BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label forclosure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forclosure. Show all posts
15 August 2014
26 April 2014
"Over 300K home owner suicides attributed to foreclosures." 25APR14
WHILE it seems this chain e mail is targeting wall street and the bank-financial cabal, spreading false information doesn't do the cause any good at all. The American people are right to be angry about the bailout of the "too big to fail, too big to jail" banks and their executive boards, but to spread falsehoods like this only make the movement look stupid, dishonest and extreme. From PolitiFact.....
The Truth-O-Meter Says:
"Over 300K home owner suicides attributed to foreclosures."
Facebook posts on Friday, April 25th, 2014 in a meme shared on social mediaSocial media meme says 300,000 suicides are attributable to foreclosures
A reader recently asked us to check a social media meme with a striking statistic about foreclosures and suicides.
It said, "1.4 million homes stolen by banks since 2008. Over 300K home owner suicides attributed to foreclosures. Why won't anyone defend these American property owners' rights?"
Have there really been 300,000 suicides linked to foreclosures? We decided to take a look.
We first checked with the group credited with creating the meme -- a news and opinion site called occupycorporatism.com -- but an email to the site’s general inbox was not returned.
So we next checked annual death statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most recent report came out in December 2013, covering statistics for 2010.
For 2010, CDC found that suicide was the 10th most common cause of death, with 38,364 cases. Here’s the number for the past nine years:
So the total number of suicides from 2002-10 is around 300,000. But for the meme to be correct, you’d have to believe that every single American suicide between 2002 and 2010 was caused by a foreclosure.
Of course, that assumes there was a reliable way to measure this kind of causal effect. (The CDC reports don't address what caused a person to commit suicide.) And the meme is even further off-base it it intends to be referring only to suicides since 2008.
We asked several experts whether the meme's claim was even remotely possible.
"There is no basis for this claim," said Douglas Massey, a population-research professor at Princeton University.
"It isn't plausible that every suicide over a nine-year period could be attributed to foreclosure," agreed Janet M. Currie, a Princeton University economist who, along with Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University, has studied the health impacts of the rising tide of foreclosures in the United States. Tekin expressed similar skepticism when contacted by PolitiFact.
In their own research, Currie and Tekin found that a location with about 400 foreclosures in a year might see 24 more medical visits for mental health conditions, including suicide attempts. But that wouldn’t be enough to support the meme’s claim, Currie said.
Our ruling
The meme said that over 300,000 homeowner suicides are attributable to foreclosures. But that would mean every suicide over a nine-year period would have been caused by a foreclosure, and experts say that’s not credible. We rate the claim Pants on Fire.
Subjects: Economy, Health Care, Housing, Public Health
Sources:
Social media meme submitted to PolitiFact
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, annual reports on deaths, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, "Facts and Figures," accessed April 25, 2014
Wall Street Journal, "Tying Health Problems to Rise in Home Foreclosures," Aug. 31, 2011
Huffington Post, "Foreclosure Related Suicide on the Rise," July 17, 2012
Email interview with Douglas Massey, Princeton University professor of population research, April 25, 2014
Email interview with Janet M. Currie, Princeton University economist, April 25, 2014
Email interview with Erdal Tekin, economist at Georgia State University, April 25, 2014
Written by: Louis Jacobson
Researched by: Louis Jacobson
Edited by: Aaron Sharockmanhttp://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/apr/25/facebook-posts/social-media-meme-says-300000-suicides-are-attribu/
It said, "1.4 million homes stolen by banks since 2008. Over 300K home owner suicides attributed to foreclosures. Why won't anyone defend these American property owners' rights?"
Have there really been 300,000 suicides linked to foreclosures? We decided to take a look.
We first checked with the group credited with creating the meme -- a news and opinion site called occupycorporatism.com -- but an email to the site’s general inbox was not returned.
So we next checked annual death statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most recent report came out in December 2013, covering statistics for 2010.
For 2010, CDC found that suicide was the 10th most common cause of death, with 38,364 cases. Here’s the number for the past nine years:
|
Year |
Suicides |
|---|---|
|
2010 |
38,364 |
|
2009 |
36,909 |
|
2008 |
36,035 |
|
2007 |
34,598 |
|
2006 |
33,300 |
|
2005 |
32,637 |
|
2004 |
32,439 |
|
2003 |
31,484 |
|
2002 |
31,655 |
|
Total, 2002-10 |
307,151 |
So the total number of suicides from 2002-10 is around 300,000. But for the meme to be correct, you’d have to believe that every single American suicide between 2002 and 2010 was caused by a foreclosure.
Of course, that assumes there was a reliable way to measure this kind of causal effect. (The CDC reports don't address what caused a person to commit suicide.) And the meme is even further off-base it it intends to be referring only to suicides since 2008.
We asked several experts whether the meme's claim was even remotely possible.
"There is no basis for this claim," said Douglas Massey, a population-research professor at Princeton University.
"It isn't plausible that every suicide over a nine-year period could be attributed to foreclosure," agreed Janet M. Currie, a Princeton University economist who, along with Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University, has studied the health impacts of the rising tide of foreclosures in the United States. Tekin expressed similar skepticism when contacted by PolitiFact.
In their own research, Currie and Tekin found that a location with about 400 foreclosures in a year might see 24 more medical visits for mental health conditions, including suicide attempts. But that wouldn’t be enough to support the meme’s claim, Currie said.
Our ruling
The meme said that over 300,000 homeowner suicides are attributable to foreclosures. But that would mean every suicide over a nine-year period would have been caused by a foreclosure, and experts say that’s not credible. We rate the claim Pants on Fire.
About this statement:
Published: Friday, April 25th, 2014 at 4:52 p.m.Subjects: Economy, Health Care, Housing, Public Health
Sources:
Social media meme submitted to PolitiFact
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, annual reports on deaths, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, "Facts and Figures," accessed April 25, 2014
Wall Street Journal, "Tying Health Problems to Rise in Home Foreclosures," Aug. 31, 2011
Huffington Post, "Foreclosure Related Suicide on the Rise," July 17, 2012
Email interview with Douglas Massey, Princeton University professor of population research, April 25, 2014
Email interview with Janet M. Currie, Princeton University economist, April 25, 2014
Email interview with Erdal Tekin, economist at Georgia State University, April 25, 2014
Written by: Louis Jacobson
Researched by: Louis Jacobson
Edited by: Aaron Sharockmanhttp://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/apr/25/facebook-posts/social-media-meme-says-300000-suicides-are-attribu/
bank16 February 2012
PRES OBAMA: FIRE EDWARD DEMARCO AND HELP AMERICAN HOMEOWNERS 16FEB12
TENS of thousands of Americans are still in need of mortgage relief and assistance, and the vast majority only need to have their mortgages refinanced to be able to stay in their homes. edward demarco is one of the principle obstacles to mortgage relief and needs to be removed. Join Rebuild the Dream's campaign calling on Pres Obama to use his authority next week to fire demarco and appoint someone who will represent the best interest of American home owners and not the profit margins of tax-payer bailed out financial institutions, click the link or header...
