Saturday, October 29, 2011

Market Chaos, status quo and government failure

Everyday I am more surprised at how gullible Americans have become regarding our economy system.  I just saw an article about a young woman who joined with the Occupy Wall Street Group telling her story of how she has been denied life saving treatment from her insurance company due to a preexisting condition.  Of course many people have commented on the article since this is such a controversial subject but at the heart of the matter is the "free market capitalist" system. 

The government has let the system get out of control by relying on the typical economic theories that live and breath inside of college textbooks but make no sense in reality.  The market does not level itself through free market trading or free enterprise.  The people who claim that is does are the ones that have the unfair advantage in an unregulated economy.  The invisible hand notion is complete bull shit.  The market itself will never find its equilibrium if left on its own.  The role of government is to level the playing field so the market is constantly level for participants.  The idea that government can let the free market offer opportunity to everyone is complete absurd.  The fact that money does not spread and trickle down into the economy the way free market pimps say it does is an idea for the simpletons. 

The fact that the average stock market trade is held for only 7 seconds and is driven by computer programs should open the eyes of most people.  However, those in power love the Status Quo because they continually benefit from the hypnotized masses believing that we are in the Free market economy that will be 100% efficient and provide access to everyone. 

In one sense, the assumption that there will eventually move towards equilibrium is typical of the kind of circular arguments of which economists are so fond. Balance is implied in the transactional structures. Balance sheets have to, well, balance; assets must match liabilities. Prices must reflect some sort of balance between supply and demand. That is what a price is. Debts must be repaid from income. And so on. In the artificial rules of finance, equilibrium is implicit. FROM Naked Capitalism

The insurance companies work in this environment where they are allowed to exploit people in order to make billions of dollars in profit and then declare bankruptcy if a natural disaster hits, or deny claims based on certain technical issues of a health care policy.  So left unregulated you see oil companies and insurance companies making billions of dollars in profits per quarter.  Now is this the free market finding it equalibrium or is it the free market finding its natural balance to be very top heavy?

Well if there is a reason for people to pay $4.00 a gallon for gasoline when oil companies are making record profits I would like to be informed of it.   And is it the free market system that is in balance that allows health care companies to profit in the billions as well while paying out millions in bonuses and salaries while denying lifesaving coverage due to preexisting condition?  Is it the system that is in natural balance that punishes people for losing their insurance by not allowing them coverage due to preexisting conditions rules that can now be enforced due to a lapse in coverage? 

There is nothing wrong with profits but the government needs to monitor the system to ensure people are not being exploited by unfair advantages of the large corporations.  Or that the system gives simple rules of exclusion to large companies because someone loses their job.  There has to be a way for insurance companies to profit and still not have the lame excuse of preexisting conditions just because someone has a lapse in coverage for a few months or a year.  It is with in the regulatory power to change the law that doesn't not allow for preexisting exclusions because someone has lost coverage for a short time or even a several months.  Why should they be allowed to punish someone for losing their insurance that they had paid for many years, only to lose the benefits they need and then be offered less coverage?  It is a shame and it is shameful for the politicians on capital hill to let it go on while they claim they are for the people. 

Profit is one thing and profiteering is another.  The system is not set up and run by those who benefit from the very lopsided natural unbalance of the markets and unfettered capitalism.  The government has failed its people the past 20 plus years.  The country is asleep and the media, especially the righteous talk radio bunch, total miss the point of the OWS protests.  They "smart" people on radio are not as bright as they claim. 

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Appellate Division of the State of New Jersey has reversed a summary judgment



Original Article can bee seen here at Foreclosure Defense Nationwide
The Appellate Division of the State of New Jersey has reversed a summary judgment which had been entered in favor of Aurora Loan Services, LLC. The opinion cited decisional law that a party must generally “own or control the underlying debt” in order to foreclose, and if the debt is evidenced by a negotiable instrument such as a promissory note, the determination whether a party owns or controls the underlying debt is governed by Article III of the UCC.
The Court found that Aurora was neither a holder of the note nor a person not in possession who is entitled to enforce, and that the Certification of Aurora’s “Vice President” did not state that she personally confirmed that the copies of the note, mortgage, and assignment were copies of originals in Aurora’s files.
More importantly, the Court found that the assignment, signed by a “Vice President” of MERS as nominee for Lehman Brothers, was ineffective first as there was no Certification by this VP or any other representatiive of MERS regarding the VP’s authority to execute the assignment or circumstances of the assignment. The problem with the assignment was further compounded by the fact that Lehman filed for Bankruptcy in 2008, which was before the date of what the Court termed the “purported assignment” in 2009, and the Court thus questioned whether Lehman’s designation of MERS as nominee remained in effect after Lehman filed BK absent ratification of that designation by the BK Trustee.
This same situation is present is many of our cases: the original lender (e.g. Lehman, WaMu, American Home Mortgage, Accredited Home Lenders, and others) files for BK, and the securitized trustee or servicer then purports to foreclose based on a post-BK filing assignment without any evidence that the assignment was permitted by the BK trustee. This opinion is what we believe to be the first which actually addresses this precise issue which relates directly to the threshold issues in any foreclosure of standing, real party in interest, and the “person entitled to enforce” issue under the UCC.
In Missouri, a probate Judge has dismissed a claim by HSBC Bank USA, N.A. as the claimed trustee of a series of Nomura ”Asset-Backed Certificates”, finding that HSBC is not a “person” under either of the Missouri statutes which permit a “person” to make a claim in a probate proceeding. The Motion which precipitated the dismissal characterized HSBC as Trustee for the certificates as “nothing more than a stack of paper”. Apparently the Court agreed, and found that HSBC had no standing to sue.
This decision is important as it relates directly to who can make a claim relating to a mortgage and note. If a particular state statute provides only that a “person” may institute a foreclosure, and the trustee of a series of MBS does not quality as a “person”, then there should be no standing for that trustee to foreclose. Obviously, the individual state statute must be consulted, but this ruling provides a new avenue of attack on securitized “trustees” seeking to make claims.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Dylan Ratigan Show discusses New Obama Housing plan and say it is woefully inadequate.

