Turning the heat up on the Russian probe.

Yesterday we learned that Robert Mueller was now investigating the Trump family finances.

But that was by no means not all of the bad news for Donald Trump.

Courtesy of TPM: 

The special counsel and congressional committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election are looking into possible money laundering by President Donald Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort, the Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday.

Gee money laundering, why does that term keep coming up?

Oh, but that is not all.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Banking regulators are reviewing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans made to Mr. Trump’s businesses through Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management unit, which caters to an ultrarich clientele, according to three people briefed on the review who were not authorized to speak publicly. The regulators want to know if the loans might expose the bank to heightened risks. 

Separately, Deutsche Bank has been in contact with federal investigators about the Trump accounts, according to two people briefed on the matter. And the bank is expecting to eventually have to provide information to Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the federal investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. 

It was not clear what information the bank might ultimately provide. Generally, the bank is seen as central to understanding Mr. Trump’s finances since it is the only major financial institution that continues to conduct sizable business with him. Deutsche Bank has also lent money to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and to his family real estate business.

This, of course, is EXACTLY what Donald Trump expressed so much concern about in that bizarre  New York Times interview the other day.

It must literally be bananas in the Trump White House right now, with Trump losing his shit with every new revelation that comes down the pike.

Former head of MI-6 claims that he knows Donald Trump owes money to the Russians.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

The former head of MI6 has said Donald Trump borrowed money from Russia for his business during the 2008 financial crisis. 

Richard Dearlove told Prospect Magazine that “what lingers for Trump may be what deals – on what terms – he did after the financial crisis of 2008 to borrow Russian money” when other banks and lenders would not risk the money, given Mr Trump’s history of bankruptcy. 

Mr Dearlove alleged the money was used by Mr Trump to prop up his real estate empire, which was hit hard by the financial crisis. It is not illegal to borrow money from Russian entities but Mr Dearlove, who left government in 2004, did not provide any evidence to support his claim in the interview.

Trump of course has denied having ANY ties to Russia.

Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

However his own son disputes that claim:

“And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia. There’s indeed a lot of money coming for new-builds and resale reflecting a trend in the Russian economy and, of course, the weak dollar versus the ruble,” he said.  

There are reams of information about Trump's ties to Russia, so he is once again lying.

However if what  Mr. Dearlove says is true, that could be part of the reason why Trump is essentially Putin's bitch.

And let's keep in mind that it was another former member of MI-6 who produced that infamous dossier on Trump, parts of which seem to be proven true almost every week now.

Then there was this: 

Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer at international law firm Amsterdam & Partners with considerable experience in Russian affairs, told The Independent there was “no question” that US intelligence agencies and the FBI had information about Trump’s financial dealings with Russian entities prior to the 2016 US election. 

“Trump’s relationship with Russia goes back many, many years. I’m sure the FBI was monitoring it,” he said.

What do they say in that old Pink Floyd song?

"All in all it's just another brick in the wall."

The New York Times reveals Donald Trump's 1995 tax returns, and let's just say he lost "bigly."

Hey, who hasn't lost 916 million in one year? Right?

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show. 

The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. 

Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.

Somebody will have to explain to me how anybody would think that a guy who lost 916 million in one year is supposed to know how to "fix" the American economy?

Or how a guy who may not have paid taxes for eighteen years (And let's not play games here, if Trump did not HAVE to pay those taxes we know he did NOT pay those taxes.) understands anything about raising or lowering taxes in this country?

Actually Trump himself answered that, while making no attempt to defend himself against the accusations in the New York Times article.

I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016

Yeah if anybody actually believes that Donald Trump does his own taxes or understands the complexities of the tax code, well you are probably dumb enough to be a Trump supporter.

Remember during the debate that when Hillary suggested the reason Trump refused to reveal his tax returns might be because he has not paid any taxes, he replied with "That makes me smart."

Well how does one make the case that losing 916 million dollars in one year and then having their accountants take advantage of a tax break for rich people makes them smart?

And let's not forget that Trump needed several banks to bail him out only five years earlier:

Developer Donald Trump`s four leading bank lenders tentatively agreed Tuesday to lend him $65 million and defer interest and principal payments on about $850 million of his nearly $2 billion of debt for five years, said people involved in the talks. 

The leading bank lenders-Citibank, Bankers Trust, Chase Manhattan Bank and Manufacturers Hanover-now must persuade other loan syndicates to approve the new loan package. 

That loan package was approved, not because Trump is such a good businessman, but because if his  business had failed it would have caused a financial crisis for his lenders.

These banks also put Trump on an allowance to keep him from making any more disastrous financial decisions. Apparently that was only a temporary fix as five years later he seems to have lost almost a billion dollars.

