands on a sampling of 55 of 246,000 loans and that the defects included miscalculating a borrower’s income by $17 and lending a borrower $26 too much…

April 17, 2015 – Statement 701: “In the court of world opinion, a large majority seems to believe that even if the Greeks may have been a tad fiscally irresponsible, it is the Germans who have driven Greece into depression through cruel insistence on austerity and debt repayments…

April 17, 2015 – Statement 700: “…there seem to be two Ben Bernankes out there, and, presumably, both would profess to tell the truth. The think-tank scholar (at the Brookings Institution) last week wrote that long-term interest rates were not set by central-bank policies but by fundamental factors, notably inflation and real interest rates, which are a function of economic growth. In contrast, in November 2010, the then Fed chairman wrote a Washington Post op-ed article to explain why the central bank was buying hundreds of billions of dollars of government securities. The answer, according to his defense of the central bank’s policy moves, was to lower long-term interest rates…

April 16, 2015 – Statement 699: “El-Erian (former CEO of PIMCO Investments) is making a valuation call. Due to ongoing central bank interventions globally, asset prices and valuations have been inflated to levels that historically proven to provide very low or negative forward returns on invested capital.”, Lance Roberts, Streettalk Live, April 8, 2015

April 16, 2015 – Statement 698: “The FHFA’s latest decision to lower fees for some (riskier) borrowers is “just starting to look like part of a larger trend, that’s my real concern. What’s next?” said Mark Calabria, director of financial regulation studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “There was not some single moment or event that got us into the last mess, but the accumulation of lots of errors.””, The Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2015

April 16, 2015 – Statement 697: “There will be a lot of pressure put on the next Republican president to employ Alinsky’s tactics on the opponents of conservatism. Let’s see how these leftist bullies like an aggressive IRS targeting and auditing them, denials of tax-exempt status, reputations destroyed by Justice Department investigations aplenty, bankrupting progressives with attorney fees and personal-property confiscations, plus threats and accusations made by the new leaders of the SEC, FCC and the rest of the executive branch alphabet soup.” Tom Budds, Huntington Beach, Calif.

April 16, 2015 – Statement 696: “In a famous speech to the American Economic Association in January 2010, then Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke postulated that the Fed had no significant impact on the housing bubble or on the increase in financial leverage and that monetary policy was too blunt a tool to be used to smooth asset cycles. After emphasizing for years that low rates have the ability to boost asset prices, under what criteria can the Fed insist that it had no influence on the boom preceding the financial crisis?…

April 15, 2015 – Statement 695: “A federal judge on Tuesday approved an unusual resolution to the case: The Securities and Exchange Commission and the former Freddie Mac executives agreed “that no party is the prevailing party.”, New York Times, April 15, 2015

April 15, 2015 – Statement 694: “I’m going to frame my bank statement, which shows that Bankinter is paying me interest on my mortgage,” said a customer who lives in Madrid. “That’s financial history.”, Patricia Kowsmann and Jeannette Neumann, The Wall Street Journal

April 14, 2015 – Statement 693: “Investors need to focus on long-term strategies and long-term outcomes,” Mr. Fink said, suggesting we’re currently living in a “gambling society.”, Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times

April 14, 2015 – Statement 692: “With the low-hanging fruit from the housing bust mostly picked, Wall Street-backed buyers of real estate are increasingly turning to quantitative data analysis as a way of accelerating their search for a dwindling supply of available homes that can be transformed into rental properties…

April 14, 2015 – Statement 691: “I believe you are right that government-mandated housing policies (forced upon Fan and Fred by HUD), caused a massive, industry-wide loosening of mortgage lending underwriting standards and this helped sustain the bubble, but I believe as you note (and agree) more importantly they were the cause of the massive defaults once housing prices started to fall…

April 13, 2015 – Statement 690: “Millions of people in developed economies lack any sort of financial cushion. A 2012 survey by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority asked Americans whether they’d be able to come up with $2,000 if an unforeseen need arose; almost 40 percent said no or probably not. Nearly two-thirds did not have three months’ worth of emergency funds on which they could draw if they fell ill or became unemployed…

April 13, 2015 – Statement 689: “I think the primary reason that American homebuyers/borrowers aren’t more rational, is they pay the Realtor, mortgage lender, and appraiser (directly or indirectly) thousands of dollars and yet none of them provide them with cash flow models…

April 13, 2015 – Statement 688: “GE also wasted no time saying it wants to get out from under its designation as a “systemically important financial institution.” The SIFI label….GE was one of the first to earn the honor….This reflects its size, as well as its near-failure during the financial panic when it needed federal debt guarantees and commercial paper assistance…

April 13, 2015 – Statement 687: “I can tell you for a fact, pre-crisis, the folks at IndyMac (me included) thought we were doing both good for U.S. homeowners/borrowers, good for the economy (by supporting the government’s housing goals) and good for ourselves. It’s tough to decide what the right types and amount of home mortgages to make. Post-crisis, with the benefit of hindsight, the banking, mortgage, and consumer regulators took years and in the end they didn’t really decide…

April 13, 2015 – Statement 686: “Clearly, the SEC’s current securities fraud (disclosure) cases against the CEO’s and CFO’s of Fannie and Freddie, provide strong evidence to support your point about the non-disclosure of NTM’s (nontraditional mortgages) pre-crisis. I had no idea that by June 2008 that roughly 57% of all mortgages in the U.S. were NTM’s and I sure didn’t have any idea that Fannie, Freddie, FHA, and VA owned, insured, or guaranteed 76% of these NTMs (via whole loans or securities)…

April 13, 2015 – Statement 685: “I am FOR school testing standards and the accountability of teachers and administrators, but prosecuting them under RICO laws for cheating is wrong and un-American!!! Teachers and administrators who cheated should be fired, not put in jail. But it’s also outrageous and un-American for Andrew Young to clamor for the jailing of bankers, with no knowledge (on his part) of wrongdoing.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

April 13, 2015 – Statement 684: “Greece has never been a self-sustaining country. The U.K. has a population of about 65 million and has about 500,000 civil servants. Greece has 11 million and its civil service has 790,000 people. If you add their families, we are talking about three million people, or about 30% of Greece. What can any Greek government do about that?”, D.P. Marchessini, London (Excerpt from WSJ Letter to Editors)

April 10, 2015 – Statement 683: “Fannie and Freddie did not fully disclose their exposure to NTM (nontraditional mortgages) until after they had been taken over by a government conservator in 2008. Before the crisis, analysts, regulators, academic commentators, rating agencies and the Federal Reserve (did not understand) the scope of the NTM problem, believing it was much smaller, and that the number of traditional prime mortgages outstanding was much larger, than in fact they were…

April 10, 2015 – Statement 682: “In contrast to the commodity-flow market, summarizing for asset markets in which the item can be resold, value can depend on buyer perceptions of the expectations of others about rising or falling future values, even if such expectations are not sustainable. Smith et. al. (1998) showed that human behavior in asset-trading markets leads to dramatically different convergence results than those in commodity-flow markets, even under conditions of high transparency…

April 10, 2015 – Statement 681: “On June 24, 2004, seventy-six House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.), delivered the necessary support through a letter to President Bush, showing how much their support was linked to the affordable-housing goals. “We write as members of the House of Representatives who continually press the GSEs to do more in affordable housing,” the letter began…

April 10, 2015 – Statement 680: “Under direction of its chair, James Johnson, Fannie Mae had seen the political value of lending to low-income borrowers. In 1991, even before the enactment of the GSE Act, Fannie had made a $10 billion pledge of support for low-income housing, adapting a vehicle for reduced underwriting standards…

April 10, 2015 – Statement 679: “In June 2008, just before the crisis fully gripped the nation, there would be a moment of recognition that HUD’s policies were at fault, when the fact that many families would lose their homes was connected to the affordable-housing goals…

April 10, 2015 – Statement 678: “Before the adoption of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act (the GSE Act) in 1992 and the imposition of the affordable-housing goals, the GSEs followed conservative underwriting practices. Mortgage defaults were usually well under 1 percent, and the homeownership rate in the United States hovered around 64 percent, where it had been for almost thirty years…

April 9, 2015 – Statement 677: “Customers can utilize a Community Second Mortgage or a Down Payment Assistance Program with ditech. MyCommunityMortgage and Fannie Mae Conforming allow a 105% CLTV when using Community Seconds and Down Payment Assistance Programs (DPAs). The Community Second option combines a first mortgage that Fannie Mae purchases with a subordinate mortgage…

April 8, 2015 – Statement 676: “It is telling that Congress adopted the (Dodd-Frank) act in July 2010, six months BEFORE the FCIC’s report was issued, a clear demonstration that the Democratic Congress knew well in advance exactly what this well-controlled commission would say.”, Peter J. Wallison, “Hidden in Plain Sight, Chapter 3: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and Other Explanations for the Crisis”

April 8, 2015 – Statement 675: “I really appreciate the idea that you would consider other views. (I don’t see a lot of liberal/progressives who will even read anything that doesn’t comport with their “worldview”. In other words, they are anti the scientific method.)…

April 8, 2015 – Statement 674: “Traffic-court fines layered with escalating fees and penalties have led to driver’s license suspensions for 4.2 million Californians – or one in six drivers – pushing many low-income people deeper into poverty, a report released Wednesday by a coalition of legal aid groups found…

April 7, 2015 – Statement 673: “I am a former CPA and auditor by training (and a former CFO). I have spent a lot of time since the financial crisis trying to understand what happened and I think your book is fabulous, but still not sure we had a “massive housing bubble”…

April 7, 2015 – Statement 672: “’The problem of confirmation bias – the tendency of people to be trapped by pre-existing assumptions and to select facts that support their own views while overlooking contradictory ones – is a well-established finding of social science,’ Coll & Co. (Dean Steve Coll of the Columbia School of Journalism and author of an exhaustive report on the bogus Rolling Stone UVA rape story) write. ‘It seems to have been a factor here.’…

April 7, 2015 – Statement 671: “According to the standard anti-Bush account, when Mr. Libby became enmeshed in a federal investigation, he lied to conceal his crime and protect Mr. Cheney. This account is false in all essential respects, as Mr. Fitzgerald—since 2012 a partner in the Chicago office of the Skadden Arps law firm—had reason, as well as an ethical obligation as an officer of the court, to know…

April 6, 2015 – Statement 670: “I disagree with Mr. Isaac’s WSJ OpEd below. It makes no difference to U.S. taxpayers whether Fannie and Freddie hold capital in their legal entities (are recapitalized by the government) or the government holds it in its own coffers. While it may not be legally true, we know from the 2008 bailouts that U.S. taxpayers stand behind all of Fannie and Freddie’s mortgage guarantee and investment decisions…

March 26, 2015 – Statement 669: “We reached a resting point and my friend stopped me and demanded to know what I was doing: “Carl, that was irresponsible. You should have put in more protection.” I assured him that we were just fine. I’d been up here a number of times, and the chances that we would fall were minimal. His next words hit me hard. “Yeah,” he said, “but if I did, I’d die.” That climb changed the way I view risk forever…

March 26, 2015 – Statement 668: “Finally, someone honest says it’s not the banker’s fault!!! Rapper Slim Thug says it was his own personal decisions regarding SEX that cost him his home and hurt his net worth and credit.”

March 26, 2015 – Statement 667: “Mayor Ed Lee Faces Fire Over Who Benefits As S.F. Booms” is an article on the front page of LA Times today. I read it because with a college grad daughter living and working in SF, I have some idea of rents and housing prices…

March 25, 2015 – Statement 666: Every year the GAO goes through this exercise and observes that “the federal government is unable to determine the full extent to which improper payments occur (estimated by the GAO at $124.7 billion, a 4.5% error rate, in 2014) and reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce them.” The GAO calls this a “material weakness in internal control.””, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, March 2015

March 25, 2015 – Statement 665: “Have you noticed that Krugman has a big logic flaw in his macroeconomic/political opinions? He regularly derides free market capitalism and like Shiller believes that market participants sometimes aren’t very rational, yet constantly cites current sovereign bond market prices (e.g. declining and extremely low, current yields of U.S. Treasuries) as evidence that market participants aren’t concerned about government spending and deficits (which he wants a lot more of, at least right now)…

March 25, 2015 – Statement 664: “NewDayUSA is aggressively advertising a VA (government insured) mortgage program that it says allows veterans to borrow up to 100% of their home’s current value (pulling all of their home equity out to pay off other debts or for any reason)! How can the government offer this risky and irresponsible mortgage program? This VA program is only viable if housing prices always rise…

March 25, 2015 – Statement 663: “What the government did to our little group in Wetumpka, Alabama is un-American. This isn’t a matter of firing or arresting a few individuals. The individuals who sought to intimidate us were acting as they thought they should in a government culture that has little respect for its citizens. Many of the agents and agencies of the federal government do not understand that they are the servants of the people. They think they are our masters…

March 24, 2015 – Statement 662: “In his final appearance before an MBA audience, at the MBA 97th Annual Convention & Expo in Atlanta in 2010, Mr. Gramley, with characteristic frankness and humor, noted he was among the many U.S. economists who failed to see the warning signs of the 2007-2008 recession. ‘In 2005 and 2006 problems were brewing in the mortgage industry, and I didn’t see it coming…

March 23, 2015 – Statement 661: “The audit’s (an independent audit of The Federal Reserve’s monetary policies) goal is more fundamental: to assure that the checks and balances in a democratic government also apply to central bankers. It means figuring out how our elected representatives can effectively oversee unelected monetary “experts.”…

March 19, 2015 – Statement 660: “These days, Mr. Cohen (Sullivan & Cromwell Senior Chairman H. Rodgin Cohen) says the strained relations between government regulators and bank officials stems from “the myth of regulatory capture.”….“Recently, this supposition of regulatory capture has become as pervasive as it is false,” he said, speaking alongside panelists from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York…

March 18, 2015 – Statement 659: “Years of low-interest-rate policies from the Fed have encouraged companies in these fast-growing economies to borrow dollars because they could do it more cheaply than if they took out loans in their local currencies, like the Indian rupee or Brazilian real. So they did: By September 2014 there were $9.2 trillion of such dollar loans outside the United States, up 50 percent since 2009…

March 18, 2015 – Statement 658: “You do deals when there is demand,” said Christopher R. Donat, an analyst with the investment bank Sandler O’Neill. “And this deal indicates that there is demand out there for subprime auto paper.” It’s easy to see the attraction for investors…

March 17, 2015 – Statement 657: “I have yet to find a good explanation as to why major banks around the world all failed about the same time; especially those tied to real estate lending (like Duesseldorfer Hypothekenbank AG)…

March 17, 2015 – Statement 656: “Leslie notes that the Los Angeles school system tabulated the performance of roughly 6,000 teachers, using measures of student achievement. The best performing teacher in the whole system was a woman named Zenaida Tan. Up until that report, she was completely unheralded. The skills she possessed were invisible. Meanwhile, less important traits were measured on her evaluations (three times she was late to pick up students from recess).”, David Brooks, New York Times

March 12, 2015 – Statement 655: “But the scathing commentary led President Lyndon Johnson to distance himself from the Moynihan (later a U.S. Senator from New York) report. Scholars, fearful of being accused of racism, mostly avoided studying family structure and poverty. The taboo on careful research on family structure and poverty was broken by William Julius Wilson, an eminent black sociologist. He has praised Moynihan’s report as “a prophetic document,” for evidence is now overwhelming that family structure matters a great deal for low-income children of any color…

March 11, 2015 – Statement 654: “The 2008 financial crisis wasn’t just a problem with U.S. mortgages (and home prices). It was a problem with all types of consumer and commercial debt (and related asset prices) and not just in the U.S.. Junk bond investments experienced historically low default rates of about 1% in 2007, and yet shortly after, they exploded rocketing up over 1,300% in just two years, to roughly 13.5% by 2009.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

March 11, 2015 – Statement 653: “A great place to start is the (improper) accounting for federal lending programs which deliberately understates their risks. Readers may have noticed that every time federal student-loan subsidies expand, liberals like Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) hail it as a taxpayer windfall. She gets away with this because administrative expenses and market risk aren’t included in the loan cost estimates…

March 10, 2015 – Statement 652: “Over the past 25 years, a billion people have escaped poverty as their countries moved away from command and control, toward capitalism and freedom.”, Nobel Laureate in Economics, Gary Becker

March 10, 2015 – Statement 651: “The lesson of Darren Wilson is that there is no truth in narrative. And the lesson of Ferguson is that there is no truth in statistics. There is truth in fact. There is truth in reason. There is truth in truthfulness. Nothing less…

March 9, 2015 – Statement 650: “FHA assumed 4.2% annual, nationwide home price appreciation (HPA) in its reverse mortgage (HECM) lending model since the products inception in 1989, for more than 20 years, EVERY SINGLE YEAR, all the way through the financial crisis and much of the housing bust!!! And yet today, even with the benefit of hindsight and despite the massive HECM losses (billions of dollars) FHA incurred because of this assumption, they continue to assume 4% annual…

March 9, 2015 – Statement 649: “As always, government bank regulators’ capital and liquidity rules heavily influence bank investment decisions. Pre-crisis, very low Basel risk-based capital requirements for non-prime mortgages and private MBS lead banks to invest in these assets. The recent changes noted (in the article below) are causing the world’s banks to invest in their sovereign government’s bonds. In our case, U.S. Treasuries…

March 9, 2015 – Statement 648: “Goldman has used dividends and share buybacks to appeal to investors at a time when other elements of the bank’s business have faced challenges. When companies buy shares of their own stock on the open market, it generally increases the amount of profits attributed to every share, an important metric for investors…

March 9, 2015 – Statement 647: “The Obama Administration has had a high old time forcing big banks into big-dollar settlements without ever going to trial. So it’s worth paying special attention to the executives of the U.S. unit of Japanese bank Nomura who are refusing to settle a similar case they believe is bogus…

March 9, 2015 – Statement 646: “The fourth lesson is that fraud and near fraud can become so prevalent that they can have macroeconomic effects. “Fraud” is a legal term, and it is hard to prove. What I call “near fraud” is a moral term, and it is much easier to identify. Near frauds were rife, for example, in the way the financial industry dealt with borrowers and investors during the U.S. mortgage boom of 2003–6…

March 8, 2015 – Statement 645: “Had I been a government planner in the 1970s or early 1980s – a planner with the finest training, the highest integrity, and a most intense desire to serve my fellow citizens well—I would have counseled against directing society’s scarce resources into the production and distribution of single-sized bottled still water. My reason would have assured me of the prudence and correctness of my decision…

March 8, 2015 – Statement 644: “If we restrict our vision to the poorest countries, the same pattern emerges. Comparing the Fraser and U.N. data sets, we find that, of the poorest 25% of countries (as measured by per-capita GDP), the half that are more economically free achieve more gender equality than do the half that are less economically free…

March 6, 2015 – Statement 643: “Bank of America and Citigroup, each with more than $1.8 trillion in assets, haven’t topped a 7 percent return on equity since the financial crisis. And ROA – return on assets, which measures how much profit a bank can make for every dollar of assets it holds – has also fallen. For 10 of the largest European and U.S. banks, profit on each $100 of assets on the balance sheet fell to 22 cents last year from 81 cents in 2006…

March 5, 2015 – Statement 642: “In fairness, the (Federal Reserve) officials involved were making fast-paced decisions with incomplete information. They were caught in the fog of war, not able to take advantage of five years’ worth of hindsight. (Who among us did not say some things we wish we had not in 2009?)”, Benyamin Appelbaum, Fed in 2009, Sweating Details as Disaster Loomed, New York Times, March 5, 2015

March 4, 2015 – Statement 641: “And refusing to rush into a fire sale of OneMain worked. The $4.25 billion cash price tag to which Springleaf Holdings has agreed is much larger than the $2 billion Citi was reportedly asking for the business in 2011, even though the unit’s assets have shrunk considerably…

March 4, 2015 – Statement 640: “Many of those borrowing from the private equity shops have sprung into existence in just the last few years. Many investors smelling fat profits jumped into the distressed housing market in the middle of the crisis when the number of foreclosure filings peaked at 2.87 million homes in 2010, according to RealtyTrac…

March 3, 2015 – Statement 639: “Marks (Howard Marks co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management) said that we are not in a free market environment…he does not believe that market conditions have changed enough to warrant the interest rate reduction on the 10-year government bond from 6% eight years ago to 2% today. He said the interest rate is artificially low due to the Federal Reserve intervention…

March 3, 2015 – Statement 638: “Luck is very important according to Marks (Howard Marks, co-Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management)…..Forecasters have been very poor and consistently so, Marks said. In the Summer of 2013, forecasters unanimously predicted that rates would go up after Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke started talking about tapering…

March 3, 2015 – Statement 637: “It’s dumb for Fannie, Freddie, FHA, VA, the FDIC, or any regulated bank who is (or has access to) an experienced and scale mortgage lender and loan servicer to fire-sell nonperforming mortgages in bulk to speculative private investors…

March 2, 2015 – Statement 636: “Before the 2008 crisis, I believed, without thinking too much about it, that there was something solid at the core of our financial system. I imagined the world was governed by math — or, more specifically, by serious men in dark suits who understood the complex formulas playing out in their Bloomberg terminals. I, sadly, wasn’t alone…

March 2, 2015 – Statement 635: “The table below shows clearly that the market doesn’t respect (is materially lower than) the Fed policy makers’ own projections for 2015-2017 interest rates. Doesn’t that mean that the market doesn’t respect the Fed? If so, that disrespect seems well-deserved (given their past prediction errors) and probably healthy…

March 2, 2015 – Statement 634: “Regulators envision that the regulatory capital for the most important U.S. banks will max out at 8% to 11.5% of risk-weighted assets. Neither this level of capital, nor any practical higher level, can assure that banks would not become insolvent in a panic after a fire sale of assets…

March 2, 2015 – Statement 633: “I get pretty fired up about this new thing with the government,” said Ms. Freedom, 45, sitting outside her studio, Samadhi Center for Yoga and Meditation. “How can you have people who know nothing about yoga regulating yoga schools?”, New York Times

March 1, 2015 – Statement 632: “Yes, let’s once again advise American’s (who already have a mortgage) to take out a second mortgage on their rising home equity, and use those funds to speculate on a rental at the beach (probably with a third mortgage)!!! Have we learned nothing from the 2008 crisis?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

March 1, 2015 – Statement 631: “The big problem in California in general and Los Angeles in particular is the rising cost of government employment. According to economists Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine, California is among the few states where public employees make as much as 20% more in total compensation than comparable private sector employees…

March 1, 2015 – Statement 630: “In all three major advanced economies (U.S., Eurozone, and Japan) there should be a clear-eyed view of the moral hazard created by disproportionate focus on central banks…

March 1, 2015 – Statement 629: “With a seventh consecutive year of losses and post-bailout, 80% ownership by the British government, The Royal Bank of Scotland is clearly a Too-Big-To-Fail Bank.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

February 26, 2015 – Statement 628: “”Now is not the time to make a U-turn in holding states and school districts accountable for providing a quality education to all children,” declared Nancy Zirkin, executive director of the influential Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 20 organizations…

