LIQUID COURAGE. If you're not acquainted with the term, or more improbably never experienced it, it is the lowering of inhibitions from the consumption of alcohol that allows one to approach strangers you find attractive or confront others whom you think have threatened or insulted you.

At the time, your actions seem reasonable, even suave in the former instance or justified in the latter. Only later, when the euphoric effects of the source of the liquid courage have worn off, does the stupidity of your bravado become evident to you (although it was apparent to everyone else.)

Besides the hangover, the after-effects of the ill-advised encounters will be all too obvious. Brawls leave cuts and bruises while boozy assignations result in worse regrets. As the country song of some years back (well before political correctness) sums them up, "I've never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I've sure woke up with a few."

Wall Street has shifted its financial contributions away from Democrats in this election cycle and into the coffers of Republicans with two goals in mind: to ease tougher new regulations on the financial industry and prod some priorities beyond the Capitol Hill gridlock.

“There is a lot of anger in the financial services industry directed at Democrats” because of the new rules on Wall Street, said Bert Ely, bank analyst at Ely & Co. Inc. in Alexandria, Va.

“This also increasingly looks like a wave election with a huge shift back to Republicans, and [big banks] want to make sure they’re betting on a winner particularly as it gives them greater access in policy,” said Ely.

Legislative observers contend the wave of funding for Republican candidates and causes reflects a desire by the financial services and real-estate sectors to put pressure on regulators to limit costs as they write hundreds of rules based on the bank reform legislation, the Dodd-Frank Act, over the next two years.

A Republican-controlled House and a more evenly split Senate, as is expected after the Nov. 2 midterm elections, will help drive the kind of pressure Wall Street wants to exert.

Billionaire Wilbur Ross’s American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc., facing lawsuits by attorneys general in two states, was sued by a homeowner who accused the firm of using tactics that lead to improper foreclosures.

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 25 in federal court in Dallas, seeks class-action status on behalf of homeowners with mortgages serviced by American Home going back to 2006. American Home’s “illegal, unfair and deceptive business practices victimize borrowers” across the U.S., according to the complaint.

American Home “routinely and systematically assesses unwarranted fees against consumers, resulting in premature default that often gives rise to unfair and improper foreclosure proceedings,” according to the complaint.

Banks and loan servicers are under scrutiny for their foreclosure practices following accusations they relied on faulty documentation to foreclose on people’s homes. Attorneys general in all 50 states have launched a coordinated investigation into the issue.

It’s not the first time that Wall Street investors are asking where the interests of billionaire bond king Bill Gross and the Obama administration diverge.

The lawsuit could boost the value of Pimco’s investments, but it might also encourage a wave of similar lawsuits against banks that issued hundreds of billions of dollars of home loans to people with shaky finances, according to Robert Litan, a finance expert and former Justice Department official in the Clinton administration.

Weakness in the U.S. housing market will make it impossible for the federal government to withdraw its support for the mortgage-finance system in the coming year, Freddie Mac Chief Executive Officer Charles E. Haldeman said.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored firms that own or control half of the U.S. mortgage market, have been run under federal conservatorship since September 2008 when they were seized by regulators amid losses that pushed them to the brink of collapse. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has promised to deliver a plan for overhauling the firms and the mortgage-finance system by the end of January.

After the initial roll out of the HECM Saver, Vick Bott, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the agency would like to see it represent a minimum of 30 percent of all reverse mortgages it insures.

Released earlier this month, the product provides consumers with less in proceeds but at a much lower cost compared to the traditional Standard HECM.

During an interview with Reverse Fortunes, Bott said the decision to develop the HECM Saver was two fold. First, even before she joined HUD, the market had been asking for a low cost product that didn’t require borrowers to leverage all the equity in their home. Second, when the Obama Administration released its FY 2011 budget, the program was reported to need a $150 million subsidy to break even for the year.