Dylan Ratigan has Bill Black on the show to discuss the Obama help for home owners plan and they get to the point of just how inadequate it is in reference to the problem.  Housing prices dropped are down another 3% from a year ago.  We are still in a negative spiral even though it is slowing the fall of prices but we are still have not hit bottom as a nation.  It is a big problem but no one in Washington wants to take on the big banks. Congress is part of the game being played and the American public is the left to hold the bag and pay the bill. 


Bank Exec are running Washington, Congress acts like bankers beeotch

This is excerpt from an article at Think Progress.  It relates to the OWS protests and the massive corruption going on in Washington DC.  It covers a few of the ways the Large Banks and the Wall Street Elite have taken over the government.  We have seen the current Obama Administration continue to hire former Wall Street Execs with ties to Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan along with the appointment of Chairman of GE Jeffrey Immelt.  We have seen the increase in Wall Street and money influence on the government and the White House as the economy has gotten worse.  The Congress and Obama have rewarded those with failed companies and those who had a hand in setting up the system that was bound to fail and that would allow bankers to pillage the tax payer for billions of dollars while the banksters commit massive acts of fraud.  The wait for justice has been too long, we have seen our economy and years of hard work and effort wiped out by government failures and corruption. 


As ThinkProgress has previously noted, the 99 Percent Movement has been set off thanks to long-standing economic inequities and and a recession caused primarily by Wall Street’s misdeeds. But Wall Street did not engage in reckless financial behavior — which plunged 64 million people worldwide into extreme poverty — in a vacuum. In order to engage in these practices that brought the world’s economy to its knees, Wall Street had to make sure that the federal government based in Washington, DC would both de-regulate the financial industry (and provide lax oversight) and that Congress and the Federal Reserve would bail out banks with few strings attached if they were in danger of failing. The way the financial industry and big banks won this kid glove treatment from the federal government is by occupying Washington — flooding it with campaign contributions, lobbyists, and its own staffers and executives to occupy key positions of power.
 
ThinkProgress has assembled a rundown of three ways Wall Street has occupied Washington: 1. Wall Street Occupies Washington With Massive Campaign Contributions: On Nov. 12, 1999 President Bill Clinton signed into law the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a Depression-era law that created a firewall between commercial and investment banking. Repealing this law was one of the top legislative goals of the financial industry. In the 1998 election cycle, commercial banks spent $18 million on congressional campaign contributions, with 65 percent going to Republicans and 35 percent going to Democrats. Securities and investment firms donated over $40 million. The mega-bank Citibank spent $1,954,191 during that cycle, and it was soon able to merge with Travelers Group as a result of the repeal of banking regulations.

Between 2008 and 2010, when new financial regulations were being written following the financial crisis, the finance, insurance, and real estate industries spent $317 million in federal campaign contributions, with $73 million of that coming from Political Action Committees (PACs). The hold of campaign contributions is starkly bipartisan. As Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) explained to Real Clear Politics in an interview last year, he couldn’t get a vote on a windfall profits tax on bonuses at bailed out banks due to campaign contributors. “I couldn’t even get a vote,” Webb explained. “And it wasn’t because of the Republicans. I mean they obviously weren’t going to vote for it. But I got so much froth from Democrats saying that any vote like that was going to screw up fundraising.” 2. Wall Street Occupies Washington With Its Lobbyists: One way to control what Washington lawmakers do is to give them access to exclusive funding streams that allow them to finance their campaigns. But yet another is to control the stream of information. From the deregulatory period of 1998 to 2009, the financial sector spent $3.3 billion on lobbyists. In 2007, the financial industry employed 2,996 separate lobbyists, five for every member of Congress.

During the debate over financial reform last year, the industry flooded the nation’s capital with its own lobbyists. On just one issue — regulating derivatives — financial industry lobbyists outnumbered consumer group lobbyists and other pro-reform advocates by 11 to 1. In fact, by 2010, the industry had hired a whopping 1,600 former federal employees as lobbyists. Included among these lobbyists were high-ranking former public leaders like former Democratic House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (MO) and Kenneth Duberstein, Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff. Much of this lobbying is done through elite K Street firms that specialize in hiring government insiders. Yet there are also bank-funded front groups like the Chamber of Commerce that deploy lobbyists on behalf of the big banks. 3. Wall Street Literally Occupies Washington By Placing Its Staff In Government Positions: Shortly after Clinton signed into law the repeal of the firewall between commercial and investment banking, his Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs alumni Robert Rubin left the government to work for newly-formed Citigroup — whose merger was only possible thanks to the policies Rubin championed and enacted. His compensation at Citigroup topped $15 million, not including stock options.
 READ THE REST HERE

Wall Street Protesters Seeking Bank Curbs Focus on City Halls Across U.S. - Bloomberg

Wall Street Protesters Seeking Bank Curbs Focus on City Halls Across U.S. - Bloomberg

More "help" for struggling homeowners and communities


This is a paragraph from an article written by Yves Smith At Naked Capitalism. READ the full article HERE The details of the new Obama plan to help his image, because it certainly doesn't look like it will help any homeowners. It is clear the administration is not going to hold the banks accountable for their fraudulent behavior. The government is afraid to step on the toes of the banks. It could not be more clear in this proposal. It is a pointless attempt at PR for Obama. The government is being run by the TBTF Banks. They two-the government and the TBTF banks have merged into one giant machine of propaganda and lies that is conducting a massive attempt to bury as much of the truth as possible. " This plan is yet more proof that this Administration is not about to inconvenience banks to help homeowners and communities. It has tools in its power than would change the incentive for banks and make them far more willing to do what the overwhelming majority of mortgage investors would prefer, which is provide deep principal mods for viable borrowers. Forcing banks to write down seconds, and taking an aggressive stance on foreclosure fraud would restructuring debt more attractive than it is now. But just as the banks and their captured governments in Europe seem intent on grinding down entire economies to extract their pound of flesh, so are banks in the US continuing to operate a doomsday machine that grind up housing with no regard for the economic and social costs. "

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Where is the New Blood in Congress? What about the Elections? Same old Same old in Washington. Bill Black tells the story.