Meet Edward DeMarco. As director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, his job is to do everything in his power to help Americans avoid foreclosure. But DeMarco seems to think his job is just the opposite. In fact, in our fight to get justice for homeowners across the country, Edward DeMarco might just be enemy number one.
DeMarco is a holdover from the Bush administration. He has a very powerful position: he oversees Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which hold half the mortgages in the country. DeMarco has used his position to repeatedly side with Wall Street, and he's blocked requests by Congress and the Obama administration to help struggling homeowners by reducing principals on loans. Principal reduction -- which means resetting underwater mortgages so they're closer to fair market value -- is an essential solution that millions of families need, but DeMarco is dead set against them.
Now here's the good news: Next week, during Congress's recess, President Obama has the opportunity to make a recess appointment and replace DeMarco immediately. Let's ask the President to do just that.
Tell President Obama to fire Edward DeMarco this week and appoint a new director that won't stand in the way of relief for homeowners.
DeMarco has come under harsh criticism from members of Congress, and for good reason. He is absolutely opposed to principal reductions on loans, a measure that's been touted by economists and U.S. government officials as the best way to help homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages.
But it doesn't end there.
A recent news investigation revealed that, under DeMarco, Freddie Mac invested billions of dollars in Wall Street securities that bet against homeowners' ability to refinance their loans, while at the same time raising fees that made it harder for homeowners to refinance.
Let's be clear: DeMarco isn't just doing a bad job. He is actively working against the interests of American homeowners and the government's efforts to help them. That's an outrage, and it's time for President Obama to fire him.
Sign the petition and demand DeMarco be fired and replaced immediately.
The President made a strong recess appointment when he installed Richard Cordray recently as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, selecting someone we could rely on to serve the interests of people over Wall Street. We need a similar leader at the helm of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Edward DeMarco isn't it.
With enough signatures, we can send a message to President Obama and remove a major obstacle in our mission to get justice for homeowners.
Thank you,
Natalie
 |
Meet Edward DeMarco. As director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, his job is to do everything in his power to help Americans avoid foreclosure. But DeMarco seems to think his job is just the opposite. In fact, in our fight to get justice for homeowners across the country, Edward DeMarco might just be enemy number one.
DeMarco is a holdover from the Bush administration. He has a very powerful position: he oversees Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which hold half the mortgages in the country. DeMarco has used his position to repeatedly side with Wall Street, and he's blocked requests by Congress and the Obama administration to help struggling homeowners by reducing principals on loans. Principal reduction -- which means resetting underwater mortgages so they're closer to fair market value -- is an essential solution that millions of families need, but DeMarco is dead set against them.
Now here's the good news: Next week, during Congress's recess, President Obama has the opportunity to make a recess appointment and replace DeMarco immediately. Let's ask the President to do just that.
Tell President Obama to fire Edward DeMarco this week and appoint a new director that won't stand in the way of relief for homeowners.
DeMarco has come under harsh criticism from members of Congress, and for good reason. He is absolutely opposed to principal reductions on loans, a measure that's been touted by economists and U.S. government officials as the best way to help homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages.
But it doesn't end there.
A recent news investigation revealed that, under DeMarco, Freddie Mac invested billions of dollars in Wall Street securities that bet against homeowners' ability to refinance their loans, while at the same time raising fees that made it harder for homeowners to refinance.
Let's be clear: DeMarco isn't just doing a bad job. He is actively working against the interests of American homeowners and the government's efforts to help them. That's an outrage, and it's time for President Obama to fire him.
Sign the petition and demand DeMarco be fired and replaced immediately.
The President made a strong recess appointment when he installed Richard Cordray recently as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, selecting someone we could rely on to serve the interests of people over Wall Street. We need a similar leader at the helm of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Edward DeMarco isn't it.
With enough signatures, we can send a message to President Obama and remove a major obstacle in our mission to get justice for homeowners.
Thank you,
Natalie
04 February 2012
How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’ 25JAN12
STUDENTS of non-violent social, political and economic revolutions know the movements require designated, dedicated leadership, set goals and a commitment to non-violence for a chance to succeed. The Occupy movement across the U.S. started out well, but the inability and at times unwillingness to agree on a leader or even the need for one, and the inclusiveness of groups and organizations that distracted from the primary goals of the Occupy movement have diminished their chances of ever achieving their goals or of even influencing the 2012 elections. Maybe the Spring will bring a revival of Occupy, plans are already underway in cities across the country for camps to be re-established. Occupiers and their supporters need to seize the opportunities now to coordinate with the unemployed, unions, homeowners facing foreclosure and Progressive politicians to focus the American electorate on the main problem facing our nation; it is still the economy, stupid! Unemployment, home foreclosures and financial regulation, income inequality, tax inequality, corporate welfare, the social contract and decreased funding of the social safety net are all connected and how these issues are presented to American voters will determine if we continue our descent to Third World status or begin the restoration of the American Dream. This from Waging Nonviolence.......
While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.
Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”
Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbø will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.
Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.
In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.
When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.
In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.
The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!
The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.
Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.
By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.
This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)
Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.
Correction: In an earlier version, Henning Mankell was mistakenly referred to by the name of Kurt Wallender, the protagonist in several of his books.
A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.
Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”
Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbø will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.
Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.
In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.
When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.
In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.
The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!
The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.
Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.
By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.
This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)
Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.
Correction: In an earlier version, Henning Mankell was mistakenly referred to by the name of Kurt Wallender, the protagonist in several of his books.
21 January 2012
We did it! BB&T bank backs down 17JAN12
HERE is a good news story that shows that when people are united for a just cause victory is possible. BB&T has reached an agreement with the Higher Ground Empowerment Center and renegotiated the church's mortgage to a rate they can afford to pay! Because of a massive public outcry against foreclosure on the church BB&T backed down (see my post on this blog IS NOTHING SACRED? 13JAN12). Thank you to everyone that signed the petition to BB&T!
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13 January 2012
Is nothing sacred? PETITION TO STOP FORECLOSURE ON THE HIGHER GROUND EMPOWERMENT CENTER IN ATLANTA 13JAN12
THE greed of BBT is disgusting, but more than that it is sad. It is a sad commentary on the lack of morality guiding the financial institutions of this country. Please join Rebuild The Dream and click the header or link to sign the petition to BBT's CEO kelly king to stop the foreclosure on Higher Ground Empowerment Center and to work with the church to restructure their loan.
Rebuild the Dream is an engine helping to drive the 21st-century movement to renew the American Dream. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
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Rebuild the Dream is an engine helping to drive the 21st-century movement to renew the American Dream. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
02 December 2011
Occupy Y'all Street: Occupy Atlanta Fights Foreclosure, Fannie Mae Demands Protesters' Emails 2DEZ11
FROM HuffPost, this puts a face on the recession and the mortgage crisis....and the ruthless greed and deception of the banking-financial cabal. Click the link to watch the video
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This is the second in a series of stories and short films on under-publicized Occupy sites. The first is here. Stay tuned in the coming days for more from our road trip through the South.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. -- The day after Fannie Mae evicted a police officer and his family from their suburban Atlanta home, the government-owned mortgage giant demanded the family turn over all its correspondence with members of Occupy Atlanta, according to court documents.