February 26, 2015 – Statement 627: “In my opinion, a financial crisis is not only a likely consequence of implicit (government) subsidies for risky lending but a necessary one because that is when implicit guarantees ultimately become real-life bailouts and trigger the taxpayer payments necessary to fund Washington’s longstanding lending goals…

February 24, 2015 – Statement 626: “Add debt to the mix, however, and you turbocharge the returns. Thanks to leverage, the net assets of the middle 60 percent of (U.S.) households, including the effect of debt (mortgages), increased 5.95 percent (annually, after inflation) in those years (2001 to 2007), far better than the 4.03 percent gain for (U.S.) households in the top 1 percent…

February 23, 2015 – Statement 625: “As Nobel Economic Laureate F.A. Hayek said in The Road to Serfdom: socialism always leads to “the end of the truth”, totalitarianism, and failure…always. Venezuela is a modern-day example.”, Mike Perry

February 23, 2015 – Statement 624: “FOR two generations, Americans ate fewer eggs and other animal products because (government) policy makers told them that fat and cholesterol were bad for their health. Now both dogmas have been debunked in quick succession…

February 20, 2015 – Statement 623: “The Federal Reserve has come to view inflation expectations as playing an important role in what happens to prices.”, Justin Lahart, “The Age-Old Inflation Issue”, The Wall Street Journal

February 20, 2015 – Statement 622: “This has happened because the mortgage industry has effectively been nationalized (80+% of mortgages flow through a handful of Too Big to Fail Banks, 90% or so of mortgages are insured or guaranteed by the government, and the totalitarian Consumer Financial Protection Bureau arbitrarily fines and scares the heck out of lenders)…

February 20, 2015 – Statement 621: “Another cause of delays was requirements that homeowners prove the factors causing their hardships — deaths, job losses, divorces. But last year, Keep Your Home California changed the rules to require only that homeowners show that their mortgage balance was at least 20% more than their home value.”, Scott Reckard, “Funding for California victims of housing crash trickles down”, Los Angeles Times

February 20, 2015 – Statement 620: “Increasingly, schools are being required (by the federal government) to institutionalize prevention, to control the risk of harm, and to take regulatory action to protect the environment. Academic administrators are welcoming these incentives, which harmonize with their risk-averse, compliance-driven, and rights-indifferent worldviews and justify large expansions of the powers and size of the administration generally.”, Harvard Law Prof. Janet Halley writing in the Harvard Law Review Forum, Feb. 18, 2015:

February 19, 2015 – Statement 619: “A Pew survey finds the typical middle class family could only replace 21 days of income with readily accessible funds. What is even scarier perhaps is that the same survey found that even if these families liquidated all of their retirement savings and investments they could only replace 119 days of income. Nothing underwriters don’t see all the time, right?,” Excerpt from a February 2015 Mortgage Industry Newsletter

February 19, 2015 – Statement 618: “It’s good while the party lasts, but it’s exposing exactly the kinds of people to a negative economic shock that you don’t want to expose,” said Amir Sufi, a University of Chicago finance professor. Subprime borrowers, who pay much higher interest rates on loans than customers with good credit scores, are more prone to missing payments in periods of economic distress, said Mr. Sufi…

February 19, 2015 – Statement 617: “Second, students and parents deserve a right-to-know law. Imagine if families could evaluate a college, not based on luxurious dormitories or lavish student activity centers, but on the salaries alumni earn 10 years out of college? Or graduation rates by family income? Every for-profit, nonprofit, two-year and four-year college should release these statistics…

February 17, 2015 – Statement 616: “Again, I do not believe that alleged (and so far unproven) fraudulent or otherwise deficient securities disclosures were a cause of the U.S. housing bubble/bust and 2008 financial crisis. Sophisticated investors, bankers, insurers, rating agencies, economists, the FED, government regulators, and just about everyone was fooled by the housing bubble (and other asset bubbles) and severely underestimated lending and investment risks pre-crisis…

February 17, 2015 – Statement 615: “America is hungry for authenticity and honesty and fiercely resents its absence from places where it should be. A longtime reader of this column, age 84, emailed recently to say the heartbreak of his life the past few years has been witnessing the daily corruption of all information…

February 17, 2015 – Statement 614: “The government has also fought every discovery request made by the Fannie and Freddie shareholder. Officials at the Treasury and F.H.F.A. claim that disclosure of documents relating to their actions would destabilize the economy and financial markets and raise mortgage rates. Really? The documents the judge has ordered the government to produce were created three to seven years ago. How could they unsettle the markets now?”, Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times

February 17, 2015 – Statement 613: “More intense regulatory and technology requirements have raised the barriers to entry higher than at any other time in modern history,” said Mr. Blankfein. “This is an expensive business to be in, if you don’t have the market share in scale…

February 17, 2015 – Statement 612: “Capitalism needs visionaries, but its reputation suffers when companies (like Tesla) worth billions soak middle-class taxpayers for profits. Turn off the taxpayer tap, Mr. Musk. It would earn you more friends for the long haul.”, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

February 17, 2015 – Statement 611: “Which brings us to the confrontation between Greece and its creditors. You can argue that Greece brought its problems on itself, although it had a lot of help from irresponsible lenders…

February 11, 2015 – Statement 610: “Today, just five banks, all Too Big to Fail, control 83.2% of the U.S. mortgage market and about 90% of U.S. mortgages are insured or guaranteed by the federal government: FHA, VA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. That’s not a free and fair marketplace, it’s a mortgage lending oligopoly tacked on to a government mortgage insurance business…

February 11, 2015 – Statement 609: “It’s not too often that I agree with the head of the AFL-CIO and former FDIC Chair Bair, but I do here. The Too Big to Fail Banks and the executives who move back and forth between them and high-level government positions are the epitome of crony capitalism.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

February 11, 2015 – Statement 608: “Buried in the White House budget is a $21.8 billion writedown on the government’s student loan portfolio that no one seems to want to mention – perhaps because taxpayers can expect more red ink to come…

February 10, 2015 – Statement 607: “Housing prices were sliding, subprime mortgage lenders were declaring bankruptcy, and financial markets were going haywire — and Eliopoulos was saddled with some extremely risky bets the nation’s largest public pension fund had made on real estate. With the portfolio poised for disaster, he had two choices: Hit the brakes or step on the gas…

February 9, 2015 – Statement 606: “Yes, let’s once again advise American’s (who already have a mortgage) to take out a second mortgage on their rising home equity, and use those funds to speculate in the stock market!!! Have we learned nothing from the 2008 crisis?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

February 9, 2015 – Statement 605: “California is a leader in technology, home to the most innovative companies and a remarkable array of talent and great universities, and the harbinger of demographic and cultural trends. But it is also home to some of the nation’s most difficult problems: Between 2004-13, the population grew 2.25 million, while the number on assistance programs grew by 2.9 million…

February 9, 2015 – Statement 604: “Our WMD commission ultimately determined that the intelligence community was “dead wrong” about Saddam’s weapons. But as I recall, no one in Washington political circles offered significant disagreement with the intelligence community before the invasion. The National Intelligence Estimate was persuasive—to the president, to Congress and to the media…

February 9, 2015 – Statement 603: “The case always looked fishy. Justice sued in 2013, though the facts about S&P ratings on mortgage-backed securities issued from 2004 and 2007 were known for years. And Justice chose not to charge S&P’s main rival Moody’s, though Moody’s had put an identical rating on most of the securities mentioned. (But unlike S&P) Moody’s never downgraded U.S. debt. A key piece of evidence was an affidavit (under oath) from Harold McGraw III, the chairman of S&P’s parent, reporting that three days after the downgrade an angry Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told him on the phone that the firm’s conduct would be “looked at very carefully.” Mr. Geithner denies (not under oath) making a threatening call, but Treasury records show the call occurred within minutes after Mr. Geithner left a meeting with President Obama…

February 6, 2015 – Statement 602: “The investigation, apparently, had nothing to do with the acts of bravery that earned Golsteyn his medal. Instead, according to the Washington Post, which cited officials familiar with the case, it concerned “an undisclosed violation of the military’s rules of engagement in combat for killing a known enemy fighter and bomb maker.” The investigation stretched on for nearly two years, during which time the Army effectively put Golsteyn’s career on ice. In 2014, Golsteyn and his lawyer were informed that the investigation was finally complete. No charges were filed…

February 5, 2015 – Statement 601: “This quantitative easing keeps long-term interest rates lower and allows the federal government to “pay interest to itself” on a larger portion of the national debt. Also, price stability has been officially defined, in the best Orwellian tradition, as 2% inflation, thereby promising that the real burden of the national debt will decline annually by 2%…

February 5, 2015 – Statement 600: “It was on such executioners that Chris Kyle trained his sights. Messrs. Maher and Moore may want to hold up the Iraq war as evidence of American perfidy, but as the atrocities of Islamic State are again reminding us, the moral balance in that war was exactly the opposite. No wonder millions of Americans admire Kyle and are flocking to see the movie that treats him like a patriot in full.” Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

February 4, 2015 – Statement 599: “I hope next year we’ll have abolished Fannie and Freddie…it was a great mistake to push lower-income people into housing they couldn’t afford and couldn’t really handle once they had it. I had been to sanguine about Fannie and Freddie.”, Barney Frank (D-Mass.), former chair of the House Financial Services Committee (In an interview with Larry Kudlow on CNBC, August 2010)

February 4, 2015 – Statement 598: “…although the private securitization system challenged Fannie and Freddie during these years, the NTMs (nontraditional mortgages) securitized by the private sector were only 24 percent of the NTMs outstanding in 2008, showing that the PMBS (private mortgage-backed securities) and the financial institutions that held them were not the major source of the bubble or the crisis.”, Peter J. Wallison

February 3, 2015 – Statement 597: “Unfortunately, some of the largest financial institutions were victims of the same misapprehensions as regulators and academics about the quality of mortgages outstanding and the safety of the mortgage market, but they have been blamed by the government, the media, and ultimately the American people for excessive risk-taking. This view, a product of both the absence of accurate data and the government’s efforts to avoid blame…

February 3, 2015 – Statement 596: “Expecting Mel Watt and the federal government to responsibly manage government finance for Fannie and Freddie housing is the management equivalent of placing the honey badger as the bee-hive supervisor and expecting honey yields to increase…

February 2, 2015 – Statement 595: “A federally-insured bank deposit account is just about the most commodity-like product I can think of. It can’t be seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted. It’s intangible. It’s exactly the same at every financial institution (unless you consider poor service a differentiator). Economic theory would say there should be almost no difference in rates/terms for depositors, from one bank to another…

February 2, 2015 – Statement 594: “Recently, the new President of our local Mortgage Bankers Association and I went to meet with our Congressman. As part of the presentation, I had printed off the 1,888 pages of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ‘Know Before You Owe’ rules for August 2015, and a sample loan application (90 pages for an FHA loan). We were both surprised to see his reaction…

February 2, 2015 – Statement 593: “The odds of winning the New York Lotto jackpot are, of course, worse (one in 22 million on a $1 play), but the housing lotteries have daunting odds of their own…

February 2, 2015 – Statement 592: “A mortgage product would not exist or at least for very long if there was no consumer demand for it. Now consumers should be smart enough to know how to budget money, pay bills on time, sufficiently save for retirement, and not over extend themselves by locking into a monthly housing payment which puts them in a position where they are living pay check to paycheck…

February 2, 2015 – Statement 591: “If these findings hold up to scrutiny by other scholars, they alter our picture of the housing bubble. Specifically, they question the notion that the main engine of the bubble was the abusive peddling of mortgages to the uninformed poor…

February 2, 2015 – Statement 590: “Every subgroup of practicing lawyers examined by the study was more liberal than the general population. Public defenders and government lawyers generally were particularly liberal, as were women and the graduates of top law schools. But prosecutors and law firm partners were pretty liberal, too…

February 2, 2015 – Statement 589: “…the three (9th Circuit) judges expressed frustration and anger that California state judges were not cracking down on prosecutorial misconduct. By law, federal judges are supposed to defer to the decisions of state court judges…

January 31, 2015 – Statement 588: “Most institutions yield to OCR’s pressure (losing federal funds from the Education Department) without significant dissent. But at Harvard, 28 law professors—including liberal luminaries Elizabeth Bartholet, Alan Dershowitz, Nancy Gertner, Janet Halley, Duncan Kennedy and Charles Ogletree —signed an open letter, published in the Boston Globe…

January 30, 2015 – Statement 587: “…the Fed’s actions have resulted in savings to Treasury on all of its debt issuance. Those savings have come at a significant cost to investors as the Fed’s actions have resulted in an income transfer from savers to borrowers, including the Treasury…

January 30, 2015 – Statement 586: “Now, you would think some of these parties (especially the government and mortgage lenders) would have…learned the very painful lessons of the 2008 financial crisis and not repeat them, but they have not. Why? Because as Upton Sinclair said: ‘it’s difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it.’”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 29, 2015 – Statement 585: “But Watt (Melvin L. Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency), a former longtime House Democrat, said the agency had taken steps to make sure that a loan with a 3% down payment “is just as safe” as a loan with a 10% down payment.”, The Los Angeles Times

January 29, 2015 – Statement 584: “In these pages I argue that, but for the housing policies of the U.S. Government during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, there would not have been a financial crisis in 2008. Moreover, because of the government’s extraordinary role in bringing on the crisis, it is invalid to treat it as an inherent part of a capitalist or free market system, or to use it as a pretext for greater government control of the financial system…

January 28, 2015 – Statement 583: “Academic economists generally agree that the mortgage meltdown during the recent financial crisis was in large part a consequence of government “affordable housing” policies…

January 28, 2015 – Statement 582: “Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency blamed for helping inflate the subprime mortgage bubble, has settled accusations that it orchestrated a similar fraud years after the bubble burst…

January 26, 2015 – Statement 581: “Krugman’s right that the Troica (European Commission, European Central Bank, and IMF) used wildly optimistic and unrealistic assumptions when they bailed out Greece, but if they had used realistic ones (reflecting Greece’s entrenched socialistic political and economic system), they would have left Greece to default and fend for itself…

January 26, 2015 – Statement 580: “Low-down-payment mortgages have long been available. The Federal Housing Administration insures mortgages with down payments as low as 3.5%…The trend has picked up since mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , which buy most mortgages from lenders, recently lowered the minimum down payments they will accept…

January 26, 2015 – Statement 579: “There is something nearly Orwellian in this refusal to call things by their names. If we say that the terrorists are not radical Islamists, we might as well say that truth is lie, that right is wrong, that black is white”, Fleming Rose, foreign editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten

January 21, 2015 – Statement 578: “It isn’t often that we praise Eric Holder , but the Attorney General deserves it for reining in the increasingly abusive practice of “civil forfeiture,” which is the polite term for policing for profit…

January 21, 2015 – Statement 577: “If the Obama administration was a publicly-traded company, the S.E.C. would charge them with securities disclosure fraud for their material, misleading and omitted disclosures re. radical Islam’s clear link to worldwide terrorism…

January 21, 2015 – Statement 576: “When climate reporters robotically insist, as they did again this week, that the 2000s represent the hottest period in the rather skimpy, 134-year historical record, they are merely reiterating that the pre-1998 warming happened. No clear trend up or down has been apparent since then. The bigger problem, of course, is that evidence of warming is not evidence of what causes warming…

January 20, 2015 – Statement 575: “Amira Nader graduated from Columbia University in 2010 with a master’s degree in acting and nearly $190,000 in debt. She now works for a public radio station in New York City and waits tables on the side…

January 20, 2015 – Statement 574: “Check out Gretchen’s NY Times article today. The S.E.C.’s own lawyers/experts can’t properly interpret their own regulations!!!! As a result, they have decided until they figure it out, they are going to stop issuing “no action letters” related to this issue…

January 20, 2015 – Statement 573: “Every American’s basic civil liberties are critically endangered by this hysterical, politically inspired drive to demean our financial markets and convict or at least disgrace targeted individuals. That the principal defendant has been a disruptive and unsettling innovator in the usually staid financial world makes it all the more important to be vigilant about possible abuse of fair procedures…

January 19, 2015 – Statement 572: “There is something grotesque about public workers fighting for benefits whose provision will hurt the public. Citizens who vote Democratic may choose not to acknowledge the perversity out of party loyalty. But over the years a few well-known Democrats have sided against the public-sector unions…

January 19, 2015 – Statement 571: “The data scientists focus on finding reliable correlations in the data rather than trying to determine why, for instance, proper capitalization may be a hint of creditworthiness…Yet the technology is so new that the potential is unproved…

January 15, 2015 – Statement 570: “Well, at least you can sue for defamation the two lawyers and the woman who made the false charges. No, you can’t, your lawyer tells you. They leveled the accusation in a court document, which protects them against the defamation lawsuit as a result of the so-called litigation privilege…

January 15, 2015 – Statement 569: “This company has been a fortress company. It has delivered to clients and its diversification is the reason why it’s had less volatility of earnings and was able to go through the crisis and never lost money ever, not one quarter.”, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chairman and CEO, January 2015

January 13, 2015 – Statement 568: “In case after case, negotiations followed a familiar script: The government demanded an eye-popping penalty, and the Wall Street firm briefly dug in its heels. But S.&P., one of three major agencies offering advice to investors about the quality of debt investments and the only one to face a Justice Department lawsuit, stood out as the rare company to actually follow through and fight the government…

January 13, 2015 – Statement 567: “Paradoxically, the opposite may be true. Participating in (financial literacy) programs can increase risky behavior as people gain a misplaced confidence in their ability to make financial decisions. The chasm between the skill levels of most Americans and what the marketplace demands is just too wide…

January 13, 2015 – Statement 566: “For six years, the market has said Citi is worth more dead, or broken up, than alive. If management can’t forcefully rebut that notion – something it has so far been unable to do – it should start listening to its owners…

January 13, 2015 – Statement 565: “After contributing to the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., bonds tied to the riskiest home loans have returned 75 percent since 2010, topping speculative-grade corporate debt for three straight years.”, January 2015, Mortgage Industry Newsletter

January 12, 2015 – Statement 564: “In a word, the University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed…

January 12, 2015 – Statement 563: “There’s nothing wrong with that, until these exporters start buying dollars to raise the value of the dollar relative to their own currencies, thus subsidizing their exports and taxing their imports. In the United States, the result is persistent trade deficits that have been a drag on growth and jobs …

January 12, 2015 – Statement 562: “One of those self-taught jailhouse lawyers, Derrick Hamilton, stood in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Friday as his 1991 murder conviction was vacated. The hearing capped more than two decades of his filing motions, sending letters and securing affidavits arguing his innocence…

January 6, 2015 – Statement 561: “To meet the ever-increasing goals (government affordable housing), Fannie and Freddie had to reduce their underwriting standards. In fact, that was explicitly HUD’s purpose, as this statement by the department – one among many – makes clear:

January 6, 2015 – Statement 560: ”Mortgage lenders have to be crazy or desperate (or both) to continue to originate FHA and VA loans, where they now subject themselves to millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, maybe even billions in arbitrary fines or penalties from the government under the False Claims Act…

January 6, 2015 – Statement 559: “Some of the worst-performing funds in 2014 were ones managed by John A. Paulson, who rose to fame by making billions of dollars from a shrewd bet against the United States housing market in the run-up to the financial crisis. But ever since, Mr. Paulson’s $19 billion firm, Paulson & Company, has posted uneven returns…

January 6, 2015 – Statement 558: “Bill Gates was unfortunately wrong. Of course Too Big To Fail Banks can survive the digital age, but only because government guarantees (deposit insurance, government mortgages, historical bailouts of big banks) and the voluminous and costly regulation that follows, massively distort the marketplace preventing new and innovative digital competitors from emerging and/or succeeding.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

January 6, 2015 – Statement 557: “On paper it made sense (the experts’ advice to beware of bonds the past three or four years). In portfolios, not so much. In fact, the exact opposite occurred: Inflation failed to materialize, interest rates went down, and bond holders made money on their investments.”, New York Times

January 6, 2015 – Statement 556: “In the absence of anything resembling government stimulus, a modern economist may wonder how the depression of 1920-21 ever ended. Oddly enough, deflation turned out to be a tonic. Prices – and, critically, wages too – were allowed to fall, and they fell far enough to entice consumers, employers and investors to part with their money…

January 6, 2015 – Statement 555: “No law or logic says managers and shareholders won’t err in their pursuit of shareholder wealth – in fact, they certainly will: Knowledge is imperfect, the environment is competitive, the future is unpredictable.”, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

January 4, 2015 – Statement 554: “Another major impediment to reform is that many in Congress are passionate about prudent lending only when house prices go down. Prior to the housing-market collapse, Congress had few misgivings about relaxing lending standards to accommodate borrowing by those with poor credit records and low down payments…

January 4, 2015 – Statement 553: “Had the corporate income tax, meant as a temporary measure, been repealed when the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 and a personal income tax established, the country would have been spared a great deal of political and economic grief…

December 31, 2014 – Statement 552: “Twenty years later, I still don’t see what purpose a Criminal Grand Jury serves. We might as well have been a Jury for one of Stalin’s show trials…

December 31, 2014 – Statement 551: “Regarding your piece on whether or not we’d recommend a young person to get into the mortgage business: I have a long time business friend, he retired after a 30+ year career as regional manager for a NYSE financial services firm. He became a one man mortgage brokerage licensed in two states, and over 10 years he had 10 audits…

December 30, 2014 – Statement 550: “The ROEs got so convoluted and fucked-up because the politicians were interfering in the process. The rules are drawn up by lawyers who are trying to protect the admirals and the generals from the politicians, they’re not written by the people who are worried about the guys on the ground getting shot…

December 30, 2014 – Statement 549: “…prompted by record low interest rates, the British government is planning to (refinance) some of the debts it racked up over hundreds of years, dating as far back as the South Sea Bubble. Of course, much of the original debt has been eroded by (monetary) inflation (created by government central bankers)…

December 30, 2014 – Statement 548: “The U.S. has a large trade deficit of billions of dollars per week with China because they undervalue their currency. The undervalued RMB makes Chinese-manufactured goods inexpensive to Americans, and it makes American goods expensive to Chinese…

December 21, 2014 – Statement 547: “This is the hazardous cycle that led to the financial crisis. So why are we repeating it? Because the administration, with help from the media, has convinced the public that greedy Wall Street banks were to blame for the disaster, not Fannie and Freddie and their “mission” regulators in Washington…

December 21, 2014 – Statement 546: “One night last week at the restaurant Rosa Mexicano in Washington, as margaritas flowed and trays of shrimp and chicken skewers were passed, the network between contingency-fee lawyers and Democratic attorneys general was on vivid display…

December 17, 2014 – Statement 545: “Was all this dry and abstruse (legal) stuff known to Sen. Feinstein at the time that she presented the CIA report and wrote the six-page aria that constitutes her foreword? Consider that in 2006 she co-sponsored an amendment to the Military Commissions Act that would have classified waterboarding as torture; the amendment was voted down…

December 15, 2014 – Statement 544: “Without bipartisanship and testimony, the report’s claims cannot be trusted. CIA directors from both parties…have rejected many of the report’s factual findings and its central claim that the CIA systematically misled the White House and the president and covered up the abuse of terrorists…

December 15, 2014 – Statement 543: “The bigger point is that there are no young people coming into this (the mortgage) business…We used to get massive requests for interns, and now we rarely get asked. As originators, we used to brag about our industry at dinner parties, and I doubt that is happening any more…

December 15, 2014 – Statement 542: “Each year, our survey has asked: “On average over the next 10 years, how much do you expect the value of your property to change each year?” In 2004, a boom year, the average answer was a gain of 12.6 percent, but in succeeding years the figure began to decline, bottoming at 4 percent in 2012…

December 15, 2014 – Statement 541: “The solution to Stockholm’s housing shortage is obvious; get well-intended government (mostly) out of the housing business. If you deregulate and let the competitive marketplace meet the demand for housing via market rents and increased housing stock, this problem will fix itself!!!” Mike Perry

December 12, 2014 – Statement 540: “It’s a good thing for the author of this WSJ article that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau doesn’t have jurisdiction over bad reporting about mortgages (at least I don’t think so?) or she might be in for a big, arbitrary fine for misleading consumers…

December 12, 2014 – Statement 539: “When people stopped trusting any institutions or having any values, they could easily be spun into a conspiratorial vision of the world…..At the core of this strategy is the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth. This notion allows the Kremlin to replace facts with disinformation…

December 12, 2014 – Statement 538: “I think its un-American: anti-free markets and fair competition, if you are in business and you lobby the government for any other reason than to ask them to please leave you and your industry (mostly) alone. Crony capitalism; businesses that are dependent on government favors (revenues, subsidies, guarantees, monopolies, regulation, etc.) is too rampant these days…

December 12, 2014 – Statement 537: “It is beyond irresponsible to restart these affordable-housing allocations without first dealing with the underlying problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.)