   This article gets to the heart of the matter regarding how the massive failures by government have derailed the capitalist system and allowed pillaging of bankers who bought off all politicians to create a completely anti regulatory environment.  The lie that regulation is the biggest job killer is always told to allow the oligarchs to gain billions in profits with fraudulent behavior.  We are being let down by the government.  We don't need socialism or communism to ruin the country, because the so called "capitalists" are doing the job.  What blows me away is that how easily the masses have fallen for this book of lies.  Those at the top want to eliminate competition. It is not the OWS protesters who want to eliminate competition, they just want a reasonable shot at making a good living.  The oligarchs, elites and banksters want to squash all competition.  Why is it better to be wealthy and try to eliminate the free market than it is to be middle class and just want to have a legitimate form of Capitalism?  This is what all the talk radio voices are saying as well as the politicians.  We are accepting the elimination of competition because it benefits the upper levels of society.  They are monopolizes opportunity and our government has done nothing. 


Article from Bill Black posted originally on New Economic Perspectives and Naked Capitalism. 


Bill Black: The Anti-Regulators Are the Job Killers




By Bill Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a former senior financial regulator, and the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives.



The new mantra of the Republican Party is the old mantra – regulation is a “job killer.” It is certainly possible to have regulations kill jobs, and when I was a financial regulator I was a leader in cutting away many dumb requirements. We have just experienced the epic ability of the anti-regulators to kill well over ten million jobs. Why then is there not a single word from the new House leadership about investigations to determine how the anti-regulators did their damage? Why is there no plan to investigate the fields in which inadequate regulation most endangers jobs? While we’re at it, why not investigate the areas in which inadequate regulation allows firms to maim and kill. This column addresses only financial regulation.



Deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization (the three “des”) created the criminogenic environment that drove the modern U.S. financial crises. The three “des” were essential to create the epidemics of accounting control fraud that hyper-inflated the bubble that triggered the Great Recession. “Job killing” is a combination of two factors – increased job losses and decreased job creation. I’ll focus solely on private sector jobs – but the recession has also been devastating in terms of the loss of state and local governmental jobs.
From 1996-2000, for example, annual private sector gross job increases rose from roughly 14 million to 16 million while annual private sector gross job losses increased from 12 to 13 million. The annual net job increases in those years, therefore, rose from two million to three million. Over that five year period, the net increase in private sector jobs was over 10 million. One common rule of thumb is that the economy needs to produce an annual net increase of about 1.5 million jobs to employ new entrants to our workforce, so the growth rate in this era was large enough to make the unemployment and poverty rates fall significantly.
The Great Recession (which officially began in the third quarter of 2007) shows why the anti-regulators are the premier job killers in America. Annual private sector gross job losses rose from roughly 12.5 to a peak of 16 million and gross private sector job gains fell from approximately 13 to 10 million. As late as March 2010, after the official end of the Great Recession, the annualized net job loss in the private sector was approximately three million (that job loss has now turned around, but the increases are far too small). Again, we need net gains of roughly 1.5 million jobs to accommodate new workers, so the total net job losses plus the loss of essential job growth was well over 10 million during the Great Recession. These numbers, again, do not include the large job losses of state and local government workers, the dramatic rise in underemployment, the sharp rise in far longer-term unemployment, and the salary/wage (and job satisfaction) losses that many workers had to take to find a new, typically inferior, job after they lost their job. It also ignores the rise in poverty, particularly the scandalous increase in children living in poverty.



The Great Recession was triggered by the collapse of the real estate bubble epidemic of mortgage fraud by lenders that hyper-inflated that bubble. That epidemic could not have happened without the appointment of anti-regulators to key leadership positions. The epidemic of mortgage fraud was centered in loans that the lending industry (behind closed doors) referred to as “liar’s” loans – so any regulatory leader who was not an anti-regulatory ideologue would (as we did in 1990-1990 during the first wave of liar’s loans in California) have ordered banks not to make these pervasively fraudulent loans. One of the problems was the existence of a “regulatory black hole” – most of the nonprime loans were made by lenders not regulated by the federal government. That black hole, however, conceals two broader federal anti-regulatory problems. The federal regulators actively made the black hole more severe by preempting state efforts to protect the public from predatory and fraudulent loans. Greenspan and Bernanke are particularly culpable. In addition to joining the jihad state regulation, the Fed had unique federal regulatory authority under HOEPA (enacted in 1994) to fill the black hole and regulate any housing lender (authority that Bernanke finally used, after liar’s loans had ended, in response to Congressional criticism). The Fed also had direct evidence of the frauds and abuses in nonprime lending because Congress mandated that the Fed hold hearings on predatory lending.


The S&L debacle, the Enron era frauds, and the current crisis were all driven by accounting control fraud. The three “des” are critical factors in creating the criminogenic environments that drive these epidemics of accounting control fraud. The regulators are the “cops on the beat” when it comes to stopping accounting control fraud. If they are made ineffective by the three “des” then cheaters gain a competitive advantage over honest firms. This makes markets perverse and causes recurrent crises.