This guy has no idea what it is like for regular tax paying Americans working hard to put food on their table and care for their families in this country.

He is a giant overfed child playing a game of Monopoly with real buildings and real money, and with a get out of jail free card grasped firmly in his tiny sweaty hands. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren tears Wells Fargo CEO into tiny bite size pieces, and it is a thing of beauty.

Courtesy of UPROXX:  

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Senator Warren joined panel Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and others to grill Stumpf about his knowledge of and participation in the scam. Warren’s cross-examination was particularly tense, as the senator had to repeat her questions three or four times before they were answered to her satisfaction. 

“Mr. Stumpf, the Wells Fargo Vision and Values statement, which you frequently cite, says ‘We believe in values lived not phrases memorized. If you want to find out how strong a company’s ethics are, don’t listen to what its people say, watch what they do.'” Warren quoted. “So, let’s do that. Since this massive years-long scam came to light you have said repeatedly, ‘I am accountable.’ But what have you actually done to hold yourself accountable? Have you resigned as CEO or chairman of Wells Fargo?” Stumpf admitted that he had not resigned, nor had he returned any of his earnings to the company or fired any top executives. 

“You haven’t resigned, you haven’t returned a single nickel of your personal earnings, you haven’t fired a single senior executive,” Warren said. “Instead, evidently, your definition of ‘accountable’ is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don’t have the money for a fancy PR firm to defend themselves. It’s gutless leadership.”

The reason that Strumpf finds himself being treated like a puppy's chew toy by Elizabeth Warren is because his company just paid a 185 million dollar fine for opening fake accounts for its customers in order to make a profit without their knowledge.

This is fraud, and if Senator Warren hates anything, it's fraud.

I don't know about all of you but I could not help fantasizing about what it would be like to watch Warren laying a smackdown like this on Trump's running mare Mike Pence in a VP debate.

I know, I know, that ship has sailed.

But you can't blame a guy for wondering what if?

Elizabeth Warren to Wall Street banks threatening to withhold donations from Democrats to keep her quiet: "Bring it on."

Go ahead Wall Street, whip it out. Let's take a look at it.

Courtesy of CNN Money:  

The senator from Massachusetts said Monday that she will continue to call for financial reforms and for big Wall Street banks to be broken up, despite potential retaliation against Democratic candidates. 

Last week, Reuters reported that some banks, including Citigroup (C) and J.P. Morgan (JPM), might withhold campaign contributions to Senate Democrats because of Warren's negative portrayal of Wall Street. 

According to Reuters, Goldman Sachs (GS) and Bank of America (BAC) also participated in a meeting to discuss the anti-bank rhetoric, although the idea of withholding donations wasn't talked about. Goldman has already made its donation for the year. 

"You bet I believe it's a serious threat," Warren told a packed room at a Barnes & Noble in New York City's Union Square -- a few miles north of Wall Street. 

"It is so brazen. If they think they can say in public, 'I don't like your tone, I don't like the way you talk about financial regulation' ... I got news for them: bring it on," the Democrat said.  

It is no wonder that Warren has captured the imagination of the progressives in this country, the woman has no fear.

Now the only question is do the rest of the Democrats have her backbone?

And yes I'm looking at you Hillary.

THIS is why we love Elizabeth Warren!

Yesterday the Senate had a hearing asking federal regulators why they were allowing banks caught laundering to remain in business and why none of the employees of those banks had seen the inside of a federal prison?

Here is how Senator Elizabeth "New Sheriff in Town" Warren handled her turn to grill the regulators:  

All of the regulators said they were working on improving regulations and enforcement and protested that it was up to the Department of Justice—not them—to decide whether prosecution was appropriate. (The Justice Department did not have a witness at the hearing.) They were reluctant to weigh in on whether they thought HSBC should have faced trial, even though they consult closely with the DOJ on bank activities. That infuriated Warren: 

"The US government takes money laundering very seriously for a good reason. And it puts strong penalties in place… It's possible to shut down a bank... Individuals can be banned from ever participating in financial services again. And people can be sent to prison. in December, HSBC admitted to... laundering $881 million that we know of... They didn't do it just one time... They did it over and over and over again… They were caught doing it, warned not to do it, and kept right on doing it. And evidently made profits doing it. Now, HSBC paid a fine, but no individual went to trial. No individual was banned from banking and there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC's actives in the US.... You're the experts on money laundering. I'd like your opinion. What does it take? How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?"

David Cohen, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at Treasury, responded that his department had imposed on HSBC "the largest penalties we've imposed on any financial institution." 