December 12, 2014 – Statement 536: “While the bureaucrats at the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission do not like this articulation of the law of insider trading, the courts’ interpretation of the law is sensible and sound public policy…

December 12, 2014 – Statement 535: “I think about my father. He had a fifth-grade education. A great believer in our country. He wouldn’t recognize it today. The loss of freedom that we have imposed by the arrogance of an all too powerful central government, ignoring the wisdom and writing of Founders…

December 11, 2014 – Statement 534: “While Buffett notes he “knew nothing about operating a farm,” he enlisted the help of a son — who was an avid farmer himself – and the two estimated the return on the investment would be 10% annually…

December 11, 2014 – Statement 533: “Some studies have shown that moving from a 5% down payment to a 3% down payment doesn’t result in many more defaults. About 0.4% of borrowers in 2011 who made down payments of 3% to 5% on loans backed by Fannie Mae have defaulted – no more than borrowers who made down payments of 5% to 10%, according to the Urban Institute.”, Wall Street Journal

December 11, 2014 – Statement 532: “A unanimous three-judge panel (of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) concluded that Mr. Bharara (U.S. Attorney) never presented enough evidence that the two men broke the law, and that Richard Sullivan, the federal judge who presided over the case, had made egregious errors in law in his charge to the jury…

December 11, 2014 – Statement 531: “That is a fair operational and analytical question (effectiveness in intelligence gathering) for the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Democratic majority to raise and argue. Likewise, it can and should be debated whether America should ever again use such methods to prevent terrorist attacks…

December 10, 2014 – Statement 530: “I am surprised that the U.S. is auctioning off seized Bitcoins for tens of millions of dollars. Don’t these government auctions confirm Bitcoins status as a digital currency? Otherwise, how would it be ethical for the federal government to auction off something that they believe has little-to-no value and/or intend to later destroy, through regulation or enforcement?”, Mike Perry

December 10, 2014 – Statement 529: “It’s pretty simple, there is too much “short-termism” and financial gimmicks (lack of investing for the future, excessive leverage, share buybacks, etc.) in the public capital markets and it is hurting employment and the economy. That’s why Dell went private. The SEC needs to step up and change the voting rules. If you haven’t owned a company’s shares for say three years, you can’t vote them…

December 9, 2014 – Statement 528: “With each of my…caveats coming up short in an answer to my earlier question: “Can a debt crisis be cured with more debt?” it is difficult to envision a return to normalcy within my lifetime…I suspect future generations will be asking current policymakers…How could they? How could policymakers have allowed so much debt to be created in the first place…

December 9, 2014 – Statement 527: “Apollo, which bought Banco Santander SA ’s real-estate service in January, will manage the disposal and sale of 44,089 properties and real-estate loans worth about €14 billion over seven years…

December 9, 2014 – Statement 526: “Overall, about $4 trillion in deposits at banks in the U.S. were uninsured, covering more than 3.5 million accounts, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.”, Wall Street Journal

December 9, 2014 – Statement 525: “But monetary policy played a role in the search for yield and why investors were buying a lot of these bad mortgage-backed securities. And we’ve had the same dynamic for five years now with the near-zero interest-rate policies. And the hunt for yield is still very much alive, it’s in different places now…

December 9, 2014 – Statement 524: “This is what I’ve called the risk of the new mediocre: a combination of low growth and low inflation, which is bad news for countries where debt-to-GDP ratios are close to 100%.”, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

December 9, 2014 – Statement 523: “Making the right campaign contributions are becoming as important to a company as its research and development budget, and federal-compliance lawyers will soon outnumber patent lawyers. Fully implemented, (President) Obama ’s influence economy…

December 4, 2014 – Statement 522: “It’s bad for some Americans and our economy, that our Federal financial regulators have effectively barred banks (and others) from providing financing against a homeowner’s equity, unless they can currently document an income (“Ability-to-Pay” rules). What if they need those funds to go back to school and/or start a new career? What if they need those funds…

December 4, 2014 – Statement 521: “This is the legacy of the Federal Reserve. This is the legacy of Ben Bernanke, who was rewarded by President Obama with a second term at the Fed despite the fact he testified before Congress in September 2005, assuring the American people there was no housing bubble, but later the bubble burst…

December 4, 2014 – Statement 520: “California Governor Jerry Brown recently advocated 3/4ths of a UC education (three years instead of four), as one idea to reduce costs (rather than address unsustainable public pensions and pay) and the U.K.’s nationalized healthcare regulator says home births are better. They claim not because its 40% cheaper than a hospital birth, but because they’re safer…

December 4, 2014 – Statement 519: “We live in a nation that incarcerates a larger percentage of its population than any other industrialized nation on Earth. We have emptied our public hospitals, mental health wards and drug treatment facilities, and filled up our prisons. We treat people who commit crimes with a brutality…

December 3, 2014 – Statement 518: “Such policies (central bank policies to promote monetary inflation) are not cost-free. They encourage risk taking among investors searching for yield, potentially leading to malinvestment. They affect the distribution of income and wealth between the less affluent, who are most affected by low returns on bank deposits…

December 3, 2014 – Statement 517: “Public pensions are addicted to risk and, because they are effectively “too big to fail,” require an intervention….Calpers, the largest public pension plan, holds about 75% of its portfolio in stocks and other risky assets, such as real estate, private equity…

December 3, 2014 – Statement 516: “…Gresham’s law, holds that bad money drives out good. Mr. von NotHaus has instilled in the government the contrary fear – that good money in the form of silver dollars will drive out the bad money issued by the Federal Reserve…

December 2, 2014 – Statement 515: “The New York Times Editorial Board’s, “Homeownership and Wealth Creation” got it half right. Homeownership (with a mortgage) can be risky, but taking those risks has historically, over-time allowed average Americans to build significant wealth vs. renting…

December 2, 2014 – Statement 514: “If one in seven appraisals are currently inflating home values by 20% or more, why aren’t Fannie, Freddie, FHA, and VA stepping up lender buybacks and instead recently announced policies that act to reduce them? And why aren’t the banking regulators doing more than “reviewing the issue”? I will tell you why…

December 2, 2014 – Statement 513: “When economic activity was organized according to the principles of property, contract, and liability, a society could tolerate peaceably a variety of such life-styles because those who conducted more costly patterns of life would pay for them…

December 2, 2014 – Statement 512: “Why does the government have such a pathetic record at guaranteeing other people’s debts? It isn’t that Washington wasn’t warned…

December 2, 2014 – Statement 511: “There are serious potential conflicts of interest…the central bank used its authority under the Federal Reserve Act to provide assistance to financial institutions that were having liquidity problems. Many of these firms – bank holding companies, banks and their nonbank subsidiaries – are regulated directly or indirectly by the Fed. Their failure could have been seen as regulatory failure by the Fed…

December 2, 2014 – Statement 510: “Bank holdings of Treasurys rose by $71 billion in the third quarter, to $345 billion, according to last week’s quarterly banking profile from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. That 26% upswing from the previous quarter marked the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit-percentage growth in bank Treasury portfolios…

December 2, 2014 – Statement 509: “Last time I went to the SEC’s website, I could still find the 2011 press release the SEC issued when they sued me (and another they issued where they spun my 2012 settlement as a “victory”), despite not proving a single allegation against me and despite the fact that every single SEC allegation heard on its merits by the court was dismissed on summary judgment as a matter law and undisputed fact…

December 2, 2014 – Statement 508: “Lessons learned: Research corporate directors carefully, looking for ways to exert pressure. Make banks go public with their pledges. “Their tactic is to say, ‘We’ll shoot for outstanding [ratings from regulators].’ But they aren’t saying how,” she noted. So she demands detailed commitments to mortgages, small-business loans, affordable housing…

December 1, 2014 – Statement 507: “I think a majority…a big majority are either people who pulled all or most of the equity out like the Coronels, put little to nothing down and didn’t want to stay in a negative equity situation, or were speculating on real estate…none of these people are mortgage victims in my book and neither were the lenders/investors…

December 1, 2014 – Statement 506: “With help from advocates for low-income areas, the couple (the Coronels, also see blog Statements #504 and #505) were able to qualify for a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration based on their Social Security earnings, his payments from a pension plan and contributions from two other people living in the house.”, A. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times

November 26, 2014 – Statement 505: “I’m no detective, but it looks like they (the Coronels) had themselves a really generous ATM machine…This is so typical, it’s tough to stomach. You’ll never see this side of the story in the media, but the Elizabeth Warrens of the world make a living off this narrative.”, Anonymous Reader of Blog Posting #504

November 25, 2014 – Statement 504: “Do Scott Reckard and the L.A. Times have a real mortgage victim here? The Coronel’s started with a $6,329 first trust deed mortgage when they bought their home back in 1994 and pulled over $350,000 in cash out of their home in 11 different mortgage transactions…

November 24, 2014 – Statement 503: “Some have wondered how consumers, bankers, and MBS investors around the developed world could rationally think pre-crisis home prices would continue to rise. The public words and deeds of their Central Bankers (of the E.U. and U.S.) make abundantly clear that THEY are the ones responsible for creating and ingraining long-term, rational expectations of monetary inflation in the prices of goods, services, and assets; such as stocks, bonds, and homes.”, Mike Perry

November 24, 2014 – Statement 502: “As of 2013, $198 billion in unfunded liabilities for California’s 130 public pensions, up from just $6.3 billion only 10 years ago!!! The population of California is about 38 million, so this unfunded liability is over $5,000 per person (every man, woman and child). That scares the hell out of me, for the futures of our children, grandchildren and our state. How about you?” Mike Perry

November 21, 2014 – Statement 501: “It’s ridiculous that retirees (and others) with enough liquid assets to pay off their mortgage in full and with low Loan-to-Value Ratios and excellent credit can’t get a mortgage today. The Federal Government’s ban on all no-income documentation loans is wrong and hurts Americans and the economy.”, Mike Perry, Former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

November 21, 2014 – Statement 500: “The economic crisis of 2008-09 was similar to the crisis that triggered the Great Depression. This time, foreign monetary authorities had purchased trillions of dollars in U.S. public debt, including nearly $1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities issued by two government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…

November 21, 2014 – Statement 499: “A critique of rent-seeking and political cronyism is well taken, and echoes from the left to libertarians. But if abuse of government power is the problem, increasing government power is a most unlikely solution. If we increase the top federal income-tax rate to 90%, will that not just dramatically increase the demand for lawyers, lobbyists, loopholes, connections, favors and special deals? Inequality warriors think not…

November 21, 2014 – Statement 498: “But for reasons that economists and policy makers are struggling to understand, wages have continued growing by only about 2% annually. This indicates that, despite a labor market that is clearly tightening, companies don’t have to pay up to attract workers…

November 21, 2014 – Statement 497: “With 10 million fewer Americans working full-time today than six years ago, it is not in the nation’s economic interest for Washington regulators to cause good-paying, full-time jobs to be eliminated. This overreach is just one of many in a regulatory environment that has become a major drag on the U.S. economy…

November 21, 2014 – Statement 496: “My company estimates that the $58 billion in annual interest income lost by seniors over the past six years would have boosted GDP by $115 billion a year during this period. In a $17 trillion economy that amounts to an additional 0.7% of GDP growth, by no means inconsequential – a 1% increase in GDP typically leads to an increase of more than a million jobs.”, Charles Schwab

November 19, 2014 – Statement 495: “Lenders quickly tightened their standards beginning in 2007, sending much more of business to the agency, and the FHA has shouldered large losses to mortgages made between then and 2009, when it tightened its own standards and oversight. In part because of those losses, the FHA required a $1.7 billion infusion from the U.S. Treasury in 2013, which was its first bailout in 79 years.” Wall Street Journal

November 19, 2014 – Statement 494: “As a reminder, only 25% of a VA (mortgage) loan is federally guaranteed which reportedly limits some lender participation. To that point, at the MBA conference last week HUD Secretary Castro stated that the 25% limitation ‘leaves a lot of small lenders awfully exposed and reluctant to offer veterans credit under this initiative.’”, November 2014 Mortgage Industry Newsletter

November 19, 2014 – Statement 493: “Here’s my 2 cents on raising LTVs. I can’t stand the fact that we are even debating this idea. My issue is that if you lower the required down payment, you will have more potential homeowners, thus spurring on economic growth, yadda, yadda, yadda. These buyers couldn’t even save 5% for a down payment. What are they going to do about the increased costs of home ownership versus renting? Home maintenance, yard, increased energy bills, etc…

November 19, 2014 – Statement 492: “The old saying about skin in the game is all too true. With the four components of a loan being income, credit, property, and funds, taking the skin out of it makes the rest of the loan a far greater risk than say a 50% no doc loan, there are simply a number of other type loan products that could and should be reintroduced but in this current political environment those aren’t cool…

November 19, 2014 – Statement 491: “The report also tracked affordability by area code within L.A. County. They found that in the 626 – Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley – just 11% of median-income-earning households could afford a typical house…

November 19, 2014 – Statement 490: “Real estate in Hong Kong defies logic. The city is one of the most expensive places in the world to live and it has smashed one real estate record after another for years. As property costs continue to soar, even once improbable living spaces are now getting snapped up at astronomical prices…

November 18, 2014 – Statement 489: “The fascination with borrowing in foreign currencies spread through several countries in Central and Eastern Europe early in the current century. The benefits were obvious: Because interest rates in other currencies were much lower than those in local currencies, monthly payments on a mortgage denominated in euros or Swiss francs would be lower…

November 18, 2014 – Statement 488: “The president is now operating outside the Constitution. That fact is something that certainly must have weighed heavily on him as he considered whether to ask Congress for a discrete authorization against Islamic State, as opposed to his earlier invitation for us to merely express our support.”, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), senior member of the House Intelligence Committee

November 18, 2014 – Statement 487: “Similarly, without scientific evidence, the president (Obama) said that global warming “means longer droughts, more wildfires” in Australia. He then urged his young audience – “keep raising your voices” – to make sure that their political demands on climate change are met.”, Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor, Australian

November 14, 2014 – Statement 486: “The City of Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System…is short $3 billion. The state’s pension goliath, the Calpers…needed an additional $57 billion to meet future obligations. The bill at the state teachers’ pension fund is even higher: It has an estimated shortfall of $70 billion.”, Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

November 14, 2014 – Statement 485: “Kroll contends Moody’s deliberately lowballed its rating – a move that could have ripple effects through the market for National Penn’s bonds – to scare other small banks into hiring it for future deals…

November 14, 2014 – Statement 484: “One of the most abjectly false narratives about the financial crisis is that risky mortgages proliferated so that people who couldn’t afford homes could nonetheless buy them. Modern subprime lending was not about homeownership…

November 13, 2014 – Statement 483: “Anyone who understood the banks – and all top hedge fund managers did – realized that if the banks were really forced to assess their solvency based on where assets were trading at that moment, they would have been insolvent…

November 13, 2014 – Statement 482: “When he called JPMorgan, Mr. Soto said, he was told that the black mark would remain unless he paid. “It was either pay or lose the apartment,” he said. But after his bankruptcy lawyer explained the situation to the rental agency, Mr. Soto ultimately did not pay. (He got the apartment.)…

November 13, 2014 – Statement 481: “People are panicking after witnessing the reckless disregard for the Constitution and its limits on federal power. We are frightened by the rise of an omnipotent president capable of using his pen and his phone to implement whatever he fancies…

November 13, 2014 – Statement 480: “It is essential that we try to understand John Muir in all his complexity. He was a man of his times, who actively worked to disgrace California Indians by taking their lands.” Laura Pulido, a professor in USC’s Department of American Studies and Ethnicity

November 12, 2014 – Statement 479: ““The city (Detroit) must be continually mindful that a root cause of the financial troubles it now experiences is the failure to properly address future pension obligations,” (Martha E.M. Kopacz, independent fiscal expert hired by Judge Rhodes) said in her report. Judge Rhodes said on Friday that he agreed…

November 12, 2014 – Statement 478: “America is the freest and most dynamic society in history, and freedom and equality of outcome have never coexisted anywhere at any time. Here the innovator, the first mover, the talented and the persistent win out – producing large income inequality…

November 11, 2014 – Statement 477: “Check out this example of the regulatory nonsense that the (largely) nationalized U.S. mortgage industry deals with on a daily basis. Aren’t most young, talented and driven Americans going to avoid a state-controlled industry like this?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

November 11, 2014 – Statement 476: “It hasn’t worked. The only confidence stimulated has been the confidence of hedge funds that stocks might be a good bet in the short term if central banks are printing money. Still missing is the kind of confidence that would boost the incomes and prospects of people who don’t own stocks for a living…

November 11, 2014 – Statement 475: “Numerous firms deemed insolvent nonetheless got emergency loans, while Lehman alone was denied one before it went bankrupt. Judging by their actions, Fed officials seemed to have defined solvency on a case-by-case basis…

November 11, 2014 – Statement 474: “If you made it explicit, the healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed (the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), okay? Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, you know, call it the stupidity of American voter or whatever. But basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”, MIT Prof. and Obamacare Architect Jonathan Gruber

November 11, 2014 – Statement 473: “Instead of the balanced rise in prices and wages that Mr. Abe (Japan’s Prime Minister) promised, pay has lagged, in effect making workers poorer. Adjusted for price changes, household incomes were down a full 6 percent in September compared with a year earlier…

November 10, 2014 – Statement 472: “The Supreme Court has the opportunity to reaffirm the principle that the law is what Congress enacts, not what the administration or others wish Congress had enacted with the benefit of hindsight. Granting tax credits to those who need help purchasing health insurance may be a good idea…

November 10, 2014 – Statement 471: “On campuses across the country, hostility toward unpopular ideas has become so irrational that many students, and some faculty members, now openly oppose freedom of speech. The hypersensitive consider the mere discussion of the topic of censorship to be potentially traumatic. Those who try to protect academic freedom and the ability of the academy to discuss the world as it is are swimming against the current…

November 6, 2014 – Statement 470: “Do I understand this correctly? The UC system is going to increase its student population by 5,000 (from its current 166,250 level) over the next five years…that’s about ½ of 1% student growth a year. So why do they need ten times that level, 5%, in annual tuition increases? The LA Times article below makes abundantly clear why: It’s the unsustainable California public pensions (a pervasive problem in California)…

November 6, 2014 – Statement 469: “…Kuehl’s (successful Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors) campaign benefited from about $3 million in spending by public employee unions, including $1.3 million from groups representing county firefighters and deputy sheriffs…

November 5, 2014 – Statement 468: “The Coalition of L.A. City Unions and its allies have repeatedly urged city leaders to get out of the deals with Bank of New York Mellon and Dexia, alleging they are bleeding the city of desperately needed money…

November 5, 2014 – Statement 467: “The ultimate measure of success (of the American justice system) is the ability to live, work and raise a family in a safe environment – secure in the knowledge that government will not abuse that power with which we entrust it. This must be our universal goal…

November 4, 2014 – Statement 466: “And (Bank of Japan Governor) Mr. Kuroda can’t keep up the act forever. If he revs the printing presses too high, the costs could be ruinous in the form of an asset bubble or currency collapse.” Aaron Back, New York Times

November 4, 2014 – Statement 465: “And some have blamed California’s state pension system, Calpers, for locking Stockton into a plan it cannot afford by erroneously contending years ago that the benefits would not cost much because investment gains would pay for them…

November 4, 2014 – Statement 464: “This is exactly right…cool technology, hooked to exorbitant bank/payment system fees to access your own money is NOT COOL!!! Why don’t we all have a digital U.S. Dollar Account at the Federal Reserve Bank?”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

November 4, 2014 – Statement 463: “The (Federal) land banks, which had substantially higher losses than other mortgage companies at the time, finally went bust in the Great Depression. Congress bailed them out to the tune of $125 million in 1932. The land banks soon required even more funds and were nationalized a year later…

November 3, 2014 – Statement 462: “Before the recession, it was a government goal, promoted by presidents of both parties, to get the ownership rate up. Homeowners were thought to care more, and thus maintain their homes better. They could profit from rising home prices, helping poorer people who bought homes improve their economic status…

November 3, 2014 – Statement 461: “But the Fed wants higher inflation, targeting a rate of 2%. That would have certain beauties for the government if not for consumers. Inflation devalues debt, and of particular moment is federal government debt, which has soared well over $4 trillion in the past four years to $17.9 trillion…

November 3, 2014 – Statement 460: “Over the summer, Senator Leahy admitted that his earlier explanation was false: There was no failure among technology companies to agree on reform. Instead, Senator Reid had instructed Senator Leahy to drop patent reform on the orders of trial lawyers.”, L. Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal

October 29, 2014 – Statement 459: “A Yuba County jury awarded $16.2 million in damages to a Plumas Lake homeowner who nearly lost his home to foreclosure after his loan servicer mishandled his mortgage…But the presiding judge has decided the jury got it mostly wrong…

October 29, 2014 – Statement 458: “Mortgage lenders dodged the proposed rule by joining homebuilders and advocates of low-income homeownership to convince hundreds of lawmakers that defining supersafe mortgages as those with significant down payments would curtail mortgage lending to the struggling middle class and poor.”, Eduardo Porter, “More Renters, Less Risk for Wall St.”, New York Times

October 29, 2014 – Statement 457: “It is extremely distressing that a select few insiders have been getting an early look at public filings for so long. It violates the basic principles of fairness that underpin our markets, and I urge the SEC to put a stop to this as soon as possible.”, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D., N.Y.), ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee’s panel that has jurisdiction over capital markets.

