It probably comes as no surprise to you that policy makers, bankers, and other plutocrats, er I mean, oligarchs are crooks who don’t even bother to hide behind smoke screens in America anymore. They actually brag about their injustice. That is just what has happened with the “landmark robo-signing settlement” in which 5 big banks have to pay $25 billion dollars ($5 billion is chump change for the 5 biggest) for immunity from justice. The story is reported all over the media, including on NPR’s All Things Considered. It is hardly a landmark. More like a commonplace injustice. Here’s a bit of the news report.

Audie Cornish: . . . There are those who have already lost their homes to foreclosure and those who are still hanging on. First the former, as part of the settlement, people who lost their homes through foreclosure can get up to $2,000 each. But is there going to be any attempt to determine whether those people were improperly foreclosed on?

Chris Arnold: Right, that’s a question I think a lot of people have. You know, are these people who were doing everything right and by no fault of their own lost their house? Or is this somebody who bought a house they could never afford and lied all over their mortgage application?

The short answer is everybody gets it. . . .

Interpretation? If you are a person who was suckered into an unjust mortgage and lost your home, your credit, your savings, your dignity, perhaps more – people have lost their families and jobs and hope for the future – well then the bank that now owns your home with the financial assistance of the government (a.k.a. you the tax payer) is going to give you a one-time apology fee of $2,000. Justice served!

Aside: How long will it take these banks to earn back their $2,000 in penalty ATM, credit card, and checking account fees? Not long.

But the $2,000 injustice fee only applies to homeowners who were foreclosed on. There are millions of Americans who were sold snake oil mortgages whose houses are now underwater. How does this landmark deal help them?

CORNISH: So help me understand here. How many people will actually get real help through principal reductions?

ARNOLD: That’s actually very interesting. . . . The vast majority of loans out there are controlled by the government basically at this point: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, FHA, et cetera. And those organizations are not taking part in this so-called principal reduction approach. (Emphasis mine)

Interpretation? Banks agree to handout a $2,000 injustice fee to a minority of the homeowners who were foreclosed on and in return the banks get government-sanctioned immunity from justice. Then banks work up a deal to adjust the principal of a very small minority of existing mortgages that are under water. The “vast majority” of unjust mortgages that were sold to homeowners are now owned by the government (a.k.a you the tax payer) because the government bailed out the big banks. Those mortgages are not part of this deal. In other words, the government that allegedly is seeking justice in this “landmark” case doesn’t want to take it on the chin, writing down principal on all the mortgages on its own books. Justice served . . . so long as the government doesn’t have to participate.

Look, you all know that I have serious problems with our consumer-crazy economy. I have assigned plenty of blame for our problems to reckless consumers like you and me. And if you have been reading my blog or following my tweets for any amount of time, you know that I am not a conspiracy-theory, gold-buying, ammo-hoarding kind of reactionary. But the lies and injustice at the scale of this “landmark robo-signing settlement” put me near despair.