In early November, Christopher Rorey, an officer with the DeKalb County Police Department, had invited the activists affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement to his quiet neighborhood in Gwinnett County, about 25 miles outside of Atlanta. The Rorey family had spent 13 months fending off foreclosure. They were on their second lawyer and second civil suit. After losing a last ditch court hearing, attended by Occupy protesters, an eviction was imminent. The Roreys were down to last options.
A large storage bin now occupied their driveway. Slowly, next-door neighbors had started to help fill it. Belongings ringed the darkened living room in neat stacks. In the front room, more was piled on the couch; the big-screen TV had been moved out of the way. The finished basement had been stripped clean except for a lone black leather office chair. In the kitchen, the cabinets had been emptied, and the stove had been put in the bin on the driveway.
The demonstrators set up large orange-and-blue tents on the Rorey front lawn, unrolled bedding in their basement, and hung signs from their porch that read: "THIS HOME IS OCCUPIED" in rainbow colors.
The organizers said they liked the fact that Christopher, 43, was a cop. And they liked the Roreys' story.
"I never suspected that we would be in this situation," Tawanna Rorey, Christopher's wife, told The Huffington Post. "Here we are the little people once again, getting squashed on."
The small encampment was quiet. The donated food was plentiful. The only hint of danger came from the activists smoking on the lawn. Later, the Occupiers' kids drew on the sidewalk with chalk. The real drama over the house had taken place in courtrooms, in consultant offices and on phone calls with the mortgage authorities.
In the spring of 2010, the Roreys decided they wanted a loan modification. They had managed to pay their mortgage each month. They just wanted a little more breathing room. When they made the request to their mortgage servicer, then-called Everhome, the Roreys say they were told that unless they could prove financial hardship, they couldn't get the modification.
A foreclosure consultant they hired told them to stop paying their mortgage. Counterintuitive as it may sound, it's common advice in the industry.
The Roreys took the advice that summer. In September, Everhome entered into foreclosure proceedings on the Roreys. On Oct. 5, they were foreclosed on.
Their foreclosure consultant has since been arrested for allegedly breaking into foreclosed homes and renting them out.
"Fannie Mae is committed to helping homeowners avoid foreclosure whenever possible," Amy Bonitatibus, senior director for Fannie Mae corporate communications, stated in an email to HuffPost. "We have a Mortgage Help Center in Atlanta where homeowners can meet with a trusted housing counselor to discuss their mortgage situation and options to avoid foreclosure. Unfortunately, the homeowner did not seek assistance from our Help Center."
The Roreys' attorney Asim A. Alam says it was unknown that Fannie Mae was the lender until well after the foreclosure. Everhome never mentioned Fannie Mae's involvement. Shortly before the foreclosure proceedings started, the Roreys expected that the consultant would file a modification request. They are unsure if he ever did, Alam says.
Everhome did not return a request for comment.
"I am very happy [this case] is receiving this much publicity," Alam tells HuffPost. "It is a representative case. Most of my clients are not poor, lazy people who get in over their heads. They are getting screwed over by the bank. They were given inaccurate information by their lender. What happened to the Roreys can happen to anyone in the community."
Fannie Mae hasn't been too pleased with the publicity over the Rorey case. In their filing, the company's lawyers don't just request all email correspondence between Christopher and Tawanna Rorey and Occupy Atlanta. The lawyers also demand any and all emails between Alam and the activists.
"What angle are they coming from?" Tawanna Rorey wonders. "What are they really after? I know it's not for our good ... This just shows you how deep, how deep and dirty and low down big business is. They stop at nothing."
Fannie Mae also wants copies of all stories and interviews concerning the Roreys. The lawyers write:
We pulled up to the Rorey home in the late morning of the occupation's second day. All was quiet except for the hum of local TV trucks, drawn by the novel drama of the police-occupy alliance. An activist shuffled the tents around on the lawn. A veggie platter, a large bag of wasabi peas and a nearly-empty box of granola bars sat untouched on the front porch.
It was a Tuesday. Over the weekend, Occupy Atlanta demonstrators had tried to retake their old spot downtown at Woodruff Park. Authorities arrested 19 protesters. Occupy Atlanta organizer Tim Franzen says he doesn't miss the helicopters and riot police.
After the protesters' first all-nighter on the Roreys lawn, Franzen could only complain about the reporter that woke him up. "There's like a news crew walking around looking to interview somebody," he explains to HuffPost later that day. "They came in and started shining a light in the yard."
Franzen, 34, is tall and lanky. With his red winter cap and plaid shirt buttoned to the neck, he could be dismissed as another hipster. But not quite: Franzen spent his teenage years in out and out of city jails, hooked on gin and cocaine. Burglaries fueled the rebellion. His last stint, at 19, was a year in a Georgia prison.
By the time he got out, Franzen had worked toward putting his life back together. He started a chain of halfway houses emphasizing detox and life skills that he hadn't learned early enough. The Iraq War got him thinking beyond Atlanta's most-marginalized. But he is still driven by his experiences in the criminal justice system and the guys that he saw pass through it on their way to much worse.
"We all have the narrative that drives us to do this occupation work," Franzen explains. "And for me that narrative, the lens I see this whole movement through is confronting this crisis of priority ... They're victims of this system, of this crisis of priority."
At 12:24 p.m., the first cop car drives by.
Tawanna Rorey, 38, needs to be coaxed out of her house. A silver-haired TV reporter is waiting on the lawn for a promised on-camera interview. There is another reporter waiting on the sidewalk. The day before she had done several interviews. CNN even did a story. But she is still camera shy.
Franzen seems to get Tawanna and her shyness. When she finally comes out, she stays close to the activist like he is a life raft. She tells her story not with the decibel level of a demonstrator, nor does she lard her story with slogans cribbed from Noam Chomsky or Naomi Klein. She tells the reporter that she is a stay-at-home mother.
Nothing about her performance is ready-made for YouTube. Only her nervous smile hints at her hardship. After she finishes telling her story one more time, the reporter comes in close. He hushes her with "you-did-greats."
At first, Tawanna Rorey will only allow us in the basement of the house. The basement is not hers anymore; it's occuppied. Activists sit on the carpet in the dark and tap away at laptops and smartphones. A case of bottled water dominates the sapce. That night, a huge vat of donated baked ziti will be set up on a table here. The room will be packed with strangers talking paradigm shifts.
Tawanna has to be coaxed into letting us onto the first floor and in the kitchen. It's hard to tell what is private and what should be public. Their stuff is scattered all over the place. It's hard to keep order in an occupation.
Before buying the house, the Roreys saved for a couple of years. She worked as an office manager. He had his police officer job. The Roreys had bought the house new in 2003 for $179,000. It was their first. They loved the backyard, and the basement. There was room to grow. They have two sons, ages five and 11, and a daughter in college.