Warren got annoyed. "I'm asking: what does it take to get you to move towards even a hearing to consider shutting down operations for money laundering?" she said. 

Cohen kept evading and Warren got more annoyed. "I'm not hearing your opinion on this," she said. "What does it take even to say, 'here's where the line is'? Draw a line, and if you cross that line you're at risk for having the bank closed." 

Cohen said he had views, but couldn't get into it. 

"It's somewhere beyond $881 million in drug money," Warren concluded on her own, and went on to spell out the injustice of it all. "If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, you're going to go to jail... But if you launder nearly a billion dollars for international cartels and violate sanctions you pay a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed a night."

Usually after posting something like this I would write some words either criticizing or complimenting the subject of the article, but I am literally sitting here with my jaw hanging open, so feel free to fill in the dead space while I attempt to recover from the awesomeness of this exchange. 

Cartoon of the day.

Yep, there's definitely a new sheriff in town.

And about damn time too!

Elizabeth Warren takes no prisoners during her first Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:  

At her first Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing, Warren questioned top regulators from the alphabet soup that is the nation's financial regulatory structure: the FDIC, SEC, OCC, CFPB, CFTC, Fed and Treasury. 

The Democratic senator from Massachusetts had a straightforward question for them: When was the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial? It was a harder question than it seemed. 

"We do not have to bring people to trial," Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, assured Warren, declaring that his agency had secured a large number of "consent orders," or settlements. 

"I appreciate that you say you don't have to bring them to trial. My question is, when did you bring them to trial?" she responded. 

"We have not had to do it as a practical matter to achieve our supervisory goals," Curry offered. 

Warner turned to Elisse Walter, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who said that the agency weighs how much it can extract from a bank without taking it to court against the cost of going to trial. 

"I appreciate that. That's what everybody does," said Warren, a former Harvard law professor. "Can you identify the last time when you took the Wall Street banks to trial?" 

"I will have to get back to you with specific information," Walter said as the audience tittered. 

"There are district attorneys and United States attorneys out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example, as they put it. I'm really concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial,'" Warren said.

Damn, this woman is fierce!

I have to say that if for some reason Hillary cannot run in 2016, that I am ALL IN for Elizabeth Warrens to run. She would be amazing.

And can you imagine the amount of money that the financial institutes would donate to her opponents to keep her out of the White House? It would make 2012 look like chump change.

Hey maybe we can have an ALL female ticket for 2012?

Clinton/Warren 2016!

What do you think?

Elizabeth Warren appointed to Senate Banking Committee!

"Oh it's on now!"

Courtesy of TPM:  

Consumer advocate and Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will serve on the Senate Banking Committee once the 113th Congress convenes in January, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on Wednesday. 

“I am excited to work with the members of our expanded majority," Reid said in a statement. "Our caucus is more diverse than ever, with a record sixteen female Democratic senators serving in the next Congress. These committee assignments will allow all members of our caucus to bring their unique talents and expertise to bear as we work together to advance the interests of the middle class.”

There was so much happening yesterday that his bit of wonderful news slipped right past me.

Senator Warren is going to do an incredible job, and I have to imagine that their are some sleepless nights ahead for certain fat cats on Wall Street coming up soon.

Damn is it good to see the country moving in this direction or what?

In the much more important news of the day Elizabeth Warren gets a seat on the Senate's Banking Committee. Now we're talking!

Courtesy of Mother Jones:  

Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—the visionary behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the former bailout watchdog, and no friend of Wall Street—has reportedly snagged a seat on the powerful Senate banking committee, which writes the regulations for the banking industry. 

The Huffington Post, citing four sources "familiar with the situation," says Warren has locked up a seat on the committee. Politico confirmed the news soon after. Warren's spot on the committee must still be approved by the Senate Democratic caucus, which is expected to happen. The news comes after Mother Jones reported last month that big banks and their lobbyists in Washington were pushing to keep Warren off the committee.

Yeah I BET the banks were trying to keep her off of this committee. 

Does ANYBODY think she is only going to act like a junior Senator and sit in the background waiting for the senior Senators to write the regulations in this committee?

Do you know what? Neither do the banks!

The name that strikes fear in hearts all over Wall Street, Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:

Elizabeth Warren is already giving Wall Street executives serious agita. In their mind, the spunky senator-elect from Massachusetts is heading to Washington for one reason only: to destroy them and everything they stand for. 

"Looking at her rhetoric on the campaign trail, she seems to take an exception to wealth creation and what banks do," said one bank executive. "It’s not really Wall Street she’s against — it’s banks, full stop," added another. 

