MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“$25B mortgage settlement is only a start”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, February 12, 2012
Go get ’em, Eric.
After a ridiculously drawn-out negotiation, the nation’s top mortgage servicers have agreed to pay $25 billion in mea-culpa money for their assorted sins in the collapse of the housing 
market. Checks of up to $2,000 will eventually reach 750,000 people across America who lost their homes to foreclosure between 2008 and 2011.
Which is a nice start — but clearly only a start. Now it’s up New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, more than anyone else anywhere, to create a strong finish for all those borrowers who were pressured, tricked, defrauded, deceived or otherwise victimized by rapacious mortgage practices.
Schneiderman played a key role in negotiating the big settlement, pressuring the financial institutions to sweeten their original offers. But his next moves may matter even more — keeping up the heat, continuing to investigate, finding fresh new ways for the mortgage abusers to compensate.
“There are huge tax-fraud implications to some of the stuff that went on,” he said, hinting he might try to sic the IRS on 
Bank of America, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Ally Financial and their friends. With a jurisdiction that includes Wall Street, the center of American finance, none of these companies can afford to ignore Schneiderman.
This still won’t be enough to save every underwater homeowner in Nassau and Suffolk counties. But it may shake loose some lower interest rates or principal payments.
“This is a down payment,” Schneiderman said of what’s been agreed to so far.
As mortgage bankers know, down payments are just the beginning. Interest and penalties come next.
LET’S ALL MOVE TO . . .
1. Bubble Acres
2. Underwater Gulch
3. Fannie Freddie Farms
4. Usury Row
5. Overextended Avenue
THE NEWS IN SONG:
“House Where Nobody Lives”
by Tom Waits
& nbsp;
ASKED AND UNANSWERED:
Now that Suffolk Comptroller Joseph Sawicki has ordered a “very serious audit” of double-dipping county employees, 
does his choice of words make you wonder: Were all those previous audits supposed to be lighthearted and fun?…It’s just a coincidence – right? – that Nassau Republican lawmakers have thrown so much county legal work at politically connected law firms. It wouldn’t be fair – now would it? – to arbitrarily exclude fine firms like those associated with Dean Skelos, Joe Mondello, Ed Mangano and Tom Gulotta?…“Fiscal emergency” in Long Beach? Wait, how’s that different from last week in Long Beach? Or next?…What? There’s not enough substance abuse in the Hamptons for two rehabs? Check out the not-so-therapeutic bickering between Seafield and The Dunes…All’s not Kosher at Morrell Caterers? Oy…Are they (a) fire 
departments or (b) racing teams? If the answer is (a), why have the Farmingville, Manhasset-Lakeville, West Islip and West Sayville-Oakdale department spent so lavishing on racing vehicles?…Who’d you take in a Gary Ackerman-Carolyn McCarthy cage match? When Albany’s done redistricting, only one Dem may be standing…Metro-North should welcome LIRR trains into Grand Central, but LIRR should return the favor at Penn? Is that what eight state senators from LI are telling the MTA? How’s that going over in Westchester and Connecticut?
LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK:
KEVIN BRENNAN
Ten days ago, no one was even dreaming of this. But Kevin Brennan is already back home in Garden City Park. The 28-year-old NYPD officer was shot in the head in Brooklyn on Jan. 31. And on Friday, he was wheeled out of Bellevue Hospital to the sound of bagpipes and thunderous applause. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called the recovery “a miracle.” Brennan’s friends and family, knowing his tenacity, weren’t quite as surprised. But he had a baby daughter at home, they said. And he was never much for hospitals, anyway. Welcome home.
E-mail ellis@henican.com
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I will tell you that just to go to dinner and the races I need more than $2000. The housing crisis is the root of our collapsed economy. When a family loses market value in the thousands, they cannot sell and walk off with enough money to go somewhere else. The lower the home values the more the sharpies can move in in addition to savvy buyers. The overriding fear of job loss as we saw in the 11,000 who were affected by United Airlines and the 100,000 postal workers transcends into the natural fear of homeowners that results in our onerous housing crisis.