Video: Ohio AG Richard Cordray
If you're keeping score -- Obama wants a return to foreclosures, the banks want a return to foreclosures -- therefore this moratorium too shall pass.
New details from the latest lawsuit:
And Geithner is now saying a moratorium would be harmful:
And Felix Salmon has a must-read nightmare scenario:
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JEFFREY BROWN: Talk of a nationwide moratorium on selling foreclosed homes ran into new opposition today, as the securities industry warned against serious damage to the housing market.
The warning came from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. It said imposing a moratorium would be -- quote -- "catastrophic."
Last week Bank of America, the nation's largest, acted on its own to halt foreclosures in all 50 states. The bank is an underwriter of the "NewsHour." Three other banks, Ally Financial, J.P. Morgan Chase, and PNC Financial, have imposed partial freezes in 23 states where foreclosures must be approved by a judge.
All of the banks acted after allegations of improprieties, including so-called robo-signing, in which processors signed documents they never read.
On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry read called for a federally mandated moratorium. Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida joined the call on Sunday.
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, D-Fla.: I think we need a combination of a freeze potentially and also we need to sit down with the banking industry and talk to them about ways in which we can help them be able to work those mortgages out, because it's absolutely imperative that we keep people in their homes.
JEFFREY BROWN: Some Republicans, including House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, say a moratorium would do far more harm than good.
HOUSE MINORITY WHIP ERIC CANTOR: What you're telling people and institutions that lend money is, they do not have the protection to take the risk they need to, to extend credit so people can get a mortgage. You're going to shut down the housing industry if that's the case. Government has got to pull back.
WOMAN: Eric, you are not from a state...
REP. ERIC CANTOR: We have got to stop intervening.
JEFFREY BROWN: Also this weekend, White House senior adviser David Axelrod voiced his own doubts.
DAVID AXELROD, senior White House adviser: I'm not sure about a national moratorium because there are, in fact, valid foreclosures that that -- probably should go forward, and where the documentation and paperwork is proper.
JEFFREY BROWN: In the meantime attorneys general in as many as 40 states are expected to announce a joint investigation of foreclosures this week.
One of the attorneys general looking into this, Richard Cordray of Ohio, joins us now. Last week, his office filed suit against GMAC Mortgage and its parent, Ally Financial, accusing the companies of filing fraudulent documents in hundreds of foreclosures. Mr. Cordray is a Democrat. He's currently running for reelection.
Also with us is Shari Olefson, a real estate lawyer in Florida and author of "Foreclosure Nation: Mortgaging the American Dream." She represents banks in commercial foreclosures.