Banks have disliked Warren since her Harvard days, when she agitated against predatory lending, credit card fees, and other bank practices. And as her national profile grew through her work with TARP oversight and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog agency she helped create, their arm's-length opposition became a full-on war. Banks lobbied to keep her from being nominated to head the CFPB, then poured big donations into the campaign of Scott Brown, her Senate race opponent. 

After her convincing victory in November, her appointment to the powerful Senate Banking Committee, where she would have actual oversight of the financial sector, is seen by many on Wall Street as a fait accompli. 

"It’s all but certain she’ll be on the banking committee. If she isn’t, we’ll be among the most surprised people on earth," said one bank executive. 

What scares Wall Street most is that, unlike many industry detractors, Warren can stand toe-to-toe with industry lobbyists on the nuances of regulation and the nature of complex financial products. She is also skilled at boiling esoteric points about Wall Street's excesses down to a pure, potent narrative of intentional malpractice. In her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Warren took on banks using the kind of brusque language you don't hear all that often on Capitol Hill. 

"People feel like the system is rigged against them," she said. "And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs — the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs — still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them." 

The speech was booed by Republicans and mocked by Wall Street, but it was a hit everywhere else, even among legislators not traditionally known for their anti-bank rhetoric.

Wall Street threw just about every extra dollar they had at Scott Brown to help him defeat Warren and it simply was not enough.  And they knew full well what they were in for if she won that race too.

Once Warren is named to the Senate Banking Committee, like everybody assumes she will be, she can immediately start working on financial reform, a task she clearly takes very seriously.

But being a junior Senator is there really THAT much she can accomplish?

Well according to Professor Simon Johnson, yes there is:

How much can a new senator accomplish? Within hours of her victory, some commentators from the financial sector suggested that no freshman senator could achieve much. This is wishful thinking on their part. 

A newly elected senator can have a great deal of impact if she is well informed on relevant details, plugged into the policy community and focused on a few key issues. It also helps if such a senator can bring effective outside pressure to bear – and Ms. Warren is a most effective communicator, including on television. She has an unusual ability to cut through technical details and to explain the issues in a way that everyone can relate to.

Oh yeah, this is going to be a very important career to keep an eye on.  Personally I was ALMOST as excited about this victory as I was President Obama's.

The LIBOR scandal explained in one graphic.

Click image to see larger version.

This graphic comes to us courtesy of the Rolling Stone magizine's Matt Taibbi.

Welcome to the biggest banking corruption scandal in history. And then ask yourself, why am I not hearing more about this?

Yeah, I know what you are thinking, "Holy crap!"

Essentially this is what the Occupy Wall Street protestors have been trying to say, except it has never been reported exactly HOW corrupt the banking system has become. Until now.

If you want to know how we got here, then take some time and read this. (Here is a hint: The majority of the blame falls firmly on the shoulders of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Yeah, go figure.)

And if you are wondering if President Obama is trying to do anything about this, the answer is yes he is, in the form of the Dodd-Frank bill. However the facts are that the bill really only addresses the problems "around the edges" and due to significant push-back from lobbyists and their Republican attack dogs, the bill was watered down to the point where it will do little to address the metastasizing corruption within the banks themselves.

By the way Robert Diamond, who quit this week as chief executive officer of Barclays, and was mentioned in the video above, has now had a change of heart and is now telling British lawmakers that they DO need to look at how the banks are regulated (Or essentially NOT regulated) more closely.

Ordered to testify to British lawmakers after Barclays agreed to pay a record 290-million-pound ($455 million) fine for rigging the London interbank offered rate, Diamond said yesterday he was “disappointed” regulators failed to act on repeated warnings from Barclays that competitors had lowballed their submissions. Legislators challenged him on why he took so long to uncover his own firm’s attempts to manipulate the rate.

You might have thought that my headline was hyperbolic, but I think once you really understand the ramifications of this scandal you will feel I was not being evocative enough.

Update: Here is Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article, which lays out the scandal quite clearly. Damn!                       

Good morning my friends and welcome to November 5th.

Today could be quite an eventful day for those who are tired of faux news organizations and corporate banks lying to, and stomping all over the rights, of American citizens.

First we have the "Move your Money" campaign, something all of us can participate in,  that is encouraging everybody to move their money out of large banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America to smaller local banks or Credit Unions.

Customers are dumping their banks in droves ahead of the nationwide "Move Your Money" and "Bank Transfer Day" movements this Saturday. 

Given the recent spotlight on attempts -- and ultimate failures -- by some of the nation's biggest banks to tack on new debit card fees, thousands of disgruntled consumers have already either left or pledged to leave their current bank for a community bank or credit union, which are known for having fewer and/or lower bank account fees. 

At least 650,000 consumers have already joined credit unions since Sept. 29, the day Bank of America announced plans to impose its controversial $5 debit card fee, according to a nationwide survey of credit unions by the Credit Union National Association. That amounts to $4.5 billion in new savings accounts, CUNA said.

It looks like the movement has already had a significant impact on the banks.  It will be interesting to see if the banks make any policy changes in order to woo back disgruntled ex-customers. Though for me personally I am not at all interested in ever going back.

Today is also the day that the secret cyber group "Anonymous" claims that they will  take down Fox News.

PC Magazine has determined that Anonymous has a fairly good chance at successfully pulling this off:

OPERATION FOX HUNT 
 Another proposed Guy Fawkes Day operation, Fox Hunt, threatens to either take Foxnews.com offline or actually take control of the Web site, if some of the more boastful Anons are to be believed. The reason Anonymous is targeting Fox News is that the cable news network has been consistently critical of Occupy Wall Street and associated protests. Anonymous has attached itself strongly to the global Occupy movement and doesn't take attacks on it very kindly. 

Chances of success: Decent. Operation Fox Hunt seems much more likely to happen than Operation Facebook. Taking Foxnews.com down surely has a lot of support within Anonymous' ranks and would no doubt please many of the collective's Occupy allies. Anonymous has a long track record of taking down Web sites with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks—and many believe the group now has more sophisticated tools in its arsenal for such operations.

Like I said before I am not usually a fan of hacking, or other cyber attacks, but in this case I cannot think of more deserving target. I will be watching for this with great anticipation.

For myself, since I have already moved my money and NEVER watch Fox News, I am going to spend some time today watching my favorite November 5th movie, V for Vendetta, and monitoring the many protests planned today.

I think we can treat this post as an open thread, and you can tell me what you have planned for this November 5th, as well as provide updates as to the success of the Move You Money campaign, and the Operation Fox Hunt.

Hmm how shall I sign off this post?  There's really only one choice, don't you agree?

Remember, remember the fifth of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot
I know of no reason the Gunpowder Treason
should ever be forgot....

The 99% are starting to hit the big banks where it hurts, in their cash drawers.

Courtesy of Good:

A couple weeks ago, we told you about Bank Transfer Day, a grassroots Facebook effort urging people to shift their funds to credit unions before November 5th in order to stick it to the bigger banks. It seems like it's actually happening. Local news outlets across the country have been reporting huge rises in applications to the nonprofit institutions. Some credit unions are seeing a 30 percent uptick; others have doubled their membership. In September, the National Association of Federal Credit Unions reported a 350 percent increase in web traffic to its online credit union locator. And more than a handful of the customers are volunteering their reason: They're pissed off at the big banks. 

I would really like to get in on this opportunity to give the banks a unified giant middle finger, but sadly I am somewhat ahead of the curve as I moved my money to a Credit Union over eighteen years ago. My loans are through the credit union, as well as my credit cards, so essentially I do very little to support the banks.

Yeah I know, I'm pretty awesome.

However it is certainly not too late for all of YOU to send these financial institutes a message by withdrawing your hard earned money, stopping for a moment to bare your ass in the bank's general direction, and walking to the nearest credit union and depositing you money in a place where it can be used to benefit both you and your fellow customers while making you feel part of a sharing community.

Essentially socialism at it's best.

But remember, that word doesn't scare US.

New definition for heartless: Throw a Halloween themed party at the expense of those your law firm threw out into the streets.

Courtesy of TPM:

A New York Times opinion column from Joe Nocera out on Saturday tells the story of last year’s Halloween Party at the law firm called Steven J. Baum, a practice outside Buffalo that the column refers to as a “foreclosure mill.” The firm thought that they would celebrate last Halloween by throwing a homeless-themed party, complete with the staff dressing costumes that made them look destitute and signs describing the various faux problems their characters had. One sign seems to read “Will Worke For Food [sic]” and photos show part of an office named “Baum Estates.” 

The pictures were sent to Nocera by a former employee of the firm. Nocera described their conversation like this: 

When we spoke later, she added that the snapshots are an accurate representation of the firm’s mind-set. “There is this really cavalier attitude,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that people are going to lose their homes.” Nor does the firm try to help people get mortgage modifications; the pressure, always, is to foreclose.

This firm in particular seems to have quite a history of foreclosing on homes that they had NO right to foreclose on.

I guess we should really not be that surprised to learn they thought so little of the people whose lives they destroyed that they would mock them by throwing a party, the theme of which was built around the devastation that they so callously visited upon them.

Hopefully Karma is paying attention.