Financial Crisis Monitor

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign manager, Maggie Williams, earned about $200,000 on the board of a Long Island subprime lender that charged prepayment penalties — a practice that Clinton, a critic of the subprime industry, now seeks to eliminate.
Williams, who took over the reins of Clinton’s campaign in early February, served as a director on the [...]

While Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was speaking, a federal appeals court shut the door to state enforcement of federally charted banks. Now Paulson wants help from the states. What in the world is going on? Didn’t the court render the states powerless to seek documents and enforce predatory lending laws, while Paulson [...]

Consumer advocate and watchdog organization Household – HSBC Watch published an open letter to HSBC, activist organization Knight-Vinke, and HSBC Chairman Stephen Green. The letter as published today, November 14, 2007. The long but insightful narrative gives some history about the watchdog organization, Household International, and predatory lending. You can read it [...]

Let face it – Americans have no love for debt collectors, don’t like it when mortgage insurance is forced upon them, and we always like to laugh at Paris Hilton. The Radian, MGIC, C-BASS dance is almost as good. MGIC posts a loss, C-BASS was almost worthless, lawsuits began and the crying towel [...]

This may come as a shocking revelation to many of our readers. The Federal Reserve, and specifically the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, already had data about subprime mortages. That data did not look good at all. Executives from specific lenders were called to testify before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, [...]