October 29, 2014 – Statement 456: “Yet most Americans are still actively trying to avoid fat, according to a recent Gallup poll. They are not aware of the USDA’s crucial about-face because the agency hasn’t publicized the changes. Perhaps it did not want to be held responsible for the consequences of a quarter-century of misguided advice…

October 29, 2014 – Statement 455: “The trend accelerated as attorneys general – particularly Democrats – began hiring outside law firms to conduct investigations and sue corporations on a contingency basis…

October 29, 2014 – Statement 454: “They had a job to do and we trusted them. And it turned out the trustees, the advisers, the actuaries and the accountants misled us.”, City of Detroit Pensioner Coletta Estes

October 29, 2014 – Statement 453: “But of course most economists aren’t really underdogs in need of defending. Taken together, they constitute a classic phenomenon, one to which the otherwise comprehensive Mr. Litan gives short shrift: the guild. The economists’ guild, like others, insists on adherence to a particular methodology and set of beliefs—in this case, the standard understanding of macroeconomics, with its emphasis on Keynesian categories and government-fueled aggregate demand. The guild operates with an unofficial but real license from the banks and the federal government…

October 29, 2014 – Statement 452: “We say hypocrisy because these rules from the banking regulators have been marketed since the 2010 Dodd-Frank law as a way to reduce risks by ensuring that everyone has “skin in the game.” The concept was that borrowers and the people who sell these mortgages to investors have to be on the hook for losses…

October 28, 2014 – Statement 451: “Time Magazine: And how many people have you exonerated? Lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson: Under 10. Even when we’ve shown that they’re innocent, we make concessions where the person might plead to something just to get out of prison, because the (criminal-justice) system is so unreliable.”

October 28, 2014 – Statement 450: “Policy makers around the world have been taking measures to address incipient housing bubbles. Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai all have targeted home prices with tighter mortgage-lending criteria and transaction taxes. In New York, the median sales price of Manhattan luxury co-ops and condos was $5 million in the third quarter of 2014, up 22% from a year earlier…

October 27, 2014 – Statement 449: “The Fortune author of “Warren Buffett’s bad housing advice” (see below) doesn’t provide the data/assumptions to audit his financial results and conclusion that stocks are a better investment than buying a home, with a 30-year mortgage. I agree with Mr. Buffett. At current rates, you definitely should get a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage if you own (by refinancing) or are going to buy a home. A 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage IS a tremendous hedge against inflation…

October 23, 2014 – Statement 448: “Tracy S., 59, a technical writer for a large bank, divorced her husband just as the housing market spiraled downward. They were forced to sell their home, just outside Phoenix, for less than they owed, and the bank agreed to absorb the difference, about $25,000…

October 23, 2014 – Statement 447: “Today’s rule-making takes the untenable (government) housing policy that injected irrational exuberance into mortgage lending and, as a result, caused a catastrophic financial crisis and chisels that failed policy into the stone tablets of the code of federal regulations.”, SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher

October 23, 2014 – Statement 446: “There is a profound sense in defense circles that there is a scrum of various regulators and enforcement bodies: the S.E.C., the Justice Department, state attorneys general, the New York State financial regulator and so on. These enforcers have become increasingly politicized and are trying to one-up each other…

October 23, 2014 – Statement 445: “Since its inception, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies have been a primary cause of artificial booms that lead to recessions and depressions…

October 22, 2014 – Statement 444: “In one case, the European Commission fined JPMorgan Chase €61.7 million euros for manipulating the Swiss franc Libor benchmark interest rate in an “illegal bilateral cartel” with the Royal Bank of Scotland. R.B.S.”, Jenny Anderson, New York Times

October 22, 2014 – Statement 443: “It’s certainly possible that this is only the beginning of government pressure to make (home) loans with lower lending standards,” Alex Pollock, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

October 22, 2014 – Statement 442: “If an investor wants to put his own money at risk and lend to (mortgage) borrowers who are putting down just 3%, he’s welcome to call it “sensible and responsible.” And we agree with House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling that if private lenders and borrowers are operating without a federal backstop, they should be free to set the terms of their mortgage contracts without interference from Washington…

October 22, 2014 – Statement 441: “It will really be up to the investors. If they want better lending standards, it is up to them.”, former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair

October 22, 2014 – Statement 440: “As I have said on this blog, why isn’t the SEC requiring more investor disclosure about major stock buyback plans like IBM’s: their historical and cumulative return on invested capital (as the stock price rises or falls) and even more importantly, requiring disclosure of EPS growth with and without the effect of buybacks, so investors understand how the core business is performing?”, Mike Perry

October 21, 2014 – Statement 439: “(Barry Bonds) was convicted of obstruction of justice on a reed-thin argument that he had tried to deprive a jury of the truth….Bonds appealed, and last month a federal appeals court in California appeared to signal unease with his conviction…

October 21, 2014 – Statement 438: “Paulson’s Advantage Fund, which owned Shire shares, was down nearly 11% for October through last Tuesday, bringing the $21 billion firm’s losses in that fund for the year to nearly 22%, according to data from Lyxor, the wealth-management arm of Société Générale SA…That was before Shire fell 30% on Wednesday in New York.”, Wall Street Journal

October 21, 2014 – Statement 437: “There’s this myth that government regulation is well intentioned and benign, and implemented properly. That’s the myth. And then when people actually run into this in the real world, they’re, ‘Oh, [f—], I didn’t realize.’”, Marc Andreessen, Silicon Valley investor and Netscape Founder, New York Magazine

October 21, 2014 – Statement 436: “No matter how many times Lucy pulled the football away, she always managed to persuade Charlie Brown to trust hope over experience and try to kick again. Federal housing-finance regulators are attempting a similar feat as they try to expand access to home loans…

October 21, 2014 – Statement 435: “(I am of a mixed mind), but a down payment of just 3% doesn’t leave borrowers with much of a cushion. If prices fall, it risks a repeat of what happened before the downturn…

October 21, 2014 – Statement 434: “Let’s see. You start a business or build a business and employees voluntarily decide to come to work for your firm at a mutually- agreed-upon package of wages and benefits….and if these employees aren’t happy or find a better job (or for any reason), they can leave at any time they wish…and then an external, third party comes in and attempts to force you to unionize. That’s not right.”, Mike Perry

October 20, 2014 – Statement 433: “THE ONLY REASON DEPOSITORS in the U.S. have become indifferent to risk-taking by banks, Selgin explains, is that the federal government now insures individual deposits running in the millions of dollars. When deposit insurance was originally introduced, none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed it…”, Gene Epstein, Barrons

October 20, 2014 – Statement 432: “The biggest bottleneck for growth in the euro area is not monetary policy, nor is it the lack of fiscal stimulus: it is the structural barriers that impede competition, innovation and productivity,” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann

October 20, 2014 – Statement 431: “Fundamentally, stock markets are driven by popular narratives, which don’t need basis in solid fact. True or not, such stories may be described as “thought viruses.” When they are pernicious, they are analogous to the Ebola virus: They spread by contagion…

October 20, 2014 – Statement 430: “Nobody wants zero regulation, and every company should follow the law. But policy should begin with admiration for new ways that citizens can build their lives, not with hostility to profits or the impulse to protect entrenched industries…

October 17, 2014 – Statement 429: “When is the last time you heard of a college or university talking about getting more operationally efficient in a way that would allow it to reduce tuition?”, Dave Cooper and Robert Schaefer

October 17, 2014 – Statement 428: “My analysis of 1999-2013 reveals that the CBO’s real GDP growth forecasts for the next year were off, on average, by 1.7 percentage points, either too high or low. Administration forecasts were similarly off…1.8 percentage points on average…

October 16, 2014 – Statement 427: “…after an uproar from real-estate agents, lenders and civil rights groups, banking regulators dropped the 20% down payment requirement in a new proposal issued last year…

October 16, 2014 – Statement 426: “(The Fed’s policies and actions post-crisis are) diametrically opposed to Friedman’s deeply American insight that a central bank, if it has to exist, should be modest, and that monetary policy should be predictable and simple enough that businesses concentrate on profits and employees rather than central bankers’ economic forecasts and speeches…

October 16, 2014 – Statement 426: “There is too little economic risk-taking, and too much financial risk-taking.”, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde

October 16, 2014 – Statement 425: “Central bankers don’t stay up at night writing apps, and U.S. senators don’t develop natural-gas plays…Private business creates wealth and the U.S. private sector still leads the world. The U.S. is growing faster than Europe not because of QE, but because, believe it or not, our government is relatively smaller…

October 15, 2014 – Statement 424: “If general circulation models used by the climate-science community were engineering models (subject to validation and verification), they would have been in the dustbin some time ago.”, Mark Strauch, Livermore, California

October 14, 2014 – Statement 423: “More often, debt relief takes place implicitly, through “financial repression”: government policies hold interest rates down, while inflation erodes the real value of debt.”, Paul Krugman, “How Righteousness Killed the World Economy”, New York Times

October 14, 2014 – Statement 422: “The government calls it ‘fair housing’ when they lower underwriting standards to fringe borrowers. When the loan origination sector (private mortgage lenders, including banks) attempts to assist a wider range of borrowers, however, they are called ‘predatory’.”, Brad, October 2014 Mortgage Industry Newsletter

October 14, 2014 – Statement 421: “Rules like this, Fine told me in an interview, create unreasonable barriers for seniors and retirees who may have significant wealth tied up in stocks and bonds in IRAs….The lenders “don’t trust us to manage our own finances,” he said, despite excellent credit histories and prudent financial management over a lifetime.”, Kenneth R. Harney, Los Angeles Times

October 14, 2014 – Statement 420: “Yet the central message that emerges from three conversations with Prof. Shiller over the past few weeks isn’t a cocksure forecast; it is a deep humility in the face of irreducible uncertainty…

October 14, 2014 – Statement 419: “(Dodd-Frank) empowers the federal government to centrally manage the risks of the American financial system, as it seeks to prevent another crisis and eliminate the problem of too-big-to-fail banks. Yet large banks still reap a $70 billion annual subsidy from the continued market perception that they will be rescued if trouble arises, according to a March report from the International Monetary Fund.”, Donald J. Boudreaux and Todd J. Zywicki, George Mason University

October 14, 2014 – Statement 418: “In any case, it seems wise to keep in mind that low wages are the symptom, not the problem. The problem is too many workers chasing too few low-wage jobs. To solve this problem, we either need fewer workers or more jobs. Unfortunately, a minimum wage of $13.25, compared with $7.25 in Texas and $5 in Mexico, repels jobs and attracts workers…

October 14, 2014 – Statement 417: “The rest of the world sort of laughs at the United States – how can a great country like the United States get so many things wrong?” Keith Ambachtsheer, Dutch pension specialist, Rotman International Center for Pension Management, a global clearinghouse of information on how successful retirement systems work, the University of Toronto

October 14, 2014 – Statement 416: “The warming hiatus, combined with assessments that the climate-model sensitivities are too high, raises serious questions as to whether the climate-model projections of 21st-century temperatures are fit for making public-policy decisions…

October 10, 2014 – Statement 415: “The U.S.’s huge trade deficits (since about 1980), mean that the rest of the world is awash in U.S. dollars. Trading partners like China, who have run big trade surpluses with the U.S., are forced to retain U.S. dollars and re-invest these funds back in U.S. assets…

October 10, 2014 – Statement 414: “(Under oath, Ben Bernanke) affirmed that the global financial system had been on the verge of collapse in September 2008. He agreed that A.I.G.’s collapse would have been “basically the end” of the financial system, so connected was it to other parts of the financial world.”, New York Times

October 9, 2014 – Statement 413: “…Baer opines that…business leaders “(need to) show how they use their positions of power to contribute to the common good.” On the contrary, the primary purpose of business leaders is to make profits. Out of profits, come jobs. Out of good jobs come happy citizens who can raise their families and undertake charitable activities of their choosing. What’s sorely missing in the West is an understanding that what we have today isn’t capitalism.”, Ellen Sandles, New York

October 9, 2014 – Statement 412: “Certainly Citi and B. of A. were insolvent.” former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner (during the book interview), New York Times

October 8, 2014 – Statement 411: “Late in the day Tuesday, Mr. Boies pressed Mr. Geithner on how the government came up with the higher interest rate that would be levied on AIG. Mr. Geithner said the rate was based in part on an assessment made by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs in the 11th-hour effort.”, Wall Street Journal

October 7, 2014 – Statement 410: “Again, the truth is finally emerging. FHA’s audit of mortgage loans insured by them in Q1 2014 apparently has uncovered huge, “material” underwriting error rates. If this is true, it goes a long way to disprove the mainstream view that pre-crisis mortgage underwriting deficiencies were a material cause of mortgage (and mortgage securities) losses during the financial crisis…

October 7, 2014 – Statement 409: “The feeble recovery is tempting officials to devalue their currencies, a policy that prices their exports more favorably for international buyers…

October 7, 2014 – Statement 408: “The big question is whether a 15-year mortgage can be affordable. We think it can.”, William M. Isaac and Edward Pinto

October 7, 2014 – Statement 407: “Hong Kong became rich on the small government, laissez-faire, rule-of-law-not-men principles of its late colonial administrators. It has remained rich because, by comparison to mainland China, it remains relatively free and uncorrupt. Hong Kong is what China could be if it weren’t, well, China – if state intervention were minimal; if government weren’t a vehicle for self-enrichment; if people could worship, write, exercise and associate just as they please…

October 7, 2014 – Statement 406: “In 2011 Calpers adopted a policy of discounting the termination fee at a rate tied to 10- and 30-year Treasurys in lieu of the 7.5% rate it ordinarily uses to calculate unfunded liabilities. This sleight-of-hand blows Stockton’s $212 million unfunded pension liability up to $1.6 billion. Welcome to the Hotel Calpers. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave…

October 7, 2014 – Statement 405: “To pretend that the rescue of A.I.G. was anything but an effort to make sure the rest of the (banking) industry didn’t go under is to misunderstand history. The entire point of the A.I.G. bailout was to bail out Wall Street and reinstall confidence in the system so that it didn’t collapse under even more uncertainty…

October 7, 2014 – Statement 404: “Mr. Paulson said (under oath in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington), among other things, that Citigroup Inc. would have failed without government assistance…”, New York Times

October 7, 2014 – Statement 403: “(Martin Wolf the Financial Times economics commentator says) Blaming American homebuyers for their liar loans or Greece for its overleveragedness doesn’t fly. These agents behaved logically, given the forces at play. In the grand scheme of things, economics and economists failed, not economic agents…

October 6, 2014 – Statement 402: “Pre-crisis, Mr. Bernanke would have been able to refinance with highly competitive rates/terms, utilizing an Alt-a mortgage that was not based on his current income, but based on the substantial equity in his home, his outstanding credit (including paying the very mortgage he intended to refinance on time), and his ample other assets…

October 6, 2014 – Statement 401: “…in the past year of listening to testimony from government officials, there is something different about the boredom and indifference with which government testifiers skirt, dodge and withhold the truth. They don’t seem furtive or defensive; they are not in the least afraid…

October 6, 2014 – Statement 400: “What is the value of a guaranty from a guarantor with hugely negative capital? Zero. It is solely the fact that the government guarantees Fannie and Freddie’s obligations that gives this business any revenue or profit at all.”, Alex Pollock, American Enterprise Institute

October 6, 2014 – Statement 399: “Today, the acceptance of fiat money — currency not backed by an asset of intrinsic value — rests on the credit guarantee of sovereign nations endowed with effective taxing power, a guarantee that in crisis conditions has not always matched the universal acceptability of gold…

October 2, 2014 – Statement 398: “Yet along the way has come the perverse growth of the term “denier” not for those (if any exist) who deny any possible human impact on climate, but for anyone who does not join in demanding the issue be treated with maximal urgency above every other consideration…

October 1, 2014 – Statement 397: “China’s central government loosened mortgage restrictions on Tuesday in its first direct move this year to address the country’s ailing housing market, which is becoming a significant drag on the economy amid other signs of weakness.” Wall Street Journal

October 1, 2014 – Statement 396: “Mr. Galston fails to recognize the most important shift in the economy over the last 50 years – the move from free-market-based capitalism with light regulation to crony capitalism with heavy regulation…

September 30, 2014 – Statement 395: “When an economy is growing rapidly, and the population is increasing, house prices are likely to rise (and vice versa)…That is what has happened in the United States since the summer of 2007, when house prices peaked, as measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency index…

September 30, 2014 – Statement 394: “But the (Los Angeles) City Council never seemed interested in really examining the potential economic consequences of the ordinance…

September 30, 2014 – Statement 393: “…the agency has touted its enforcement statistics as a gauge of its effectiveness for the past decade. But police chiefs often rate success in terms of falling crime rates…The SEC’s increasing numbers of cases and “ever-growing penalty amounts” could show a need to re-evaluate…”, Bradley Bondi, former SEC Commission Counsel, partner Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft, LLP

September 30, 2014 – Statement 392: “The 8th Amendment bans cruel and unusual punishment. Yet it happens every day in prisons across the country…We are a nation of laws, and the Constitution is the highest law in the land. Do we (any American) really find this kind of treatment of prisoners acceptable?”, Martin Garbus, trial attorney

September 29, 2014 – Statement 391: “If you had to boil it down to ‘What’s the number one problem in the world?’ well, it would be poor decision making,” says (Ralph) Adolphs (Professor of Pyschology and Neuroscience and biology, and director of Caltech’s Conter Center for Neuroscience). “It’s very hard to make complex decisions, especially when the consequences of those decisions will occur far in the future…

September 29, 2014 – Statement 390: “After all, misguided energy policy can have very bad outcomes. For instance, in the 1970s, the U.S. thought it was running out of natural gas, and Congress prohibited building any new power plants that used it. Instead, we built lots of coal plants…

September 29, 2014 – Statement 389: “There is not much evidence that these policies (macroprudential regulations) prevent financial bubbles. But there is great risk in allowing a small group of unelected technocrats to determine the allocation of credit in the U.S. economy…

September 29, 2014 – Statement 388: “Monopolies invariably produce bad products at high prices.”, Ted Forstmann, legendary financier

September 29, 2014 – Statement 387: “It’s about an abusive system (SEC enforcement) that threatens the nation’s economic vitality by jeopardizing small business and its entrepreneurial spirit.”, Nelson Obus, co-founder Wynnefield Capital, Chief Executive Magazine

September 29, 2014 – Statement 386: “In July, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen suggested in congressional testimony that social media and biotech valuations “do appear substantially stretched.” Has she looked at Treasurys lately? Treasury yields actually turned negative this week…

September 25, 2014 – Statement 385: “Changes in ocean circulation as a result of weaker winds were the main cause of about 1 degree Fahrenheit of warming in the northeast Pacific Ocean and nearby coastal land between 1900 and 2012, according to the analysis of ocean and air temperatures over that time…

September 25, 2014 – Statement 384: “The Catholic Church does incalculable good, providing immeasurable comfort – material as well as spiritual – to so many. But it contradicts and undercuts that mission when it fails to recognize what more and more parishioners do: that gay people deserve the same dignity as everyone else…

September 25, 2014 – Statement 383: “Do bigger loan files mean better loans? A fascinating article in the latest Mortgage Banking reviewed a study that showed the following: (a) 85% of all loan files contained 400-2,000 pages…

September 25, 2014 – Statement 382: “This right (to a competent attorney) is so fundamental to the operation of the criminal justice system that its diminishment erodes the principles of liberty and justice that underpin all of our civil rights in criminal proceedings.”, Molly J. Moran, Acting Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice

September 25, 2014 – Statement 381: “The devices, lawyers for borrowers argue, violate those laws because they may effectively repossess the car only days after a missed payment. Payment records show that Ms. Bolender, the Las Vegas mother with the sick daughter, was not in default in any of the four instances her ignition was disabled this year.”, New York Times

September 24, 2014 – Statement 380: “However, the Court will briefly discuss the FDIC’s claim that the “Great Recession” was not only foreseeable, but was actually foreseen by the defendants. The Court discusses this claim only due to the absurdity of the FDIC’s position…In sum, the FDIC claims that defendants (former Officers and Directors of Cooperative Bank) were not only more prescient than the nation’s most trusted bank regulators and economists, but that they disregarded their own foresight of the coming crisis in favor of making risky loans. Such an assertion is wholly implausible…

September 22, 2014 – Statement 379: “Hefty overdraft fees are often imposed for transactions that are quite small, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found in a July study…

September 22, 2014 – Statement 378: “Officials at the White House and the Federal Reserve point to tight credit as they flag worries about a soft housing recovery. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen last week labeled mortgage-market conditions “abnormally tight.”…

September 22, 2014 – Statement 377: “I am going to give equal opportunity here. Below is a New York Times article from one the top experts concerned about climate change: Robert N. Stavins is a professor and the director of the environmental economics program at the Harvard Kennedy School…

September 18, 2014 – Statement 376: “Congress should eliminate federal corporate income taxes, which in 2012 contributed only 9% of federal tax revenues. After all, corporations pay no taxes; their customers pay them in higher costs for products and services.”, Jon Titus, Herriman, Utah

September 18, 2014 – Statement 375: “There are now 10,000 lawyers in the Department of Defense. The legal staff assigned to Gen. Dempsey alone could fill a law firm. No one goes to war in this country until those DoD lawyers – plus lawyers at the Justice Department and White House – define in detail the parameters of battle…

September 17, 2014 – Statement 374: “The only reason people choose Uber over us is the money part. If we could, we would love to be cheaper.”, Michael Linke, 60, taxi driver in Frankfurt, Germany for more than 30 years

September 17, 2014 – Statement 373: “There is no rational reason Tesla – or any other automobile manufacturer – should be restricted from selling new cars directly to those who seek to buy them…

September 16, 2014 – Statement 372: “The key was to make it a 15-year loan, which allows borrowers to pay off the principal – and build equity – much faster and generally at a lower interest rate because shorter-term loans are less risky for lenders. Still, a shorter term also means higher monthly payments…

September 16, 2014 – Statement 371: “Real estate (a home) is by far the most important asset that most individuals will ever own. It is comparable in market capitalization to the exhaustively-studied stock and bond markets. To not know whether U.S. residential real estate fell by 23% or 43% in the last bear market (or whether it rose by 50% or 80% in the eight years before that) is troubling…

September 16, 2014 – Statement 370: “It is hard to make money in real estate (a home) in the long run, unless there is unanticipated inflation (that is, inflation not impounded in the mortgage interest rate). A capital asset that appreciates at a 0.5% real annual rate…

September 15, 2014 – Statement 369: “This lending freeze is not just preventing people like the Sleimans, who have struggled to document their income, from chasing their dreams. It’s bad for the overall economy too…

September 15, 2014 – Statement 368: “…if the Fed isn’t so all powerful, then the same unexpected external shocks that might cripple the private sector also will wreak havoc on our $4.5 trillion central bank money-manager…

September 15, 2014 – Statement 367: “This suggests that without a significantly stronger economy or easier credit standards, the pace of renters flowing into home buying is unlikely to pick up…

September 15, 2014 – Statement 366: “The Obama administration is moving to ease access to student loans for parents with damaged credit, a policy reversal that could saddle poor families with piles of debt but also boost college enrollment…

September 15, 2014 – Statement 365: “It’s not economic (it’s irrational) for banks to offer fixed-rate jumbo mortgage at rates below government guaranteed mortgages…

September 15, 2014 – Statement 364: “It’s pretty interesting that when the WSJ interviewers pressed VCer Gurley about what Benchmark and the companies they invest in are doing about it (the tech bubble he warns about), he essentially says, “it’s hard (to decide what to do)”…

September 15, 2014 – Statement 363: 2002-Government: “YOU MUST PUT MORE MINORITIES AND LMI (Low-to-Moderate Income Borrowers) IN HOMES!”