Tawanna Rorey said she thought the best way to explain their house guests was through the story of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.
"Occupy Atlanta are trying to stand up, bring light and a voice to all of us who have very small voices," she says. "That's how I explained it to them. That really sounded courageous to them."
The Roreys try to keep things normal. Tawanna and Christopher negotiate who is going to take their elder son to football practice.
Franzen has rarely, if ever, known the Roreys diligent normalcy. But he is still in his element here, sitting in a green plastic lawn chair out front, guarding the house from the police that have yet to show up. This is where he sees the next fight.
"We don't want to spend all of our energy fighting police over a hunk of dirt," Franzen explains. "That's not what a lot of us signed up for. We want to take on the banks, we want to take on economic disparity. And sure, the fight in the park does connect to that. We don't want to give it up. We should have the right to assemble there. But we also want to be doing some serious base building, building community support. I don't know. I just get the feeling that fighting in the park is not really doing that and not really reaching Americans who are hurting the most."
Occupy Atlanta had moved into the fourth floor of a homeless shelter to protect it from redevelopment. That has been successful; the shelter is expected to remain open through the winter. The Rorey home was their first push into the suburbs. Franzen didn't see it as a permanent move; he wanted to help form a suburban off-shoot, Occupy Gwinnett, that could take over the Rorey fight and go on to address foreclosures and other county issues.
Of the move to the Roreys, Franzen is up-front.
"The narrative was strong and the injustice was clear," he says. "And it made tactical sense."
* * * * * That night, the occupation's second, would prove to be its tactical high point. Occupy Gwinnett began on the Rorey front lawn; the new group not only formed but ran its first general assembly. By the end of the night, it sounded like any community meeting, with its talk of transportation issues and government red tape. Except after this meeting, some members were sleeping on-site, and there was a press conference.
"Occupy Gwinnett is here," Franzen declared as the Occupiers squinted into the TV crews' bright lights.
The next day, the sheriff had threatened to issue arrest warrants for both Christopher and Tawanna as accomplices if Occupy Atlanta continued its protest on the property. They relented.
"I am not going to address accusations made by Occupy Atlanta," Sheriff Butch Conway offered in a statement to Huffington Post. "Evictions are never pleasant for anyone, but I have a job to do and I'm doing my job."
The following day the Roreys would be evicted. The press was there to take pictures of their belongings on the front lawn.
The family is now staying with relatives. Only the Roreys' civil suit continues.
"When we went to Snellville, it was an experiment," Franzen says now. "We learned a lot from the experiment. We were not prepared for how strong the system is. And how big the pushback was going to be."
Occupy Atlanta has started demonstrating at the local Fannie Mae office. Tawanna Rorey spoke at the first demonstration.
Rorey believes she's doing the right thing by joining forces with Occupy Atlanta.
She says, "I don't regret it at all."
The music heard on the video is by Elizabeth Cotten.
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This is the second in a series of stories and short films on under-publicized Occupy sites. The first is here. Stay tuned in the coming days for more from our road trip through the South.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. -- The day after Fannie Mae evicted a police officer and his family from their suburban Atlanta home, the government-owned mortgage giant demanded the family turn over all its correspondence with members of Occupy Atlanta, according to court documents.
In early November, Christopher Rorey, an officer with the DeKalb County Police Department, had invited the activists affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement to his quiet neighborhood in Gwinnett County, about 25 miles outside of Atlanta. The Rorey family had spent 13 months fending off foreclosure. They were on their second lawyer and second civil suit. After losing a last ditch court hearing, attended by Occupy protesters, an eviction was imminent. The Roreys were down to last options.
A large storage bin now occupied their driveway. Slowly, next-door neighbors had started to help fill it. Belongings ringed the darkened living room in neat stacks. In the front room, more was piled on the couch; the big-screen TV had been moved out of the way. The finished basement had been stripped clean except for a lone black leather office chair. In the kitchen, the cabinets had been emptied, and the stove had been put in the bin on the driveway.
The demonstrators set up large orange-and-blue tents on the Rorey front lawn, unrolled bedding in their basement, and hung signs from their porch that read: "THIS HOME IS OCCUPIED" in rainbow colors.
The organizers said they liked the fact that Christopher, 43, was a cop. And they liked the Roreys' story.
"I never suspected that we would be in this situation," Tawanna Rorey, Christopher's wife, told The Huffington Post. "Here we are the little people once again, getting squashed on."
The small encampment was quiet. The donated food was plentiful. The only hint of danger came from the activists smoking on the lawn. Later, the Occupiers' kids drew on the sidewalk with chalk. The real drama over the house had taken place in courtrooms, in consultant offices and on phone calls with the mortgage authorities.
In the spring of 2010, the Roreys decided they wanted a loan modification. They had managed to pay their mortgage each month. They just wanted a little more breathing room. When they made the request to their mortgage servicer, then-called Everhome, the Roreys say they were told that unless they could prove financial hardship, they couldn't get the modification.
A foreclosure consultant they hired told them to stop paying their mortgage. Counterintuitive as it may sound, it's common advice in the industry.
The Roreys took the advice that summer. In September, Everhome entered into foreclosure proceedings on the Roreys. On Oct. 5, they were foreclosed on.
Their foreclosure consultant has since been arrested for allegedly breaking into foreclosed homes and renting them out.
"Fannie Mae is committed to helping homeowners avoid foreclosure whenever possible," Amy Bonitatibus, senior director for Fannie Mae corporate communications, stated in an email to HuffPost. "We have a Mortgage Help Center in Atlanta where homeowners can meet with a trusted housing counselor to discuss their mortgage situation and options to avoid foreclosure. Unfortunately, the homeowner did not seek assistance from our Help Center."
The Roreys' attorney Asim A. Alam says it was unknown that Fannie Mae was the lender until well after the foreclosure. Everhome never mentioned Fannie Mae's involvement. Shortly before the foreclosure proceedings started, the Roreys expected that the consultant would file a modification request. They are unsure if he ever did, Alam says.
Everhome did not return a request for comment.
"I am very happy [this case] is receiving this much publicity," Alam tells HuffPost. "It is a representative case. Most of my clients are not poor, lazy people who get in over their heads. They are getting screwed over by the bank. They were given inaccurate information by their lender. What happened to the Roreys can happen to anyone in the community."
Fannie Mae hasn't been too pleased with the publicity over the Rorey case. In their filing, the company's lawyers don't just request all email correspondence between Christopher and Tawanna Rorey and Occupy Atlanta. The lawyers also demand any and all emails between Alam and the activists.
"What angle are they coming from?" Tawanna Rorey wonders. "What are they really after? I know it's not for our good ... This just shows you how deep, how deep and dirty and low down big business is. They stop at nothing."
