THEME OF 2014: PRISON/POLICE STATE SET UP TO ENFORCE FAKE MONEY, FAKE EVERYTHING

Posted on December 30, 2014 by eggsistense

2014 may well be remembered as the year the police state came out of hiding after it became horribly, abundantly clear that police—the state’s enforcers of its arbitrary, imaginary private property and legal tender laws—are “the law” and as such are free to execute people in the street for what in the past have been considered more or less petty crimes.  Of course, I’m referring to the high-profile cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

2014 will also be remembered—at least by those of us in the foreclosure fraud community—as the year they started putting those who fight banks behind bars.  Here, I’m speaking of two people in particular: Mary McCulley and Karen Rozier, both of whom happened to be fighting US Bank (among others).  Despite (or because of) proving fraud on the part of US Bank and being award $6 million in damages, McCulley remains imprisoned while Rozier has been released.  But the message being sent by the TPTB and their bought-and-paid-for-judiciary is clear: don’t mess with us or we’ll throw you in the slammer.

McCulley Jail

The ultimate reason for all this

The real reason for this intensifying police/prison state was revealed earlier this year by the Bank of England: the “loans” banks give us and the “debt” we owe are all totally fake—made up out of thin air.  LRM wrote about this extensively this year—here is one excerpt:

It certainly is remarkable that the BoE would come out with this information at this time.  This press release/paper is often characterized as “an admission,” but the thing is, this is not new information.  It’s never been a secret or been hidden.  It just hasn’t been taught in school.  In fact, as discussed here, the BoE admits quite openly that there is a “long literature” on the fact that money is created out of thin air and that school textbooks which say it isn’t are incorrect.

And this is what I was trying to get at in my earlier post, titled “Bank Says: If You Believe Banks Lend Deposits, You Are Wrong.”  We have been purposely misled about money creation.  We have been purposely trained to think that banks lend deposits and/or the bank’s own, pre-existing money and that therefore we have a duty and–their favorite word–an “obligation” to pay it back.  It is this mistaken belief that has caused the financial crisis and this belief that threatens to drag the United States, if not the entire world, into financial ruin.

More and more people are becoming aware of this state of affairs—that not only are the so-called 99% being impoverished despite being the most productive workers in history, the money that is being hoarded by the 1%–and used to enslave us in debt to them–is created entirely out of thin air.  And so the iron fist of the police state has been pulled out of the velvet glove of our “democratic”/”free market” society—because the cat’s out of the bag.  The jig is up.

Hopefully this trend will reverse in 2015 and those who are behind the prison/police state will be the ones who wind up behind bars…until that happens, enjoy this collection of LRM memes created and shared in the past year set to a pastoral version of “Auld Lang Syne”!”

Stay tuned for 2015!  And Happy New Year!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

“LEGAL” VS. RIGHT: FERGUSON, FORECLOSURE, FUBAR

Posted on November 25, 2014 by eggsistense

Legal vs. right

Of course no one was surprised when Darren Wilson was not indicted for killing Michael Brown.  That’s because we live in a society where what is “legal” has overtaken what is right.

The grand jury has now essentially said it was legal for Wilson to kill Brown.  But the people of Ferguson (and around the country) know it wasn’t right.

The courts keep saying it’s legal for banks to steal millions of homes.  But the homeowners know it isn’t right.

The government says it’s legal for them to spy on you.  But we Internet users know that’s not right.

The UN said it was legal for the US to invade Iraq.  The Iraqis knew that wasn’t right.

The banks say it’s legal to create money out of thin air and buy up the world while buying off the politicians.  The poor know that isn’t right.

And so on.

They have created an entire system of legalizing the wrong things and criminalizing the right things and then selling us that system 24 hours a day.  Flaunting it in our faces with “experts” telling us why it all makes so much sense when it fact it makes no sense at all.  A lot of us damn well know it, despite the mind control, while everyone feels it but may have succumbed to the propaganda.

And that system of legally right/morally wrong demonizes those who call bullshit on it.  In fact, Wilson even said Brown looked liked a demon when he testified to the grand jury:

“

2 The only way I can describe it, it looks like a
3 demon, that's how angry he looked. He comes back
4 towards me again with his hands up.
5 At that point I just went like this,
6 I tried to pull the trigger again, click, nothing
7 happened.

”

Wilson literally demonized Brown for the grand jury.  You cannot make this stuff up.

Malcolm X if not careful

Malcolm X knew the score.  He warned us—why aren’t we being careful?  The petty looters of Ferguson are vilified while the grand looters of Wall Street are celebrated. How long must we sing this song?

We’ll be making progress when what’s wrong is illegal, and what’s legal is also what’s right.

Be An Outlaw Sound Cloud

Posted in Crap-italism, Everything Is Rigged, Foreclosure, Health issues | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH WORKING LIKE A CHARM…

Posted on November 18, 2014 by eggsistense

…and the capitalism for the rest of us is going just as you’d expect, and just as planned, i.e., horribly.  From a Zero Hedge story masterfully headlined “Mission Accomplished: Stocks & Homeless Kids Hit All-Time Highs”:

“Something is dreadfully wrong with this picture.

In a report just released today by the National Center on Family Homelessness, a team of academics has demonstrated that the number of homeless children in the Land of the Free now stands at 2.5 million.

This is far and away an all-time high and constitutes roughly one out of every 30 children in America.

The report goes on to explain that among the major causes of this problem are the continuing impacts of the Great Recession that began in 2008.

Funny thing, someone ought to tell these homeless kids that the economy is doing great. Of course, we know this to be true because the stock market is near its all-time high.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average now stands at 17,633, just off its all-time high.

Also near its all-time highs is the bond market, and coincidentally, the US debt—which is now within spitting distance of $18 trillion.

In other words, if these kids ever do manage to pick themselves up off the streets, they’ll work their entire lives to pay off a debt that they never signed up for.

And it all comes down to a completely perverse, corrupt, debt-based paper money system.”

Really nothing much to add to this excellent breakdown of the situation and diagnosis of its root cause, except for my perennial solution—self-issued currency.   I’m not saying that we don’t have to use money, I’m just saying that we should accept that all money is and always has been fake, and act accordingly, as described in the LRM article “The Solution: Since The Money Isn’t Real, The Debt Isn’t Either”—do this and the situation described above could be resolved literally tomorrow:

“We have been purposely misled about money creation.  We have been purposely trained to think that banks lend deposits and/or the bank’s own, pre-existing money and that therefore we have a duty and–their favorite word–an “obligation” to pay it back.  It is this mistaken belief that has caused the financial crisis and this belief that threatens to drag the United States, if not the entire world, into financial ruin…

We could be done with it all if we’d just listen to the BoE which is admitting to us that the money isn’t real. It is up to us to extrapolate the rest, which is this: since the money isn’t real, then the debt isn’t either.  Indeed, If we all would accept the truth that the money that was “loaned” to us for houses, cars, educations, etc. was not in fact a loan at all but instead was a purposeful hoax–a trick played on us to get us to spend our lives in a perpetual state of anxiety, panic, and labor that benefits the corporation/state instead of ourselves–we could easily allow all of this “debt” to be forgiven/repudiated immediately and start over from scratch with a new and better system.”

That new and better system?  Again, self-issued currency:

“It is beyond dispute that money can be–and has been–anything: gold, paper, shells, sticks, salt, binary code, cigarettes, fabric, etc., etc.  So it stands to reason that money can (and arguably ought to) be the following:  a check written by a buyer for any amount requested by a seller and drawn on a fictional, non-existent account.   In other words, self-issued currency.  And everyone would have this same check-writing power.  The only problem with this scenario?  No more poverty, no more control of the masses, no more larceny, no more want, no more war, no more prostitution, no more slavery, no more debt.  Oh wait, those aren’t problems at all–unless you’re one of the few people benefiting from the present system of rapaciously fraudulent currency.”

No amount of superficial overhauls of the present system will suffice.  We must immediately have a new system, or we will very likely ourselves past the point of no return.

The situation described in the Zero Hedge article above is what I have always called “reverse socialism” (described nicely here) i.e. a situation in which wealth is redistributed from the bottom to the top, which even billionaire former hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller admits is happening and he puts it like this:

“This is the biggest redistribution of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the rich ever.”

Here’s a video of him saying it, lest you doubt:

Reverse socialism goes by many other names: trickle-down economics, free market capitalism, free trade, bailout, central banking, ZIRP, QE, etc.  Those are all euphemisms for the same ugly idea—make a few people insanely rich by stealing wealth from everyone else, who remain insanely un-rich.  And again, as the Zero Hedge article above points out, it’s going great!

