JPMorgan, Citigroup halting foreclosures

[babylonsister]

JPMorgan, Citigroup halting foreclosures

ALAN ZIBEL | February 13, 2009 12:12 PM EST | AP



WASHINGTON — JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are halting home foreclosures while the Obama administration develops its plans to help the U.S. housing market.

JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said the New York company plans to halt new foreclosures for owner-occupied home loans through March 6. Dimon made the pledge in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who released it on Friday.

Citigroup's foreclosure moratorium applies to all "Citi owned first mortgage loans that are the principal residence of the customer as well as all loans Citi services where we have reached an understanding with the investor" until President Barack Obama's administration has finalized the details of the loan modification program or March 12, whichever is earlier, according to a company release. New York-based Citi's action expands on a similar effort that it started in November.

Frank earlier this week called on the mortgage industry to enact such broad foreclosure moratoriums.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20090213/halting-foreclosures/

[Igel]

1. I view it as evidence.

I keep hearing claims that only enacted legislation and finalized regulations could possibly be responsible for changes in corporate behavior, even though I distinctly remember otherwise (and even remember thinking that the behavioral changes were unwise). If you can't show a causal relationship between finalized legislation/regulations, you're stuck: Only those things can possibly cause a noticeable behavioral change. Pressure, hearings, threat of change, public perceptions ... all meaningless, a priori (as seen from a decade later).

Then I see things like this, where the threat of legislation or regulations has a strong effect on behavior. Apparently, I have to conclude, this is the first time such a thing has ever happened, and there really *is* something new under the sun.

Not.