Finally! Jake Tapper (via Melissa on Twitter):
The Center for Public Integrity has a new study identifying the top 25 subprime lenders that helped start this economic meltdown.
Analyzing 7.2 “high interest” loans made between 2005 and 2007, CPI says the top 25 lenders were responsible for 72 percent of the high-priced loans made at the peak of the subprime market.
The 25 lenders are:
– Countrywide Financial Corp. (at least $97.2 billion in subprime loans)
– Ameriquest Mortgage Co./ACC Capital Holdings Corp. ($80.6 billion)
– New Century Financial Corp. ($75.9 billion)
– First Franklin Corp./National City Corp./Merrill Lynch & Co. ($68 billion)
– Long Beach Mortgage Co./Washington Mutual ($65.2 billion)
– Option One Mortgage Corp./H&R Block Inc. ($64.7 billion)
– Fremont Investment & Loan/Fremont General Corp. ($61.7 billion)
– Wells Fargo Financial/Wells Fargo & Co. ($51.8 billion)
– HSBC Finance Corp./HSBC Holdings plc ($50.3 billion)
– WMC Mortgage Corp./General Electric Co. ($49.6 billion)
– BNC Mortgage Inc./Lehman Brothers ($47.6 billion)
– Chase Home Finance/JPMorgan Chase & Co. ($30 billion)
– Accredited Home Lenders Inc./Lone Star Funds V ($29.0 billion)
– IndyMac Bancorp, Inc. ($26.4 billion)
– CitiFinancial / Citigroup Inc. ($26.3 billion)
– EquiFirst Corp./Regions Financial Corp./Barclays Bank plc ($24.4 billion)
– Encore Credit Corp./ ECC Capital Corp./Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. ($22.3 billion)
– American General Finance Inc./American International Group Inc. (AIG) ($21.8 billion)
– Wachovia Corp. ($17.6 billion.)
– GMAC LLC/Cerberus Capital Management ($17.2 billion)
– NovaStar Financial Inc. ($16 billion)
– American Home Mortgage Investment Corp.($15.3 billion)
– GreenPoint Mortgage Funding Inc./Capital One Financial Corp. ($13.1 billion)
– ResMAE Mortgage Corp./Citadel Investment Group ($13 billion)
– Aegis Mortgage Corp./Cerberus Capital Management ($11.5 billion)Of note: At least 21 of these 25 lenders ere financed by banks that received federal bailout money. Citigroup has collected $25 billion TARP dollars; Wells Fargo $25 billion; Bank of America (which bought Countrywide and Merrill Lynch) $45 billion; and so on.
Oh, but there’s more. Go read it.
Just to pull it out for people, Tapper also linked this other story from the Center for Public Integrity, titled “Predatory Lending: A Decade of Warnings“. He included this quote:
Oh, just fuck Countrywide with a running chainsaw, already. Somehow our mortgage got sold to Countrywide a year or so ago, and we refinanced just as soon as we could without taking a bath on the deal. I think AIG holds our mortgage, now, but it’s the home-mortgage arm of AIG, and they seem to be very reasonable indeed.
For one thing, they don’t penalize you, as Countrywide does, for early repayment. They also encourage electronic payment, and let you make payments biweekly on a monthly-payment mortgage. Very flexible, those AIG mortgage folks.
Which was enabled by…by…
The entire global banking system remains upside down by some tens if not hundreds of trillions, all enabled by…by…
Jonathan Jarvis has a nice piece on the wheels and gears but leaves out fractional reserve and fiat money and the Fed except naming the latter, once. So this was all enabled by…by…?
In related news, some folks are rethinking charges of Paultardism.
Ron Paul : the U.S. government :: Jake Tapper : the profession of journalism
The constant, each-too-small-to-count exclusions that such token almost-not-terrible guys suffer must be maddening. It’s the almost that lets them go on, I guess. I know I wouldn’t be able to stand being a Tom Wolfe character for so long.
Yep: Paul is a tiny minority and therefore wrong. It’s the corollary to our trolls pouncing on We Won populism where they have no principle.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/64951
There is a God.
Speaking of Congress…this seems like a natural career change, if you can call it a change at all.
….more like a venue change, really.
Since she references Vitter and the DC Madame. This is a case of why vote for the Republican sorta/wanna be, when the Democrats will give you the real deal. But over something other than socialism this time.
Auto loans these days are a bit expensive, this is also a side-effect of the economic recession~:’
when going for auto loans, i always look for lending companies with low interest rates*~’