Posted in Asset Bubble, Crap-italism, Debt Slavery, Everything Is Rigged, Federal Reserve, Feudalism, Financial Terrorism, homeless, Redistribution, Reverse socialism, self-issued currency, stock market | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

FANNIE “MBS”= MORE BULLS@!#: MORGENSON MISTAKEN?

Posted on November 17, 2014 by eggsistense

fannie-mae-logo PARODY copy

In an article from last week about Fannie Mae pursuing deficiency judgments in Florida, Gretchen Morgenson essentially defends Fannie Mae, saying this (“Borrowers, Beware: The Robo-Signers Aren’t Finished Yet,” New York Times, Nov. 15 2014):

“Fannie Mae is certainly justified in going after deficiencies from former borrowers, especially those who can pay. And given that the company is taxpayer-owned, its attempts to recover this money are to the greater good.”

WTF?  I mean, WTF?

Overall, the gist of Morgenson’s article is correct—that deficiency judgments shouldn’t be allowed when the foreclosure that created the deficiency was performed using robo-signed, i. e., fraudulent, documents.  However, in the sentence above, she seems to make two common yet incorrect assumptions about Fannie Mae.

The first incorrect assumption

The first erroneous assumption is that Fannie Mae is “justified” in pursuing  deficiencies from “former borrowers.”  To be fair, Morgenson seems to be using some shorthand here, but it should be noted that Fannie Mae does not loan money to borrowers, so there is no justification for Fannie Mae to pursue anyone in that regard.  Here is confirmation of this fact from Fannie Mae’s conservator, the FHFA:

Do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac make loans directly to home buyers?
No. Fannie Mae Freddie Mac support the nation’s housing finance system though the secondary mortgage market and do not make loans directly to borrowers; rather, banks, credit unions, and other retail financial institutions originate home loans to borrowers.  Generally, lenders do not retain the mortgages they originate as assets on their own books.  Instead, they often sell conventional conforming mortgage loans soon after origination to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.  The Enterprises thus provide liquidity for mortgage lenders, which receive cash that can be used for additional mortgages.

Note the last bit of tripe in the quote above stating that lenders “sell conventional conforming loans soon after origination to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.”  This is the prettified version of the ugly truth, which is that such sales of mortgages on the secondary market are mere chicanery and accounting tricks at best, and outright fraud at worst.

MBS Meme

This alleged securitization has been covered extensively here at LRM in a number of articles, including but not limited to the following:

NO ENDORSEMENT, NO NEGOTIATION–NO NEGOTIATION, NO SECURITIZATION

PT. 2: NO ENDORSEMENT, NO NEGOTIATION–NO NEGOTIATION, NO SECURITIZATION

MERS: THE INVISIBILITY CLOAK OF THE BANKSTERS

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE ENDORSEMENTS, Y’ALL

So the other part of the assumption Morgenson (as well as the FHFA FAQ above) is making is that, while Fannie Mae may not have actually loaned money to the borrowers, Fannie owns the notes and is therefore entitled to foreclose—supposedly Fannie Mae “securitized” these notes.  This is Morgenson’s “justification” for foreclosure and deficiency judgments accruing to Fannie Mae.  This is the conventional wisdom, but as usual, it’s completely wrong, because to add to the litany of securitization fail articles above, we must point out again that Fannie Mae itself admits that none of the notes it supposedly has are Fannie Mae assets.

Here is the relevant quote from the LRM story “Fannie Mae, By Its Own Admission, Owns Nothing”:

“The mortgages that back a Fannie Mae MBS are held in a trust on behalf of Fannie Mae MBS investors and are not Fannie Mae assets.”

The logical question then is, how can a foreclosure or deficiency judgment on behalf of Fannie Mae possibly be “justified” if the notes are not Fannie Mae assets?  And again, Fannie Mae says this about itself—this is not my opinion or some expert’s opinion.  This is Fannie Mae’s own incredible admission.

The second incorrect assumption

Morgenson then states that Fannie Mae is “taxpayer-owned,” which means that ruling in favor of Fannie Mae in deficiency suits is a good thing, because that essentially pays back the taxpayer.  Indeed, there is a common misconception—whether out of ignorance or out of complicity, I’m not quite sure—made by the media that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now owned by the government—i.e. the taxpayer—because of the conservatorship of those two institutions that began in September 2008.

The FHFA FAQ certainly appears to be fostering misinformation about the ownership status of Fannie and Freddie vis-à-vis the conservatorship:

When did the Federal Housing Finance Agency become conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what does it mean to be conservator?
On September 6, 2008, weeks after enactment of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed into conservatorships overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.  As conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency assumed all the powers of the shareholders, directors, and officers, with the goal of preserving and conserving the assets and property of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Certainly sounds like Fannie and Freddie are “taxpayer-owned,” doesn’t it?  If the FHFA has taken over “all the powers of the shareholders, directors, and officers,” isn’t that effectively the same as being “taxpayer-owned?”  If you were a shareholder or director or officer of a company and then a federal government agency came in and “assumed” all of those powers, wouldn’t you say that the government owned that company, for all intents and purposes?  Of course you would.

However, the FHFA likes to talk out of both side of its mouth.  That is, we see that on the one hand—for public and media consumption—we are told that FHFA has all the powers of Fannie Mae, i.e., runs and essentially now owns Fannie Mae (throw in the unlimited bailout of Fannie Mae as a consideration in this ownership, also—we paid them to run their business).   A lot of people, myself included, took the government at face value when it said of Fannie Mae that:

The Conservator [i.e., FHFA] directs and controls the operations of the Company [i.e., Fannie Mae].

We figured, “This is great—now we can get at Fannie’s records through FOIA requests because a government agency ‘directs and controls’ Fannie Mae.”  So, I sent them a FOIA request asking for specific information about my note and Fannie’s role in supposedly buying it from Countrywide, owning it, putting it into a pool, etc.  As you would expect, my initial request was denied, saying this:

“We understand why you might assume that FHFA, as Fannie Mae’s regulator, would have records responsive to your request.  However, under FOIA, only FHFA records are subject to disclosure.  FHFA does not maintain among its records the type of individual loan information from Fannie Mae that you request, and therefore does not have records responsive to your request.”

However, James Lockhart, the head of FHFA at the beginning of the conservatorship, testified that:

“Since the Enterprises opened for business on September 8, FHFA personnel have been continuously on site, both at the Enterprises’ headquarters and locations of other key operations to ensure a smooth transition and continued business operations. FHFA personnel include examiners, attorneys and other experts to provide for timely communications between the GSE, the conservator, and the examination team.”

So FHFA “directs and controls” Fannie Mae and has examiners, attorneys, and other experts “continuously on site” at Fannie headquarters and other Fannie locations, but FHFA doesn’t have records responsive to my request.  I called bullshit and appealed.

Their response to my appeal is below, but here is the insulting, speaking-out-of-both-sides-of-their-mouth part:

“Fannie Mae is a private company whose documents are not subject to the FOIA…The purpose of the FOIA is to open the actions of government agencies to public scrutiny, not to reveal the inner workings of private entities. The FHFA’s temporary role as conservator of Fannie Mae does not transform the business records of this private company into ‘agency records’ subject to the FOIA.”

In other words:  screw you Mac—we ain’t talkin’ and you can’t make us, so there.

FANNIE FOIA APPEAL-01 REDACTED HIGHLIGHTED

This letter is signed by a Stephen E. Hart, as “Associate General Counsel and FOIA Appeals Officer.”  So the opinion of at least one FHFA attorney is that Fannie is not “taxpayer-owned” as Morgenson suggested—it is a private company not subject to public scrutiny.

It just wants to subject everyone else to “screw-tiny.”

So keep these two things in mind when you read about whether or not Fannie Mae is “justified” in foreclosing or pursuing a “deficiency”:  1) Fannie Mae itself admits it neither lends money nor considers your note an asset, and 2) Fannie Mae’s conservator says it’s a private company and nanny nanny boo boo.

Posted in Crap-italism, Endorsement, Everything Is Rigged, Fannie Mae, Foreclosure, Foreclosure fraud, MERS, Paper terrorism, Secondary debt market, Securitization Fail, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

STRIKE! WALMART OVERDUE FOR A COMEUPPANCE

Posted on November 15, 2014 by eggsistense

Walmart Low Wages

I posted the above meme on Facebook, which elicited the following response from a dear and longtime friend (in the physical world) of mine:

Dumb bullshit. Walmart workers are responsible for themselves. It is their own decisions that put them on the government dole, not walmart’s. Walmart does not enslave them, they choose to work there at the wage Walmart offers. They are free to seek higher paying employment. Walmart does not cost the tax payer, people who make bad choices do.

My response is as follows…

Walmart workers have no control over dollar inflation which eats away their already meager wages. At least the people that work there actually have jobs, trying to make an honest living. I suppose they could be airline pilots or something, or I know–they could join the military. Oh, but–those people have to get food assistance (or are at least eligible for it) too.

Yes, some airline pilots can conceivably find themselves in a position in which they would be eligible for food stamps, as reported in the Washington Post story “Flying Your Plane, Living on Food Stamps” (Feb. 12, 2014):

“That means if a starter pilot at a regional airline is the breadwinner for a partner and a child, the household would qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps, where the cutoff for a three-person household is just over $25,000. At some smaller regional airlines a starting pilot does even worse, earning just $15,000 a year, about equivalent to the federal minimum wage.”

And then there’s the military:

“…620,000 households that include at least one soldier, reservist or guardsman – or 25 percent of the nation’s total active duty and reserve personnel – that are seeking aid from food pantries and other charitable programs across the country, according to a rare inquiry about the food insecurity of troops and veterans conducted by Feeding America, a hunger relief charity, that will be released Monday. Another 2.37 million households including veterans receive assistance from food pantries that are part of Feeding America’s network (this figure doesn’t include households where both a former and current service member reside).

The help is sought for various reasons, experts say: For active duty, pressures include low pay, poor financial planning by junior soldiers, the difficulty for spouses to hold steady jobs amid base transfers and deployments, and the higher costs of living in some states. For veterans, the triggers are the transition to the civilian world, and, for some, living off low disability pay or retirement funds. Both groups were hit by the Great Recession, too.”

That’s the reality of the situation. Yes, theoretically and in a vacuum my friend would be correct. But the playing field is so tilted and rigged that there is no chance for people unless they can get more money at the jobs they already have.  Scolding those actually trying to work for a living for not being able to get by on their wages helps no one.

Suggesting such people “go back to school” to “get a skill” likely only leads to another nightmare of debt and declining wages, as pointed out here:

#9 Since 2005, student loan debt burdens have absolutely exploded while salaries for young college graduates have actually declined…

“The problem developing is that earnings and debt aren’t moving in the same direction. From 2005 to 2012, average student loan debt has jumped 35%, adjusting for inflation, while the median salary has actually dropped by 2.2%.”

 

Another way to look at it is this: there used to be factory/manufacturing jobs in a lot of places across the country, jobs that paid a decent wage and didn’t require college or the much-ballyhooed “skills.”  You could always work in one if everything else went to hell.  Well, now those are mostly gone (see, for example—“Loss of Manufacturing Jobs Push Americans Closer To Poverty”).  But in a sense, they’ve been replaced by Walmart—every town has one, and you don’t need a degree.  Indeed, the problem is that everything that was true about the factory/manufacturing jobs that used to exist is true of Walmart, except for the decent wages part.  So corporate America strips out all the decent-paying jobs, puts Walmart in their place, and then fosters the attitude that it’s somehow the worker’s fault that he can’t make ends meet.  That Walmart doesn’t owe the worker a living.  How have we fallen so far, that people scorn workers for, you know—working?  And expecting to be fairly compensated for said work?

Not only that, but Walmart has all but killed off the other traditional decent wage/no-college-or-magic-skill-required job, i.e., the mom and pop store.  Of course it’s not just Walmart, but also CVS and Walgreens and their ilk.  As Gerald Celente once bemoaned on the Alex Jones show, the younger generation will have almost no memory of ever working for themselves, or more to the point, of ever working for anyone but large, oligopolistic corporations.  To paraphrase Celente—none of these kids will know that it used to be that you didn’t have to work for CVS to work in a pharmacy, you could own one, and there was one on every corner!

So that is the context in which this debate over wages is being played out and it’s a gross oversimplification to just suggest that someone can go out and get a better-paying job in this day and age, and again, in the particular financialized, corporate state context in which we currently find ourselves.  A really good story that illustrates exactly this is “How I Got Rejected From a Job At The Container Store” in which a Harvard-educated, New-York-Times-best-selling author struggles to find work, concluding that:

For years we Americans have been fed the convenient lie: study hard, work hard in your chosen field, work hard at your marriage, save money, organize your flour, salt, and sugar into labeled bins, and you will be in control of your life and your destiny. But control is an illusion during the best of times. Now, in this new gilded age, where profit takes precedence over people, and commerce takes precedence over art; where a CEO earns 331 times the salary of the average worker, and a company going public feels no compunction about ordering massive layoffs to appear lean in the eyes of investors; where a woman still earns only 78 cents to every man’s dollar, and where access to health insurance—though much improved—still carries strange loopholes that leave some of us uncovered for months; where none of us is able to save nearly as much as we should, despite cutting back on everything, including necessities like food and shelter; where affordable childcare, universal daycare, and paid maternity leave are fantasies that only happen in other countries, not ours; where a college education requires our children to take on the kind of massive nooses of debt that will render them too cash-poor to have any future material goods in need of organizing and containing, most of us are just a single job loss, a single medical diagnosis, a single broken marriage removed from a swirling, chaotic, wholly uncontained abyss.

Simply put, the Walmart-ization of America must be reversed.  People who work for a living must be compensated at a level that takes inflation and the rest of reality into account.  Good for the workers of the Pico Rivera Walmart.  Solidarity!

After all, there are Too Many Broke People…

Posted in California, Crap-italism, Debt, Debt Slavery, Everything Is Rigged, Financialization, freedom, minimum wage, Price-fixing, Redistribution, Wage slavery, Wages | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

THE ASSES THAT WILL ACTUALLY BREAK THE INTERNET

Posted on November 14, 2014 by eggsistense

NET NEUTRALITY

The obligatory Kardashian post….

Interesting that right as a debate rages over whether or not the Internet should be controlled like a private plaything of the handful of major telecommunication companies, a giant derriere obscures everything.  Who knew her ass was actually a black hole, a vortex into which everything meaningful is sucked, with almost no chance of escaping?

But the asses that will actually break the Internet?  Those giant telecoms, of course:

Good neutral summary of net neutrality issues here:

“Protect your right to access what you want and how you want it on the Internet

The Internet has become so much a part of the lives of most Americans that it is easy to imagine that it will always remain the free and open medium it is now. We’d like to believe it will remain a place where you can always access any lawful content you want, and where the folks delivering that content can’t play favorites because they disagree with the message being delivered or want to charge more money for faster delivery.

But there are no such guarantees.

If the government doesn’t act soon, this open internet — and the “network neutrality” principles that sustain it — could be a thing of the past. Profits and corporate disfavor of controversial viewpoints or competing services could change both what you can see on the Internet and the quality of your connection. And the need to monitor what you do online in order to play favorites means even more consumer privacy invasions piled on top of the NSA’s prying eyes.

Don’t let it happen. Read on to learn more about how you can help protect your free and open internet.”

 

Where is the ass that will save the Internet as we know it?  That’s an ass I’d actually like to see…

Posted in net neutrality | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

THAT AIN’T RAIN, IT’S PISS: THE SHIBBOLETH OF CAPITALISM

Posted on November 13, 2014 by eggsistense

An old saw about deceit and chicanery: “Don’t piss on my boots and tell me it’s raining.”  The phrase has even made it into at least one song (with the great John Prine singing a verse)…

In other words, don’t do something unpleasant or harmful to me while pretending that it’s actually pleasant or harmless.  I actually can’t think of a better phrase to sum up the bill of goods we’ve been sold [pun intended] about Murka’s favorite shibboleth: capitalism. Don’t rig my markets, manipulate my prices, create my money out of thin air, rig interest rates, steal through high frequency trading, rig the stock market and tell me it’s capitalism.  Indeed, our “make it rain” culture is instead being given a golden shower…

It’s actually quite distressing that such a large segment of regular people in this country cling to the market-fundamentalist, invisible-hand, temporarily-embarrassed millionaire myth of capitalism like so many Overly Attached Girlfriends—they can’t let go of the idea that “free market capitalism” exists in America despite all evidence to the contrary and despite all indications that the supposed free-market capitalism actually doesn’t want or need to have anything to do with them, and in spite of the fact that capitalism is, well cheating on us.