From roughly 1999 to the present, three administrations have displayed hostility to vigorous regulation and have appointed regulatory leaders largely on the basis of their opposition to vigorous regulation. When these administrations occasionally blundered and appointed, or inherited, regulatory leaders that believed in regulating the administration attacked the regulators. In the financial regulatory sphere, recent examples include Arthur Levitt and William Donaldson (SEC), Brooksley Born (CFTC), and Sheila Bair (FDIC). Similarly, the bankers used Congress to extort the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) into trashing the accounting rules so that the banks no longer had to recognize their losses. The twin purposes of that bit of successful thuggery were to evade the mandate of the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) law and to allow banks to pretend that they were solvent and profitable so that they could continue to pay enormous bonuses to their senior officials based on the fictional “income” and “net worth” produced by the scam accounting. (Not recognizing one’s losses increases dollar-for-dollar reported, but fictional, net worth and gross income.) When members of Congress (mostly Democrats) sought to intimidate us into not taking enforcement actions against the fraudulent S&Ls we blew the whistle. Congress investigated Speaker Wright and the “Keating Five” in response. I testified in both investigations. Why is the new House leadership announcing its intent to give a free pass to the accounting control frauds, their political patrons, and the anti-regulators that created the criminogenic environment that hyper-inflated the financial bubble that triggered the Great Recession and caused such a loss of integrity? The anti-regulators subverted the rule of law and allowed elite frauds to loot with impunity. Why isn’t the new House leadership investigating that disgrace as one of their top priorities? Why is the new House leadership so eager to repeat the job killing mistakes of taking the regulatory cops off their beat?



For anyone still believing the Too Big To Fail Banks are helping the country

 Here is a portion of a great article posted on Washington's Blog.  It goes into great detail to reveal numerous financial experts have stated that the economy will not recovery unless TBTF is takin off the table.  You can read the full article at Washington's Blog " The only way to save the economy: Break up the giant, insolvent banks"


The following top economists and financial experts believe that the economy cannot recover unless the big, insolvent banks are broken up in an orderly fashion:
  • Dean and professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, R. Glenn Hubbard
  • The leading monetary economist and co-author with Milton Friedman of the leading treatise on the Great Depression, Anna Schwartz
  • Economics professor and senior regulator during the S & L crisis, William K. Black
  • Professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the Chicago Booth School of Business, Luigi Zingales
In addition, many top economists and financial experts, including Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer – who was Ben Bernanke’s thesis adviser at MIT – say that – at the very least – the size of the financial giants should be limited.
Even the Bank of International Settlements – the “Central Banks’ Central Bank” – has slammed too big to fail. As summarized by the Financial Times:
The report was particularly scathing in its assessment of governments’ attempts to clean up their banks. “The reluctance of officials to quickly clean up the banks, many of which are now owned in large part by governments, may well delay recovery,” it said, adding that government interventions had ingrained the belief that some banks were too big or too interconnected to fail.
This was dangerous because it reinforced the risks of moral hazard which might lead to an even bigger financial crisis in future.
And as I noted in December 2008, the big banks are the major reason why sovereign debt has become a crisis:
BIS points out in a new report that the bank rescue packages have transferred significant risks onto government balance sheets, which is reflected in the corresponding widening of sovereign credit default swaps:
The scope and magnitude of the bank rescue packages also meant that significant risks had been transferred onto government balance sheets. This was particularly apparent in the market for CDS referencing sovereigns involved either in large individual bank rescues or in broad-based support packages for the financial sector, including the United States. While such CDS were thinly traded prior to the announced rescue packages, spreads widened suddenly on increased demand for credit protection, while corresponding financial sector spreads tightened.
In other words, by assuming huge portions of the risk from banks trading in toxic derivatives, and by spending trillions that they don’t have, central banks have put their countries at risk from default.
Similarly, a study of 124 banking crises by the International Monetary Fund found that propping banks which are only pretending to be solvent hurts the economy:
Existing empirical research has shown that providing assistance to banks and their borrowers can be counterproductive, resulting in increased losses to banks, which often abuse forbearance to take unproductive risks at government expense. The typical result of forbearance is a deeper hole in the net worth of banks, crippling tax burdens to finance bank bailouts, and even more severe credit supply contraction and economic decline than would have occurred in the absence of forbearance.
Cross-country analysis to date also shows that accommodative policy measures (such as substantial liquidity support, explicit government guarantee on financial institutions’ liabilities and forbearance from prudential regulations) tend to be fiscally costly and that these particular policies do not necessarily accelerate the speed of economic recovery.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Add Dave Ramsey to list of OWS Trashers

You can add Dave Ramsey to the list of radio show hosts that have no idea what OWS is trying to accomplish.  You can also add him to the list of arrogant pricks who peddles himself on the radio to sell products and generate income.  Pay no attention to the matter that a lot of what he says is not true, pure speculation or hyperbole.   Last night I heard him giving a lecture on the fact that because people were protesting and upset that it AUTOMATICALLY meant they wanted something for nothing and that they didn't understand how money worked.  He further went on to imply that people were stupid and suggested that these protesters had a flawed concept about how money works.  He then went on to tell some bull shit story his Rabi told him that was such a load of crap I couldn't believe he would even repeat it.  He tried to convince the audience that everywhere money is used it is making money.  He also said that that them money would grow every time it was used as if it were magic.  He failed to mention anything about interest and compounding interest, or how paying high interest fees can make a money exchange a lose for one person and win for the other.  He wrongfully tries to apply his own theory that the "pie" as he called was ever expanding.  He made it sound like all you had to do was have a piece of junk in your garage and some stranger would come up and offer money for it that was less than you would have to pay to haul it away.  and then conveniently he said this guy was able to sell it this piece of junk to someone else for more money and yee ha everybody wins. 

