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"\r\nSo the foreclosure settlement is through.\r\nA  few weeks back, I was optimistic about it &amp;#x2013; I had been worried that it  was going to contain broad liability waivers for all sorts of  activities, and I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that its scope  had essentially been narrowed to robosigning offenses.&amp;#xA0;\r\nHowever,  now that the settlement is finalized, and I&amp;apos;ve had time to think about  it and talk to people who know far more than I do about this, I&amp;apos;m  feeling pretty queasy.\r\nIt feels an awful lot like what happened  here is the nation&amp;apos;s criminal justice honchos collectively realized that  a thorough investigation of the problem would require resources they  simply do not have, or are reluctant to deploy, and decided to accept a  superficially face-saving peace offer rather than fight it out.\r\nSo  they settled the case in a way that reads in headlines like it&amp;apos;s a bite  out of the banks, but in fact is barely even that. There will be little  in the way of real compensation for stuggling homeowners, and there are  serious issues in the area of the deal&amp;apos;s enforceability. In fact, about  the only part of the deal we can be absolutely sure will be honored in  full is the liability waiver for the robosigning offenses.\r\nWith  the rest of it -- collecting on the settlement, enforcement of the  decrees, all the stuff put in there to balance the deal in the  consumer&amp;apos;s direction -- there will be an uphill battle from this point  forward to get the banks to comply. The banks meanwhile have no such  uphill battle. They will get the full benefit of the deal (a release  from costly litigation) from the moment the ink is dry.\r\nReally this looks like America&amp;apos;s public prosecutors just wilted  before the prospect of a long, drawn-out conflict with an army of  highly-paid, determined white-shoe banker lawyers. The message this  sends is that if you commit crimes on a large enough scale, and have  enough high-priced legal talent sitting at the negotiating table after  you get caught, the government will ultimately back down, conceding the  inferiority of its resources.\r\nI think the best summation of the settlement is probably Yves Smith&amp;apos;s, which can be found here. The piece lists the 12 things that suck the most about the settlement. The most painful is probably #12:\r\n\r\n12.  We&amp;apos;ll now have to listen to banks and their sycophant defenders   declaring victory despite being wrong on the law and the facts. They   will proceed to marginalize and write off criticisms of the servicing   practices that hurt homeowners and investors and are devastating   communities.  But the problems will fester and the housing market will   continue to suffer.  Investors in mortgage-backed securities, who know   that services have been screwing them for years, will be hung out to dry   and will likely never return to a private MBS market, since the   problems won&amp;apos;t ever be fixed.  This settlement has not only revealed the   residential mortgage market to be too big to fail, but puts it on long   term, perhaps permanent, government life support.\r\n\r\nMy  mistake in looking at this deal a few weeks ago, when details of it  first leaked out, was in focusing on how much worse it could have been,  instead of thinking about how bad it still is. The only acceptable  foreclosure deal had to bring about a complete end to robosigning and  the other similar corrupt practices that grew up around it (like for  instance gutter service, the practice of process servers simply signing affidavits saying they delivered summonses, instead of really doing it).\r\nBut this deal not only doesn&amp;apos;t end robosigning, it officially makes getting caught for it inexpensive. Shame on me for ever thinking that might be a good thing."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-foreclosure-deal-may-not-be-so-hot-after-all-20120209>