September 15, 2014 – Statement 362: “This country has achieved its success due to capitalism, entrepreneurship, risk-taking…Yet the government sees fit to forgive student debt for people who choose careers in regulation, wealth redistribution and just plain giving stuff away. Talk about turning your back on what works. Talk about “fundamentally changing America.”, Guy Randolph, Savannah, Ga.

September 12, 2014 – Statement 361: “The FHFA hopes that increasing demand for low-income mortgages from Fannie and Freddie will spur lenders to make more of these loans. That is certainly the way things worked before the financial crisis, when lenders could be counted upon to quickly adapt their lending practices to satisfy the appetites of the mortgage giants…

September 12, 2014 – Statement 360: “…the Obama administration has not even published a legal opinion attempting to justify the president’s assertion of unilateral war-making authority. This is because no serious opinion can be written…

September 12, 2014 – Statement 359: “…believing that “we can only exercise our right to free speech insofar as we feel safe and respected in doing so?” Of course not—it’s when we feel unsafe and disrespected that the exercise of free speech is most effective, and even obligatory. Those who would only speak out when comfortable do not merit the privilege.”, Jon Oelrich, Letters to the Editor: Wall Street Journal

September 12, 2014 – Statement 358: “So much for fairness and the rule of law when the government has its fat finger on the scales of justice. Invest in blue state or blue city bonds? Just one word: Argentina.”, Robert Bell, Encinitas, Calif.

September 11, 2014 – Statement 357: “Syncora’s dispute with the banks goes back to a $1.4 billion borrowing by Detroit in 2005. The city was already in dire financial straits and did not have enough to make its required pension contributions. After city unions sued, Detroit decided to borrow the money…

September 11, 2014 – Statement 356: “Jeremy Stein, an economist at Harvard who just left the Federal Reserve board of governors this summer, told me, “I’m broadly sympathetic to the argument that central bankers should be attentive to financial stability ex ante. You can’t just look at unemployment and inflation and little else.”…

September 11, 2014 – Statement 355: “How are these SBA franchise loans (federal student loans and even FHA loans), all with high default rates, any different than the private sector’s subprime credit card, auto, or home loans?”

September 11, 2014 – Statement 354: “Government agencies like the SEC force institutional investors (banks, insurers, pension plans, and others) to follow the credit raters’ advice. In 2010 Dodd-Frank required the SEC to remove credit raters from its rules, but much of this work remains undone…

September 10, 2014 – Statement 353: “The Fed’s multibillion-dollar assistance to financial institutions – including lending commitments to Citigroup and Bank of America, supporting J.P. Morgan’s purchase of Bear Stearns, rescuing AIG and through that aid to Goldman Sachs and many others – occurred without transparency…

September 10, 2014 – Statement 352: “I thought it was illegal to require prospective employees to possess some skill or expertise that is not required to perform the job? Requiring a college degree for almost any position is unnecessary and should be illegal. Today, we can test job candidates on what they actually know and can do and that and what they have accomplished is all that should matter…

September 10, 2014 – Statement 351: “It’s hard to conceive of a more destructive national policy (federal student loan policies) – encouraging tuitions to rise and students to avoid productive enterprise while burdening taxpayers with another unsustainable entitlement.”, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

September 8, 2014 – Statement 350: “Of course the lenders want to lend but as pointed out in this article, when any and every default can result in a far more costly response for frivolous and immaterial errors it creates a defensive lending strategy…

September 8, 2014 – Statement 349: “The image of the U.S. as bursting with entrepreneurial zeal, it turns out, is more myth than reality. In truth, the rate at which new companies are being formed has fallen steadily for more than three decades. Many factors appear to be contributing to the trend…

September 8, 2014 – Statement 348: “…in their quest to explain the pause (15+ years without warming), scientists have made the future sound even less alarming than before. Let’s hope that the United Nations admits as much…and asks the delegates to pack up, go home and concentrate on more pressing global problems like war, terror, disease, poverty, habitat loss and the 1.3 billion people with no electricity.”, Matt Ridley, member, British House of Lords

September 4, 2014 – Statement 347: “The reason the banking system’s loan-to-deposit ratio has declined significantly, from over 90% pre-crisis to just 69% today, is banks aren’t lending the several trillion dollars printed by the Fed to implement QE…

September 3, 2014 – Statement 346: “The Financial Times reports that Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf has warned the GSEs (government-sponsored enterprises) that they must stop being so quick to accuse banks of faulty underwriting and then forcing them to repurchase soured loans. “We’re just not going to make those loans and there’s going to be a whole bunch of Americans that are underserved in the mortgage market…

September 3, 2014 – Statement 345: “(Meltzer’s “Cronyism vs. the Constitution” Op-Ed, Aug. 26) points to Dodd-Frank and its Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…A primary mission of the CFPB is to make sure that the financial system directs credit toward individuals and groups deemed to be disadvantaged. The CFPB now wants banks to make more loans to disadvantaged borrowers who generally cannot meet tighter lending standards…

September 2, 2014 – Statement 344: “The rapid increase in new credit lines is the direct result of the significant gains in home prices in most parts of the country during the last year, researchers say…

September 2, 2014 – Statement 343: “ATP Tour should have sparked a robust debate among institutional shareholders, corporate managers and their respective counsel about the merits of loser-pays bylaws…

September 2, 2014 – Statement 342: “Monetarists will soon have to abandon the myth that a managed market for money can coexist with a free market for everything else.”, Daniel Oliver Jr., New York

September 2, 2014 – Statement 341: “We are bumping up against the Fed’s 2% (inflation) trigger to begin raising rates…Funding our $17 trillion national deficit at the current rate of about 2% is a challenge. Having to fund it at double digits would result in our turning out the lights…

September 2, 2014 – Statement 340: “Some of the factual assertions in recent amicus briefs would not pass muster in a high school research paper. But that has not stopped the Supreme Court from relying on them. Recent opinions have cited “facts” from amicus briefs that were backed up by blog posts, emails or nothing at all.”, New York Times, September 2, 2014

September 2, 2014 – Statement 339: “The suit offers a detailed look at the uneasy state of lending in the United States. In the heady days before the 2008 financial crisis, as Wall Street’s mortgage machine hummed, the nation’s largest banks made loans in black and Hispanic neighborhoods…

September 2, 2014 – Statement 338: “From our statistical sample, we project that 1,772 loans, worth $208 million (22 percent of the universe), may have similar noncompliance issues related to ineligible borrowers and properties,” The Office of Inspector General, USDA

September 2, 2014 – Statement 337: “The cost of consumer checking accounts at U.S. banks and thrifts hit new highs during the first six months this year, according to the latest survey of 100 banks by MoneyRates.com.”, Los Angeles Times, August 2014

August 30, 2014 – Statement 336: “During his career, Mr. Staubach had six major concussions, but he says he hasn’t felt any lasting effects. While other former players have claimed problems like dementia and depression after their careers were over, he doesn’t fault the NFL for any issues…

August 30, 2014 – Statement 335: “The Fed’s loose policies have pushed up stock, bond and real estate prices – which is, in fact, the point of a low-rate policy. There is legitimate debate about how overvalued assets may be. But low rates, by fostering investments with borrowed money, invariably create the conditions for bubbles.”, New York Times Editorial Board, August 24, 2014

August 30, 2014 – Statement 334: “I’m becoming increasingly uneasy,” Scott Grundfor…(Mr. Grundfor’s company also restores and consults on classic cars.) “I’ve firmly believed at least 50 percent of the dramatic rise in car values can be attributed to the printing of money and the manipulation of interest rates by central banks.”…

August 28, 2014 – Statement 333: “September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression. Of the 13 most important financial institutions in the United States, 12 were at risk of failure within a period of a week or two.” Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (From a document filed with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, August 22, 2014.)

August 28, 2014 – Statement 332: “After three years of procedure, the sole surviving allegation is that through inadvertency or inattention I may have failed to intervene to block the arbitration that brought to an end the long-standing Tapie litigation,” Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF and former French Finance Minister

August 22, 2014 – Statement 331: “I. Bank of America acknowledges the facts set out in the Statement of Facts set forth in Annex 1, attached hereto and hereby incorporated…21. Miscellaneous C. The Parties acknowledge that this Agreement is made without any trial or adjudication or finding of any issue of fact or law, and is not a final order of any court or governmental authority.” Excerpts from BofA’s August 20, 2014, Settlement Agreement

August 22, 2014 – Statement 330: “The point is that when you see people clinging to a view of the world in the teeth of the evidence, failing to reconsider their beliefs…you have to suspect that there are ulterior motives involved…Well, when economic myths persist, the explanation usually lies in politics – and, in particular, in class interests. There is not a shred of evidence…”, Paul Krugman, New York Times

August 22, 2014 – Statement 328: “Attitudes have been changing, and the more than 2,000 apartments at the Barbican estate (London) are now in hot demand. A three-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot apartment is on the market for $3 million, up from $1.8 million two years ago, according to real-estate agency Frank Harris and Co…

August 22, 2014 – Statement 327: “In 2008, the Treasury lured private investors into Fannie and Freddie, at an extremely risky moment, with the promise of a return if the entities returned to profitability. Once they started to generate a profit, the Treasury, with the stroke of a pen, changed the rules of the game and decided that all profits should go to the government’s coffers…

August 22, 2014 – Statement 326: “Please also don’t look for an analysis of how and why the fine was calculated because it doesn’t seem to exist. For all we can tell the lawyers made it up…

August 21, 2014 – Statement 325: “…since I first asked Congress to raise the minimum wage, 13 states have gone ahead and raised theirs – and those states have seen higher job growth than the states that haven’t raised their minimum wage.”, President Obama, July 9, 2014

August 21, 2014 – Statement 324: “Uber has the chance to be a once in a decade if not a once in a generation company. Of course, that poses a threat to some, and I’ve watched as the taxi industry cartel has tried to stand in the way of technology and big change. Ultimately, that approach is unwinnable.” David Plouffe, President Obama’s former Chief Political Strategist

August 20, 2014 – Statement 323: “But like in London, an equally potent driver of the property market in Germany is the good old “search for yield”…With 10-year Bund yields at 1 percent, free money will have to flow towards property at some point…

August 21, 2014 – Statement 322: “Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod dismissed it as “pretty sketchy.” (The indictment of Texas Governor Rick Perry for “abuse of power.”) Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said this is “what happens in totalitarian societies.”…

August 21, 2014 – Statement 321: “It wasn’t entirely accidental that Theresa’s debts ended up in the hands of thieves. When the original creditor, Washington Mutual, sold her debt, it stopped caring about what Theresa owed, how she was treated or what happened to her personal information. This is true for many banks…

August 20, 2014 – Statement 320: “If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot…

August 19, 2014 – Statement 319: “…the Fed should also take into consideration the possibility of excesses brought on by low interest rates that could create financial crises. In making interest-rate decisions, the Fed should have a realistic view of the broad range of the existing systemic risks and of the limits of the government’s currently extant macroprudential tools…

August 19, 2014 – Statement 318: ““The collapse of Lehman was not an isolated failure of a single broker-dealer, but rather one of a string of crises for multiple broker-dealers,” Mr. Rosengren (Boston Fed President) said in his speech. While repo borrowing has fallen from its peak before the financial crisis, it is still by far the largest source of borrowing for broker-dealers…

August 19, 2014 – Statement 317: “When I finally realized that we were talking past each other, I felt kind of dumb. Because essentially this very realization – that people who favor expansion of government imagine a State different from the one possible in the physical world – has been a core part of the argument made by classical liberals for at least three hundred years.”, Michael Munger

August 19, 2014 – Statement 316: “We were told the science was settled. Yet new research suggests that salt is not nearly as dangerous as the government medical establishment has been proclaiming for many decades—and a low-salt diet may itself be risky.”, Wall Street Journal

August 19, 2014 – Statement 315: “…the political philosopher Liu Junning, declared, to the applause of students and faculty, that many Chinese would gladly take our crisis – if they could enjoy our freedoms. Crisis and freedom are surely bound together, since the West is essentially driven toward self-criticism and what economists call “creative destruction,”…

August 18, 2014 – Statement 314: “This then is the way the world works: Autocratic hypercapitalism without Western checks and balances produces new elites whose dream is an American or British lifestyle and education for their children, and whose other goal, knowing how their own capricious systems really function, is to buy into the rule of law by acquiring real estate…

August 18, 2014 – Statement 313: “So why don’t they back off Risen? It’s hard to fathom how the president who started with the press fluffing his pillows has ended up trying to suffocate the press with those pillows. How can he use the Espionage Act to throw reporters and whistle-blowers in jail even as he defends the intelligence operatives who “tortured some folks,”…

August 18, 2014 – Statement 312: “A large California pension manager is using complex derivatives to supercharge its bets as it looks to cover a funding shortfall and diversify its holdings…San Diego’s approach is one of the most extreme examples yet of a public pension using leverage – including instruments such as derivatives – to boost performance.”, Dan Fitzpatrick, Wall Street Journal

August 15, 2014 – Statement 311: “Most of the living wills, including those for the four largest banks – J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo – are based on a combination of Chapter 11 bankruptcy of the parent firm and sales of subsidiaries. But selling business units in a liquidity or solvency crisis is hardly a viable plan.” Steven Gjerstad and Vernon L. Smith

August 15, 2014 – Statement 310: “NewLeaf came out with VA guidelines that have been enhanced to allow 100% LTV on Cash-Out Transactions…Minimum credit score is 640, Conforming Loan Limits, Maximum Cash-out $100,000 for all LTVs…” Excerpt from August 2014, Mortgage Industry Newsletter

August 5, 2014 – Statement 309: “Of greater concern, however, are the implicit admission and hubristic conceit behind the talk about macroprudential supervision. In effect, its proponents say: Yes, we know that interest rates are too low, but trust us, we’ll rig the rest of the market as well so that nothing bad happens. To which one can only respond, good luck with that! Or more constructively: Simpler is usually better.”, Klaus Chavanne, LaGrangeville, N.Y.

August 5, 2014 – Statement 308: “The case will most likely rest on how a judge interprets the S.E.C.’s arcane rule, known as 14e-3.”, Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Perhaps Too Clever To Be Legal”, New York Times

August 5, 2014 – Statement 307: “More important, the proceedings violate the Constitution’s separation of powers. Every phase of the proceeding, and every government official involved, is controlled by the agency in its role as chief prosecutor. The SEC assigns and directs a team of employees to prosecute the case…

August 5, 2014 – Statement 306: “One misguided CFPB regulation is ‘for the best interest of the consumer’ is the 3-day appraisal rule.”, Mortgage Industry Newsletter

August 5, 2014 – Statement 305: “And those Millennials sure don’t like 40 pages of upfront disclosures…but then again, who does? If someone can buy a $100,000 car and fill out 1-2 pages, but the file for a $100,000 home is 4 inches thick, how long do we think folks will put up with that?”, Mortgage Industry Newsletter

July 31, 2014 – Statement 304: “The House lawsuit is no “stunt,” as Mr. Obama has characterized it. The lawsuit is necessary to protect the Constitution’s separation of powers, a core means of protecting individual liberty. Without a judicial check on unbounded executive power to suspend the law, this president and all who follow him will have a powerful new weapon to destroy political accountability and democracy itself…

July 31, 2014 – Statement 303: “It is still crazy to me that the lender who gives money to a defaulting borrower is the bad guy here. PHH gave a borrower $280,000 that he never repaid. Then PHH offered to voluntarily modify the loan terms. And because the modification is not processed correctly or to the borrowers liking, the lender owes this defaulting borrower $16 million?? What happened to contract law?”

July 30, 2014 – Statement 302: “Top Fed officials including former Chairman Ben Bernanke have argued that rising asset prices are less a risk than a plus, because the rising value of houses, stocks and bonds makes families feel wealthier, so they spend more and boost the economy…

July 30, 2014 – Statement 301: “She had run into financial difficulty (paying her mortgage) after separating from her husband and owed nearly $300,000 on her home, which was valued at less than $200,000, she said.”, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2014

July 30, 2014 – Statement 300: “A little non-bank mortgage broker has to develop and maintain a federal Anti-Money Laundering program and have it regularly tested by an independent party or be in violation of U.S. law???”

July 29, 2014 – Statement 299: “The unusual price pattern, with prices rising at an increasing rate, was already well entrenched before the widespread adoption of alternative mortgage products…such as adjustable rate mortgages, interest-only mortgages, negative equity mortgages…

July 29, 2014 – Statement 298: “For more than sixty years, Federal Reserve intervention in the market for Treasury securities has been used as the principle monetary policy instrument in the United States. We show that these interventions, which alter short-term interest rates, had their primary impact on residential mortgage lending until the Great Recession…

July 29, 2014 – Statement 297: “What May Have Sustained and Continued the Housing Bubble (2002-2006)?”

July 29, 2014 – Statement 296: “What May Have Triggered the Housing Bubble (1997-2001)?”

July 28, 2014 – Statement 295: “One can review the century-long track record of the Fed, since its founding in 1913, in executing the congressional constitutional task (Article 1, Sec. 8) “to coin money and regulate the value thereof” by comparing the purchasing power of the 1913 dollar with the equal purchasing power, per CPI comparisons, of the comparable $24.30 needed today. That’s a 96% shrinkage…

July 28, 2014 – Statement 294: “I believe we are at risk of doing what the Fed has too often done: overstaying our welcome by staying too loose, too long…Those of us who are the current trustees of the Fed’s reputation – the FOMC…

July 28, 2014 – Statement 293: “It’s just a painful business (health care) to be in…the regulatory burden in the U.S. is so high that I think it would dissuade a lot of entrepreneurs.”, Google co-founder Sergey Brin

July 24, 2014 – Statement 292: “The rescue of incumbent investors in the government bailout of the largest U.S. banks in the autumn of 2008 has been widely viewed as unfair, as indeed it was in applying different rules to different players…

July 24, 2014 – Statement 291: “The status quo of implicit guarantees for money funds is unacceptable, just as it was for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the decades leading up to the financial crisis.” SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher

July 24, 2014 – Statement 290: “At present, there are no federal laws that sufficiently protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) workers from being fired simply because of who they are or who they love. American workers should be judged by one thing only: their ability to get the job done…

July 23, 2014 – Statement 289: “Mr. Blinder says that Fed policy has been working well, so a fix is unnecessary. But it has not been working well. Since the time the Fed deviated from the rules-based policy that had worked well in the 1980s and 1990s, we have had a financial crisis, a deep recession and a very disappointing recovery…

July 23, 2014 – Statement 288: “…Harvard researchers who examined a large sample of 2007 bankruptcy filings found that, “using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies…were medical.” That research, published in the American Journal of Medicine…

July 23, 2014 – Statement 287: “…for example, if someone took out a (FHA) loan 10 years ago, and maybe they got a $5,000 gift from their parents, well, technically, you’re supposed to get a gift letter from the parents. Well, let’s say we didn’t get the gift letter. The loan has been handled perfectly well for 10 years…

July 23, 2014 – Statement 286: “The average federal debt per household will soon exceed $140,000…Federal debt is now nine times greater than revenue legally available for debt service. The U.S. last maintained its debt at that high level in the 1790s.”, Bill White, Barrons

July 22, 2014 – Statement 285: “We have gone through two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cuban trade embargo, smoking bans, excessive taxation and competition from low-wage countries. The toughest challenge of all these is the F.D.A. regulations.” Eric Newman, co-owner of the country’s oldest premium cigar business, founded in 1895, New York Times

July 22, 2014 – Statement 284: “In early July, Janet Yellen made an admirably clear statement that she is sticking faithfully to the Greenspan- Bernanke policy of extreme moral hazard. She will not use interest rates to head off or curtail any asset bubbles encouraged by the extremely low rates that might appear. And history is clear: very low rates absolutely will encourage extreme speculation…

July 22, 2014 – Statement 283: “Investors, seeking a higher return when interest rates are low, recently flocked to buy a bond issue from (subprime auto lender) Prestige Financial Services of Utah. Orders to invest in the $390 million debt deal were four times greater than the amount of available securities…

July 22, 2014 – Statement 282: “More than any other single individual in the U.S. financial system, (Fed Chair) Janet Yellen is in a position to see what is taking place in the economy and its financial markets…

July 21, 2014 – Statement 281: “Although the left’s narrative placed all blame on the private sector, these numbers show that private firms were responsible for less than a quarter of the problem. Yet Dodd-Frank said nothing about government housing policies and ignored Fannie and Freddie…

July 21, 2014 – Statement 280: “…none of these issues is an excuse to delay accountability. Children have only one chance for an education and every year in which that education falls short is another impediment to their success…

July 18, 2014 – Statement 279: “But it does amount to a government official (The Fed Chair and nation’s top economist) substituting her own judgment for that of the marketplace, the prices arrived at by thousands of buyers and sellers for an app maker or a leveraged loan…

July 17, 2014 – Statement 278: “Check out the California Supreme Court ruling below re. commissioned sales employees and overtime pay. Bad labor laws like this are another reason why companies are moving out of California. Commissioned employees’ hours-worked are almost impossible to track accurately and their only objective work-product is sales (of products and/or services)…

July 17, 2014 – Statement 277: “When (property rights) are threatened, or uncertain, the result is inefficiency, rent-seeking, a larger underground economy and capital flight…Ultimately, behind this and other attacks on property rights is the notion that the government owns all income, leaving to you only what it doesn’t demand…

July 17, 2014 – Statement 276: “Many monetary experts refer to the 2000 equity crash as a benign event. But the unemployment rate rose by 2½ percentage points after the decline, and the monetary policy response to that rise in unemployment contributed to the housing bubble and the 2008 financial crisis…

July 16, 2014 – Statement 275: “Ah…I’ll stop there because we’re running out of time, but I have to say, Chairman Yellen, I think the language in the statute (section 165 of Dodd-Frank requiring orderly liquidation plans for Too Big to Fail institutions) is pretty clear, that you are required, the Fed is required to call it every year on whether these institutions have a credible plan…

July 16, 2014 – Statement 274: “It’s certainly true that from a psychological standpoint, the Federal Reserve has induced the same sort of yield-seeking speculation that drove investors into mortgage securities (in hopes of a “pickup” over depressed Treasury-bill yields), fueled the housing bubble, and resulted in the deepest economic and financial collapse since the Great Depression…

July 16, 2014 – Statement 273: “Sound money and free markets go hand in hand…When (Fed monetary) policy became more ad hoc, interventionist and discretionary during the past decade, the economy deteriorated and we got a financial crisis, a Great Recession, and a not-so-great recovery…

July 16, 2014 – Statement 272: “The CFPB should only create programs to educate consumers about payday loans, pass regulations to ensure that lenders follow existing laws and prosecute businesses that don’t treat borrowers honestly. The Dodd-Frank law requires these actions, and no more. The CFPB wasn’t created to protect consumers from themselves…

July 15, 2014 – Statement 271: “Regulators have taken to warning that investors may be underestimating the risks still lurking in the euro zone – perverse given that central-bank policies have been explicitly designed to encourage investors to take such risks.”, Simon Nixon, WSJ

July 15, 2014 – Statement 270: “Most of (San Francisco) City College’s problems, however, remain unsolved…With no state leadership, and with boards and faculty unable to resolve their many differences, institutions like City College have achieved terrible results for students…

July 15, 2014 – Statement 269: “Our desire to artificially maintain our standard of living through massive public- and private-sector debt (currently 348% of GDP, not including our unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Social Security, prescription-drug program, et al.). We’ve seen dramatic monetary-based expansions…

July 15, 2014 – Statement 268: “When the federal government is good, it’s very, very good. When it’s bad (or at least deeply inefficient), it’s the norm. The evidence is abundant…

July 15, 2014 – Statement 267: “…Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman’s scientific conclusions are in accordance with Mr. Volcker’s policy views. Mr. Volcker emphasizes that the “responsibility of the government is to have a stable currency,” period. By establishing a single rule, Fed authorities will have no need to determine the optimal mix of inflation and unemployment rates…”, Bertrand Horwitz

July 15, 2014 – Statement 266: “How we as a nation treat these refugee children fleeing for their lives will speak volumes about what we truly value. More than compassion or pity, what these kids need is for Congress and the president to exhibit the characteristic that unites us as Americans: a fundamental sense of fairness and due process…

July 15, 2014 – Statement 265: “…on Monday it (The Department of Justice) announced a civil settlement with Citigroup over failed mortgage investments that covers almost exactly the period when current Treasury Secretary Jack Lew oversaw divisions at Citi that presided over failed mortgage investments. Now, that’s funny…

July 10, 2014 – Statement 264: “…in vivid contrast to the Swiss central bank, which marks its investments to market, the Federal Reserve has designed its own regulatory accounting so that it will never have to recognize any losses on its $4 trillion portfolio of long-term bonds and mortgage securities…

July 10, 2014 – Statement 263: “The amounts here are absolutely staggering,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. “It’s over $100 billion each of the last five years (self-estimates of improper payments by Federal agencies provided to Congress). That’s a staggering half a trillion dollars in improper payments.”, Associated Press

July 9, 2014 – Statement 262: “The inappropriate cronyism (for these LA firefighting jobs) that occurred in the first-place (and caused a scandal) and now the solution, a lottery, are symptoms of the fact that free competitive markets aren’t allowed to operate when it comes to these unionized, government jobs…

July 8, 2014 – Statement 261: “Welcome to the Everything Boom – and, quite possibly, the Everything Bubble. Around the world, nearly every asset class is expensive by historical standards (and fundamentals). Stocks and bonds; emerging markets and advanced economies; urban office towers and Iowa farmland; you name it…

July 8, 2014 – Statement 260: “Washington is stuck because that serves its interests. Long laws and vague regulations amount to arbitrary power. The administration uses this power to buy off allies and to silence opponents…

July 7, 2014 – Statement 259: “To justify its position against granting discovery to plaintiffs, the government argues that disclosure of current and future plans for the conservatorship (of Fannie and Freddie) could be “disruptive to the housing market and to the nation’s economy.”…

July 7, 2014 – Statement 258: “Often…those against corporatism seem to favor the existence of large government-sponsored enterprises that fill a void left by the imperfection of the market. But the justification for these institutions usually goes beyond helping Americans, with supporters citing evidence that these institutions give money back to the Treasury…

July 7, 2014 – Statement 257: “Most of the investigations involve trumped-up charges of misleading job placement rates, which federal law requires for-profits – but not public and nonprofit colleges – to document and disclose. But here’s the rub: There’s no standard definition of “job placement.”, Wall Street Journal

July 7, 2014 – Statement 256: “Religious freedom was a founding principle of our republic…We now have unelected agencies of the government bullying the citizenry on a daily basis, even in our most private decisions.”, Susan Bryan, Hendersonville, N.C.

July 7, 2014 – Statement 255: “It began with $550 million loans in…2004-2005. Thereafter (Puerto Rico sovereign) borrowing, largely to finance…(deficits) took off. The Federal Reserve’s low interest policy and the appetite for triple-tax exempt debt (which throws off income that is free of federal, state and local tax) among municipal bond investors fed the frenzy.”, Wall Street Journal 

July 2, 2014 – Statement 254: “Thanks to 30-year fixed rate, government-guaranteed mortgages and government tax breaks for mortgage interest and capital gains, the largest institutional investors in the world can’t (financially) compete with individual American homebuyers…

July 2, 2014 – Statement 253: “Successful economic upward mobility requires steps – such as employment and education – that lead to a move to a better neighborhood. A better ZIP Code is the result, not the precursor, to a better life…

July 1, 2014 – Statement 252: “Stop Us Before We Kill Again: Central bankers warn the world about…central bankers.”, Wall Street Journal

June 30, 2014 – Statement 251: “Given the clear trajectory of U.S. (monetary) policy, the turmoil in emerging-market currency and bond markets over the past year should spur more effective collective action to defend the global financial system against future Fed-induced whiplash…

June 30, 2014 – Statement 250: “The overall, somewhat gloomy message from the central bankers was that the world is drunk on easy money and has already forgotten the lessons of recent years.”, New York Times

June 30, 2014 – Statement 249: “The narrative proceeds…to John Law, the 18th-century Scotsman who, as banker to the French court, gave quantitative easing a try 300 years before Ben Bernanke ran with the idea. Lots of paper credit is the thing, Law contended. Who needed gold? The experiment ended with exploding asset bubbles…

June 30, 2014 – Statement 248: “During my Wall Street days, the individual was never talked about.” (For example, patients often don’t know how much a procedure at a doctor’s office costs ahead of time.) “That’s why I felt we had to drive this revolution where an individual had more of a say in health care.” , Anne Wojcicki, CEO, 23andMe

June 30, 2014 – Statement 247: “If you’re self-employed, you’re hosed. If you just started a job, you’re hosed. If you get a bonus, you’re hosed. Just got a severance payment? Can’t count that. I don’t have to do a lot to be a lender. I just have to be normal. Banks have forgotten that (mortgage) loans are collateralized by the home itself.” William D. Dallas

June 27, 2014 – Statement 246: “From 2003 to 2005, however, the Fed kept interest rates lower than such a rules-based approach would imply. This contributed mightily to the housing bubble and the risk-taking search for yield…

June 27, 2014 – Statement 245: “In any event, the limitation upon the President’s appointment power is there not for the benefit of the Senate, but for the protection of the people; it should not be dependent on Senate action for its existence…

June 27, 2014 – Statement 244: “The average rate for such (subprime credit card) customers was 21.1% in the first quarter, up from 20.2% a year earlier, according to research firm CardHub.com. In contrast, the highest-quality borrowers paid 12.9% on average in the first quarter, virtually unchanged from a year earlier…

June 26, 2014 – Statement 243: “But as interest rates began their long fall, pension funds faced a dilemma. Staying heavily invested in bonds would force governments either to set aside more cash upfront or to cut pension promises. So instead, pension funds radically changed their investment strategies, embracing investments that produce higher returns but also involve more risk. This shift has replaced an explicit cost with a hidden one…

June 26, 2014 – Statement 242: “The American colonial slogan “No Taxation Without Representation” described our grievance with Britain and led to our Country’s founding. Shouldn’t the inverse also be true; “No Representation Without Taxation”? With Mississippi getting $3 from the federal government for every $1 they send in (a situation that has occurred for years), should its citizens continue to have voting representatives in Congress or is there some other way to address this flaw inherent in our beautiful U.S. democracy?”, Mike Perry

June 24, 2014 – Statement 241:  “On and on it went. Eight grueling years passed before we had our day in court. Even after a U.S. district court dismissed the case in 2010, ruling in our favor on all claims made by the SEC, the agency appealed. On May 30, 2014, our 12-year odyssey ended when a federal jury unanimously found in favor of every defendant and against the SEC…

June 24, 2014 – Statement 240: “(The “implicit guarantee”) describes a peculiar belief widely held before the financial crisis, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be rescued by the government if they fell into distress. Despite evidence that this idea enabled them to borrow at rates close to Treasury yields, government officials denied any such guarantee existed – right up until they rescued the two of them in 2008…

June 24, 2014 – Statement 239: “Check out this NY Times example of a Pay as You Earn program (PAYE) student loan…It’s negatively amortizing: the balance owed increases over time, because the payment required by the government does not cover the interest owed!!! Isn’t this similar to the pre-crisis, much-derided Option-Arm mortgage loans offered by the private sector…

June 23, 2014 – Statement 238: “A handful of Wall Street firms are much more vulnerable than their peers to a type of bank run (repo runs) seen during the financial crisis. Unfortunately for investors, the identity of these firms is a mystery…

June 20, 2014 – Statement 237: “The blatant discrimination that occurred here (by GE Capital) is unlawful and will not be tolerated,” said Jocelyn Samuels, the acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division…This kind of conduct has no place in the consumer financial marketplace,” said Richard Cordray, the (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s) director. “People deserve to be given clear information and they deserve to be treated fairly.”, Los Angeles Times

June 20, 2014 – Statement 236: “The aggregate wealth of U.S. households, including stocks and real-estate holdings, just hit a new high of $81.8 trillion. That’s more than $26 trillion in wealth added since 2009. No wonder most on Wall Street applaud the Fed’s unrelenting balance-sheet recovery strategy. It’s great news for those households and businesses with large asset holdings, high risk tolerances and easy access to credit. Yet it provides little solace for families and small businesses that must rely on their income statements to pay the bills…

June 19, 2014 – Statement 235: “But the antifat message went mainstream, and by the 1980s it was so embedded in modern medicine and nutrition that it became nearly impossible to challenge the consensus. Dr. Walter Willett, now the head of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, tells me that in the mid-1990s, he was sitting on a piece of contrary evidence that none of the leading American science journals would publish…

June 18, 2014 – Statement 234: “Driving the demand for this debt are the easy-money policies of the world’s major central banks, which has depressed yields on debt of wealthy nations…Many money managers consider Ecuador (who defaulted on $3.2 billion in 2008) and Kenya (their first-ever international bonds) to be “frontier” markets, a loosely defined term used to refer to countries that are a step below emerging markets…”. Wall Street Journal

June 17, 2014 – Statement 233: “Persistently low interest rates set by the BOE (Bank of England), alongside government policies intended to spur home buying, have sent prices soaring in the past year—especially in the past six months. The low rates and galloping prices, in turn, have encouraged buyers to take on ever-growing quantities of potentially destabilizing debt to afford a house…

June 17, 2014 – Statement 232: “Immigration is an economic issue. Fundamentally, it is about the movement of workers, entrepreneurs and consumers to locations where they can maximize the value of their labor, businesses and purchasing power…

June 17, 2014 – Statement 231: “Federal loan programs “encourage students to pursue any degree regardless of price,” Mr. Palacious says. Students can borrow cash directly from the feds through Stafford loans. Parents have an even easier line of credit: Under the federal Parent PLUS program, mom and dad can borrow up to the cost of tuition after a credit check. “People are sometimes mortgaging their homes on what their kids will do,” Mr. Palacios says…

June 17, 2014 – Statement 230: “The federal government is stepping up wage garnishment of student-loan borrowers who have defaulted, another lingering effect of the nation’s ballooning college debt. Just over 174,800 people who had defaulted on federal student loans saw the Education Department take some money out of at least one paycheck…

June 17, 2014 – Statement 229: “Lending to weaker companies on easy terms is becoming more and more common as investors’ appetite for higher-yielding debt grows stronger and the Federal Reserve keeps money flowing at ultralow rates. Since the financial crisis, companies have been able to borrow more without offering investors what were once considered standard protections against possible losses…

June 17, 2014 – Statement 228:  “In America, what is holding back entrepreneurs from using digital technology to re-invent consumer banking and finance, including mortgage banking, is federal deposit insurance, federally-guaranteed mortgages, student loans (and other loans), the Fed’s manipulation of market rates, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Digital financial entrepreneurs can’t compete on a level playing field with the government subsidies provided to Too Big to Fail Banks, Fannie, Freddie, and FHA…

June 16, 2014 – Statement 227: “…the frequency and breadth of the Ninth’s Circuit’s defeats (10 of 11 cases before the Supreme Court this term and 8 of 10 of these defeats were unanimous!!!) suggest that many of its 29 active judges are willfully ignoring precedent and law to do as they please…”, Wall Street Journal

June 12, 2014 – Statement 226: “We can all recite a rather long list of culprits contributing to the financial crisis. What I want to raise is what seems to be a neglected question. Has the absence of a well-functioning international monetary system been an enabling (or instigating) condition? Did the absence of international oversight, of discipline in financing, of exchange rate management permit…even encourage…unsustainable imbalances in international payments and in domestic economies to persist too long?”, Paul A. Volcker

June 11, 2014 – Statement 225: “History provides ample evidence that when allowed to function properly free market capitalism generates massive national prosperity with high employment, a strong currency and rising standards of living. It is only when the state manipulates and over regulates free markets that capitalism fails. However, capitalism usually takes the blame for the failures of statism.” John Browne, Euro Pacific Capital

June 10, 2014 – Statement 224: “Housing experts advise on market comparables/values and whether you qualify for a mortgage and terms, but are silent on what should be your most important financial question: Is this home purchase (with this mortgage) likely to be a good investment for me? After our national housing bubble/bust, it seems wrong that no one: not your Realtor, not your mortgage lender, and not your appraiser (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau where are you?) even attempts to answer this question…

June 10, 2014 – Statement 223: “Beginning July 1, lenders will no longer have to perform an analysis of cash flow or debt-service coverage on loans of $350,000 or less, provided business owners meet the agency’s credit standards. Eliminating the two requirements is expected to cut the time needed to originate a small-dollar loan by as much as 50%, SBA officials say…

June 9, 2014 – Statement 222: “Taken together, both international and U.S. evidence reveals a strong pattern: Economic disasters are almost always preceded by a large increase in household debt. In fact the correlation is so robust that it is as close to an empirical law as it gets in macroeconomics. Further, larger increases in household debt and economic disasters seemed to be linked  by a collapse in spending…

June 9, 2014 – Statement 221: “WSJ Money: What lessons should people draw about their own finances, based on what we’ve just been through? Timothy Geithner: The basic lesson is you have to be careful with how much you borrow relative to your income and the value of your house or assets. You want to live with a greater cushion against the unknown…

June 6, 2014 – Statement 220: “The longer [very low inflation] lasts, the higher are the risks,” Mr. Draghi (ECB President) said at a news conference. “That is what we are reacting to.”, The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2014

June 6, 2014 – Statement 219: “Credit unions in search of higher returns are loosening lending standards and piling into longer-term assets, exposing the firms to potentially significant losses if interest rates rise and worrying regulators in the process.”, Wall Street Journal

June 6, 2014 – Statement 218: “As a presidential candidate in 2007, Obama rightly suggested that the Bush administration’s use of signing statements was “a clear abuse of power [designed] to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end run around provisions designed to foster accountability.” Obama promised that, if elected president, he “[would] not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions…

June 6, 2014 – Statement 217: “If anything, the report suggests that the army unit’s lack of security and discipline was as much to blame for the disappearance, given the sergeant’s history.” New York Times OpEd, June 6, 2014

June 5, 2014 – Statement 216: “It is a problem of their (the Fed’s) own making. They can’t have it both ways,” said Martin Barnes, chief economist at BCA Research. “If they want to sustain zero interest rates and push up asset prices, how can they expect to have that with no excesses and no risk taking?”, Wall Street Journal

June 4, 2014 – Statement 215: “In the 2012 presidential race, according to Federal Election Commission data, 96% of all campaign contributions from Ivy League faculty and employees went to Barack Obama. Ninety-six percent. There was more disagreement among the old Soviet Politburo than there is among Ivy League donors…

June 4, 2014 – Statement 214: “…Government never will be able to satisfy demand for a valuable service given away free or nearly free…If a private hospital operator in a competitive market saw wait times growing, it would raise prices to maximize profits, which would have the effect of reducing demand. Another hospital, seeing this, might keep prices low to fill empty beds…

June 3, 2014 – Statement 213: “Combine a 30-year, fixed-rate, first mortgage, with an interest-only home equity line of credit (a major product of the Too Big To Fail Banks) and you have economically created a synthetic version of the much-derided (and banned by regulators) Option-Arm mortgage!!!”, Mike Perry

June 2, 2014 – Statement 212: “This process has been what central banks have been seeking: Squeeze out any return from risk-free assets, and force investors into riskier ones. The lowering of risk premiums on equities and nongovernment bonds has boosted asset prices. Viewed alternatively, the rise in asset prices spurred by monetary authorities has pulled future returns forward…

June 2, 2014 – Statement 211: “…a key harm resulting from many programs is “government-promoted moral hazard,” in which public policies encourage people to engage in risky behavior, often causing immense collateral damage. The federal government’s promotion of home-ownership via Fannie Mae (ticker: FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC), essentially government agencies, helped bring “catastrophic damage to the larger economy”…

May 28, 2014 – Statement 210: “The confusion here may lie with HUD itself, as it appears to stem from a mortgagee letter HUD issued in 2008 that would have limited lenders’ ability to accept less than the full mortgage balance as payment from family members or heirs. HUD rescinded that letter in 2011 and stated at the time that it would issue a replacement letter, but has yet to do so.”

May 28, 2014 – Statement 209: “The excess profits companies can extract from their customers when they face little or no competition – known to economists as “rents” – may be deepening income inequality, Professor Stiglitz and others have argued. The evidence shows up in fatter corporate bottom lines and a rising share of national income that goes to profits…

May 28, 2014 – Statement 208: “Who wants an index fund that yields 2%?” said Jeffrey Gundlach, whose Total Return Bond Fund at DoubleLine Capital LP has $32.1 billion under management, up 10 times from its start four years ago. Mr. Gundlach, in an interview, said investors “want exposure to these high-yield and distressed securities and they’ve become comfortable with what we’re doing.”…

May 28, 2014 – Statement 207: “Those who perform these vital services (feeding, clothing, and sheltering their fellow citizens) are activated by the incentives of the marketplace, perhaps even by “greed,” another fashionable buzzword that puts the anointed and the benighted on different moral planes…

May 28, 2014 – Statement 206: “The federal government runs two giant health-care programs…Medicare is provided by private physicians and other providers. Its finances are a mess, but the care that seniors receive is by and large outstanding. The VA health-care system is run by a centrally controlled federal bureaucracy. Ultimately, that is the source of the poor care veterans receive…

May 27, 2014 – Statement 205: “From the bare facts of the American financial crisis, many different narratives have already been spun. They can be classified by whom they blame: Wall Street bankers, feckless American debtors, government incompetence, the Chinese. “The fundamental causes of this crisis were familiar and straightforward,” Geithner writes. “It began with a mania…

May 27, 2014 – Statement 204: “They (the S.E.C.) are an administrative agency that is holding up this process because they are demanding unconstitutional new powers,” Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel, American Civil Liberties Union…

May 23, 2014 – Statement 203: “The spread of the free market has undoubtedly led to a tremendous increase in overall wealth and well-being around the world…Yet the answer to problems with the free market is not to reject economic liberty in favor of government control. The church has consistently rejected coercive systems of socialism and collectivism, because they violate inherent human rights to economic freedom and private property…

May 22, 2014 – Statement 202: “Intuitively, an accurate forecast is more likely to have been made by a forecaster who has better judgment and is better able to evaluate the situation. Here we argue that there is a simple reason why this intuition may be wrong. Rather than being an indication of good judgment, accurately forecasting a rare event…may in fact be an indication of poor judgment…

May 21, 2014 – Statement 201: “The initial investment thesis was to invest in these homes, make a nice return on the way, and be positioned to sell them for a nice profit,” said Gary Beasley, co-CEO of Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust, one of four public companies in the business…

May 21, 2014 – Statement 200: “Money illusion occurs when people think in terms of nominal values rather than real values – meaning, they consider the face value of money instead of its actual purchasing power. In other words, homeowners who sell their home for a higher dollar amount than what they bought it for see themselves as coming out ahead—even if inflation eats the gains…

May 20, 2014 – Statement 199: “…thanks to a 1993 Supreme Court decision, homeowners saddled with mortgage debt on their primary residences have not been able to take refuge in the bankruptcy courts. The unanimous ruling by the court found that when Congress rewrote the bankruptcy code in 1978, it specifically gave “favorable treatment” to mortgage lenders “to encourage the flow of capital into the home-lending market,” as Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a concurring opinion…

May 20, 2014 – Statement 198: “Large investors are rushing into the riskiest corporate bonds, frustrated by low interest rates on safer investments and convinced that even companies with shaky finances are in little danger of default. The demand for low-rated debt is raising concerns that investors are stockpiling future risk…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 197: The below explains the recently falling 10-year Treasury yield this year. The bottom line is the Fed’s QE has taken all the supply out of the market (it’s on their balance sheet). They are doing this to keep mortgage rates low, which are priced off the 10-year Treasury. Shouldn’t the government be issuing as much long-term debt now as possible and locking in these historically low rates (only 5% is 10 years or longer outside of the Fed)? That’s what Fortune 500 companies seem to be doing these days, issuing 30-year debt (one even issued 50-year debt)…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 196: “But the booming tech economy, which underpins the Bay Area housing market, has some asking whether Silicon Valley is in a bubble, similar to the one that popped in 2001 and led to a national economic downturn…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 195: “In a financial crisis, the natural instinct is to let creditors suffer losses, let firms fail, and protect taxpayers from any risk of loss. But in a financial panic, a strategy based on those instincts will lead to depression-level unemployment. Instead, the government and the central bank have to step in and take risks on a scale that the private sector can’t and won’t…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 194: “The Obama administration and federal regulators are reversing course on some of the biggest postcrisis efforts to tighten mortgage-lending standards amid concern they could snuff out the fledgling housing rebound and dent the economic recovery…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 193: “One of the themes in “Stress Test” is Mr. Geithner’s difficulty in understanding the health of large financial firms. He admits that he didn’t see the mortgage crisis coming and didn’t grasp the severity of the problems after it appeared. He didn’t require that the banks he was overseeing raise more capital because his staff’s analysis couldn’t foresee a downturn as bad as the one that occurred…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 192: “At a minimum, Mr. Mian and Mr. Sufi say, they cannot understand why the government encourages borrowing, for example, through tax deductions for mortgage interest payments. “You need some kind of limit on where people can smoke, and you need some kind of limit on debt,” Mr. Mian said…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 191: “Hilariously credulous are certain reports in the California press claiming Toyota’s decision to move its U.S. headquarters, along with 5,000 jobs, to the Dallas suburbs was in no way a reflection on California’s business or political climate…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 190: “Let us pause for a moment to state the plain fact that the entire college financing system is a national disgrace. College costs are high, universities don’t counsel undergraduates well enough, families get in over their heads, there are too many types of loans, the repayment options are dizzying…

May 19, 2014 – Statement 189: “…led by Liu Shiyu, a vice governor of the People’s Bank of China, central-bank officials discussed mortgage-lending policies with executives from 15 major banks….China’s central bank asked the nation’s major lenders to give priority in mortgage lending to first-time home buyers, as concerns increase over the sluggish property market.”, Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2014

May 14, 2014 – Statement 188: “Hey, I have an idea! Let’s have the government encourage expanding lending to riskier borrowers. That way we can sell more houses, real estate agents can make their commissions, and when things go south, we’ll blame the lenders! Didn’t we try all that about ten years ago?…

May 13, 2014 – Statement 187: “(An employee of) BB&T writes, “Speaking of low down payment loans for first timers- As part of their CRA requirement, BB&T Bank offers a 97% LTV conventional loan with no PMI called CHIP: “Community Homebuyers Incentive Program.” All of the 3% down payment can be a gift. They lend to borrowers who are at or below 80% of the median income for their area, and will go down to a 620 credit score…

May 7, 2014 – Statement 186: “Fed Chair Yellen recently admitted they don’t have a good model of inflation….(and yet) The Fed (ignores Milton Friedman’s dictum and) focuses far too much attention on distracting monthly and quarterly (inflation) data, while ignoring the longer-term effects of money growth…

May 6, 2014 – Statement 185: “I’m not predicting that the market is going to fall 12 percent or 50 percent. (And if I did, you should stop reading this column.) As (Nobel Laureate) Mr. Shiller says, ‘There is no way to predict the future.’”, David Leonhart, New York Times

May 6, 2014 – Statement 184: “Here’s a little-known fact: Berkshire Hathaway, the fifth-largest company in the United States, with some $162.5 billion in revenue and 300,000 employees worldwide, has no general counsel that oversees the holding company’s dozens of units. There is no human resources department, either…

May 6, 2014 – Statement 183: “How in the world can the National Statistical Rating Agencies rate 50-year bonds or even 30-year bonds for one corporation? Who knows what CAT’s cash flows or EBITDA will be in even five or ten years, let alone whether or not (in a competitive marketplace) CAT will have survived that long. It’s nuts!!!….