Fannie Mae also wants copies of all stories and interviews concerning the Roreys. The lawyers write:
"Produce all articles Plaintiff and/or her attorney have copied which were in any print newspaper and/or online relating to the Foreclosure Sale. Produce copies of all recorded interviews given by Plaintiff, Christopher Rorey, Plaintiff's attorney, Asim Alam, and/or anyone purporting to speak on Plaintiff's behalf, relating to the Foreclosure Sale."If Fannie Mae has its way, their lawyers will soon be coming after HuffPost.
We pulled up to the Rorey home in the late morning of the occupation's second day. All was quiet except for the hum of local TV trucks, drawn by the novel drama of the police-occupy alliance. An activist shuffled the tents around on the lawn. A veggie platter, a large bag of wasabi peas and a nearly-empty box of granola bars sat untouched on the front porch.
It was a Tuesday. Over the weekend, Occupy Atlanta demonstrators had tried to retake their old spot downtown at Woodruff Park. Authorities arrested 19 protesters. Occupy Atlanta organizer Tim Franzen says he doesn't miss the helicopters and riot police.
After the protesters' first all-nighter on the Roreys lawn, Franzen could only complain about the reporter that woke him up. "There's like a news crew walking around looking to interview somebody," he explains to HuffPost later that day. "They came in and started shining a light in the yard."
Franzen, 34, is tall and lanky. With his red winter cap and plaid shirt buttoned to the neck, he could be dismissed as another hipster. But not quite: Franzen spent his teenage years in out and out of city jails, hooked on gin and cocaine. Burglaries fueled the rebellion. His last stint, at 19, was a year in a Georgia prison.
By the time he got out, Franzen had worked toward putting his life back together. He started a chain of halfway houses emphasizing detox and life skills that he hadn't learned early enough. The Iraq War got him thinking beyond Atlanta's most-marginalized. But he is still driven by his experiences in the criminal justice system and the guys that he saw pass through it on their way to much worse.
"We all have the narrative that drives us to do this occupation work," Franzen explains. "And for me that narrative, the lens I see this whole movement through is confronting this crisis of priority ... They're victims of this system, of this crisis of priority."
At 12:24 p.m., the first cop car drives by.
Tawanna Rorey, 38, needs to be coaxed out of her house. A silver-haired TV reporter is waiting on the lawn for a promised on-camera interview. There is another reporter waiting on the sidewalk. The day before she had done several interviews. CNN even did a story. But she is still camera shy.
Franzen seems to get Tawanna and her shyness. When she finally comes out, she stays close to the activist like he is a life raft. She tells her story not with the decibel level of a demonstrator, nor does she lard her story with slogans cribbed from Noam Chomsky or Naomi Klein. She tells the reporter that she is a stay-at-home mother.
Nothing about her performance is ready-made for YouTube. Only her nervous smile hints at her hardship. After she finishes telling her story one more time, the reporter comes in close. He hushes her with "you-did-greats."
At first, Tawanna Rorey will only allow us in the basement of the house. The basement is not hers anymore; it's occuppied. Activists sit on the carpet in the dark and tap away at laptops and smartphones. A case of bottled water dominates the sapce. That night, a huge vat of donated baked ziti will be set up on a table here. The room will be packed with strangers talking paradigm shifts.
Tawanna has to be coaxed into letting us onto the first floor and in the kitchen. It's hard to tell what is private and what should be public. Their stuff is scattered all over the place. It's hard to keep order in an occupation.
Before buying the house, the Roreys saved for a couple of years. She worked as an office manager. He had his police officer job. The Roreys had bought the house new in 2003 for $179,000. It was their first. They loved the backyard, and the basement. There was room to grow. They have two sons, ages five and 11, and a daughter in college.
Tawanna Rorey said she thought the best way to explain their house guests was through the story of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.
"Occupy Atlanta are trying to stand up, bring light and a voice to all of us who have very small voices," she says. "That's how I explained it to them. That really sounded courageous to them."
The Roreys try to keep things normal. Tawanna and Christopher negotiate who is going to take their elder son to football practice.
Franzen has rarely, if ever, known the Roreys diligent normalcy. But he is still in his element here, sitting in a green plastic lawn chair out front, guarding the house from the police that have yet to show up. This is where he sees the next fight.
"We don't want to spend all of our energy fighting police over a hunk of dirt," Franzen explains. "That's not what a lot of us signed up for. We want to take on the banks, we want to take on economic disparity. And sure, the fight in the park does connect to that. We don't want to give it up. We should have the right to assemble there. But we also want to be doing some serious base building, building community support. I don't know. I just get the feeling that fighting in the park is not really doing that and not really reaching Americans who are hurting the most."
Occupy Atlanta had moved into the fourth floor of a homeless shelter to protect it from redevelopment. That has been successful; the shelter is expected to remain open through the winter. The Rorey home was their first push into the suburbs. Franzen didn't see it as a permanent move; he wanted to help form a suburban off-shoot, Occupy Gwinnett, that could take over the Rorey fight and go on to address foreclosures and other county issues.
Of the move to the Roreys, Franzen is up-front.
"The narrative was strong and the injustice was clear," he says. "And it made tactical sense."
"Occupy Gwinnett is here," Franzen declared as the Occupiers squinted into the TV crews' bright lights.
The next day, the sheriff had threatened to issue arrest warrants for both Christopher and Tawanna as accomplices if Occupy Atlanta continued its protest on the property. They relented.
"I am not going to address accusations made by Occupy Atlanta," Sheriff Butch Conway offered in a statement to Huffington Post. "Evictions are never pleasant for anyone, but I have a job to do and I'm doing my job."
The following day the Roreys would be evicted. The press was there to take pictures of their belongings on the front lawn.
The family is now staying with relatives. Only the Roreys' civil suit continues.
"When we went to Snellville, it was an experiment," Franzen says now. "We learned a lot from the experiment. We were not prepared for how strong the system is. And how big the pushback was going to be."
Occupy Atlanta has started demonstrating at the local Fannie Mae office. Tawanna Rorey spoke at the first demonstration.
Rorey believes she's doing the right thing by joining forces with Occupy Atlanta.
She says, "I don't regret it at all."
The music heard on the video is by Elizabeth Cotten.
15 January 2011
Full Catastrophe Banking in 2011 3JAN11
DIRE predictions, and my fear is they are going to come true, and the poor, working class and middle class will suffer more than we already have in this recession.
With a $4.7 trillion bailout under their belts and no harm done to their billion-dollar bonuses, don't expect Wall Street bankers to be chastened by the 2008 financial crisis. Below we list eight things to watch out for in 2011 that threaten to rock the financial system and undermine any recovery.
1) The Demise of Bank of America WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is promising to unleash a cache of secret documents from the troubled Bank of America (BofA). BofA is already under the gun, defending itself from multiple lawsuits demanding that the bank buy back billions worth of toxic mortgages it peddled to investors. The firm is also at the heart of the robo-signing scandal, having wrongfully kicked many American families to the curb. If Assange has emails showing that Countrywide or BofA knew they were recklessly abandoning underwriting standards and/or peddling toxic dreck to investors, the damage to the firm could be irreparable.
