Anonymous has released a set of BoA emails. Their site is down, but here’s a roundup courtesy of commenter Elia. I didn’t see anything totally awful, but we’re going to have to wait for a few Tantas to look it over before we know the full impact of the leak.
BoA
by $8 blue check mistermix| 103 Comments
This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Decline and Fall
Odie Hugh Manatee
I really miss Tanta’s analysis and commentary. CR is good but rather dry in his delivery. Tanta had a way of laying things out that really informed you of the inner workings of the FIRE mess. That and her wit was biting yet humorous, with just the right touch of sarcasm at the right times.
Mortgage Pig FTW!
Villago Delenda Est
What OHM just said. Tanta had a wonderful writing style that gave you the essentials in a clear, easy manner for the non-initiate to understand.
She also had great way of communicating /rolls eyes without actually being that explicit.
Dennis SGMM
Help me out here. If the DOJ has already investigated BofA’s part in the mortgage mess wouldn’t these emails, and others, already have been subpoenaed and read? If they did investigate then either there’s nothing prosecutable or they decided for whatever reason not to prosecute. If DOJ didn’t investigate, again for whatever reason, then the issue is likely dead. In any case, I don’t see these emails leading to much of anything.
MikeJ
@Dennis SGMM: Just because something isn’t illegal doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. Nobody is going to go to jail because of anything in these docs, but releasing them will help the public more accurately judge how much they should trust institutions like BofA.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dennis SGMM: I see the emails as likely to lead to embarrassment and bad publicity as opposed to criminal violations. Also, there is a possibility that emails which were withheld from the DoJ because of attorney-client privilege or as attorney work product could be released. Such emails could have interesting information and, if they do, could lead to further investigation.
Dennis SGMM
@MikeJ:
Maybe. If anyone still trusts institutions like BofA, Chase, Citi, et al, then I doubt that a few emails will change their mind.
MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus: Or more likely, even if there were independent investigation, it will be almost impossible to untaint anything as fruit of the poison tree. If I had ever believed that anybody would be convicted of anything having to do with the way banks are run I’d be pissed that a lot of cases are now ruined.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: How would would investigations be ruined by this release? I am not seeing it. I have not had more than a sip of coffee yet, so I may be missing something.
Dennis SGMM
@MikeJ:
Bingo! I understand that it can take a long time to put together a complicated case. It’s been three years since the meltdown and the lack of prosecutions suggests to me that either there are no cases or no interest in prosecution.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
perhaps not prosecutable, but we will know who first to put against wall, da?
MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus: None of this stuff will be usable in court. If you read these documents and say, “we need to go find other proof of this”, it’s still fruit of the tree.
I realise the exclusionary rule is dead for little people, but for the big guys it is alive and well.
Jeff
OT and sorry for high-jacking, but I keep seeing people retweet this from David Frum: “Crowley firing: one more demonstration of my rule: Republican pols fear their base, Dem pols despise it.”
The problem with this line of comment is that the Democratic base doesn’t really care about this issue that much. Even though they should not commission polls on issues like this (constitutional rights issues), I’m sure if you polled the issue you would see people oppose it, likely overwhelmingly. But I think that if you hard-canvassed the issue in Harlem or Bed-Stuy, or in a unionized factory town, or in a Hispanic-dominated county in New Mexico, you’d get mostly blank stares. Awareness on this issue is very low, and even if it were higher, the fact is that the economy still sucks and Bradley Manning’s plight is about as far from a kitchen table issue as there is. A thousand commenters between FireDogLake and Greenwald’s blog are not the “base” of the Democratic Party.
The treatment is pretty detestable, and Obama certainly owns it. But nobody in the world can say with a straight face that Bradley Manning will matter at all in 2012. I don’t think this issue is an example of “Dems hating their base”; I just think for most people this is an issue just doesn’t matter or exist.
Jinx
Check out Yves Smith’s take over at Naked Capitalism. Yves has been all over the systemic fraud in the mortgage business.
Her assessment on the gravity of the Anonymous release is helpful IMO.
Nick
@MikeJ:
No, but it’s the difference between being prosecuted and just going “LOL oops”
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: The exclusionary rule only prevents evidence that was improperly acquired by the police from being used. Once these emails are released, I would argue that privilege has been breached (hell, sending the documents to Anonymous breached privilege) and the documents are n the public domain.
liberal
@Nick:
Wrong. The greater the outrage, the greater the possibility of change.
liberal
@Jinx:
IMHO Naked Capitalism is the best site on the bubble/financial crisis.
liberal
@Dennis SGMM:
LOL. Are you kidding?
I would assume that if bad stuff gets out, there could be political pressure to prosecute.
liberal
@Omnes Omnibus:
IANAL, but I figure something like that is true. But there have to be limits; if nothing else, the police would just start relying on proxies to get their info, wouldn’t they?
liberal
Real damage would come from Wikileaks, if they have docs like many suspect. Docs sorted from a well-placed insider are almost always going to be more revealing than a set of hacked emails.
bk
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not just the police, of course, but any entity operating under the color of law.
Dennis SGMM
@liberal:
If the losses to millions of people’s 401K’s, the losses to pension plans, and double digit U6 unemployment were insufficient then I doubt that emails will have an effect. See: Politics, mother’s milk of.
Omnes Omnibus
@bk: Correct.
ornery curmudgeon
@Dennis SGMM: What’s your dog in this fight, Dennis?
Why is it a problem for you that these emails are being released, and a bit of additional transparency is possible?
WyldPirate
The failure to prosecute the corrupt bullshit on Wall St. is just more of the “no hope, no change” coming out of The Obama administration.
The banksters are walking, in many cases, because they get to regulate themselves or because there is revolving door and they merely call up their buddies at the top in DOJ, SEC or elsewhere and get the dogs called off of criminals;
Why isn’t Wall Street in Jail?
Much more detail is given, but this shit described by Taibbi, infects our government which is nothing more than a bought and paid for oligarchical clown show!.
The butt licking Obot apologists will, I’m sure, be out in force in a few to defend President
suzanne
@Dennis SGMM:You're right, and I still don't fully understand why. FFS, what does it take to piss people off these days? All teabagging aside, the level of apathy truly knows no bounds.
Dennis SGMM
@ornery curmudgeon:
Huh? It’s not a problem for me that the emails are being released. I just don’t think that it’s a problem for the bank either.
My dog in this fight is that my country took a royal fucking and that either due to the lack of appropriate law or the lack of will to enforce it the same fucking thing can happen again.
Todd
Funny, I would have thought mistermix who I infer as more tech saavy based on his reporting might know about coral cached links:
http://bankofamericasuck.com.nyud.net/ should let you view a recent version of the original site.
More info on coral cache here:
http://www.coralcdn.org/
burnspbesq
@Jinx:
So what Yves sees is “a scheme to fatten servicer margins” by hard-selling some insurance product.
Not good, but not the sort of thing that will get mobs into the street with pitchforks and torches.
Suck It Up!
@Jeff:
Frum got that wording/thinking from liberal blogs. I saw that type of comment a lot last year.
Walker
@burnspbesq:
What is unclear from her presentation is the level of forced-place insurance. Was it forced placed up front, or did they actually withhold the escrow payment (as in the most egregious examples of forced-placed insurance). The latter is definitely tar and feather material.
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: Aguirre left the SEC in 2008. How does what happened with him tar the Obama SEC? I am not saying that Obama’s SEC has been a paragon of prosecutorial zeal, but the example you cite does have anything to do with the Obama SEC. Try harder.
middlewest
@suzanne: How did you do that?
Omnes Omnibus
@liberal: Yes, there are limits, but the police already rely on proxies (tips, informant, etc.) to get information. There is a difference between the police asking someone to produce information and someone simply producing it without solicitation. I am not saying that these emails would automatically be admissible, but I would not say that they are fruit of the poisoned tree.
jeff
I laughed when I saw that some emails might hurt BAC’s credibility or favorability. They don’t really have either of those. The market has completely shrugged off whatever it is that these leaks demonstrate. So whatever it means, it probably doesn’t directly have anything to do with their future ability to make money.
Steeplejack
@middlewest:
I believe that’s the “code” tag, perhaps used inadvertently.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Testing the code tag . . .
Culture of Truth
the police would just start relying on proxies to get their info, wouldn’t they?
If a third-party obtains evidence a proxy for the police, then it can be poisoned. If a third party obtains evidence illegally, but not on behalf of the state, it may not be poinsoned, and still be admissible.
However, a further problem would be thats a foundation would have to be established that these -mails are genuine.
Omnes Omnibus
@suzanne:
Speaking as someone in Madison, I have seen the answer to that question.
Face
OT:
New “crime”: FWJ — Flying while Jewish.
Nothing but a POS nation of bed-wetters and pearl clutchers. Fuckin amazing what OBL was able to do to this country…
Stillwater
OT – Don’t know if this article has been linked here at BJ, but it’s certainly worth a read. Here’s the title and by-line:
and a choice quote from the story
And just to clear up some confusions, the article isn’t from the US, it’s from the Guardian.
WyldPirate
@Omnes Omnibus:
Like I said…Obot
buttboot licker.I know he left then..The fucking culture in DC hasn’t changed. The “Hopey Changey” shit was nothing more than what it really is–an empty fucking campaign slogan. That’s the problem. The culture of back-scratching and ass covering is what is broken. The same revolving door horseshit is happening.
Little Timmy Geithner, SSummers (though he is gone), a Wall St boy is Obama’s CoS. Over and over ad nauseum.
The best interests and the needs of the corporations are being served at the expense of the people. The government is going to have to collapse and be rebuilt from the corrupt shitpile it has become or none of this crap is going to change.
We. Are. Fucked. Obama isn’t going to fix fuck-all about it. Matter of fact, he’s perpetuating some of the worst shit about the “system”. All we have in him is the “lesser of two evils”.
Suffern ace
If I remember correctly Balboa is something that boa got when it acquired countrywide. I’m not certain that they just won’t say “under new management” and just move on.
Xenos
@WyldPirate: What needs to be remembered, though, is that the greater of two evils is a whole lot greater!
We need 100 years to fix this shit. Get some perspective and you can keep your sanity, if it is not too late for that.
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: I point out that your example does not support your thesis and I am a boot licker? Christ, mate, you need to develop better argumentation skills.
pattonbt
@WyldPirate:
Broken record. Skip. Hiss. Skip. Repeat.
Your life must suck to have such limited capacity for anything other than (rightful or not) Obama Disappointment Syndrome. I wonder what world you thought you actually lived in before the election of Obama.
In many ways I pity you.
Chyron HR
@WyldPirate:
I always considered myself pretty far to the left, but I never realized that the way to be a True Progressive is to base my political views around Republican bumper stickers. Go figure!
liberal
@Jeff:
Yes, and AFAICT those same commenters agree that “jobs” is the #1 issue. And the people in the Party leading the fight on that are…?
Nick
@WyldPirate:
Oh for the love of Christ, there’s nothing to prosecute because there were no crimes committed.
Nick
@liberal:
yes I know, providing anybody actually covers the e-mails, which they won’t, I was responding to a different point
Nick
@Jeff:
I’m pretty sure the real Democratic “base” is totally cool with whatever happens to Bradley Manning anyway.
liberal
@Nick:
LOL. Sure. It’s one of the greatest financial crises in the history of the world, and “no crimes were committed.”
Yes, it’s true that plenty of damage, almost certainly most of the damage, was done that wouldn’t be in violation of the law, but the claim that 100.0% of the problems don’t run afoul of law is very, very difficult to believe.
middlewest
@WyldPirate: Is it just me, or is criticizing the Obama admin with some sort of attempt at a clever riff on “hope and change” the political equivalent of Linux nerds writing “Micro$oft” to stick it to Bill Gates?
liberal
@Nick:
No you weren’t. You posed a dichotomy; I showed it was a false one.
agrippa
@WyldPirate:
WyldPirate:
get a grip
agrippa
I will wait and see what the content of these e mails are.
And, then, after reading them, make my own judgement.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Chyron HR:
WyldPieRat exists to slag on Obama. It seems that no matter the topic of a thread, Wylie finds some way to tie it back to being Obama’s fault.
Obsessive nut or ratfucker? Probably both.
@agrippa:
Now you’re being reasonable. Why do that when you can wyldly speculate!
Get Wyld!
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Face: Anotherr reason to be an atheist.
Aside from the obvious displays of panicked ignorance in this story, I really liked
Google “tefillin” and see why it’s kind of amusing. (Hint: It’s really hard to actually wear a ritual on your body, or perform an object.)
Barry
@Dennis SGMM: My working assumption is that the DoJ would *definitely not* investigate anything which might lead to the upper management, or which might be very useful in lawsuits against the Wall St elites.
Xenos
@Nick: There were some awfully big swindles, but most of those involve how the securities were sold to institutional investors. For the most part these will involve very long and complex civil actions to sort out. Crimes, no.
But it would be amusing to have the major banks bailed out, only to be taken over by state and union pension funds in the course of settling damages. I can dream.
In any case – Obama’s role in all this: nonexistent.
Amir_Khalid
@Stillwater: If you’ll pardon a quick explanation of newspaper terminology …
You first block quote actually consists of the headline (the bit before the colon you inserted) and a sub-headline. The byline is the bit that goes “by … and …”.
As for the content of the story, this has already been discussed in some American news media, as I recall, although it is probably new to the Guardian’s British readers.
Stillwater
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah: Mind if I appropriate the front end of your handle, or did you cleverly by up the rights to it?
Stillwater
@Amir_Khalid: Yeah, I thought I got that by-line bit wrong. As to the other part of your comment: (sigh).
General Stuck
And how is my favorite hot air asylum doing this bright sunny morn. Oops! Inmates still running things, but the riots have toned down a tad. But it is still early in the day.
Ash Can
@liberal: No, it’s not that difficult to believe. Financial regulations have been eroding since the 80s. The repeal of Glass-Steagall paved the way for a lot of what happened a few years ago. Maybe the mortgage companies can be nailed for not having their paperwork in order. However, thanks to all the loopholes and deregulation bestowed upon the financial industry by their Republican buddies in DC (with some of it signed off on by Bill Clinton — I like him overall, but he’s not blameless here), it’s not at all clear whether the big actors actually broke any existing laws. Years ago, certainly, but not now.
kindness
Off thread but…
I’m saddened by the untimely passing of Owsley Stanley.
I never got to sample any of his product but I did buy a Owsley original hand fabricated Steal Your Face brass belt buckle off at a Dead Berkeley Greek show in the 80’s. Another shine on you crazy diamond guy gone.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Amir_Khalid: Yes.
If you read the text of the linked report, you’ll see that the Guardian’s British readers are not getting unbiased language from the authors: “night of the long knives”, “shop of horrors”, “it is the middle class that is being euthanised”, etc.
Amir_Khalid
@Face: If I’m not mistaken, there are millions of Jews in America, and a good number of them must be fairly observant. Even if none of the cabin crew were Jewish themselves, they should have enough cultural awareness to recognize a prayer ritual when they see one.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah(tm), Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Stillwater: Mind if I appropriate the front end of your handle
Stefan
None of this stuff will be usable in court. If you read these documents and say, “we need to go find other proof of this”, it’s still fruit of the tree.
Um, no, not at all. The exclusionary rule only requires the exclusion of evidence obtained by illegal government action. (For non-lawyers, the phrase “fruit of the poisoned tree” describes evidence that is only known as the result of an illegal police action, i.e. a confession obtained by torture, a search of the suspect’s home without a warrant, etc. If you would not have obtained that evidence but for the initial illegal action, it must be excluded from trial). It does not, nowever, require exclusion of evidence released by an anonymous non-governmental actor who is acting on his own accord.
Jinx
@burnspbesq:
margins that she states have been historically lean and that have only been, again historically, possible through excellent management. From her piece:
Emphasis mine. Also from her article (which should really be read in full to absorb the scope and subtle varieties of this fraud).
Stillwater
@Amir_Khalid: Even if none of the cabin crew were Jewish themselves, they should have enough cultural awareness to recognize a prayer ritual when they see one.
(sigh)
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Stillwater: Mind if I appropriate the front end of your handle
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Amir_Khalid: Ah, but apparently these were Mexican Orthodox Jews.
Amir_Khalid
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude: We call that “editorializing”. Here, it’s spoiling an informative and otherwise well-written story. But The Grauniad* does tend to wear its lefty heart on its sleeve.
* Not a typo, it’s an old nickname for the paper.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude: So much for blockquoting.
Amir_Khalid
@Amir_Khalid: Oh my. I meant to say … were not Jewish themselves …”
Mnemosyne
@WyldPirate:
Yeah, why did Obama fire Aguirre from the SEC in 2005?
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Amir_Khalid: That, of course, is why it’s read over here. At least by BJ readers.
jcgrim
Naked Capitalism’s, Yves Smith thinks this is ugly and maybe fraud:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/03/wikileaks-whistleblower-charges-bofa-of-engaging-in-large-scale-force-placed-insurance-scheme-with-cooperation-of-servicers.html
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I think it was 2008, but your point still stands. WP responded to me on this point that Obama was just the same, so the specifics didn’t matter.(*)
(*)Paraphrased.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Amir_Khalid: Some/a lot of commenters on the The Grauniad article objected to the loaded language.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think you got mixed up by the reference to John Mack’s 2008 contribution to Hillary Clinton. Aguirre was fired in 2005:
ETA: Of course, the fact that Mack was fired while Obama was still an Illinois state senator is proof of what a terrible president he is.
Nick
@liberal:
Thats what happens when you deregulate like hell. Repealing Glass-Steagall did away with all the regulations that would have put the big guys in jail. AIG’s credit default swaps were all conducted in London.
You can get some mortgage brokers on bad paperwork, which at worst will probably carry a fine that would be like a parking ticket to them, assuming they can’t some hot shot lawyer to get them off, which they probably could.
Amir_Khalid
Everyone, please disregard my comment #77.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Okay then. 2005, it is. Wyldie would still say it doesn’t matter. I still say his example doesn’t support his point and you and I can both point and laugh at him.
Merkin
@WyldPirate:
Charles Lemos, who used to blog at MyDD and was in no way a fan of Obama, punched more holes in Taibbi’s articles than a kid on Ritalin with a hole punch.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, come on, you don’t think that the SEC would have leaped to do the bidding of an Illinois State Senator in 2005 and fired Aguirre as soon as they were told that State Sen. Obama was calling from Springfield? You just don’t get it, man!
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Sigh. Double negative fail.
catclub
@MikeJ: “it’s still fruit of the tree.”
I disagree. My understanding is that ‘fruit of the tree’
is explicitly related to fruit of an illegal search/seizure
BY THE GOVERNMENT. Hence, evidence brought to light by some other crime of a non-government actor would not be treated that way.
ETA: or I could have read Stefan @ 70
A burglar breaks into a house and leaves a trail of cocaine powder in his wake. Is the homeowner immune from police investigation because only a crime uncovered his cocaine stash?
catclub
@Ash Can: “repeal of Glass-Steagall paved the way for a lot”
I remember that Citibank was doing some merger that was clearly illegal under Glass-Steagal before G_S had been repealed. The fix was clearly in.
G-S was lifted and the merger went through on schedule.
different church-lady
@Chyron HR: there’s “far left” and then there’s “far gone.”
I think the significant difference is that far gone uses the internet far more frequently nowadays.
justanotherjones
@Merkin:
Could you help point me in the direction of some of those Lemos rebuttals? Because I just read some of those articles and need to be talked down?
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: Comments like MikeJ’s are one of the reasons eemom freaks out every once in a while.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
freak out? moi? You must mean some other eemom.
My serenity knows no bounds. Friends call me “Mahatma.”
Also, I have the good fortune to be late to this particular thread.
Ommmmm.
jpe
And not necessarily illegal either. Dodd-Frank made illegal the practice of unreasonably high force purchased insurance, so even if Dodd-Frank applies (due to timing) we can’t know if there was anything illegal unless we know premiums charged.
Mnemosyne
The banksters were very careful to make sure their shenanigans would be technically legal before they committed to them.
Not to mention that two of the worst and most likely fraudulent actors, Washington Mutual and Countrywide, have both been taken over by other companies. I seriously doubt that JP Morgan and BofA neglected to write a clause in their contracts saying that they cannot be prosecuted for WaMu’s and Countrywide’s criminal actions, so what high-level bankster do you arrest?
HyperIon
@Dennis SGMM:
I’ll go further. Anyone who still has money in institutions like BofA, Chase, Citi, et al, deserves what they get. Credit Unions are the only place to be now.
HyperIon
@Amir_Khalid wrote:
OK but I’ll be keeping an eye out for your refudiation of this refudiation. ;=)
I had to read #77 and the comment it referenced several times to convince myself that there was nothing wrong with your first stmt.
different church-lady
@HyperIon: Consider that the abuses outlined today had to do with mortgages. A mortgage is hella harder to “get out” of an institution than a bank account or investment is.
Also consider that a great number of their customers did not “choose” them — they wound up with them when BoA bought their smaller banks.
Stefan
I seriously doubt that JP Morgan and BofA neglected to write a clause in their contracts saying that they cannot be prosecuted for WaMu’s and Countrywide’s criminal actions, so what high-level bankster do you arrest?
Just a point: you can’t contract your way out of criminal liability.
justanotherjones
@different church-lady:
Not only that, but many (if not most) mortgages taken with other lenders usually get sold to the big banks anyway.
Mnemosyne
@Stefan:
So if Company A buys Company B, Company A immediately becomes legally responsible for any criminal actions that Company B committed before the purchase?