OAG-Cheat

Unfortunately, we’re not just being cheated on in our dreams by capital.  It’s very real, as detailed in this Zero Hedge article:

Big Banks Busted Massively Manipulating Foreign Exchange, Precious Metals … And Every Other Market

The sheer volume of boot-pissing detailed in the article is depressing and exhausting.  Sample just the headings of the sections, all with numerous links to drive the points home:

“Currency Markets Are Rigged

Gold and Silver Are Manipulated

Derivatives Are Manipulated

Interest Rates Are Manipulated

Energy Prices Manipulated

Oil Prices Are Manipulated

Commodities Are Manipulated

Everything Can Be Manipulated Through High-Frequency Trading”

And so on…despite this, we’re being told all of this piss is, in fact, just natural rain, as pointed out here at Naked Capitalism:

Last Thursday President Obama took time out from his main job as cheerleader for the Forever War to carry out his official duties as cheerleader for Big-C capitalism. He spoke at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, and did a rousing job in front of a group trained in the intricacies of neoliberal economics and business management, and ready to take their part in the corporate power structure. The speech was full of statistics, all showing a great recovery from economic disaster, thanks in no small part to what Obama called “sound decisions made by my administration.” He restated the ritual utterances demanded from the High Priest of Capitalism:

“I actually believe that capitalism is the greatest force for prosperity and opportunity the world has ever known. And I believe in private enterprise — not government, but innovators and risk-takers and makers and doers — driving job creation.”

And here’s the thing. If you only read the national business press, you wouldn’t be able to contest Obama’s facts, or to understand the massive and utterly unnecessary damage he and his administration inflicted on millions of people for the benefit of the financial sector. The national media, like the President, sees its role as cheerleading for capitalism, where every crime is ignored, every rich person is a genius, and every poor person is a moocher, and there is nothing wrong with free markets that more freedom for markets can’t cure.

Here is an actual online rant from someone who thinks that hard times are just so much rain, instead of a piss deluge:

“Screw you whinny liberal bitches who want to punish the rich folk in this country. Yeah, they are the people who make your life so friggin miserable. YOU have NOTHING to do with it right? It’s the corporations who fucked your life up, they don’t pay taxes, or their fair share. (they do, more than enough). Yet when asked of you what is fair, you look about as dumb as Barney Fifthe of Mayberry RFD. Daily all you do is complain, complain, complain and yet you have no answers to your whiny issues. You take NO responsibility or actions by example for your problems, you just yell them from the highiest mountain top and get pissed because NOBODY gives a shit!

Then you say if we don’t agree with you, we are dumb, ignorant, or “just don’t get it”. Ya ever look in the mirror? Maybe it’s YOU who has the problem and fail to see the forest through the trees. You complain every single day, looking for what’s wrong and never spend one friggin minute looking for what’s right! Every things a conspiracy designed to keep you down and disenfranchised, as if! You’re your own worst enemy and you prey on the weak and ignorant. People who don’t know any better, ANYONE who will buy your lame ass theories that you get off the internet. WAKE UP ASSHOLES! Start looking inward and STOP blaming people who are “well to do” for your problems. They didn’t get there by being stupid or blaming others like you do. And it sure wasn’t handed down to them, and if it was, it’s a daily challenge to keep it. THE WORLD OWES YOU NOTHING… Learn that and the rest will fall into place…Libtards sicken me and now they all deny they were or are! ASHAMED? I should say so…YOU ALL SHOULD BE!

Oh and FUCK Minimum wage! Stop being a minimum human!”

Yes, the rich capitalists who rig everything should be the heroes of our national narrative and if we don’t become rich ourselves, it is our own fault, not the fault of the riggers.  Classic example of thinking that piss is rain…

Posted in Crap-italism, Everything Is Rigged, Financialization, Paper terrorism, Price-fixing, Redistribution, Rent-seeking, Reverse socialism | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

WAKE UP AMERICA—YOU HAVE BEEN SCAMMED! (GUEST POST)

Posted on November 12, 2014 by eggsistense
A first for LRM—a guest post, and it’s from the great Shelley Erickson!  For the most part, the formatting and highlighting herein is the same as it appeared when Shelley sent this to me at the end of last year.  I thought it comprised about as damning a litany of the scams–with links to demonstrate that this is not a matter of opinion—as one will find anywhere.  Like Shelley herself, this info is a precious resource, all in one place, to aid in the fight against fraudclosure and the overall Ponzi-scheme nature of what passes for the economy in modern America.

WAKE UP AMERICA YOU HAVE BEEN SCAMMED!

http://www.ferndale.wednet.edu/drupal/sites/default/files/APAEffectsofHomelessness.pdf

SCAM 1:  Push loose credit, including credit cards to the young 18 year olds as soon as they hit 18. Give out use me now pay me latter funds for education.  Tell the people all is great and dig themselves deep into dept. Push liar loans, refinancing,  and predatory loans on all homeowners. Harm the economy so homeowners refinance attempting to save their houses, and businesses, giving homeowners concealed predatory loans with the intent to default and steal the homes.

 

SCAM 2:  While doing scam one,  set politicians and judges in place to deregulate good law protecting the consumers and block justice, block due process.

GLASS STEAGALL ACT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act

DEREGULATION OF THE GLASS STEAGALL ACT!  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_Deregulated_the_Glass-Steagall_Act

http://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/mr-potter-and-the-state-of-washington-legislate-no-need-for-original-note-just-take-the-land-bye-bye/

http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org/profiles/blogs/video-and-transcript-of-a-washington-judge-taking-the-fifth-and  This judge boasting he is an advocate for the banks.

http://api.ning.com/files/xuMwKMTkGS1HUngBQqcIHi1h5CottkzqisQokVyZb6ZkQcnD0vHzrAUT-f1Xa0huEcXhmf*QBRbgibz4jH5ZLuk2ZjVb3Z8q/VerbatimReportofProceedings.pdf

http://4closurefraud.org/2013/10/03/view-from-the-bench-winning-practices-for-trying-a-foreclosure-case-moderated-by-victor-tobin-former-chief-judge-of-the-17th-judicial-circuit-court-of-florida-now-of-the-law-firm-of-marshall-c-wat/

THE BANKS SET UP THE HOMEOWNERS WITH FORECLOSURE TRUSTEES LIKE RECONTRUST AND NW TRUSTEES THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BY CPA LAW AND DEED OF TRUST LAW TO BE FAIR DEALING WITH BOTH LENDER AND BORROWER THAT ARE EITHER SOLELY OWNED BY THE BANKS LIKE RECONTRUST, OR WORKING FOR THE BANKS AND CONSULTING WITH BANK LAWYERS LIKE NW TRUSTEE’S. USING NW TRUSTEE EMPLOYEES THAT SHOULD KNOW BETTER TO PRODUCE FALSE AFFIDAVITS ON THE COUNTY RECORDS AND USE IN THE COURT SYSTEM COMMITTING FRAUD UPON THE COURT.   http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org/profiles/blogs/deposition-jeff-stenman-northwest-trustee-services

  
http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org/profiles/blogs/depoistion-of-claire-swagey-northwest-trustee-services-employee

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2013/01/06/full-deposition-of-northwest-trustee-services-jeff-stenman/

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2013/01/06/full-deposition-of-northwest-trustee-services-yvonne-mcelligott/

AND THE CLINCHER JEFF STENMAN EMPLOYEE WORKING FOR NW TRUSTEES, APPEARS TO ADMIT NW TRUSTEES WORKS FOR THE BANKS AND CONSULT WITH BANK LAWYER FIRMS, AND HAS A BANK LAWYER FIRM IN HOUSE NOW.

Washington is a show me the note state but the judges block the homeowner from demands to show us the note!   Humbug us that we took out a loan we have to pay it to anyone including a fraud.

Washington is a “show me the note” state. Koppler v. Bugge, 168 Wash. 182, 184-85, 11 P.2d 236 (1932). See also Elene-Arp v. Fed. Home Fin. Agency, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65358 at 11(W.D. Wa. 2013); Beaton v. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42806 at *16 (W.D. Wa.2013); Knecht v. Fid. Nat’l Title Ins. Co., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38814 at *01-11 (2013); Washington’s Supreme Court mandated that anyone paying a purported holder of a mortgage has a “duty” to demand, “show me the note” or suffer the consequences if that claimant is bogus.  This policy emerged when fraudulent securitized mortgages were freely sold prior to 1929, and the devastating effects thereof were discovered in the early 1930’s. The Washington Supreme Court ruled:

It appears most of the federal judges in Washington and multiple states are biased, telling us if you took out a loan  you owe it to anyone, someone, you are guilty without due process, and can be left owing it to the real party if they show up, but you must pay anyone including a fraud, even though we have a duty to demand proof of who the real party  is, even though the deed of trust tells us we have a duty to protect our title,  therefore we will be guilty of owing the real party or another fraud if we are challenged again.   A process worse than what is allowed for a murderer a drug dealer or a sex offender.  We are guilty without due process. The courts block the borrowers from their demands to show the authentic note by forcing the borrowers to accept a declaration of lost note affidavit.   Counterfiets of millions of notes allonges and affidavits by David Stern and Lorraine Brown, and the concealed transcript [In the 2007 (pre-crisis) certified Texas Supreme Court transcript of the “Meeting on Foreclosure Rules”, Michael Barrett (now deceased), of the Texas foreclosure-mill Barrett-Burke, Castle, Daffin & Frappier, admits that the mandated paperwork required to lawfully execute a foreclosure simply does not exist in 90% of the cases:]
NO VICTIMS? WHAT THE ..

http://4closurefraud.org/2013/04/21/bullshit-united-states-of-america-v-lorraine-brown-sentencing-guidelines-linda-green-docx-lps-lender-processing-services-no-actual-loss-no-victims/  

Suicides, homicides, blocked justice, clouded titles, stolen property, homeless Americans, fraud upon the court, filed fraud affidavits in county records and court rooms and NO VICTIMS?  

 

http://4closurefraud.org/2012/02/20/video-press-release-assessor-recorder-phil-ting-uncovers-widespread-mortgage-industry-irregularity-in-aequitas-compliance-study/

http://www.stellionata.com/in-the-news/38-headlines/7662-120509-jpmc-v-waisome-lawrence-nardi-deposition Chase reply to Deutsche bank ;John Kemp stating the notes were never transferred from Countrywide to BOA or anyone.http://4closurefraud.org/2010/11/22/john-t-kemp-v-countrywide-home-loans-countrywide-never-transferred-notes/and more. . See Deutsche Bank V FDIC, Chase WAMU

Chase claims they are not liable due to they never purchased the notes. Deutsche claims FDIC, Chase. And WAMU never transferred the notes to the trust timely, therefore they are faulty. NO GOOD! 

OUT OF THE MOUTH OF JPMORGAN CHASE: SCHEDULE OF LOANS PURCHASED FROM WAMU DOES NOT EXIST; NO ASSIGNMENTS OF MORTGAGE, NO ALLONGES OR ANY EVIDENCE OF TRANSFERRING OWNERSHIP OF LOANS FROM WAMU TO CHASE

August 21, 2012

Confirming, under oath and in print what we already suspected: there is no schedule of mortgage loans evidencing what JPM allegedly “purchased” from the FDIC in connection with the failure of WaMu. This is from the sworn deposition testimony of Lawrence Nardi, the operations unit manager and a mortgage officer for JPM, who was previously with WaMu and was picked up by JPM after WaMu’s failure. The 330 page deposition was taken by counsel for the homeowner on May 9, 2012 in the matter of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. as successor in interest to Washington Mutual Bank v. Waisome, Florida 5th Judicial Circuit Case No. 2009-CA-005717.

Here is the question and the answer:

Q: (page 57, beginning at line 19): Okay. The — are you aware of any type of schedule of loans that would have been created to represent the — either the loans that were asset loans or the loans that were serviced by WAMU? Are you — was the — do you know if there is a schedule or database of loans like that?

A: (page 58, beginning at line 1): I know that there was a schedule contemplated in certain documents related to the purchase. That schedule has never materialized in any form. We’ve looked for it in countless other cases. We’ve never been able to produce it in any previous cases. It would certainly be a wonderful thing to have, but it’s — as far as I know, it doesn’t exist, although it was — it was contemplated in the documents.

As we all know, JPM has also stated, in a Federal Court filing, that it is NOT the “successor in interest to WaMu.” However, the deposition testimony gets even better as the day went on:

Q: (beginning at page 260, line 18): Have you ever in your duties of being a loan analyst — a loan operations specialist, have you ever seen an FDIC bill of sale or a receiver’s deed or an assignment of mortgage or an allonge?

A: (page 260, beginning at line 23): For loans, I’m assuming you’re taling about the WaMu loan that was subject to the purchase here.

Q: (page 261, line 1): Right.

A: (page 261, beginning at line 2): No there is no assignments of mortgage. There’s no allonges. There’s no — in the thousands of loans that I have come into contact with that were a part of this purchase, I’ve never once seen an assignment of mortgage. There is simply not — they don’t exist. Or allonges or anything transferring ownership from WAMU to Chase, in other words. Specifically, endorsements and things like that.

So, JPM allegedly “purchased” mortgage loans from the FDIC out of the WaMu failure, but there is no schedule of what loans were purchased, no assignments, no allonges, no endorsements, nothing that transferred ownership of the loans from WaMu to Chase. However, as we all know, JPM goes around the country touting that it is the “successor in interest to WaMu” (which it has admitted in Federal Court that it is not) and relies on the amorphous “FDIC Affidavit” which, as far as what the “Affidavit” is proffered for, is directly contradicted by the sworn deposition testimony of JPM’s authorized representative WHO WAS FORMERLY WITH WAMU AND WAS PICKED UP BY JPM.

Fraud on the courts, anyone?

Jeff Barnes, Esq., www.ForeclosureDefenseNationwide.com

 

“Common practice to destroy notes” http://livinglies.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/fubar-mortgage-behavior-florida-banks-destroyed-notes-others-never-transferred-them/

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2013/08/29/kabooom-declaration-of-stehrenberger-similar-to-kelley-v-jpmc-affidavit-of-karyn-armstrong-wamu-shredded-original-notes/
http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2013/08/28/in-the-matter-of-kelley-v-jp-morgan-chase-bank-adv-proc-10-05245-ch-11-08-55305-canb-destruction-of-collateral-files-the-affidavit-of-karyn-

HERE WE GO AGAIN! OCWEN ADMITS ON PAPER THEY DON’T KNOW WHO OWNS THE LOANS. I DO “THEY DON”T” THE LOANS ARE UNENFORCEABLE! YA THINK? http://foreclosuredefensenationwide.com/

What would happen if we all send our complaints and the abuse of the foreclosures companies manipulating fraud defaults to HUD? Showing HUD how many loans are really in (fruad) closure? Seems like the banks are hiding this from them. Is the reason your property taxes and insurances are being paid, and the reason the banks are stealing the houses to most likely quiet title them resell and never mention to HUD they were in foreclosure. WANT TO MAKE BETS ON THIS?
http://mattweidnerlaw.com/bombshell-americans-banks-may-liable-57-billion-new-foreclosure-losses/

 

SCAM [losing count]: Set up MERS to skirt around unmovable loans.   SEE ATTORNEY PRATT FOR MERS, STATING MERS WAS SOLELY SET IN PLACE BY THE BANKS IN THE 1990’S AFTER THE SAVINGS AND LOAN CRIMES TO MOVE UNMOVABLE LOANS!  Pratt Boast MERS helped to move over a million unmovable loans [WHY WERE THEY UNMOVABLE? WAS PRATT BOASTING OF A HUGE CRIME TAKEN PLACE? http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2012/03/15/video-oral-arguments-washington-supreme-court-bain-v-bain-v-mortgage-electronic-registration-sys-et-al-and-selkowitz-v-litton-loan-servicing-lp-et-al/

AND….   the Setting up of Fannie and Freddie as a shell game to cover up the Securities Pool fraud.  Fannie and Freddie with a policy in place to never except notes: http://www.msfraud.org/articles/welcome-to-fannie-and-freddies-mortgage-shell-game.pdf HOW CAN FREDDIE AND FANNIE OWN ANYTHING IF THEY DON’T HAVE THE NOTES?  WHY DID THEY NOT WANT THE NOTES?

https://libertyroadmedia.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/fannie-mae-by-its-own-admission-owns-nothing/

http://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/welcome-to-freddie-and-fannies-mortgage-shell-game/

 

NO LENDER IN SECURITIZATION

http://4closurefraud.org/2013/01/12/in-wells-fargos-own-words-there-is-no-lender-in-securitization/
http://livinglies.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/how-securitization-nullifies-the-original-note-and-mortgage-the-originating-lender-is-paid-in-full/
http://victoryoverchase.blogspot.com/2013/01/there-is-no-lender-in-securitization.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/36675721/Explanation-of-Securitization

 

SCRIBE -there-is-no-lender-in-securitization/

 

 

©2012 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved

Conduit loan servicing: Who’s who and what’s what?