2) Robo-signers Wreaking Havoc With lawsuits abounding, new types of fraud in the foreclosure process are being uncovered daily, including accounting fraud, fake attorneys, destroyed promissory notes and false notarization. The crisis not only calls into question the legality of untold foreclosures, it also calls into question the value of trillions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities held by banks, pension funds, federal, state and local governments. The only government report on the topic by the feisty Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP acknowledges that "it is possible that 'robo-signing' may have concealed deeper problems in the mortgage market that could potentially threaten financial stability."
3) MERS Madness
In addition to outright fraud, numerous state Supreme Courts have questioned the legal standing of the Mortgage Electronic Registration or "MERS" system. MERS is listed as the mortgagee for 60% of U.S. mortgages. It is an electronic clearinghouse created by industry to bypass the property registration system developed in precolonial days to ensure that the King could not easily rob the subjects of their land. Wall Street turned to MERS to speed securitizations (and now foreclosures), but its legal standing is now in doubt and its shoddy processing of documents has major ramifications for the securitization process as well. Look for a rotten "MERS fix" in the new Congress. Let's hope it gives consumer advocates some leverage to demand justice for Americans being robbed by the new Kings on Wall Street.
4) Flash Crash Calamity The "flash crash" of May 2010 rattled the markets and caused a stunning 700 point drop in the Dow within minutes. Regulators think they know what occurred, but they are moving too slowly to put the brakes on hair-trigger trading. Seventy percent of Wall Street trades take place in milliseconds, so it is no surprise that mini-flash crashes are becoming a constant. With traders now gearing up to trade on raw news feeds and Twitter, we can anticipate even more volatility. A small financial transaction tax targeting high-volume, high-speed trades is long overdue. It would throw sand in the roulette wheel and raise much needed revenue for the federal government.
5) Bigger Behemoth Banks The Federal Reserve is planning to "stress test" the big banks again. The same 19 banks that underwent the first stress tests in 2009 will be tested again, but this time the Fed says it won't release the results. Why not? Banks with toxic mortgages and mortgage-backed securities on their books and concomitant legal exposure to "put back" law suits are being kept afloat by accounting tricks, TARP and Fed loans. Honest stress tests of still weak financial institutions may well result in sales and buyouts that will further consolidate the already concentrated banking industry and create larger and more unwieldy "too big to fail" behemoths -- backed by the guarantee of the American taxpayer.
6) Foreclosure Tsunami Housing foreclosures may top nine million in 2011 and [[Goldman Sachs]] predicts the number will reach 12 million in the next few years. The result will be another significant drop in home prices in 2011 and even more families underwater. Civilized nations see the forcible migration of a city the size of New York as an economic and humanitarian catastrophe, but not the United States. The Obama administration and Congress have callously refused to take meaningful action to aid families facing foreclosure even in the face of widespread predatory lending and rampant foreclosure fraud. The only hope now for millions of American families is aggressive action by the 50 state Attorneys General who are actively investigating foreclosure fraud. Whether they have the guts to wrestle a settlement out of the big banks that slows the foreclosure machine and offers families meaningful options has yet to be seen.
7) Bankrupt Cities and States Meredith Whitney, a research analyst who correctly predicted the credit crunch, is now warning that over 100 American cities could go bust next year. She anticipates billions worth of municipal bond defaults and warns: "next to housing this is the single most important issue in the U.S. and certainly the biggest threat to the U.S. economy." States are also in dire straits. The economic shock of mass unemployment on top of years of population decline, deindustrialization and the like have left cities unable to meet their obligations to taxpayers and retirees. With the austerity nuts in charge of the House, it may take a bankruptcy of a major player to prod an appropriate federal response to this looming disaster.
8) Gas Prices above $4.00 The price of energy and other commodities shifted into high gear in late August when the Federal Reserve Chairman decided to stimulate the economy with quantitative easing. Speculators quickly began bidding up the value of asset classes like crude oil, metals and food commodities. In December, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission failed to apply position limits to these commodities, delaying rules that would crack down on speculators and aid consumers who are already seeing big price hikes at the pump. Without swift action, skyrocketing gas prices will further tank an already stalled economy.
As we hope for the best in 2011, let's prepare for the worst. The big banks are sure to deliver.
*****
Track the issues and take action at BanksterUSA.org.
With a $4.7 trillion bailout under their belts and no harm done to their billion-dollar bonuses, don't expect Wall Street bankers to be chastened by the 2008 financial crisis. Below we list eight things to watch out for in 2011 that threaten to rock the financial system and undermine any recovery.
1) The Demise of Bank of America WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is promising to unleash a cache of secret documents from the troubled Bank of America (BofA). BofA is already under the gun, defending itself from multiple lawsuits demanding that the bank buy back billions worth of toxic mortgages it peddled to investors. The firm is also at the heart of the robo-signing scandal, having wrongfully kicked many American families to the curb. If Assange has emails showing that Countrywide or BofA knew they were recklessly abandoning underwriting standards and/or peddling toxic dreck to investors, the damage to the firm could be irreparable.
2) Robo-signers Wreaking Havoc With lawsuits abounding, new types of fraud in the foreclosure process are being uncovered daily, including accounting fraud, fake attorneys, destroyed promissory notes and false notarization. The crisis not only calls into question the legality of untold foreclosures, it also calls into question the value of trillions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities held by banks, pension funds, federal, state and local governments. The only government report on the topic by the feisty Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP acknowledges that "it is possible that 'robo-signing' may have concealed deeper problems in the mortgage market that could potentially threaten financial stability."
3) MERS Madness
In addition to outright fraud, numerous state Supreme Courts have questioned the legal standing of the Mortgage Electronic Registration or "MERS" system. MERS is listed as the mortgagee for 60% of U.S. mortgages. It is an electronic clearinghouse created by industry to bypass the property registration system developed in precolonial days to ensure that the King could not easily rob the subjects of their land. Wall Street turned to MERS to speed securitizations (and now foreclosures), but its legal standing is now in doubt and its shoddy processing of documents has major ramifications for the securitization process as well. Look for a rotten "MERS fix" in the new Congress. Let's hope it gives consumer advocates some leverage to demand justice for Americans being robbed by the new Kings on Wall Street.
4) Flash Crash Calamity The "flash crash" of May 2010 rattled the markets and caused a stunning 700 point drop in the Dow within minutes. Regulators think they know what occurred, but they are moving too slowly to put the brakes on hair-trigger trading. Seventy percent of Wall Street trades take place in milliseconds, so it is no surprise that mini-flash crashes are becoming a constant. With traders now gearing up to trade on raw news feeds and Twitter, we can anticipate even more volatility. A small financial transaction tax targeting high-volume, high-speed trades is long overdue. It would throw sand in the roulette wheel and raise much needed revenue for the federal government.
