Anonymous Leaks Internal Bank of America Emails 535
euphemistic writes "Reportedly the information Wikileaks was set to disclose about a particular bank back from December, 'a massive batch of internal Bank of America emails' has been leaked. While the site hosting it seems to currently be down due to the obviously gigantic amount of traffic interested in this leak, the leak is said to pertain to the Bank of America's improper foreclosure on homes. 'The report came from a former employee with Balboa Insurance — a risk management and insurance firm. The employee reportedly corresponded with Bank of America employees and was told to falsify loan numbers on documents to force Bank of America to foreclose on homeowners.'"
leaked? (Score:5, Interesting)
Reportedly the information Wikileaks was set to disclose about a particular bank back from December, "a massive batch of internal Bank of America emails" has been leaked.
Is this saying that Wikileaks' information was leaked by a third party?
As for bank foreclosure fraud, we've known for a year or more that banks have been doing that. A common case is that all the shady asset-juggling left things in a state that no one knows who actually has the rights to it, so the evictions are rushed through without proper legal scrutiny, or even on the basis of forged documents.
Doesn't matter anymore (Score:2, Interesting)
We've seen too many times over in the last decade (or three) that these powerful interests are pretty darn immune. Now and then someone high up either pisses off the rest, or is thrown under the bus and the perception of justice is maintained, thus muting the pitchforks long enough to snub any momentum. Sadly these guys could be found shooting orphaned kids to clear out foreclosed houses and they'd still get away with blaming it on "paperwork" or some such BS.
So, yeah, great, another treasure trove reminding me just how rigged our "free" society is, and another false circus to watch work through the worthless media system. More depression. More pointlessness. Take your loaf of bread home and feign thankfulness that the power elite have let you eat for another day.
Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I will be closing my BOA account.... (Score:5, Interesting)
In some ways I think it's good that it takes a lot of effort and regulation to setup a Building Society but in a post Bankers are scum world, it does kind of feel like it's just there to stop new players entering a market which competes against banks and their huge profit margins.
I wonder if there will be some new Building Societies started up in the future given the hatred of bankers or whether the market has now been so well sewed up and no small BS's could ever be started again.
Re:I will be closing my BOA account.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course nothing will happen. These leaked Bank of America emails were released during the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis. GREAT FUCKING JOB THERE, CHIEF!!! It shows they're a bunch of amateurs who know nothing about timing so this reaches the broadest audience. Slashdot, reddit, and the rest will get up in arms but the people who need to know, i.e. mom & pop and that mythical linux using grandma, won't have it show up as a blip on their radar because of their reliance upon mainstream media to feed them.
Re:And... (Score:1, Interesting)
but should something happen on the basis of a third party who provided emails that he claims were from BoA employees?
Hmmm.... so let's wait until that third party sleeps naked in Quantico... then we'll now for sure the emails are good.
Tinfoil hat time... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't help but wonder who's really behind this leak. It smells a LOT like a false flag operation.
Bank of America has known for months that they're the next major Wikileaks target. Now all of a sudden the material pops up "from Anonymous", in the middle of the Japan earthquake, a HUGE news story - and over the weekend. I tried viewing the site all morning and have been getting 503 errors. If you wanted to bury an inevitable major embarrassment to your company, I think this is how you do it. Wikileaks, for all their faults, would never release this while there were so many other major developing stories.
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt. (Score:5, Interesting)
Your comment about "this period of history" draws attention away from the fact that the U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt. Few in government are on the side of the people. Most of the really powerful in the U.S. government are helping the corrupters.
For example, see the Rolling Stone article about Goldman Sachs, The Great American Bubble Machine [rollingstone.com]
The documentary movie Inside Job [rottentomatoes.com] was nominated for an Oscar. It's an excellent movie about the extreme corruption. NOTHING has been done.
Re:So how do shorts work? (Score:4, Interesting)
You want to sell short [wikipedia.org]. It works like this:
A) Borrow assets (stock in a company) at the current price.
B) Wait a period of time.
C) Return those assets to the original owner at the new current price.
D) Keep the difference (or lose money).
Now, if you are shady, you can do what is called "Naked Short Selling", in which you perform this trick with assets that don't actually exist. This American Life [thisamericanlife.org] did a great episode called Enforcers [thisamericanlife.org] - the second half deals with Naked Short Selling and describes the process in detail. TAL has done several fantastic episodes on the financial crisis, well worth the time to give them a listen.
Re:I will be closing my BOA account.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always liked the idea of cooperatively owned businesses, I would like to see it applied to more types of businesses. In Sweden, one of the largest supermarket chains is a consumer coop, they have better quality overall than the privately owned chains in my experience, perhaps because of the lack of pressure to cut costs from investors who only care about the profits. Members pay a one-time member fee and then get refunds on what they buy, between 1 and 5%.
Billionairs (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought it sort of interesting that if you look at the list of Billionaires:
http://www.forbes.com/wealth/billionaires#p_1_s_arank_-1__-1 [forbes.com]
and look at where they got their money from.
If you look at the USA, and ignore all the Walmart jerks, and software bubbles, a disproportionate amount got their money from "Hedge Funds". Now look around the world, how many others can you find? I think I found one.
These are the same Hedge Funds that bought up (and demanded, and got) all the US real estate debt, causing the whole economic problem. I wonder how many of those guys are hurting? Oh wait, none because they are all billionaires. Also if you look at the names... its the exact same people that came up with the bail out plan etc... talk about conflict of interest and self serving SOB's.
Re:I will be closing my BOA account.... (Score:5, Interesting)
At business school I learned something within the first 20 minutes of finance 101. The most important lesson in the class which was repeated on the final was what is a company's goal?
If you said to make money you are wrong. The goal of a corporation is to raise its stock price, not make money. A third of the course dealt with how to trick investors by creating magical ratios of liquidity (assets that can turn to cash very fast) to make wall street happy and raise the share price. To top it off we studied how going into debt was a great thing as it gave you profit leverage. Holding off paying your suppliers was good too as you can invest the money while you drag your feet.
The rest of the course dealt with a privately held and small companies. Now their goals was to make money as well as have an excellent credit rating and low debt to make sure adequate lines of credit were available in case of an emergency and to plan ahead conservatively without going bankrupt. 2 different worlds.
Private companies are the way to go. They simply make rational decisions and play by the rules. The big boys don't and love risk. If the average CEO job is short you can guarantee yourself you wont be held accountable either for short term gains that cost the company later. WOW
Re:And... (Score:4, Interesting)