Bank of America Corp. is cutting 3,500 jobs in the current quarter and working on a broader restructuring that could eliminate thousands of additional positions, people familiar with the situation said.
The 3,500 positions are spread across the nation's largest bank by assets, including investment banking and trading, and the cuts are expected to be completed by the end of September. Some employees already have been notified.
After years of negative judicial decisions about the use of a straw-man on mortgages, MERS was about to lose its existence as well as its credibility. But now all of that is set to change as Wall Street money is pouring into the coffers of those who are receptive (i.e., almost everyone in Congress). The legislation is already being drafted under the interstate commerce clause to ratify MERS and everything it did retroactively. It appears that the Obama administration is ready to pardon all the securitization deviants by signing this bill into law. This information is corroborated by several people who are in sensitive positions — persons who would be the first to know such proposals. Fortunately, there are some people in Washington who have a conscience and do not want to see this happen.
The MERS whitewash is, so far as anyone can tell, still in works pending a review by the Roberts Court, which will almost certainly rule in the banks' favor, contract law be damned.
What's important, of course, is that neither political party stand up too strongly against the financial industry. It's good that everyone is helping each other out like this. Smells like bipartisan spirit, and that's really what the people want, right?
Update: It appears I had an inaccurate reading of the MERS situation, and there may never have been an actual MERS whitewash bill. And it appears unlikely that the SCOTUS will even hear the case, much less rule in the banks' favor. David Dayen and Yves at Naked Capitalism have much more.
Suffice it to say, though, that the Washington establishment is determined to not allow any significantly negative repercussions to befall the big banks from the MERS mortgage scam if they can help it--and that that determination is bipartisan in nature.