Lehman bankruptcy - $1.1 billion in fees

"While talk of the end of the bankruptcy boom is fast spreading, every month seems like holiday season in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history. The tab for outside legal advisers and other professionals broke the $1.1 billion barrier by early December."

More here.

Isn't it Just Paperwork?

So why do we care about the notes, mortgages, and other documents that were supposed to be transferred into these large mortgage trusts that we keep seeing in the news?  Well, it could mean Doomsday for many large financial institutions in America.  I'm not saying this would be a good thing or a bad thing - probably, a bad thing - most certainly, if the mortgage "pools" were found not to be securitized, it very well could cause the meltdown of the U.S. financial industry. There's a great description of exactly why on 4closurefraud.org.  Here's an excerpt:

"If the notes and mortgages were not properly transferred to the trusts, then the mortgage-backed securities that the investors’ purchased were in fact non-mortgage-backed securities. In such a case, investors would have a claim for the rescission of the MBS, meaning that the securitization would be unwound, with investors receiving back their original payments at par (possibly with interest at the judgment rate). Rescission would mean that the securitization sponsor would have the notes and mortgages on its books, meaning that the losses on the loans would be the securitization sponsor’s, not the MBS investors, and that the securitization sponsor would have to have risk-weighted capital for the mortgages. If this problem exists on a wide-scale, there is not the capital in the financial system to pay for the rescission claims; the rescission claims would be in the trillions of dollars, making the major banking institutions in the United States would be insolvent."

More here.

Another "Real Housewives" bankruptcy

James Bellino, husband of “Real Housewife of Orange County” Alexis Bellino, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for his company...Bellino is president of Global Marine, Inc. — a single-asset real estate corporation. A 7-page document filed Wednesday at U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California states that “after any exempt property is excluded and administrative expenses paid, there will be no funds available to unsecured creditors.”

The bankruptcy filing says the estimated number of creditors is between 1 and 49, and the estimated assets of Global Marine, Inc. are between $1,000,001 and $10 million.  Bellino’s business is based at his 6-bedroom home in Newport Beach, which has been listed for sale and scheduled for a foreclosure auction.

More here.