WASHINGTON — The $9.3 billion national foreclosure settlement may not provide much monetary relief to individual consumers, but it has provided plenty of comic relief for viewers of The Daily Show.
The show's host, Jon Stewart, gave a lengthy explanation in a show Tuesday evening for the independent foreclosure review in what he called, "Residential Evil."
Stewart started the segment by explaining the Mortgage Electronic Registration System and how roughly 4 million people were foreclosed upon without proper mortgage documentation from the banks.
"As it turns out the big banks didn't enjoy filling out paperwork for every single mortgage they wanted to re-assign or securitize, so they formed a consortium — a mortgage dumpster if you will," he said.
While Stewart took aim at the banks, he also directed his anger at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, joking that the government sent the "perpetrators" to jail.
"What I meant to say is they went to the Caribbean …after paying inadequate and completely arbitrary settlement of $9 billion. No seriously, they admitted it was completely arbitrary," Stewart said, referring to a hearing when lawmakers questioned the regulators on the settlement amount.
Stewart later explains that $9 billion "was the perfect number."
"Because it's a big enough number to impress consumers but small enough number to teach the banks no lesson whatsoever," he said. "And it's incredibly dividable enough to be meaningless."
Stewart wrapped up the segment by showing a chart provided by American Banker to Fox News that showed more than 60% of the affected borrowers were getting a mere $300 check.
"Woo! $300 bucks! Which is good, if the home that you lost is on the 16th hole of a miniature golf course," Stewart said.