May 5, 2014 – Statement 182: “(The FERC) Shooting random people for following the law, that sets the markets and the world back.”, Rich Gates

May 1, 2014 – Statement 181: “Only one lender, OneWest, the former IndyMac bank, would not settle, opting instead to continue with the review of loan files. After completing most of the review this year, OneWest, a California-based bank that has a former Goldman Sachs partner as its chairman, doled out a relatively modest $8.5 million and only to homeowners who had actually suffered financial harm…

April 30, 2014 – Statement 180: “Fostering cyclical resilience means ensuring that the key securitization infrastructure on which the secondary mortgage market relies is not exposed to financial risk resulting from swings in housing prices or the economy…

April 30, 2014 – Statement 179: “Piketty also ignores other problems that would surely stem from so much wealth redistribution and political control of the economy, and the book suffers from Piketty’s disconnection from practical politics — a condition that might not hinder his standing in the left-wing intellectual circles of Paris but that seems naive when confronted with broader global economic and political realities…

April 30, 2014 – Statement 178: “The roots of the problem, say many Italians, lie in how vested interests in the private and public sectors gum up the economy, preventing change that replaces old practices with new, more efficient ones, and repeatedly frustrating political attempts to shake up the country.”, WSJ

April 29, 2014 – Statement 177: “Barely a month after Toyota settles a politically-tinged criminal case with the U.S. Government for $1.2 billion and in related civil matters is being sued by class action attorneys for billions more, is it any surprise that they are moving their North American headquarters from California to Texas? Texas, like nearly every other State and unlike California, respects the common law Business Judgment Rule and protects BOTH directors AND officers from ordinary negligence lawsuits and hindsight judgments.”, Mike Perry

April 29, 2014 – Statement 176: “Isn’t Berkshire Hathaways’ (Buffet’s son is the director on Coke’s board) decision to abstain from approving Coke’s equity plan a material piece of information that Coke was obligated to publicly disclose to its shareholders before they voted on the plan? What do you think? What does the SEC think?”, Mike Perry

April 28, 2014 – Statement 175: “If you thought mortgage-underwriting standards were lax right before the housing crisis, wait until you take a closer look at student loans. Borrowing for a house at least requires an appraisal of the property and an assessment of the borrower’s future capacity to pay. Student loans require neither. Instead, students and families are encouraged to invest in any program at any price…

April 28, 2014 – Statement 174: “The German economic thinker Max Weber believed that for capitalism to work, average people needed to know how to do double-entry bookkeeping. If we want stable, sustainable capitalism, a good place to start would be to make double-entry accounting and basic finance part of the curriculum in high school, as they were in Renaissance Florence and Amsterdam.”, Jacob Soll, USC Professor of History and Accounting

April 28, 2014 – Statement 173: “Meanwhile, the rest of the country slouches along, unemployment high, wages stagnant, credit tight. But Silicon Valley feels like a foam party. It turns out that one might have more to do with the other than you would think. The Federal Reserve is currently keeping interest rates very, very low. They’ve been keeping them very, very low for a long, long time. The idea is to spur investors…”

April 28, 2014 – Statement 172: “No one knew how many transfusions would be necessary. Heated disagreement ensued. We were trying, as Isaac does now at the poker table, to calculate with incomplete information the probability of various outcomes. We knew that any action would have to be predicated on our understanding of probabilities.”, Brooks Haxton, Time Magazine

April 28, 2014 – Statement 171: “Low-interest-rate policies have helped bail out banks, the stock market and real estate, but the Fed has not publicly acknowledged the cost of those policies….it cost (American) savers $758 billion.”, Richard Barrington, Moneyrates.com

April 28, 2014 – Statement 170: “A West that prefers debt-subsidized welfarism over economic growth will not offer much in the way of an attractive model for countries in a hurry to modernize. A West that consistently sacrifices efficiency on the altars of regulation, litigation and political consensus will lose the dynamism that makes the risks inherent in free societies seem worthwhile.”, Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal

April 28, 2014 – Statement 169: “The CFPB has more than 1,300 employees, yet so far its chief accomplishments are a rule that lets taxpayer-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stay in the subprime mortgage business; research that attacks arbitration (which pleases the trial bar); and a ginned-up campaign to label bankers unintentionally racist for not lending enough to minorities. It is a thoroughly politicized bureaucracy with a distinctly antibusiness bent.”, Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal

April 25, 2014 – Statement 168: “Finally, one of the great aspects of the American system is that it is okay to fail and to try again. But even that seems to be diminishing as failure, other than in Silicon Valley, is severely punished.”, Jamie Dimon

April 11, 2014 – Statement 167: “Even that wouldn’t cure a second level of constitutional infirmity. Based mostly on precedent established before the SEC had any power to punish, courts have exempted SEC prosecutions from many bedrock due-process protections taken for granted in criminal cases. The presumption of innocence…

April 8, 2014 – Statement 166: “Freddie Mac’s former President, the one who was their Chief Operating Officer right up to the financial crisis and left just about a year before they were placed in conservatorship by the U.S. government (from 2004 through September 2007) is now going to postpone his retirement, so that he can ‘save’ Citi from its regulatory problems with the Fed?”, Mike Perry

April 8, 2014 – Statement 165: “Just to clarify, the difference between being pro-business and pro-market is categorical. A politician who is a “friend of business” is exactly that, a guy who does favors for his friends. A politician who is pro-market is a referee who will refuse to help protect his friends (or anyone else) from competition…and opposes special treatment for anyone.”, Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times

April 7, 2014 – Statement 164: “If you were ill at the beginning of the 19th century, a physician was your best bet, but his knowledge was so rudimentary that his remedies could easily make things worse rather than better. And so it is with economics today. That is why we economists should be sure to apply the principle “first, do no harm.””, N. Gregory Mankiw, Harvard Economist

April 7, 2014 – Statement 163: “The Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman has noted that it’s our nature to overestimate how much we understand the world and to underestimate the role of chance. And it’s our folly to assume we know very much at all. There’s “a highly objectionable word,” he writes, “which should be removed from our vocabulary in discussions of major events,” and that word is “knew.””, New York Times

April 7, 2014 – Statement 162: “And there was Washington Mutual. TPG led a group of investors in extending a $7 billion lifeline to the struggling bank in the spring of 2008. Just months later, the government seized WaMu, and TPG lost every penny.”, New York Times

April 7, 2014 – Statement 161: “By the way, if the feds knew about this, why wasn’t it disclosed to investors when the reborn GM sold shares to the public in 2010 or when the government sold the last of its shares in 2013? This would seem to be an issue for the SEC, which never tires of sanctioning companies that fail to disclose material facts. Does GM get a pass because it was Government Motors?”, Wall Street Journal

April 7, 2014 – Statement 160: “Buying high-quality debt alone is not going to put meat on the table, and you have to take a little more risk.’”, John Kerschner, Janus Capital Group Inc.

April 7, 2014 – Statement 159: “The government’s job as a criminal prosecutor is not to obtain convictions, but ‘to do justice’….It should be required to follow the Brady rule in civil trials…but the SEC does not, even when it accuses a citizen of fraud.”, Mark Cuban and Thomas Melsheimer, WSJ, April 4, 2014

April 7, 2014 – Statement 158: “Monetary policy should be less accommodative…willing to tolerate a larger forecast shortfall of the path of the unemployment rate from its full employment level…when estimates of risk premiums in the bond market are abnormally low.”, Jeremy C. Stein, Federal Reserve Board Governor, March, 2014

April 7, 2014 – Statement 157: “As our culture moves both in form and substance from a “rule of law” society to an “ends justifies the means” approach, we will see our country begin to resemble Russia and China in the courtroom. Those people that the state wants to hammer will be indicted for political reasons.”, Russell Dodds, WSJ, April 4, 2014

April 3, 2014 – Statement 156: “This is a great OpEd by American entrepreneur Charles Koch. I share these views based on my 30 plus years of business experience and academic study; including the last five where I (and my family) personally experienced a federal government bureaucracy that did not seem to care about the facts and the truth (and the law) and certainly does not seem to care much about individual American’s freedom and liberty.”, Mike Perry

March 13, 2014 – Statement 155: “No matter which city wins, California will be losing yet another Fortune 500 company…Texas gets Oxy and is looking for more.”, Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2014

March 13, 2014 – Statement 154: “Thus, (securities) cases certified as class actions—and 77% of decided motions for class certifications are granted, according to a 2014 study by consulting firm NERA—threaten defendants with financial ruin. They subject defendants to relentless pressure to settle, even in cases with weak merits.”, Andrew N. Vollmer, former Deputy General Counsel, the Securities and Exchange Commission

March 12, 2014 – Statement 153: “So, I think it will take a while for scholars to decide exactly what role easing monetary policy had in contributing to the financial crisis.  I would not argue with the idea that a long period of low interest rates does contribute to the buildup of leverage and may have touched off a housing bubble.”, Federal Reserve Board Chair, Janet Yellen, February 27, 2014

March 12, 2014 – Statement 152: “Advocates of it say it never costs anything and so that sometimes begs the question: Do you need the federal backstop there?” said Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.). “If other countries want to make bad economic decisions, they’re free to—it’ll benefit the U.S.,” said Rep. Justin Amash (R., Mich.), who has introduced legislation with Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) to eliminate the (Export-Import) bank over three years., Wall Street Journal, February, 2014

March 10, 2014 – Statement 151: “In December, almost 40 percent of the home sales were all cash. Redfin estimates that, on average, 60 percent to 80 percent of San Francisco homes are selling for prices over the original asking price. Most are gobbled up within 16 days of being listed….”, New York Times, March 3, 2014

March 10, 2014 – Statement 150: “Sounds a lot like the short sellers who attacked IndyMac and the U.S. housing, mortgage and financial system. I think they might have coordinated. I read that short seller Paulsen donated millions to the Center for Responsible Lending. Then they issued misleading reports about us (and others). Did they get New York, U.S. Senator Schumer to publicly release his letter of concern and spur our bank run (and failure)? Don’t we all deserve to know the truth?”, Mike Perry, Former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

March 10, 2014 – Statement 149: “Aggressive (U.S. government) housing programs have not always helped the poor and middle class. The median net worth of American adults is now one of the lowest among developed nations—less than $45,000, according to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook. That compares with approximately $220,000 in Australia, $142,000 in France and $54,000 in Greece.”, Michael Milken, WSJ, March 6, 2014

February 27, 2014 – Statement 148: “It is very hard to make the judgment now that the financial system as a whole or the banking system as a whole is undercapitalized. Based on everything we know today, if you look at very pessimistic estimates of the scale of losses across the financial system, on average relative to capital, they do not justify that concern.”, Timothy F. Geithner, President of New York Federal Reserve and Vice Chairman Federal Reserve Board of Governors, FOMC Minutes, March 18, 2008

February 27, 2014 – Statement 147: “Although Mossberg was not alone when he was appointed lead plaintiff in this action, finding him an adequate class representative in the face of the information the Court now has before it would render the PSLRA’s protections and Rule 23’s requirements toothless…”, Judge George H. Wu, United States District Court Judge, November 14, 2011 (in granting (!!!!) Lead Plaintiff’s Motion for Class Certification, Sven Mossberg vs. IndyMac Financial, Inc. and Michael Perry)

February 27, 2014 – Statement 146: “Tapping this data (land availability “elasticity scores”), economists Atif Mian at Princeton University and Amir Sufi at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business have shown that more constrained areas saw bigger booms in the housing bubble—but also bigger busts on the way down.”, Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2014

February 27, 2014 – Statement 145: “From 1997 to 2013, there were 3,200 private securities class-action lawsuits, costing $75 billion (in settlements). There are only about 5,400 U.S. publicly-traded companies on the NYSE Euronext, NASDAQ, and NYSE Amex!!! Based on my experience, I believe that most of these suits are the real fraud; designed to “extort” public companies, by exploiting our dysfunctional civil legal system.”, Mike Perry, Former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank

February 20, 2014 – Statement 144: “The stock price is withering. Investors and analysts are feeling burned….if Mr. Zuckerberg has a revolution up his sleeve, let’s see it. Otherwise, he should settle the lawsuits, expect large staff turnover, and get on with running a business whose scope, prospects, and share price are limited by the limited prospects of advertising on Facebook.” Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, August 18, 2012

February 19, 2014 – Statement 143: “Mr. Perkins first came to widespread attention a few weeks ago by comparing anti-tech demonstrators to Nazis. We might be heading, he said, to a new Kristallnacht, when Hitler Youth and stormtroopers were unleashed against Jews and their businesses. He quickly disavowed the analogy, but not the reasoning behind it.”, David Streitfeld, New York Times

February 19, 2014 – Statement 142: “Dr. Friston has proposed that our brains are prediction-generating machines. Our brains, Dr. Friston argues, generate predictions about what is going to happen next, using past experiences as a guide.”, New York Times, February, 2014

February 19, 2014 – Statement 141: “Securities laws require material information — that is, information that might affect an investor’s view of a company — to be disclosed. That the government would deny a company’s shareholders all its profits certainly seems material, but the existence of this policy cannot be found in the financial filings of Fannie Mae.”, Gretchen Morgensen, New York Times, February 15, 2014

February 18, 2014 – Statement 140: “Crisis Management Discussion with Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO IndyMac Bancorp”, UCLA Anderson School of Management, May 13, 2013

February 18, 2014 – Statement 139: “Discussion with Mike Perry Regarding the Financial Crisis”, University of Redlands, March 28, 2012

February 18, 2014 – Statement 138: “Profits are at a record high as a share of G.D.P., yet corporations aren’t reinvesting their returns in their businesses. Instead, they’re buying back shares, or accumulating huge piles of cash. This is exactly what you’d expect to see if a lot of those record profits represent monopoly rents.”, Paul Krugman, NY Times, February 17, 2014

February 13, 2014 – Statement 137: “The Lira has lost as much as a third of its value against the dollar, since the Federal Reserve in Washington began making noises last May about cutting back on its stimulus program, prompting investors to move their money from risky emerging markets…”, Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2014

February 13, 2014 – Statement 136: “In December 2008, Citi was effectively insolvent. (It’s) equity-to-assets ratio, measured in market value—the best single comprehensive measure of a bank’s financial strength—fell steadily from about 13% in April 2006 to about 3% by September 2008. And that low value reflected an even lower perception of fundamental asset worth, because the 3% market value included the value of an expected bailout.”, Charles W. Calomiris and Allan H. Meltzer, February 12, 2014

February 13, 2014 – Statement 135: “The recent turn has been abrupt. The flop reflects a broader turning point in one of the U.S.’s biggest recent asset booms. From 2009 to mid-2013, average prices for agricultural land in the U.S. rose by half, while in Iowa, Nebraska and some other Midwest farm states, prices more than doubled….”, Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2014

February 13, 2014 – Statement 134: “The fact is they (Asian countries) bulked up on savings, held back on consumption and investment, and amassed huge caches of foreign reserves. Sunk into Treasury bonds, these reserves drove a speculative boom in the “emerging market” of the moment: American subprime mortgages.”, Eduardo Porter, New York Times, February 11, 2014

February 12, 2014 – Statement 133: “I find that mandate (the Fed’s dual mandate: stable prices and full employment) both operationally confusing and ultimately illusory. It implies a trade-off between economic growth and price stability, a concept that I thought had long ago been refuted not just by Nobel Prize winners but by experience.”, former Fed Chairman Paul Volker, 2013

February 12, 2014 – Statement 132: “Annual earnings dropped for the first time since Rackspace went public. The stock price has plunged more than 55% over the past 12 months. Rackspace is far from dead, but its business of offering Web hosting and other cloud-based tech services has undergone a big shift since Amazon’s AWS operation got into the game with that company’s usual playbook of driving down prices.”, Heard on the Street, WSJ, February 11, 2014

February 10, 2014 – Statement 131: “… the financial crisis hammered the Harvard endowment and exposed its weaknesses, including a lot of illiquid investments. The endowment declined by 27.3% in its fiscal year ended in June 2009 and still hasn’t gotten back to its pre-crisis peak of $36.9 billion.” Andrew Barry, Barrons

February 10, 2014 – Statement 130: “The Peterson Institute of International Economics estimates that 39% of the increase in U.S. income inequality is because of this imbalanced trade. Yet Washington keeps negotiating so-called free-trade agreements that seem to open the U.S. market while leaving others relatively closed.”, Clyde Prestowitz

February 10, 2014 – Statement 129: “Mr. Hamman suggested a $1 billion prize for nailing every game in the NCAA tournament. Before coming to terms, SCA and Mr. Buffett, along with his reinsurance-business chief, Ajit Jain, set about answering a tough question: What was the chance of a winner? Mr. Buffett said the odds can’t be calculated.”, Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2014

February 7, 2014 – Statement 128: “This debate is fundamental, and the answers affect nearly everyone. Are speculative market booms and busts — like those that led to the recent financial crisis — examples of rational human reactions to new information, or of crazy fads and bubbles? Is it reasonable to base theories of economic behavior, which surely has a rational, calculating component, on the assumption that only that component matters?”, 2013 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Robert J. Shiller

February 7, 2014 – Statement 127: “Yelp sells ads through a mix of a self-service model similar to Google’s and a “full-service” model using a sales force. The company doesn’t disclose how much revenue comes from each method, but said it plans to invest more in the business in the coming year to capture more market share.”, Heard On The Street, Wall Street Journal

February 6, 2014 – Statement 126: “Investor Jim Chanos is quietly building an investment thesis around the idea that buybacks are a sign of corporate weakness, not strength. We were both left agog at what his analysis shows.”, Dennis K. Berman, The Wall Street Journal

February 6, 2014 – Statement 125: “Flailing investors…frustrated by low returns and desperate for yield…can delude themselves, pouring money into ill-conceived projects, be they subprime lending or capital flows to emerging markets.”, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, January 30, 2014

February 6, 2014 – Statement 124: “M2 has grown so fast in China not just because the central bank has been issuing a lot of renminbi, but also because the state-owned banking system has lent and relent those renminbi with encouragement from the government, creating a multiplier effect….The Federal Reserve pays little attention to money supply measures, since they do not provide much guidance to setting monetary policy.” The New York Times, January 16, 2012

February 6, 2014 – Statement 123: “I don’t think the (Fed’s) QE policies are so benign for inflation since 40% of my former retirement income has been rerouted to support the life styles of Messrs. Bernanke and Goolsbee’s friends. With my income so deflated, I’m spending a much higher percentage of my income for my essentials (not unlike you’d expect from wild inflation).”, Larry Noertker, Letter to the WSJ Editor, January 20, 2014

February 6, 2014 – Statement 122: “To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.”, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, August 2, 2002

February 6, 2014 – Statement 121: “Mr. Bernanke was the board’s intellectual leader in its decision to cut the fed funds rate to 1% in June 2003 and keep it there for a year despite a rapidly accelerating economy and soaring commodity and real-estate prices. The Fed’s multiyear policy of negative real interest rates produced a credit mania that led to the housing bubble and bust. His record before the crisis was a clear failure.” Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2014

February 5, 2014 – Statement 120: “All of these things….the pushing around of nuns, the limiting of freedoms that were helping kids get a start in life, the targeting of conservative groups—have the effect of breaking bonds of trust between government and the people. They make citizens see Washington as an alien and hostile power.”, Peggy Noonan, WSJ, January 31, 2014

February 4, 2014 – Statement 119: “This (FTC) opinion is the most problematic agency action I have seen in terms of the potential to cause harm to consumers. It demonstrates a distinct lack of regulatory humility. This is a product-design case brought in the guise of alleged unfairness to consumers. Do you really want a regulatory agency designing your iPad?”, Dissenting FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright

February 4, 2014 – Statement 118: “Chris Kostman, who operates the Badwater run, Furnace Creek bike race and three other Death Valley events, called it “mind-blowing” and “unprecedented” to have to cancel or relocate the competitions, given that they have had no deaths, serious accidents or citations over 24 years. (The National Park Service does not dispute the events’ clean safety records.)”, The Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2014

February 3, 2014 – Statement 117: “What the SEC has done here is highly questionable and vulnerable to challenge…it is hard to fathom what they were thinking (in deciding to redact interviews on grounds of personal privacy).”, Daniel J. Metcalfe, former head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Information and Privacy and director of American University’s Collaboration on Government Secrecy project

January 30, 2014 – Statement 116: “Nothing distinguishes more clearly conditions in a free country from those in a country under arbitrary government than the observance in the former of the great principles known as the Rule of Law.” Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek, “The Road to Serfdom”

