Will There Be An Investor Uprising?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Senate Banking Committee met today to hold hearings about the foreclosure fraud crisis. MarketWatch has a brief summary here. After it was over, Dave Dayen, Atrios, and Mike Konczal (rortybomb) chatted on Twitter:

ddayen: It’s a national crime that this foreclosure fraud hearing won’t lead the nightly news

ddayen: hearing ending, yes these things are a lot of hot air, but I think this one might have done some good

Atrios: what possible good? nice that maybe some senators get it, but… then what?

ddayen: point is that this has gone from a backwater on blogs to the chair of Senate Banking saying this is a crisis. Baby steps

Atrios: yes that’s progess but..Treasury unlikely to do anything and of course congress is useless

ddayen: Congress is useless but investors, AGs not necessarily. Investors watched this hearing and $ signs lit up in their eyes

Atrios: true, long thought that the only slim hope for this mess was investor uprising

rortybomb: You only need a little bit of successful investor uprising to put ratings agencies into motion, which sends whole thing collapsing.

Atrios: true, tho i think problem with investor uprising solution is that many investors are on both sides of this

rortybomb: You could also have an investor uprising which doesn’t really help homeowners/communities at all. That’s a worry.

Atrios: yes i agree with that, investor uprising no guarantee of helping homeowners. just slim possibility

ddayen: That is a worry, but there are a combination of pressures here, particularly from courts denying foreclosures….pt. being, a multi-pronged attack w/courts, investors, munis and AGs, could get the banks to a homeowner-friendly endgame

So will investors who bought securities backed by fraudulent mortgages lead a revolution against the banks who sold them? Maybe! Though probably not. In any case, I just thought everyone might enjoy eavesdropping on the postgame show a bit.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate