http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/1....

Quote:

So back to the original question: why did some servicers use "robo-signers"?

....

So my guess is a combination of getting swamped with foreclosures, lack of experienced staff, the poor economic environment for servicers, and outsourcing to the lowest bidder, all contributed to the servicers using "robo-signers". This doesn't excuse their behavior - I'm just trying to understand why this happened - and why it happened at more than one servicer.

Bill over at Calculated risk does not get. He's ultimately confused over why people committed fraud. Of course, he doesn't appear to see the fraud as fraud yet.

It's simple: because they thought they could get away with it.

I've noticed it too and it is disappointing. They were consistently in front of the mortgage mess. The commenters on his blog are laying into him pretty hard and he is apparently looking into it.

Also, he doesn't believe there will be a double dip.

"I've noticed it too and it is disappointed. They were consistently in front of the mortgage mess. The commenters on his blog are laying into him pretty hard and he is apparently looking into it.

Also, he doesn't believe there will be a double dip."

This is not a new issue with him. It is one of th reasons I stopped reading his blog and posting there almost 3 years ago and ended up here.

I like CR's informative posts, but c'mon, the guy has links to Paul Krugman's blog? CR's way too conservative. The Hoocadanode forum is getting pretty damn annoying too - all I see are more and more links to Youtube music videos.




He's way behind the curve lately, but that's just what I expected. He knows the real estate market well, but perhaps he's too caught up in the industry to take an objective view? I dunno...

as an update: he is getting called out on this:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/g....

Quote:

CR has a post up today which is a troubling, in that it mentions “hysteria” and “misinformation” yet misconstrues critical issues. The article, “Why did the mortgage servicers use “robo-signers”?” despite being well intentioned, does not answer the question posed in its headline, adds no real information and is about two weeks late.

It is patently incorrect to say that the “foreclosure gate” issue is about “robo-signers”. A dozen top banks or servicers voluntarily halted foreclosure across much of the country because title insurers were no longer comfortable working on their foreclosure sales, borrowers were having increasing success challenging the foreclosures, their sub-contractors (such as Lender Processing Services and various foreclosure mill law firms) were being investigated for fraud and perjury, and news was starting to get out that the problems were much more widespread than had been previously reported.

The entire legal structure of foreclosure was coming undone. Robo-signers were just a manifestation of a much larger issue that was already becoming a problem.

People who believe that the foreclosure crisis issue is just about servicing are either new to the issue or unwilling to ask some obvious questions about what is going on. Certainly all aspects of process intensive work can be exposed to human error and mistakes, but you’d think the mistakes might be randomly distributed, rather than concentrated in the same parties and the same documents, over and over again in the same ways.

I believe that a reasonable examination of the facts shows that the documents were not prepared incorrectly due to mistake, but rather due to a strategic choice.

Q: Why commit any financial crime?

A: Profit. More specifically, greater profits than one could achieve legitimately.