Interesting thought but it is bull shit.  His concept of real money is not about how the real money system works.  He is confusing the spiritual concept of infinite abundance with the real world concept of paper dollars, gold bars, green backs, foldies or whatever you want to call currency today.
He also falsely blamed the economic solely on the fact that people are afraid to invest and to spend now so that was the entire problem.  He mentioned nothing about the trillions of dollars that were vaporized out of the economy, made no mention of millions of people that are unemployed and he made no mention that our money supply system is run by the Federal reserve and that what gives money velocity is the ability for it to be lent out at higher interest rates that the borrowee is currently paying and more significantly by the banking laws that allow banks to loan out 10 dollars for every dollar they have in their deposit accounts. 

He also made no mention of the fact that banks are hoarding capital and will not lend on a depreciating asset to the tune of 200k large.  You don't see banks lending that kind of money on vehicles  and they certainly won't do it on real estate that could be another 10 % less in a month.  Even with a substantial down payment banks are reluctant to take the risk because the last thing they want now is to add to their back log of foreclosures. 

So another self righteous blow hard is out to deny the OWS protesters their right to protest namely because they are too stupid to know how the money system works and only people as smart as Dave can tell the world the absolute truth.  His pitch is total bull shit.  The system is based on leverage and credit and if we have neither it doesn't matter how many pieced of junk you sell out of your garage, the economy will still suck.  Not tot to mention the fact that if the item in the garage was worth anything it probably would not have been slated delivery to the local dump. 

If he wanted to explain this ditty as how we need to live spiritually and how our faith affects our view of money and our interaction with it, then I would have less of a problem with the analogy.   However, as it stands it was just a simplified story that evidently turned on a light switch in Dave Ramey's head that said hey if I tell some stupid story that I say is from a Rabbi, it will give me credibility and people will not realize" I am just on the radio to hawk my books and to sell tickets to my seminars."
Didn't work on everyone this time. 

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Michael Savage and talk radio bash OWS to save corporate sponsorship?

Sorry Michael Savage you have gotten it wrong this time.

Michael Savage claims to be a man of the people and a man that believes in the principals of the USA and
complains of being banned from Britain.  He milks this story for publicity when no one really cares if he is banned from anywhere.  Even though he is a very popular radio show host with opinions that I often agree with, he is not representative of American principals on the subject of OWS.  At first he seemed to have some empathy for the movement but quickly turned against it claiming it was a vast left wing conspiracy being run by the likes of George Soros and the Keebler Elves working behind the scenes at the White House.

It should come to no surprise, however, that the vast majority of conservative talk radio has been overtly critical of OWS.  It is funny that they claim to be all about the Bill of Rights when it is protecting their ability to put their drivel over the airways but when it comes to the protesting of the masses they immediately turn tail and run.  The logical question is why?

Why would these "defenders" of the Constitution be so opposed to peaceful protests by those who believe they are being screwed over by the systemic dismantling of the American Economy and they obliteration of the Free Market Capitalist System?

Could it be their own Greed?  There insatiable narcissistic hunger to be the only voice in  America?  Could it be that they are equally as bought and paid for by corporate America much like the current President and Congress? Or could it be that they are just far to insulated  from the real world?

Of course this is up for debate and many loyal talk radio show followers will never question their Radio Show Gods and the hosts seem to revel in this treatment.  But it is rather unfortunate that all of those naysayers, the self righteous cohort that still believes we are living in the 70's and 80's when there was far more opportunity to pull yourself up from our bootstraps, is missing the boat.

Free speech in America has given rise to the narcissist that is becoming the most sought after personality type in the entertainment industry.  What used to be a mechanism for debate and an important factor in amplifying the voice of the minority is now just a marketing pulpit for the self serving and self absorbed.  How else could you value your opinion so much?  The Talk Radio genre has become on more corporate are that has set out to push the agenda of who has the biggest mouth.  A free advertisement for pedaling opinions and products of the radio show hosts.

Does anyone think these "best selling" authors would be successful enough to have belling books on multiple occasions without being able to self promote freely on a daily basis?  I doubt it. 

It is unfortunate that Savage and his contemporaries can not fathom what it is like to be in someones shoes other than their own.  The majority of people that are in support of OWS are hard working, devoted and loyal Americans who feel let down by our government and abused by the Too Big To Fail Banks, and swindled by politicians.  It is not hard to see if you just pay attention.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Dylan Ratigan interviews Beau Biden on housing meltdwon and investigations in to bank fraud.

Here is another great interview from the Dylan Ratigan Show.  Ratigan has taken to the cause of battling corruption and is leading a fight to get money out of politics.  He is getting people on his show that are speaking the truth about our housing meltdown and how the banks have decimated the housing market. Here is an interview with Delaware attorney general Beau Biden on the housing crisis and investigating the banks

A few reasons for OWS and not one of them has to do with asking to get something for nothing!