5) Bigger Behemoth Banks The Federal Reserve is planning to "stress test" the big banks again. The same 19 banks that underwent the first stress tests in 2009 will be tested again, but this time the Fed says it won't release the results. Why not? Banks with toxic mortgages and mortgage-backed securities on their books and concomitant legal exposure to "put back" law suits are being kept afloat by accounting tricks, TARP and Fed loans. Honest stress tests of still weak financial institutions may well result in sales and buyouts that will further consolidate the already concentrated banking industry and create larger and more unwieldy "too big to fail" behemoths -- backed by the guarantee of the American taxpayer.
6) Foreclosure Tsunami Housing foreclosures may top nine million in 2011 and [[Goldman Sachs]] predicts the number will reach 12 million in the next few years. The result will be another significant drop in home prices in 2011 and even more families underwater. Civilized nations see the forcible migration of a city the size of New York as an economic and humanitarian catastrophe, but not the United States. The Obama administration and Congress have callously refused to take meaningful action to aid families facing foreclosure even in the face of widespread predatory lending and rampant foreclosure fraud. The only hope now for millions of American families is aggressive action by the 50 state Attorneys General who are actively investigating foreclosure fraud. Whether they have the guts to wrestle a settlement out of the big banks that slows the foreclosure machine and offers families meaningful options has yet to be seen.
7) Bankrupt Cities and States Meredith Whitney, a research analyst who correctly predicted the credit crunch, is now warning that over 100 American cities could go bust next year. She anticipates billions worth of municipal bond defaults and warns: "next to housing this is the single most important issue in the U.S. and certainly the biggest threat to the U.S. economy." States are also in dire straits. The economic shock of mass unemployment on top of years of population decline, deindustrialization and the like have left cities unable to meet their obligations to taxpayers and retirees. With the austerity nuts in charge of the House, it may take a bankruptcy of a major player to prod an appropriate federal response to this looming disaster.
8) Gas Prices above $4.00 The price of energy and other commodities shifted into high gear in late August when the Federal Reserve Chairman decided to stimulate the economy with quantitative easing. Speculators quickly began bidding up the value of asset classes like crude oil, metals and food commodities. In December, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission failed to apply position limits to these commodities, delaying rules that would crack down on speculators and aid consumers who are already seeing big price hikes at the pump. Without swift action, skyrocketing gas prices will further tank an already stalled economy.
As we hope for the best in 2011, let's prepare for the worst. The big banks are sure to deliver.
*****
Track the issues and take action at BanksterUSA.org.
30 December 2010
Elizabeth Warren Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau New Consumer Agency Is Frightfully Necessary -- And Late 29DEZ10
IF there is one person in the government that has earned the total trust of average Americans it is Elizabeth Warren......and her is what she has to say on the latest foreclosure news and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau....
No one has missed the headlines: Haphazard and possibly illegal practices at mortgage-servicing companies have called into question home foreclosures across the nation.
The latest disclosures are deeply troubling, but they should not come as a big surprise. For years, both individual homeowners and consumer advocates sounded alarms that foreclosure processes were riddled with problems.
While federal and state investigators are still examining exactly what has gone wrong and why, two things are clear.
First, several financial services companies have already admitted that they used "robo-signers," false declarations, and other workarounds to cut corners, creating a legal nightmare that will waste time and money that could have been better spent to help this economy recover. Mortgage lenders will spend millions of dollars retracing their steps, often with the same result that families who cannot pay will lose their homes.
Second, this mess might well have been avoided if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had been in place just a few years ago.
The new consumer agency is one of the signature accomplishments of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Obama this summer.
The new agency will take on oversight responsibilities that had been scattered among several federal agencies, and it will be a new cop on the beat that will end big loopholes in the regulatory system.
For the first time, banks and non-bank lenders (such as payday lenders, check cashers and mortgage brokers) will be subject to the same federal oversight to ensure that they are all playing by the same rules-no more turning sideways and slipping through the regulatory cracks.
Lost in much of the back-and-forth over wrongful foreclosures is the question of whether the scandal could have been prevented. The answer is yes.
The practices now under investigation took root and grew because there was no single federal regulator with both the responsibility and the tools to look out for consumers.
Had it existed, the new consumer agency could have stopped these problems before they multiplied. Many of the failures already admitted were not sophisticated scams that had been carefully concealed. By enforcing existing laws and involving state authorities early on, the agency could have made sure that the law was respected. No one would need to wonder whether the world of borrowing and lending works only one way: Families have to follow the legal rules, but the rules are optional for big banks.
Once it is fully operational, the new consumer agency will have supervisory authority over all large mortgage servicers. It will be able to examine them on a regular basis to make sure they follow the rules. If those servicers decide it is cheaper or faster to circumvent federal law, the consumer agency will have the tools to hold them accountable.
No one will be allowed to break the rules without triggering a strong and prompt federal response.
Currently, the federal interagency foreclosure task force, including the members of the Financial Services Oversight Council, is working along with the state Attorneys General to get to the bottom of these problems. The implementation team for the new consumer agency is also working to assemble and coordinate teams to deal with servicing and other issues.
These efforts are critical, but there is more work to do: We must ensure this kind of scandal-or some close cousin-does not happen again.
A mortgage is the biggest financial commitment most Americans will make in a lifetime, and the toll on Florida has been especially heavy and the need for oversight particularly apparent. A few weeks ago, I watched proceedings in a Fort Lauderdale foreclosure court and saw firsthand the painful outcomes for numerous families.
Unfair servicing practices can worsen a family's already difficult economic situation, and the injury echoes from the family to the community and ultimately throughout the economy. Cops on the beat can stop problems before the damage spreads. If there ever was any doubt that the new consumer agency is necessary, the latest foreclosure developments should put that to rest.
No one has missed the headlines: Haphazard and possibly illegal practices at mortgage-servicing companies have called into question home foreclosures across the nation.
The latest disclosures are deeply troubling, but they should not come as a big surprise. For years, both individual homeowners and consumer advocates sounded alarms that foreclosure processes were riddled with problems.
While federal and state investigators are still examining exactly what has gone wrong and why, two things are clear.
First, several financial services companies have already admitted that they used "robo-signers," false declarations, and other workarounds to cut corners, creating a legal nightmare that will waste time and money that could have been better spent to help this economy recover. Mortgage lenders will spend millions of dollars retracing their steps, often with the same result that families who cannot pay will lose their homes.
Second, this mess might well have been avoided if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had been in place just a few years ago.
The new consumer agency is one of the signature accomplishments of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Obama this summer.
The new agency will take on oversight responsibilities that had been scattered among several federal agencies, and it will be a new cop on the beat that will end big loopholes in the regulatory system.
For the first time, banks and non-bank lenders (such as payday lenders, check cashers and mortgage brokers) will be subject to the same federal oversight to ensure that they are all playing by the same rules-no more turning sideways and slipping through the regulatory cracks.
Lost in much of the back-and-forth over wrongful foreclosures is the question of whether the scandal could have been prevented. The answer is yes.
The practices now under investigation took root and grew because there was no single federal regulator with both the responsibility and the tools to look out for consumers.