January 23, 2014 – Statement 115: “Central banks cannot simply move economic growth and employment to a desired level. Monetary policy (cannot) replace a sustainable growth policy, a well-balanced fiscal policy, a well functioning labour market, or an open world trade regime. It is important to avoid illusions in this respect. Monetary policy cannot assume responsibility for everything.”, Thomas Jordon Chairman, Swiss National Bank

January 23, 2014 – Statement 114: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”, President Bill Clinton, Jan. 26, 1998

January 14, 2014 – Statement 113:  “During the pre-crisis boom, homebuyers were encouraged to borrow heavily to finance undiversified investments in a single home, while governments provided guarantees to mortgage investors. In the U.S., this occurred through implicit guarantees of assets held by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”, 2013 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Robert J. Shiller

January 14, 2014 – Statement 112: “The private plaintiffs’ litigation against me, as CEO of IndyMac Bank, was entirely without merit. From day one they never intended to prove a single allegation (and they didn’t). It was all about extracting settlement money from D&O insurance policies, like their scamming brethren in asbestos suits.”, Mike Perry

January 13, 2014 – Statement 111: “And part of the (economic stimulus from FED monetary policy) comes through higher house and stock prices, which causes people with homes and stocks to spend more, which causes jobs to be created throughout the economy and income to go up throughout the economy.”, Janet Yellen

January 6, 2014 – Statement 110: “Look at me. Helpless, tortured, shot, blown up, my best buddies all dead, and all because we were afraid of the liberals back home, afraid to do what was necessary to save our own lives. Afraid of American civilian lawyers.”, Marcus Luttrell

December 17, 2013 – Statement 109: “Public plans have historically assumed roughly an 8% rate of return. But thanks to falling yields on safe assets, pensions must invest in riskier assets to have any hope of getting 8% returns….investment risk to budgets has risen roughly tenfold over the past four decades.” Andrew G. Biggs

December 17, 2013 – Statement 108: “Instead of encouraging innovation, patent law has become a burden on entrepreneurs, especially startups without teams of patent lawyers….the direct and indirect costs of litigation against technology companies (are estimated to be) $80 billion per year.” L. Gordon Crovitz

December 17, 2013 – Statement 107: “A clash between the management of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA (The world’s oldest bank and Italy’s third largest financial institution) and the bank’s largest shareholder threatens to throw into chaos a plan to raise cash needed to stave off its full nationalization.” The Wall Street Journal

December 16, 2013 – Statement 106: “(we) worked together to fully vindicate both our clients after their lives were needlessly disrupted and their reputations were needlessly tarnished by years of litigation (by the SEC). As the Court aptly noted, the evidence showed our clients acted with ‘absolute integrity, prudence, and honesty.'”, David C. Scheper

December 13, 2013 – Statement 105: “Would you pay this claim? The Gulf Settlement Program did.” BP

December 13, 2013 – Statement 104: “Mega Millions recipe: longer odds, bigger pots and fewer winners….Many who enrolled in health plans still await confirmation”, Los Angeles Times

December 12, 2013 – Statement 103: “The financial sector has become a self-sustaining perpetual motion machine that extracts money from the rest of the economy.” Jesse Eisenger, ProPublica

December 11, 2013 – Statement 102: “Given these facts, further regulation of the financial system through the Dodd-Frank Act was a disastrously wrong response. The vast new regulatory restrictions in the act have created uncertainty and sapped the appetite for risk-taking that had once made the U.S. financial system the largest and most successful in the world.” Peter J. Wallison, American Enterprise Institute

December 11, 2013 – Statement 101: “And the Fed’s trillions in interest rate risk is supported by only $55 billion of capital; their capital is just 1.4% of assets. They have debt (leverage) that is about 70 times their capital!” Mike Perry

December 10, 2013 – Statement 100: “…you can buy your own stock (with borrowed funds) at a 14% return with a negative or zero or 1% to 2% cost of capital for at least a 12% spread.” Larry Haverty, Gabelli Multimedia Trust

December 10, 2013 – Statement 99: “One of the problems we have in the United States is that prosecutors like to make a name for themselves and they all try to distinguish themselves in one way or another. One way to distinguish yourself is to get the highest penalty ever against a bank…I don’t think it bears much resemblance to anything else. It is not rational.” Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher, The Securities and Exchange Commission

December 4, 2013 – Statement 98: “So what is it with the Norwegians? Well, they have a kind of superiority complex.” Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller (explaining his psychological theory for what appears to be a current Norwegian housing bubble)

December 4, 2013 – Statement 97: “If you simply announce that things are irrational, then that alone doesn’t get you very far. You have to replace rational agents with some concrete notion of what it means to be irrational. You need to test that notion in a formal, mathematical model.” Nobel Laureate Lars Peter Hansen

December 3, 2013 – Statement 96: “Again, the evidence suggests that we have become an economy whose normal state is one of mild depression, whose brief episodes of prosperity occur only thanks to bubbles and unsustainable borrowing.” Paul Krugman

December 2, 2013 – Statement 95: “Now we’re seeing another upswing in risky behavior. It began surprisingly soon after the crisis, spurred on by central bank policies that depressed the return on safe investments.” Howard Marks

December 2, 2013 – Statement 94: “The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society—a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization…” Nobel Laureate Friedrich A. Hayek

December 2, 2013 – Statement 93: “Venezuelans need a moral authority that defends their rights…they need a champion for a rule of law that will limit the power of the state over their person. Mother Church ought to be that voice. In siding with Mr. Maduro, however inadvertently, she harms her cause in the region.” Mary Anastasia O’Grady

November 26, 2013 – Statement 92: “These agencies (like the CFPB, FDA, FDIC, NSA, and SEC) have assumed frightening new powers over the everyday lives of American citizens, giving government entities free rein over you and me in ways unprecedented in our country’s history.” Sen. Rand Paul

November 25, 2013 – Statement 91: “Allow me to highlight—and then question—some of the prevailing wisdom at the basis of current Fed policy”, Kevin Warsh

November 25, 2013 – Statement 90: “Too much money is chasing too few assets, pure and simple. Artificially low rates deliver artificially high asset prices, accentuating financial fragility.” Tad Rivelle, TCW

November 25, 2013 – Statement 89: “How can 12 men and women sit on a committee and think they can fine-tune the economy without creating imbalances and unintended consequences?” John Mauldin

November 25, 2013 – Statement 88:  “Our current civil legal system, which once was the envy of the world, is slowly destroying America, both economically and culturally.” Mike Perry

November 18, 2013 – Statement 87: “One can hope that in a future financial crisis and there will surely be one…economists, investors, and regulators will better understand how fat-tail markets work. Doing so will require better models, ones that more accurately reflect predictable aspects of human nature…” Alan Greenspan

November 14, 2013 – Statement 86: “The banking system in the United States has been highly crisis-prone, suffering no fewer than 14 major crises in the past 180 years…A country gets the banking system it deserves..”, Charles W. Colomiris and Stephen H. Haber

November 13, 2013 – Statement 85: Does Amazon Have a Special Exemption From the SEC in Complying with Securities Disclosure Laws?

November 12, 2013 – Statement 84: “..ask a U.S. citizen if some semi-governmental agency should control the prices of cars, morning newspapers, and wine…he would jump in anger, as it appears to violate every principle the country stands for….this is not France.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb

November 12, 2013 – Statement 83: “My worst fears are confirmed. This is what I was afraid of, that the euro would be preserved and it would pervert the venture and destroy the European Union.” George Soros 

November 11, 2013 – Statement 82: “It’s a common observation in the context of emerging-market financial crises that they’re often preceded by large capital inflows from abroad and that the problem is that the local banking system can’t handle the massive inflow of capital. So by analogy, sort of a similar story may have happened in the United States.” Ben Bernanke

November 11, 2013 – Statement 81: “The global economy is just as dysfunctional now as it was before the financial crisis. Imbalances that helped fuel the crisis–including the U.S.’s easy monetary policy…..still exist. In fact, they’ve gotten worse.” Rana Foroohar, Time Magazine

November 8, 2013 – Statement 80: “The Experts Keep Getting It Wrong. And The OddBalls Keep Getting It Right.” Is This Really True, or Is it Survivorship and Outcome Bias That Make You Think So?

November 7, 2013 – Statement 79: Should housing and other asset bubbles and busts (and related banking crises) that occurred throughout the developed world, raise doubts as to whether nonconforming mortgages and securitization caused the U.S. housing bubble, as many claim?

November 7, 2013 – Statement 78: “We’ve been bouncing from investment bubble to deficit spending to offset the income that is being drained out of the economy by trade deficits” Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker

November 6, 2013 – Statement 77: Pre-Crisis, World Bank Data Shows That Iceland Grew Its Money Supply 5.4 Times Faster Than Its GDP Growth! Spain 4.9 Times! The U.K 4.4 Times! The U.S. 3.3 Times! What Were Central Bankers Thinking?

November 5, 2013 – Statement 76: “Booms and Busts Around the World Happen Whenever Central Banks Tighten or Loosen Monetary Policy.” John Mauldin

November 5, 2013 – Statement 75: “It all fell apart, in the sense that not a single major forecaster of note or institution caught it (predicted the financial crisis)….I was actually flabbergasted, it (studies about market behavior) upended my view of how the world works.” Alan Greenspan

November 4, 2013 – Statement 74: Foreign Trade and Investment Imbalances Were a Major Cause of the U.S. and Global Financial Crisis. They Remain a Huge Unaddressed Risk, Because It was Easier Politically to Just Blame the Bankers.

November 4, 2013 – Statement 73: “The first and most important lesson that history teaches about what monetary policy can do….and it is a lesson of the most profound importance…is that monetary policy can prevent money itself from being a major source of economic disturbance.” Milton Friedman 

October 29, 2013 – Statement 72: “The evidence against Fan and Fred is voluminous, but the feds want to whitewash Washington’s role in the panic.”

October 28, 2013 – Statement 71: The Fed’s Low-Rate Policies Prompt Investors to Make Dicier Tech Bets; Just Like They Did in The Dot-Com and Housing Bubbles/Busts

October 22, 2013 – Statement 70: Does JP Morgan Have a Special Exemption from the SEC in Complying with Securities Disclosure Laws Too?

October 21, 2013 – Statement 69: Does Goldman Sachs Have a Special Exemption from the SEC In Complying with the Securities Disclosure Laws?

October 21, 2013 – Statement 68: FDIC Chair Gruenberg Stunningly Admits That Prior to the Financial Crisis They Had No Plans To Address a Big Bank Failure!

October 21, 2013 – Statement 67: “In a post Dodd-Frank world, banks are public utilities and no CEO can afford to resist government’s demands.”

October 18, 2013 – Statement 66: “I’m glad I’m able to be the person who can afford to stand up to them. I don’t want anything from the SEC; except them to act like American citizens and treat other American citizens the way they deserve to be treated.” Mark Cuban

October 15, 2013 – Statement 65: India’s New Central Bank Head Warns the Fed to Pay More Attention to the Global Consequences of Their Actions

October 4, 2013 – Statement 64: “(Federal) Student loans are the new subprime; were talking about hundreds of billions of (government) losses…”, Jim Rickards

October 2, 2013 – Statement 63: Federal Judge Rules HUD/FHA Violated Reverse Mortgage Statute by Improperly Directing Lenders to Foreclose on Elderly Widows!!!

October 1, 2013 – Statement 62: We are back in another ‘epic credit bubble’ according to Blackstone; who is the Fed/government going to blame this time when it collapses?

October 1, 2013 – Statement 61: “Monetary policy (set by central bankers like the Fed) insidiously plays with our time preferences and our very ability to engage in economic calculation. The greater the distortion, the greater the destruction needed to correct it.” Mark Spitznagel

September 27, 2013 – Statement 60: “They (central bankers) believe that flooding the world with money will somehow solve the very problems that such interventionism created in the first place.” Ron Paul, 2013

September 27, 2013 – Statement 59: “…the Fed in good measure is the source of risk”, Jim Grant, Founder and Editor Grant’s Interest Rate Observer

September 26, 2013 – Statement 58: “There is an Interaction Between The Monetary Excesses (by the Fed) and Risk-Taking Excesses; Rapidly Rising Housing Prices and Resulting Low Delinquency Rates Threw Underwriting Programs Off Track…”, John B. Taylor

September 25, 2013 – Statement 57: “So if we want them (banks) to be a free capitalist company, they have to be able to fail. If we don’t, we might as well treat them as a utility, because that’s what they are.” Ben Bernanke

September 24, 2013 – Statement 56: “…We believe that the government deserves quite a lot of the blame for getting our financial system and our nation into trouble in the first place.” FCIC Minority Report

September 24, 2013 – Statement 55: “Could the breakdown that so devastated global financial markets have been prevented? I very much doubt it.” Alan Greenspan, February 2010

September 24, 2013 – Statement 54: “With nominal interest rates around 6% and inflation around 6% (in 2004), the real interest rate was near zero, so household borrowing took off” Vernon L. Smith and Steven Gjerstd

September 20, 2013 – Statement 53: “Your No. 1 Client is the Government”

September 19, 2013 – Statement 52: It’s Not Politically Correct To Say, but Individuals Pursuing Their Self-Interest is Essential for Free Markets; Greed Did Not Cause the Financial Crisis

September 19, 2013 – Statement 51: The Simple Explanations for the Global Financial Crisis and Western Slowdown are Wrong

September 18, 2013 – Statement 50: Five Years Later: Don’t Mention the Feds

September 18, 2013 – Statement 49: Unbelievably, the Government’s National Statistical Rating Agency Problem Remains Unsolved!!!

September 17, 2013 – Statement 48: No Down Payment Required (for home mortgages) in Latest Government QRM Proposal!!!

September 10, 2013 – Statement 47: One Thousand One Hundred and Forty Seven Pages: My Entire Sworn Testimony Before the SEC Staff

September 4, 2013 – Statement 46: The Porridge was Too Hot. Now it’s Too Cold. Only Wise Government Knows When It’s Just Right!!!

April 23, 2013 – Statement 45: MBIA Dismisses Lawsuit Against M. Perry and Others

March 13, 2013 – Statement 44: The Securities and Exchange Commission v. The State of Illinois

March 1, 2013 – Statement 43: Did You Know A Government Official Can Intentionally Defame a Private, U.S. Citizen and Not Be Held To Account? They Have Sovereign Immunity!

February 26, 2013 – Statement 42:  Is FHA “A home wrecker”?

February 26, 2013 – Statement 41:  HUD/FHA is Not More Capable or Noble Than Their Private Sector Counterparts

February 7, 2013 – Statement 40: “Never Explained is Why Some Were Bailed Out and Some Were Not.”

February 4, 2013 – Statement 39: Resolution of All Government Civil Litigation Re. M. Perry: Summarized

January 29, 2013 – Statement 38: “Each of the actors: bankers, politicians, the poor, foreign investors, economists, and central bankers did what they thought was right”

January 29, 2013 – Statement 37: Discussion of IndyMac Bank’s 2007 Safety and Soundness Regulatory Examination

January 17, 2013 – Statement 36: “Many People Like Cheap Moralizing…In the West, Intellectuals Like to Blame the Markets”

January 9, 2013 – Statement 35: FDIC Settlement Documents and M. Perry’s Comments Re. Settlement

January 3, 2013 – Statement 34: IndyMac’s (Credit Quality) Performance as a Loan Originator

January 2, 2013 – Statement 33: “Informal Mortgage Industry Talk By Michael Perry”

January 2, 2013 – Statement 32: “IndyMac Bank OMG Not TBTF”

September 27, 2012 – Statement 31: SEC Settlement Documents and M. Perry’s Attorney’s Comments Re. Settlement

September 24, 2012 – Statement 30: U.S. Judge Manuel L. Real’s Signed “Findings of Uncontroverted Facts and Conclusions of Law: Related to Order Granting Partial Summary Judgment in Favor of Perry on SEC’s Risk-Weighting and Section 17(a)(2) Claims”

September 24, 2012 – Statement 29: U.S. Judge Manuel L. Real’s Signed “Order Granting Partial Summary Judgment in Favor of Perry on SEC’s Risk-Weighting and Section 17(a)(2) Claims”

September 10, 2012 – Statement 28: Transcript of 2nd Partial Summary Judgment Motion Hearing Before Judge Real

August 30, 2012 – Statement 27: The Truth is Emerging Despite the SEC’s Attempts to Conceal It.

August 30, 2012 – Statement 26: I think the SEC is engaging in denialism in their statements to the Court.  

August 29, 2012 – Statement 25: How about this recent SEC Statement to the Court; is it misleading? I think so.

August 28, 2012 – Statement 24: Are these recent SEC Statements to the Court inaccurate or misleading? I think so.

August 28, 2012 – Statement 23: Status update on SEC vs. Michael W. Perry

August 24, 2012 – Statement 22: Excerpt from Michael W. Perry’s Sworn SEC Testimony

August 23, 2012 – Statement 21: Supplemental Brief in Support of M. Perry’s 2nd Motion for Partial Summary Judgment in SEC Matter

July 2, 2012 – Statement 20: Reply in Support of M. Perry’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment: SEC’s Risk Weighting and 17(a)(2) Claims

June 13, 2012 – Statement 19: M. Perry’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment: SEC’s Risk-Weighting and Section 17 (a)(2) Claims

May 31, 2012 – Statement 18:  U.S. Judge Manuel L. Real’s Signed “Order Granting Partial Summary Judgment in Favor of Perry and Keys”

May 31, 2012 – Statement 17: U.S. Judge Manuel L. Real’s Signed “Findings of Uncontroverted Facts and Conclusions of Law”

May 25, 2012 – Statement 16: M. Perry’s Motion in Limine to Exclude Testimony of Professor Anthony Saunders

May 25, 2012 – Statement 15: M. Perry’s Motion in Limine to Exclude Analyst Testimony

May 21, 2012 – Statement 14: Transcript of Partial Summary Judgment Motion Hearing Before Judge Real

May 18, 2012 – Statement 13: M. Perry’s Memorandum of Contentions of Fact and Law

May 7, 2012 – Statement 12:  Reply Memorandum in Support of M. Perry’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment

April 23, 2012 – Statement 11: Former FASB Director MacDonald Opines on $18 million Intercompany Payable/Receivable at March 31, 2008

April 23, 2012 – Statement 10: FTI’s Beloreshki Opines on 2008 DSPP Stock Issuance/Impact on Book Value

April 6, 2012 – Statement 9:  Former OTS Regional Director Vigna Opines on Disclosure of Various Regulatory Matters

April 6, 2012 – Statement 8: Former SEC Chief Economist Lehn Opines on Materiality of SEC Allegations and Defendants’ Intent

April 6, 2012 – Statement 7: Former SEC Commissioner Fleischman Opines on Indymac’s Disclosure Controls

April 6, 2012 – Statement 6: Declaration of M. Perry In Support Of His Motion For Partial Summary Judgment

April 6, 2012 – Statement 5: M. Perry’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment

November 30, 2011 – Statement 4: M. Perry’s Responses to SEC’s First Set of Interrogatories

November 21, 2011 – Statement 3: SEC’s Responses to M. Perry’s First Set of Interrogatories

September 29, 2011 – Statement 2: M. Perry’s Motion to Dismiss FDIC Complaint

September 1,2011 – Statement 1: Initial Statement

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men” -Abraham Lincoln

My name is Michael Perry. I am the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Indymac. I have kept silent for three years in the hope that I would be left alone and allowed to rebuild my professional life, but unfortunately that has not been the case. I have been forced to defend myself against unwarranted and false, public allegations.

On July 11, 2008, Indymac Bank was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) after a U.S. Senator’s inappropriate public statements during the financial crisis caused a “run on the bank” that rapidly depleted the bank’s ample liquidity. As a result of this bank run and the fact that Indymac was deemed by banking regulators to be “Not Too Big To Fail”, it was not around just a few months later, at the height of the financial crisis, to receive any of the significant and unprecedented assistance the government provided to every “Too Big To Fail” financial institution and hundreds of smaller financial firms. Without this assistance, many, if not most would have suffered the same fate as Indymac, including some of the largest and oldest firms.

Since that time, I and others have been the subject of various government investigations and named as defendants in numerous civil lawsuits, including ones filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on February 11, 2011 (31 months after Indymac was seized), and the FDIC on July 6, 2011 (3 years after Indymac was seized).

The plaintiffs in these civil lawsuits apparently don’t care about the facts or the truth; these suits are filled with distortions and inaccuracies. They are primarily being pursued to gain access to potential settlement proceeds from directors and officers liability insurance, or in the case of the SEC to show politicians, the press, and the public that they are now tough enforcers of the securities laws. The FDIC, for its part, is seeking a significant share of D&O insurance proceeds, but it is also inappropriately seeking to blame former banking executives like me for the FDIC’s own failures. The private deposit insurance fund, for which the FDIC is responsible, became insolvent during this crisis and remains so; without the full faith and credit of the U.S. behind them, they like Indymac and many others, would have failed.

Importantly, Indymac decided in 2000 to carry out its business model through the acquisition of a depository institution whose deposits were insured by the FDIC. Because of this decision, Indymac — unlike government-sponsored mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and others) — has not cost U.S. taxpayers one penny. And while the seizure of Indymac Bank has cost the FDIC’s insurance fund billions, industry experts and others (including me) believe that much of the insurance fund’s loss was avoidable, if only the FDIC had worked with us to save the bank when that was still possible or if the FDIC had made better decisions as conservator once it took over the bank.

Not one of the lawsuits against me has any merit.

I, and the management team and directors of Indymac Bank, made prudent and appropriate business decisions based on the facts available to us at the time and always with the primary goal being to keep Indymac Bank safe and sound, within the parameters of our regulatory-approved, mortgage lending business model. And importantly, we always acted with honesty, integrity and complete transparency and properly complied with all relevant regulations and laws.

The plaintiffs know this and as a result do not want these matters to go to trial where they will lose. This is what happens in America today. Frivolous lawsuits rarely go to trial and nearly always settle despite their lack of merit, because of the time and cost to defend against them (and perversely having a “pot” of liability insurance, or even better a deep-pocket, corporate indemnification, encourages more lawsuits and more settlements). It is particularly disheartening though, to have U.S. government agencies like the SEC and FDIC engaged in this type of behavior in order to further their own image without regard to the damage done to the reputation, career, and finances of honest individuals like myself and others. And it’s not just me and my family that is adversely affected. I believe these legal tactics have a long-term cost to our country’s economic potential and erode our standards. In regard to my latter assertion, I don’t think most Americans are aware (I wasn’t until recently), but there is an exemption in our defamation laws that “privileges” plaintiff’s lawyers and allows them to distort facts and make untrue statements and defame defendants like myself, without any consequence, even if the defendant proves so later in a court of law. This doesn’t seem right, does it?

In conclusion, this site’s purpose is to counter the allegations in these lawsuits (and regurgitated in the press as authoritative, when they are not) with the truth and the facts, for those who care to spend the time to read the documents on this site and understand them. I plan to start out slowly, focus on the government cases, and then if I have the time and it is warranted, expand the site to include my views based upon my experiences and post-crisis study of its true systemic and macroeconomic causes.

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