Here are some of the real reasons people are Occupying Wall Street and not one of them has to do with asking for something for nothing, that right is left for the criminal bankers, corrupt politicians and anyone else involved in ruining the US Economy and wiping out the housing market along the way.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Ernest Markey lost his stone-cutting business in 2009. He then sold his home for half a million dollars less than its value at the peak of the housing bubble and moved with his wife, Marie, to a smaller home in a less affluent suburb. They gave up two new cars and bought one. Used.
The Markeys have since patched together a semblance of their old life, opening a new stone-cutting shop. But they do not expect that they will ever recover financially from the loss of equity in their old home.
“For two years I kept thinking that things would get better,” Mr. Markey, 51, said as he stood in his empty store on a recent weekday. “Now I think the future doesn’t look so good.”
The United States has a confidence problem: a nation long defined by irrational exuberance has turned gloomy about tomorrow. Consumers are holding back, businesses are suffering and the economy is barely growing.
There are good reasons for gloom — incomes have declined, many people cannot find jobs, few trust the government to make things better — but as Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, noted earlier this year, those problems are not sufficient to explain the depth of the funk.
That has led a growing number of economists to argue that the collapse of housing prices, a defining feature of this downturn, is also a critical and under appreciated impediment to recovery. Americans have lost a vast amount of wealth, and they have lost faith in housing as an investment. They lack money, and they lack the confidence that they will have more money tomorrow.
Many say they believe that the bust has permanently changed their financial trajectory.
“People don’t expect their home to regain value, and that’s really led to a change in consumer attitudes about the economy that we’ve just never seen before,” said Richard Curtin, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan who directs its Survey of Consumers. The latest data from the survey, released Friday by Thomson Reuters, shows that expectations for economic growth have fallen to the lowest level since May 1980.
 I have been writing about this very thing for over 3 years.  It has been a vast conspiracy of the banksters, media, and the government to keep telling people that the housing crisis will all blow over if we just let the banks off the hook.  This is total bullshit and the media has been feeding it down the gullet of the brainwashed lower middle class for months.  The self righteous jack asses that keep condemning the OWS protests as if it is a badge of honor to be screwed by the 1%.  Those against the protests are so blind to their own connection with the real world.  This article points out what it is like in the real world where people are running businesses, were running businesses and employing people, or now just trying to survive because they lost everything. 
I don't get it on one hand but on the other hand I do.  People take pride in seeing other people failing if they had done well in the past, they are happy to say see I told you so even though in any other ear in history the risk takers have always been the leaders.  So now is your chance for those who were always afraid to strike out on your own, always afraid to risk a penny in investment and always resenting those who were willing to take risks to give them your "I told you so".  You can do it and get great satisfaction out of it even though the entire country is suffering due to all that you fail to see. 

In Orlando, a city that trades in upbeat fantasies, the housing crash has been particularly painful. The total value of area homes has fallen below the total mortgage debt on those homes, according to the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic. In the parlance of the real estate world, Orlando is underwater, a distinction matched by Las Vegas.
“I don’t know that it’s going to get better. We just have to get used to it,” said Sherry DeWeese, whose home in Ocoee, a northwestern suburb of Orlando, is worth less than she paid for it 13 years ago — and about a third of its value at the peak of the market. “It was nothing to buy whatever we wanted. Now we just think about what we really need.”

Economists have only recently devoted serious study to how a decline in housing prices affects consumer spending, not least because this is the first decline in the average price of an American home since the Great Depression.
Yes because most people thought the government knew better than to let the Wall Street Criminals ruin the best thing going for the American Economy.  There is  no other way for people to build a nest egg.  It was the Golden Goose for retirement and it was source of revenue for schools and local governments and it was part of the American Dream that provided security to Americans as well as a social safety net that gave people something to fall back on in case of emergency.  Now people are starting to believe that it will never be a source of anything for them, of course other than a burden as they try to move for work, or to sell so they can downsize in retirement. All of you that made it to retirement with enough to live are very fortunate because thousands of people have done all the right things over the years and have gotten shafted. 

A recent paper by Karl E. Case, an economics professor at Wellesley College, and two co-authors estimated the decline in home prices from 2005 to 2009 caused consumer spending to be $240 billion lower in 2010 than it otherwise would have been. That figure is equal to about 1.7 percent of annual economic activity, enough to be the difference between the mediocre recent growth and healthy growth. And it does not include all the other effects of the housing crash, including the low level of new home construction, that are also weighing on the economy.
Roy Pugsley, who owns a pool supply store in Winter Garden, another suburb here, said that he made 2,500 fewer sales during the first eight months of 2011 compared with the same period in 2007. That translates to one less person walking through the doors to buy chemicals or toys or spare parts in each hour that the store is open.
Mr. Pugsley said business actually increased in the early days of the recession; customers had told him they were spending more time at home. But now people buy only what they need for maintenance. “People realized that it wasn’t going to get any better, and they stopped spending on their pools, too,” he said.
At Milcarsky’s Appliance Center in the adjacent town of Longwood, business now comes from people remodeling their own homes rather than builders, and customers are picking cheaper models, said Doug Morey, a sales manager.
“People who might have bought that” — he taps a stove with chunky burners, designed to look like it belongs in a restaurant kitchen — “are double-thinking it. Everyone has had to cut back.”
That means Milcarsky’s has cut back too. The company, which employed 26 people three years ago, now has about a dozen workers, and they are making less in salary and commissions.

“I might like to think that I’m middle class, but I’m not. I’m not anymore,” said Rae-Anne Crotty, a customer service manager at the store. She now shops for groceries at discount stores, she said, and buys gifts for her children at Christmas but not on their birthdays.
It remains the prevailing view of economic policy makers that economic activity will eventually return to the same trajectory as before the recession. Mr. Bernanke and others have said that they see no evidence of any permanent change in the economy. Previous bouts of economic pessimism, as in the early 1980s and early 1990s, went away once growth picked up.
But many people in the Orlando area do not share this confidence, at least not when it comes to their own prospects. Instead, like the Markeys, they are settling into lives of less prosperity.
The couple moved to Orlando 12 years ago from central Massachusetts in search of opportunities. The business Mr. Markey created, Stone Giant, grew to include two factories and 60 employees, and it installed granite countertops in up to 15 new kitchens every day.
His new company, Winter Park Granite, now installs two kitchens on the average day. He has eight employees but cannot afford health insurance for them or himself. The family income last year was less than a third of the $175,000 that he and his wife made in 2007, their last good year.
And he sees little room for growth. He has stopped spending money on advertising.
“We’re never going to get that big again,” he said. “I was someone employing people and taking people to the good life. Now I’m just trying to survive.”


Gloom Grips Consumers, and It May Be Home Prices - Yahoo! Finance

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Is Middle America missing the point of OWS?

This is an example of how simple some people are when it comes to Wall Street and Big Business.

I heard a caller on a talk radio show come on the air and express her anger of the OWS protests because according to her these people OWS were not able to survive in life and be put out into the woods and told to survive for 3 days.  She said this was what they needed because they were protesting because they wanted something for nothing.  She also went on to say that the top executives or the large corporations were there because they earned it and worked every single job at that company to work their way up for the ground floor.  She said they started with nothing and now deserve their salary. 