The thing most borrowers fail to realize about conduit loans is that once a loan has been securitized, they are not working with a “lender” anymore. The loans are pooled into a securitization called a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit (REMIC). The REMIC is a trust and it has no lenders, only fiduciaries of the “certificate holders

 

Nothing has changed since 1970s Saving and Loan crimes. Just ramped up! See http://deadlyclear.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/no-e2808200-2392-resolution-trust-corporation-v.pdf

 

 

http://blogs.cfainstitute.org/marketintegrity/2013/08/09/assessing-financial-reporting-transparency-of-securitization-transactions/

 

QUESTIONS TO ASK ARE If you look up GAAP accounting WILL YOU FIND some interesting information that they are going to be changing to IFRS which is a more international system and appears to be more transparent.  DOES The GAAP accounting in securitization actually creates a entries on their books that the borrower loaned them money… So it doesn’t appear that through their accounting methods we actually got a loan. It is more of a paper trick?

 

http://blogs.cfainstitute.org/marketintegrity/2013/08/09/assessing-financial-reporting-transparency-of-securitization-transactions/

How securitization nullifies the original note and mortgage. The Originating Lender is PAID IN FULL

 SCAM 4:  Fully explained in

Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse is a report on the financial crisis of 2007–2008 issued on April 13, 2011 by the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The 639 page report was issued under the chairmanship of Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn, and is colloquially known as the Levin-Coburn Report. After conducting “over 150 interviews and depositions, consulting with dozens of government, academic, and private sector experts” found that “the crisis was not a natural disaster, but the result of high risk, complex financial products, undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street.” [1] In an interview, Senator Levin noted that “The overwhelming evidence is that those institutions deceived their clients and deceived the public, and they were aided and abetted by deferential regulators and credit ratings agencies who had conflicts of interest.”[2] By the end of their two-year investigation, the staff amassed 56 million pages of memos, documents, prospectuses and e-mails.[3] The report, which contains 2,800 footnotes and references thousands of internal documents [4] focused on four major areas of concern regarding the failure of the financial system: high risk mortgage lending, failure of regulators to stop such practices, inflated credit ratings, and abuses of the system by investment banks. The Report also issued several recommendations for future action regarding each of these categories.

SCAM 5:  TARP to bail out the banks and not the people. 

SCAM 6: HAMP TO FOAM THE RUNWAY for the banks to slowly manipulate the theft of the houses, and to leave the homeowners homeless. http://washingtonexaminer.com/video-geithner-sacrificed-homeowners-to-foam-the-runway-for-the-banks/article/2502982

SCAM 7:  MODIFICATION FRAUD:   The HAMP carrot used to trick bate and switch the people into modification fraud to steal the maximum houses possible by trickery, telling the homeowners to get behind on the payments to get a mod with no intentions but to steal the house and manipulate defaults to foreclose on the people. http://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/hamp-the-modification-scam-and-now-settlement-sham/      Look up mod whistleblowers. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/37705.html

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/bank_of_america_whistleblowers_bombshell_we_were_told_to_lie/  BOA employees were coerced to lie and were given gift cards to avoid approving modifications.

Go to your local city counsel members with friends and people who can testify to this crime against you and all of us. The move below is after the US V Banks settlement proving the crime is on going and never stopped,  breaching the settlement. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nuPc9XvoOE

 

SCAM 8:  DEADBEAT HOMEOWNER PROPAGANDA!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmg-41xACTA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdRuZeKB3NM

[Once securitized there is no lender.]

http://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/define-responsible-homeowners-please-an-open-letter-to-president-obama/

http://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/what-give-up-our-paychecks-while-we-shutdown-the-government-weve-got-mortgages-and-bills-to-pay/

 

APPARENT DISCRIMINATION?

SCAM 9:  THE COVER UP

 

The Settlement that protects the banks and not the people.  http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2012/03/12/read-the-smoking-hot-banks-intentionally-and-thoroughly-violated-the-law-complaint-usa-vs-foreclosure-fraud/

Pretending to give justice to millions but only letting the banks off the hook and leaving the people in the same exact harm we have been enduring:

EXCERPT:

57. In the course of their conduct, management and oversight of loan
modifications in the plaintiff States, the Banks have engaged in a pattern of unfair
and deceptive practices.

58. The Banks’ failure to discharge their required loan modification
obligations, and related unfair and deceptive practices, include, but are not limited
to, the following:

a. failing to perform proper loan modification underwriting;

b. failing to gather or losing loan modification application
documentation and other paper work;

c. failing to provide adequate staffing to implement programs;

d. failing to adequately train staff responsible for loan
modifications;

e. failing to establish adequate processes for loan
modifications;

f. allowing borrowers to stay in trial modifications for
excessive time periods;

g. wrongfully denying modification applications;

h. failing to respond to borrower inquiries;

i. providing false or misleading information to consumers
while referring loans to foreclosure during the loan modification
application process;

j. providing false or misleading information to consumers
while initiating foreclosures where the borrower was in good faith actively
pursuing a loss mitigation alternative offered by the Bank;

k. providing false or misleading information to consumers
while scheduling and conducting foreclosure sales during the loan
application process and during trial loan modification periods;

l. misrepresenting to borrowers that loss mitigation programs
would provide relief from the initiation of foreclosure or further
foreclosure efforts;

m. failing to provide accurate and timely information to
borrowers who are in need of, and eligible for, loss mitigation services,
including loan modifications;

n. falsely advising borrowers that they must be at least 60
days delinquent in loan payments to qualify for a loan modification;

o. miscalculating borrowers’ eligibility for loan modification
programs and improperly denying loan modification relief to eligible
borrowers;

p. misleading borrowers by representing that loan
modification applications will be handled promptly when Banks regularly
fail to act on loan modifications in a timely manner;

q. failing to properly process borrowers’ applications for loan
modifications, including failing to account for documents submitted by
borrowers and failing to respond to borrowers’ reasonable requests for
information and assistance;

r. failing to assign adequate staff resources with sufficient
training to handle the demand from distressed borrowers; and

s. misleading borrowers by providing false or deceptive
reasons for denial of loan modifications.

3. Wrongful Conduct Related to Foreclosures

[…]

– See more at: http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2012/03/12/read-the-smoking-hot-banks-intentionally-and-thoroughly-violated-the-law-complaint-usa-vs-foreclosure-fraud/#sthash.HDBbZfH4.dpuf

 

Lynn Szymoniaks case is sealed from the public!  Look up newly unsealed case!

 

And then there is this testimony and settlement concealed from the public by all AG’s!  Everyone of the AG’s at the time, never exposed this settlement.

http://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/state-ags-settle-with-lps-for-113-million-only-nobody-knew/


 ANOTHER TESTIMONY IN THIS ARTICLE OF AT LEAST 90 PERCENT OF MORTGAGES HAVE NO PAPERWORK TO FORECLOSE ON.

 

State AGs settle with LPS for $113 million; only nobody knew

 

October 6, 2013 | Written for MSfraud.org

In February of this year, the state attorneys general settled with Lender Processing Services (LPS) for $113 million dollars in an El Paso district court.  This settlement, like the larger nationally-recognized settlement, also relates to robo-signing and fabricated documents used to process illegal foreclosures. This settlement amount is to be split between a number of other state AGs. (See chart) 
El Paso, Texas seems to be ground zero for the filing of some of the national mortgage lawsuits, but somehow these cases manage to stay off the mortgage fraud radar and questions what the AG is really doing in the “public interest” during his election year.
Apparently nobody knew about this settlement, and it has one attorney asking: “Where is the money?”
Attorney Richard Roman (pronounced: “Row-Mawn”) discovered STATE OF TEXAS v. LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC.; LPS DEFAULT SOLUTIONS, INC., and DOCX, LLC was filed on February 1, 2013 and ended five days later on February 6 with an Agreed Judgment and Injunction.
Mr. Roman is currently in the process of intervening in another case, STATE OF TEXAS v. AHMSI, to make sure his client is not forgotten as an “afterthought”.  It appears Roman’s filing struck a nerve over at the Asst. AG’s  Office, who he claims seem eager to make sure his voice is never heard and his client never sees the inside of a courtroom. 
For some reason, when mortgage fraud victims file complaints with various Texas Attorney General offices throughout Texas, every complaint we know of ends up in this office that is tucked away in the far west corner of the state – sometimes known as “North Juarez, Mexico”.  It is not that the El Paso office possesses an advanced skill-set for mortgage fraud crimes committed by the banks.
When the Asst. AG was told in early 2005 that there was “certified evidence” to confirm both fraud and corruption going on inside a Texas foreclosure court, Mr. Daross responded: “Whenever someone mentions corruption in our courts, I tend not to listen.”
Welcome to Texas
Many of the second-tier bad actors who created the nation’s foreclosure crisis (including  LPS), hitched a post in Texas.  NBC News reported: “As Texas governor, Rick Perry spent tens of millions in taxpayer money to lure some of the nation’s leading mortgage companies to expand their business in his state, calling it a national model for creating jobs. But the plan backfired.”
It may be for that reason that Texas, like many other states, is basically devoid of foreclosure rulings in favor of its thousands of foreclosure crime victims.  The judicial corruption, especially in the Dallas/Collin county corridor, has been confirmed by many lawyers, three judges, and most recently by a Texas law professor, who added that protection for the foreclosure-mills comes straight out of Washington. It seems the “Don’t Mess with Texas” slogan has long been retired.
The $113 Million LPS settlement provides for “Remediation to Homeowners”, but we have yet to hear from a homeowner who benefitted from – or even knew about this settlement.
In his letter to El Paso’s assistant AG, James Daross, Mr. Roman is demanding proof that LPS paid the amounts contained in this settlement:

Dear Mr. Daross and Bischoff:

Please accept this email as my request for information pursuant to the Texas Public Information Act (“TPIA”) for the following information:

1. Copies of the quarterly reports detailing the efforts of LPS to fulfill the obligations placed upon it as described in the Section titled: “IV. 4.1 Remediation to Homeowners”, as part of the “Agreed Final Judgment and Injunction” in 2013DCV-0413, “The State of Texas v. Lender Processing Services, Inc.”;

2. Proof of payment by LPS to The State of Texas of $5,755.050 as a settlement in this matter;

3. Proof of payment of 7 million dollars in attorney’s fees awarded to the State of Texas, as well as $483,333.00 as additional attorney fees. 

Provide me with the copying cost and I will see that it is paid expeditiously. 

    

Richard A. Roman, Esq.

Texas has known forged and false documents have been used to steal homes from its own residents dating back to the 1990s, but until lately, the state didn’t seem bothered by all these state jail felonies being committed throughout the state en masse.
In the 2007 (pre-crisis) certified Texas Supreme Court transcript of the “Meeting on Foreclosure Rules”, Michael Barrett (now deceased), of the Texas foreclosure-mill Barrett-Burke, Castle, Daffin & Frappier, admits that the mandated paperwork required to lawfully execute a foreclosure simply does not exist in 90% of the cases:

“So finding a document that says, “I am the owner and holder, and I thereby grant to the servicer the right to foreclose in my name” is an impossibility in 90 percent of the cases.” (transcript page 27, line 16)

The remedy for when, as Mr. Barrett confirmed “There really isn’t such a document” (Page 27, line 8), was revealed by Judge Bruce Priddy (See State of Texas v. Judge Priddy D-1-GV-08-002311) when he added:

“They just create one for the most part sometimes, and the servicer signs it themselves saying that it’s been transferred to whatever entity they name as applicant”. (page 28, line 10)

First American Title added:

“Well, the other problem — Judge, this is Tim Redding. The other problem that I see — and, Tommy, you and I talk about it regularly – that we have a bunch of servicers that are corporations or trusts attempting to foreclose on behalf of other trusts using a power of attorney, and I don’t think that’s really proper. I mean, we all kind of turn a blind eye to it, but I think that’s an issue that’s out there that somebody could use to potentially attack a foreclosure.”  (p. 33, line 5)

According to Mr. Barrett’s statements; that means 9 of every 10 foreclosure/eviction cases filed in Texas likely contain uttered documents, a/k/a state jail felonies. That is absolutely stunning!  Many people might assume the Texas district attorneys, U.S. Attorneys, FBI, IRS, Texas Rangers, Secret Service, etc. would be investigating this multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise that has been operating in the state for close to twenty-years.  But it appears the El Paso AG office is the lone ranger against this massive land grab and transference of wealth, and they don’t seem to want anyone to know.  We applaud anyone who goes toe to toe with the banks, but where is the stipulated ‘remediation to homeowners’?
The case against Countrywide
Another obscure case discovered this week was filed in El Paso in 2009 by the State of Texas against Countrywide.  The AG obtained an Agreed Final Judgment and Injunction on the same day the petition was filed.  Among other things, the injunction places Restrictions on Initiation or Advancement of Foreclosure Process for Eligible Borrowers.
Here is the Docket, Petition and Agreed Judgment in State of Texas v. Countrywide Financial, Countrywide Home Loans and Full Spectrum Lending 
Did the media not know about this case either? 

 

I REPEAT STILL ON GOING! THIS VIDEO IS A YEAR AFTER THE SETTLMENT TO STOP THIS ON GOING CRIME!  


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nuPc9XvoOE

THE BANKS ADMIT THIRTY PERCENT OF THE HOMEOWNERS WERE NOT IN DEFAULT–A BANK PICKED NUMBER MOST LIKELY OVER  NINETY PERCENT.   NINETY PERCENT WITH NO PAPERWORK TO FORECLOSE AND MANIPULATED DEFAULTS USING ECONOMY TERRORISM AND HAMP CARROT TO DRAG INTO MODIFICATION HELL,  BENT FOR FALSE DEFAULTS.

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2013/08/29/kabooom-declaration-of-stehrenberger-similar-to-kelley-v-jpmc-affidavit-of-karyn-armstrong-wamu-shredded-original-notes/


http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2013/08/28/in-the-matter-of-kelley-v-jp-morgan-chase-bank-adv-proc-10-05245-ch-11-08-55305-canb-destruction-of-collateral-files-the-affidavit-of-karyn-

HERE WE GO AGAIN! OCWEN ADMITS ON PAPER THEY DON’T KNOW WHO OWN THE LOANS. I DO “THEY DON”T” THE LOANS ARE UNENFORCEABLE! YA THINK? http://foreclosuredefensenationwide.com/

What would happen if we all send our complaints and the abuse of the foreclosures companies manipulating fraud defaults to HUD? Showing HUD how many loans are really in (fruad) closure? Seems like the banks are hiding this from them. Is the reason your property taxes and insurances are being paid, and the reason the banks are stealing the houses to most likely quiet title them resell and never mention to HUD they were in foreclosure. WANT TO MAKE BETS ON THIS?

http://mattweidnerlaw.com/bombshell-americans-banks-may-liable-57-billion-new-foreclosure-losses/

 

 

SCAM [who’s counting anymore?]  Promontory and the rest used to cover up the fraud and leave the people in the dust without anything but penitence recovery. Look up all other companies.

PROMONTORY HAS BEEN IN THE GET OUT OF JAIL BUSINESS FOR A LONG TIME

ONE BIG CON GAME SCAM SHAM AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

Monday, February 11, 2013

Bank of America Foreclosure Reviews: How Promontory Became a Shadow Regulator (Part VA)

