The Colorado Independent

Posts Tagged financial crisis

Are homeowners really skipping out on their mortgages to spend at the mall?

By | 05.04.10 | 9:07 am

The case is now famous. The homeowner had applied for the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, or HAMP, an Obama administration initiative to give distressed and tapped-out borrowers lower monthly payments. But this “HAMPlicant,” the writer on the blog Calculated Risk noted, had given up on a $1,880 a month mortgage and spent hundreds of dollars instead at a spa, tanning salon, gourmet grocery store and liquor store, capping it all off with $1,700 in charges to mall stores from Baby Gap to Best Buy. She’s what bloggers are calling a “foreclosure queen.”

Washington versus Wall Street: A citizens’ guide to the regulation debate

By | 04.27.10 | 10:30 am

WASHINGTON– Monday evening, Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted against Sen. Chris Dodd’s American Financial Stability Act, which seeks to reform regulation of the financial sector. It was only one round. There are many to come. Democrats only need one crossover to move the bill forward and the GOP line on the bill has already evolved, as Republican spin artist Frank Luntz’s “bank bailout” false talking point has failed to winover Americans, who overwhelmingly back reform. Bonus-loving Goldman Sachs has run out of sympathy on struggling Main Street.

DC Scorecard: Bank lobbyists win again, with help from Dem friends

By | 12.16.09 | 9:36 am

Bloomberg takes a hard look at the lobbying fight over financial regulatory overhaul and concludes that despite last week’s passage of a financial regulatory overhaul package by the House, the banks won — simply by not losing as…

Obama misses mark, scolds heedless bankers instead of New Dems

By | 12.15.09 | 8:57 am

President Obama’s attempt to shame top bankers on Monday convinced no serious observers that lending will suddenly flow freely and financial institutions will quit lobbying to undermine regulatory reform. The fact that three of the nation’s top bankers literally phoned…

American meltdown mortgage crisis, the movie

By | 09.03.09 | 8:22 am

For many people, one of the confounding things about the financial crisis has been trying to grasp exactly what happened on Wall Street — and how things could have gotten so out of hand. The financial press, in many ways,…