I am shocked more and more by the stupidity of the American Public.  (SEE MORE HERE) Evidently this woman doesn’t understand the reality that the majority of CEO types are Harvard Business School graduates and they have never worked a real job a day in their life.  The majority of Harvard Business School or other elite Ivy League schools are the feeding ground for the top companies on Wall Street.  The students don’t get into these top business schools because they are under privileged or lower class.  They are from pedigree that makes a different on the way of Wall Street.  There is no surprises were these people come from and once they get into the network they never have to leave.  You can see all the CEO’s that have failed miserable to only get picked up with another company weeks later for another huge salary.  It is ridiculous how uninformed people are about the reality of the oligarchs running the system. 

The self righteous are so proud of what they have done but they forget times have changed and circumstances are different than they were 20 years ago when you had a more realistic chance to pull yourself up from your boot straps.  Hard work does mean something but it means little if we are not living in an economic system that provides enough equal opportunity for all, not just the oligarchs. 

This is so typical, however, of the previous generation’s ignorance to their surroundings.  They spent their earning years caring little about how the country was being overtaking by the political elite, that our country was failing to defend its people and that the media was bought and paid for much the same way politicians are today.  Now that people are unhappy with the legacy left behind, those who left it behind now think it is their right to boast about how they made it with no help so everyone else can do it too.  What they fail to realize is that starting out fresh out of college or looking for a fresh new career is not affording the opportunity that was available 20 years ago. 

I have worked very hard all my life. I never expected anything for free and started with nothing.  I didn’t even have a car to use to get to work.  I spent 15 years working 70 and 80 hours a week to get ahead and finally thought I had gotten some where when I had build up a nice real estate portfolio that was to be my future and my retirement.  I never bought with no money down and always put 20 and 30% down on my loans.  I invested millions of dollars in property and improvements to provide quality living conditions for hundreds of people.  I always re invested what I earned and in 2003 and 2004 I put over 700,000 of my earnings in to property as down payments.  It was all wiped out within 3 years.
Now all of you self righteous assholes tell me what you would do if you lost that much of your income and retirement fund.  What would you be doing now if you lost your business? What would you do if that was the only thing you ever knew how to do or wanted to do?  What would you be doing this had happened and your skills did not translate in to job offers when you wanted to go back into the work force.  What would you do when you had no unemployment?  What would you do when you entire safety net was wiped out by the fraudulent banking activity and the Wall Street criminal behavior?  What would you do when no longer had health insurance?  Speak up now assholes because until you have to go through a realistic situation you are just full of it. 

I am so sick of you commenting on something you know nothing about and that you are afraid to say anything because you are worried you will be talking against capitalism and free markets.  Well assholes we don’t have a free market and we have not a free market for years.  The only thing now is that it is even worse that it was 10 years ago and the economy and government has become an oligarchy.   The next time you want to spout off with your self-righteous drivel think about this for a moment.  Think about the people that have lost everything thanks to the rampant fraud in the banking system.  Think about all the millions of dollars paid in salaries and bonuses to those who created this system that was designed to fail to screw everyone but an elite few.  Then open your mouth and tell me I want something for nothing or that I don’t know what it is like to work hard. 

Better yet, instead of being a mouth piece for stupidity when don’t you open your eyes to reality and see that you are blinded by your own hubris.  Get over yourself and see that the system has changed and we are not getting the opportunities to put our talents and hard work into a business or job.  Try seeing things through someone elses' eyes for once and stop being a self absorbed jack ass.  Open your eyes before you ruin it for your grand kids.  You are already half way there. 

Monday, October 17, 2011

Is Anyone Dumb Enough to Believe that Obama Supports the 99%?

Is Anyone Dumb Enough to Believe that Obama Supports the 99%?

Dylan Ratigan and OWS you have to see this

You have to see this Video. Finally someone with enough stones to come out and say what is really happening and to tell the truth. We are getting screwed by the government and the banking system and they all of the above are milking the system and milking the tax payer. Wake up people because if you don't you will be leaving your grandchildren a world without opportunity. Use your brain and start to think about the situation and stop drinking the Kool Aid. You have let it go on for years now without saying a word and now is the time to fight back.

STOP the Zombie Banks | Golem XIV - Thoughts

STOP the Zombie Banks | Golem XIV - Thoughts

Friday, October 14, 2011

Seven in 10 See Wall Street Negatively - Yahoo!

Seven in 10 Americans have an unfavorable impression of the financial institutions on Wall Street, a point of resonance with the protesters camped out in Lower Manhattan and elsewhere. But while that sentiment is broadly shared, its intensity rests heavily on political partisanship.
Groups such as Democrats and liberals express the most negative views of Wall Street in this ABC News/Washington Post poll. Conservatives and Republicans are less apt to slam the brokers and bankers, and more likely to direct their ire at the federal government.
Given this partisan and ideological cast, the results make the Occupy Wall Street movement look like an expression, on the left, of the same kind of frustration voiced by the Tea Party movement, on the right.
Overall, this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, finds that 70 percent of Americans see Wall Street unfavorably, and essentially as many, 68 percent, hold an unfavorable opinion of the government in Washington. Negative views of Wall Street soar to 84 percent among liberal Democrats, versus 59 percent among conservative Republicans. Negative views of the government in Washington, meanwhile, reach 89 percent among conservative Republicans, versus 57 percent among liberal Democrats.
Sharp differences also appear in intensity of sentiment, an important measure because people with strong views can be more motivated to act on them. Fifty-six percent of liberal Democrats have a “strongly” negative opinion of Wall Street, as opposed to 32 percent of conservative Republicans. By contrast, 69 percent of conservative Republicans have a strongly negative view of the federal government, compared with 32 percent of liberal Democrats.
Partisanship isn’t the only factor in views of Wall Street. It’s rated more negatively by better-off Americans, and more strongly negatively by those approaching retirement age, two groups that may have been particularly exposed to the market’s troubles.
Among Americans age 50 to 64, 55 percent have a strongly unfavorable view of Wall Street institutions, markedly higher than among other age groups. (Indeed, Wall Street’s unfavorable ratings actually ease off among young adults.) And overall negative views rise from 66 percent in less-than $50,000 households to 78 percent among those who are better off.
ET TU, MEDIA? – A third group tested in this survey does better – or less worse – in comparison: 53 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the national news media. While no bunch of roses, that’s significantly better than either the feds or Wall Street.
But the media, too, engender political and ideological divisions. They’re rated unfavorably by 69 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of conservative Republicans. That declines to 45 percent of Democrats, and similar numbers of liberals and moderates alike.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