Today we release the two latest posts in our whistleblower series on the Bank of America foreclosure reviews, focusing on the role of the “independent” consultant hired to perform the reviews, Promontory Financial Group.
The Plot So Far
As we described in earlier posts in this series (Executive Summary, Part II, Part IIIA, Part IIIB, Part IV, and Part IVB), OCC/Federal Reserve foreclosure reviews meant to provide compensation to abused homeowners were abruptly shut down at the beginning of January as the result of a settlement with ten major servicers. Whistleblowers from the biggest, Bank of America, came forward to provide compelling evidence that the bank and its independent consultant, Promontory Financial Group, attempted to suppress evidence that borrowers had been harmed by the false and deceptive practices of the mortgages lenders. Together, they reviewed over 2500 files. When asked to estimate the percentage of harm and serious harm they found, the lowest estimate of harm was 30%, with the majority judging the rate of harm at or over 90%. Estimates of serious harm ranged from 10% to 80%.
In this post and the next, we focus on how Promontory was badly conflicted and incompetent. Here we discuss how it has become a powerful, yet unaccountable shadow regulator. In the next post, we show how it made a hash of the foreclosure reviews and probe what the egregious expenses might be hiding.
Promontory, the Shadow Banking Regulator
Promontory has increasingly come to serve as the dominant shadow regulator in the financial services arena. It is difficult to name a player who occupies a similar role in any other heavily regulated industry.
Promontory has been an influential player virtually from its inception. Its founder and CEO, Gene Ludwig, was the Comptroller of the Currency under Bill Clinton and recognized the potential of the then-sleepy agency to end run other regulators.* After a stint as vice chairman of Bankers Trust, Ludwig established Promonotory and began hiring former regulators, along with attorneys with financial industry experience and former bank officers. The firm gained public visibility when Ludwig prepared a review for the board in the wake of a currency trading scandal at Allied Irish Bank.
As the firm became larger, Promontory recruited more senior and well connected former regulators, both to work at the firm and to serve on its advisory board. Its roster includes former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt, former Nixon and Ford administration official and NASD chief Frank Zarb, and Fed vice chairman Alan Blinder as advisors. Uber lobbyist Ken Duberstein is also on the advisory board. Fed governor Sarah Bloom Raskin is a former Promontory managing director. Their current staff is virtually an alumni association of the people who ran TARP, 1990s deregulatory advocates in Europe and Australia, and examiners from the OCC and Fed. And it doesn’t hurt that their public relations is handled by a former executive editor of American Banker. Analyst Josh Rosner has described Ludwig and the pre-eminent bank regulatory lawyer Rodgin Cohen of Sullivan & Cromwell as probably the two private sector parties most responsible for bank deregulation in the U.S.
Since Promontory is private, it is impossible to know its mix of revenues. However, its activities focus heavily on the adept circumvention of regulations. For instance, it operates CDARS, the Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service, which is a service that divides large deposits and distributes them across a network of over 3000 banks. This is regulatory arbitrage, taking deposits that would otherwise exceed FDIC deposit insurance ceilings and breaking them into amounts that fall below the limits. A Bloomberg article, “Exploiting FDIC Loopholes Enriches Former U.S. Bank Regulators,” noted:
“These guys know how to work the system,” says {Sherrill] Shaffer, [former chief economist at the New York Fed] who’s now a professor of banking at the University of Wyoming in Laramie…Promontory charges banks more in fees, about $12.50 per a $10,000 one-year CD to get access to federally insured funds, than the FDIC itself charges in insurance premiums, typically $5-$7 per $10,000 deposited.
Another one of its major activities is getting financial firms out of hot water. From Promontory’s website (emphasis ours):


Promontory Examination and Enforcement Advisory Services offers financial and regulatory risk diagnostic and remediation services aimed at preempting, complying with, and mitigating the severity of regulatory enforcement action.

As one reader quipped,

Promontory has been running this scam for a long time. I used to be involved in Patriot Act/Anti Money Laundering Compliance industry working with the largest banks in the world. Every time there was a regulatory action, Promontory was brought in to be the overlord. The running joke was that there the OCC and FRB stapled Ludwig’s business card to consent orders.

Marcy Wheeler has called this the “Get Out of Jail Free industry”. But recently, Promontory’s most visible engagements have involved failed efforts at prettying up diseased managements. For instance, it told MF Global’s board that the broker-dealer had “robust risk management” a mere five months before it failed. And not only was this reading “absurdly sanguine,” but it was remarkably self-serving. Promontory was retained in 2009 to help implement reforms in the wake of an alleged trading scandals, so the report was an assessment of its own work. Similarly, Promontory prepared an analysis for Standard Chartered of wire transfers with Iran and other sanctioned countries, and reported only $14 million were out of compliance. The bank later admitted that at least $250 billion were impermissible, an over four order of magnitude difference.

Posted in Bank of America, Conspiracy, Debt, Endorsement, Everything Is Rigged, Fannie Mae, Foreclosure, Foreclosure fraud, Judicial Misconduct, Living Lies, MERS, Secondary debt market, Securities, Securitization Fail, Too big to fail, Washington, Wells Fargo | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

BANKING A DEATH CULT? FIRST SUICIDES, NOW MURDER

Posted on November 3, 2014 by eggsistense

What the hell is up with these bankers now?  We know they’ve been killing the economy for years, then they started actually killing themselves (supposed suicides) earlier this year, and now we have an employee of Bank of America charged with killing two women:

HONG KONG—A 29-year-old British banker appeared in court on Monday to face murder charges after police said they found two women dead in his apartment, with one body hidden in a suitcase.

Police said Rurik Jutting called them to his apartment early Saturday in an upscale building in the city’s Wan Chai district, an area popular with tourists and known for its night life. Until recently, he had been a Hong Kong-based employee of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said a person familiar with the matter.

A Bank of America employee, eh?  Not that surprising that a “corporate person” that arguably behaves like an economic psychopath would hire a natural person with apparently psychopathic tendencies.  In case throwing around the word “psychopath” in relation to a company like Bank of America sounds like hyperbole to you, consider some of the characteristics of psychopaths listed in this article:

-Tendency to participate in schemes and take calculated risks to minimize evidence or exposure.

–Tendency for premeditated crimes with controllable risks, criminal opportunism, fraud, calculated or opportunistic violence.

I’ll leave it to your imagination to apply those characteristics to certain actions that may or may not have been committed by Bank of America—but not only by Bank of America, to be sure.

Decapitation?

And by the way, if beheading is now considered the barbaric hallmark of terrorists, consider that Jutting—the now-former-but-probably-not-former-when-he-did-it employee of Bank of America nearly decapitated one of his victims:

A police source quoted by the South China Morning Post said: ‘She was nearly decapitated and her hands and legs were bound with ropes. ‘She was naked and wrapped in a towel before being stuffed into the suitcase. Her passport was found at the scene.’

WTF is that about?  What’s with the off-with-their-heads craze of late?  First ISIS, then two in Oklahoma (although the second didn’t quite go all the way, like Jutting’s attempt), and now this?

Posted in Bank of America, Psychopath | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

EBOLA: PANDEMIC OF TYRANNY CONTAINED FOR NOW

Posted on October 31, 2014 by eggsistense

Despite our questioning of judges in matters related to banks, it seems that judges sometimes do get it right, as in the case of Ebola nurse Kaci Hickox, who defied a mandatory quarantine and won:

FORT KENT, Maine (AP) — A Maine judge has rejected a bid by state health officials to restrict the movement of nurse Kaci Hickox, who defied a quarantine for medical workers who have treated Ebola patients.

Judge Charles C. LaVerdiere ruled Friday that she should continue daily monitoring and coordinate travel with state officials so monitoring can continue.But, because she’s not showing symptoms, the judge says she’s not infectious.

The state went to court Thursday to impose restrictions until the 21-day incubation period for Ebola ends on Nov. 10.

Hickox, who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, contended confinement at her home in northern Maine violated her rights.

She also contended it’s not necessary because she poses no risk. She defied the state’s voluntary quarantine by holding a news conference and going for a bike ride.

That statement in bold above is exactly right—the quarantine violated her rights.  And that is why this case is important, because Hickox stood up not only for her rights, but for all of our rights.  After all, nothing could please the state more than to have the power to detain someone with no symptoms for as long as the state would like to detain them.  Oh sure, it starts out reasonably—detain symptom-free medical professionals who work with Ebola patients.  If we allowed that, then why shouldn’t the state detain their symptom-free families and friends and friends of friends?  Hell, why not just declare martial law with curfews—after all, they’re just trying to keep us safe from a disease that is highly contagious…or not.

Ebola super-contagious?

That’s all we ever hear, about how super-contagious and deadly Ebola is.  However, Louise Troh, the fiancee of Thomas Eric Duncan–Ebola “Patient Zero”–never got Ebola and has now been released from quarantine and declared free of Ebola.  Troh was not infected even though, according to an interview with NBC in Dallas, she and Duncan had “intimate relations”:

Troh, who is now writing a memoir about her experience, reflected about how her fiance traveled from Liberia specifically to marry her in the United States. They had an intimate relationship when he arrived and they planned to continue their lives together. But that all changed when Duncan developed symptoms of the potentially deadly virus.

All the more reason that Hickox—and everyone else—should fight against mandatory quarantines in cases like that of Hickox.  As Hickox says in the CNN interview linked above (around 4-minute mark), the quarantine she faced was “not evidence-based” and “inhumane”—in other words, medical Gitmo.  Indeed, since even Duncan’s fiancee did not contract the dreaded disease, perhaps we are not being told the true nature of the sickness.  Could this be because non-evidence-based and inhumane detention (a/k/a “quarantine”) of the public at large is the wet dream of the state and “Ebola” provides the perfect excuse?  Just asking…

We are beginning to see that the real danger is likely not a pandemic of Ebola, but rather a pandemic of tyranny, if the state is given unchecked power to detain symptom-free people.

You may also be interested in a previous LRM Ebola article:

EBOLA FEARMONGERING UNJUSTIFIED

Posted in Ebola, Health issues, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment