houses

Snippets From the 50 State Mortgage Settlement

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mersAs expected, states were strong armed by the administration and have agreed to a $25 billion, 50 state mortgage fraud settlement with five banks for robo-signing and mortgage fraud. According to the Wall Street Journal:

The agreement covers five banks: Ally Financial Inc., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. Together, the five firms handle payments on 55% of all home loans outstanding, or about 27 million mortgages, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.

While the banks pony up $25 billion, they are the ones who made out like bandits.

About $5 billion would be cash payments to states and federal authorities, $17 billion would be pegged for homeowner relief, roughly $3 billion would go for refinancing and $1 billion would be paid to the Federal Housing Administration.

Why autos are important to winning MI & Ohio

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MI is still the home of the auto industry and dependent on them for its economic well being. From Gov. Granholm's state of the state:

... we will not concede the automotive industry to any other state or nation.

We are the state that put America on wheels – the state that put the “car” in NASCAR. There is no vision for Michigan’s new economy that does not include cars designed, engineered, and made in Michigan. The industry’s changing – but we in Michigan cannot – will not – abandon it. And we should not allow our government in Washington to abandon it either.