In most businesses, that sort of behavior---reporting expenses for which you'd already been paid in advance, for instance---would be enough to get you fired. Not true, however, for America's job creators:
“We are canceling the remaining amount you owe Chase!” says a letter that JPMorgan Chase sent recently to thousands of home loan borrowers. “You are approved for a full principal forgiveness of your Home Equity Account,” says another, from Bank of America.
Jackie Esposito, of Guilford, Conn., got a letter like that. But she wasn’t elated — because she doesn’t owe the money anymore. She and her husband filed for bankruptcy three years ago. The roughly $64,000 they owed Chase has been legally wiped out.
What’s going on?
Cast your mind back to February. Five of the nation’s big banks, including Chase and Bank of America, agreed to pay $25 billion to settle state and federal claims over questionable mortgage practices and promised to work harder to help borrowers who were in trouble. To prod the banks, the government said it would give them credits against the amounts they agreed to pay.
So, to the ire of customers who couldn’t get banks to work with them before, banks are now forgiving debts that no longer exist.
“When I got this letter that said they were going to relieve our debt, I just about fell over,” Ms. Esposito said last week. “You can’t forgive a debt that you’re legally unable to collect.”
Not to mention the tax liability she will face after the bank reports the debt forgiveness to the IRS since, well, for legal purposes it's taxable income.
It's enough to make a man, oh I dunno, maybe fire off a sternly worded warning or something:
I asked Joseph A. Smith Jr., a former banking regulator in North Carolina who is monitoring the settlement, how he planned to vet the banks’ claims of relief provided and credit earned. For example, how will he ensure that institutions do not receive credit for releasing liens that have been eliminated?
“We will review compliance with this requirement as we will with all of the consumer relief requirements,” Mr. Smith said, “through review of the corporate records relating to such transactions.”
Yay Team Democrat, you are so totally fucking awesome we will only have to endure a lost decade of zero growth chronic high unemployment burdened by a parasitic banking sector you guys rock totally!
Or maybe we should just say the hell with it, and vote for Jill Stein after all.
---
Vitelius