Had it existed, the new consumer agency could have stopped these problems before they multiplied. Many of the failures already admitted were not sophisticated scams that had been carefully concealed. By enforcing existing laws and involving state authorities early on, the agency could have made sure that the law was respected. No one would need to wonder whether the world of borrowing and lending works only one way: Families have to follow the legal rules, but the rules are optional for big banks.
Once it is fully operational, the new consumer agency will have supervisory authority over all large mortgage servicers. It will be able to examine them on a regular basis to make sure they follow the rules. If those servicers decide it is cheaper or faster to circumvent federal law, the consumer agency will have the tools to hold them accountable.
No one will be allowed to break the rules without triggering a strong and prompt federal response.
Currently, the federal interagency foreclosure task force, including the members of the Financial Services Oversight Council, is working along with the state Attorneys General to get to the bottom of these problems. The implementation team for the new consumer agency is also working to assemble and coordinate teams to deal with servicing and other issues.
These efforts are critical, but there is more work to do: We must ensure this kind of scandal-or some close cousin-does not happen again.
A mortgage is the biggest financial commitment most Americans will make in a lifetime, and the toll on Florida has been especially heavy and the need for oversight particularly apparent. A few weeks ago, I watched proceedings in a Fort Lauderdale foreclosure court and saw firsthand the painful outcomes for numerous families.
Unfair servicing practices can worsen a family's already difficult economic situation, and the injury echoes from the family to the community and ultimately throughout the economy. Cops on the beat can stop problems before the damage spreads. If there ever was any doubt that the new consumer agency is necessary, the latest foreclosure developments should put that to rest.
14 October 2010
06 June 2010
Soldier in Iraq Loses Home Over $800 Debt
This is so wrong in so many ways. At the least those of us not in the military need to make sure this doesn't happen to family, friends and neighbors, to anyone in our community who is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is a link in the article to support Capt Michael Clauer's family in their legal battle to get their home back.
Capt. Michael Clauer's homeowners' association foreclosed on his family's $300,000 house and sold it for $3,500
Fri May. 28, 2010 3:00 AM PDT
Michael Clauer is a captain in the Army Reserve who commanded over 100 soldiers in Iraq. But while he was fighting for his country, a different kind of battle was brewing on the home front. Last September, Michael returned to Frisco, Texas, to find that his homeowners' association had foreclosed on his $300,000 house—and sold it for $3,500. This story illustrates the type of legal quagmire that can get out of hand while soldiers are serving abroad and their families are dealing with the stress of their deployment. And fixing the mess isn't easy.Michael went on active duty in February 2008 and was sent to Iraq. After he shipped out, his wife May slipped into a deep depression, according to court documents. "A lot of people say that the deployment is more stressful on the spouse than the actual person who's being deployed," Michael, 37, says in an interview with Mother Jones. May Clauer had two kids to take care of—a ten-year-old and a one-year-old with a serious seizure-related disorder. In addition, she was worried sick about her husband. Michael's company was doing convoy security in Iraq—an extremely dangerous job. "It was a pretty tough year for the whole company," he says. "We had IEDs, rocket attacks and mortar attacks, and a few soldiers that were hurt pretty bad and had to be airlifted back to the States."
Seeking to avoid hearing about the situation in Iraq, May stopped watching the news. She rarely answered the door, and Michael says he couldn't tell her when he went "outside the wire"—off-base. May also stopped opening the mail. "I guess she was scared that she would hear bad news," says Michael. That was why she missed multiple notices from the Heritage Lakes Homeowners Association informing her that the family owed $800 in dues—and then subsequent notices stating that the HOA was preparing to foreclose on the debt and seize the home.
In Texas, homeowners' associations can foreclose on homes without a court order, no matter the size of the debt. In May 2008, the HOA sold the Clauers' home for a pittance—$3,500—although its appraisal value was $300,000, according to court documents. The buyer then resold the house to a third person. (Select Management Co., the company that manages Heritage Lakes, declined to comment for this story.)
It wasn't until June 2009 that May realized what had happened. Around that time, the new owner started demanding rent from the Clauers. She told Michael, who was still in Iraq. "At first I didn't believe it," he says. "I didn't understand how someone can take your house and not give you anything for it." When Texas Gov. Rick Perry visited Iraq in July, Michael says he told him about the problem. According to Michael, Perry called May and put lawyers in touch with the Clauers' attorney, but couldn't do much to alleviate the situation. (Perry's office didn't respond to calls seeking comment.) In August 2009, the new owner sent the couple an eviction notice, according to court records filed in the case. In Iraq, "the stress level was finally starting to come down," says Michael, and he was "starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel." He adds, "Then all of a sudden I get hit with this, and I'm trying to get out of there and get home and see what I can do to fight this."
At no point did anyone from the HOA—which is, after all, composed of the Clauers' neighbors—appear to have tried to visit May Clauer's house to talk to her about the problem. "The HOA board members...don't live very far from me at all," Michael Clauer says. There were "neighbors owing much more than us [who] were notified in person of pending foreclosures, but my wife only received a few letters." David Schechter of the Dallas/Fort Worth television station WFAA, which first reported this story, notes that the "Clauers' HOA says homeowners are free to call them, but they do not call or visit homeowners when there's a problem. They're only required to send a certified letter."
There are a bevy of laws that are supposed to protect servicemembers from losing their homes or jobs while they're on active duty, including the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The homeowners' association's lawyer filed an affidavit wrongly claiming that neither of the Clauers was on active duty, says Barbara Hale, the couple's lawyer. Hale is seeking to have the court reverse the foreclosure and declare it "null and void," she says.
In the meantime, the Clauers have obtained an agreement allowing the family to stay in the home, Hale says. She's "confident that the courts will sort this out and do the right thing," but notes that the drawn-out legal process must be stressful for the Clauers.
The one good thing for the Clauers about Michael's deployment to Iraq was that it gave them a chance to get their finances in order. Michael got a bonus and expenses at home were lower. Now all of that money is gone, says Michael, who is currently working as a production supervisor at a roofing company. "It's ridiculous how much this is costing us," he says. "I'll be taking out a mortgage on my house that was free and clear just to try to get my house back."
Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for Clauers' congressman, GOP Rep. Michael Burgess, says that Burgess is "aware of Capt. Clauer's issue," but says it is "office policy to not comment on constituent casework."
Even if he can't get his family's home back, Michael hopes that the public will pay attention to his story and push for changes to the laws that give Texas HOAs so much power. "We don't want to see this happen to other people," he says.
UPDATE: Several people have emailed asking how they can help. The Clauers have set up a legal defense fund to help pay for their court battle. You can send checks (made out to Clauer Legal Defense Fund) here:
Clauer Legal Defense Fund
c/o Plains Capital Bank
1629 Hebron Parkway West
Carrollton, TX 75010
Michael Clauer's wife's name is May, not Mae, as this story and other news reports originally stated. Clauer got back from Iraq in September, not October (his active duty period ended in October.) This story has been corrected to reflect those changes. The story has also been edited since it was originally posted.
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