New Flash: Times have changed

I have been seeing a lot of comments on line from people saying negative things about the Occupy Wall Street protests and I am a little shocked. It seems like there is a large portion of the working population that likes paying taxes that amount to over half of their pay. It seems that many of these people are so proud of the fact that they work hard and pay taxes that they don't think there are any problems with the economy or with the financial system that has banks living off their tax dollars. It is beyond me as how people could be so blind. These are the very people that fall for the government argument that the financial system would have collapsed had we not bailed out Wall Street and the large corporations that were failing. The fantasy that the money was ever paid back from TARP seemingly went unquestioned by the public just as has the blatant fraud and criminal activity that has gone on with MERS and abuses to the chain of title laws that have served as a foundation to our country. I have news for all of you who think the rich on Wall Street are on your side, I have news for you if you think your sour side, I have news for you if you think your stock broker or pension fund manager is on your side and the news is they are not on your side. What is going on in the stock market is being fueled by high frequency trading by a very few select fund managers. The ability to manipulate stock is clearly apparent. There has been ridiculous swings in volatility that have happened on very low volume trading. The Wall Street Elite has effectively pushed out individual traders as per their mission to control all of the wealth in the country. They ruined the housing market for the little guy and have pillaged the middle class investor and left them out in the cold. First of all unless you have 25000 or more in a margin account you are not allowed to day trade. If you trade the same stock- buy and sell a particular stock on the same day it can get your account frozen. For example if you buy Google in the morning and sell it in the afternoon you have have used up one strike against you. If you do this more than 3 times over any 5 day period your account will be locked. Now with electronic trading there is very little chance that these trades will not go through or be reversed but the law gives the advantage to the bigger traders who can move a stock price from high to low in one day. If you have a gain and want to take it you have to be careful don't day trade more than 4 times or you will get locked out. The other issue is that unless you have a margin account, along with your 25000 balance, you can not day trade. If you are starting with 10,000 you can't day trade and unless you are approved to trade on margin you can't day trade anyway. The reasoning has been to avoid the stock market to be taken over by "unsophisticated" traders. The label is of course is derogatory and insults the intelligence of Americans. It also has been said that this was for the protection of individuals. However, it just puts up a barrier to entry rather than protect anyone. This is the United States of America and people are unable to invest their money and trade their stocks unless they have a substantial amount of money.

It would seem after the wiping out of trillions of dollars of wealth in real estate, stocks, pension funds, 401 k's and the like, that most people would see the disparity of opportunity that exists and it getting larger.  But what I hear most is people complaining that the protesters should not be complaining and that they should go out and get a job and pay more taxes. 

Now picture yourself a college graduate fresh out of school unable to find a job that pays enough to cover the bills and pay your student loans, and set aside something for your future.  Even if you don't understand how this would feel, you should be able to see how it is not a good sigh for the country.  If the current generation will have a lower standard of living than the prior generation it is a problem.  It is especially a big problem when gas prices are 10 times higher than 30 years ago or that food prices have skyrocketed while wages have gone down when adjusted for inflation.

The protests are not about getting something for free or for having a hand out.  Our country is based on opportunity for each and everyone.  We are taught that if we work hard you can always get ahead.  No matter what the self righteous will say or how they will insist they did it so everyone else should have to do the same opportunity to star with nothing and live the American Dream are not as prevalent.  What people that have been working all along have yet to see the complications from stagnating wages and stagnate growth.  Nor do they understand that when someone in their 40s loses their job and life savings their is a much higher likelihood they will have much more debt that will hinder their freedom to move quickly to find employment.  They also are likely to have family responsibilities and children living with them or a former spouse and moving away would mean leaving their children.  Moving away in this situation is also often prohibited by custody laws in certain states if one wants to leave with their children. 


So if you stop to think about things rather than reacting with vitriol you might see the reality that the protesters may be doing us all a favor. 

Will internal devaluation work? « naked capitalism

“the volume of employment is uniquely correlated with the volume of effective demand measured in wage-units, and that the effective demand, being the sum of the expected consumption and the expected investment cannot change, if the propensity to consume, the schedule of marginal efficiency of capital and the rate of interest are all unchanged. If, without any change in these factors, the entrepreneurs were to increase employment as a whole, their proceeds will necessarily fall short of their supply-price

This Economic dither can be summed up much easier in order to cut the the Econ babble that has be used for decades to dumb down the public so they weren't aware they were getting shafted.

This means that you can't raise prices, hire new people, pay them lower wages and expect the economy to pick up and still make a profit.  This is the current issue with entrepreneurs.  They can't just hire people for the sake of hiring and if the economy is stagnating with wages falling and interest rates staying low there is a flat to downward trend in economic growth.

Even if we see a huge uptick in hiring, it will be of little effect on economic growth if people are going back to work at lower and lower wages. Times  have changed and we are seeing the result of government failure.  It is not a failure to do anything it is the failure to stop the banking lobby from dictate policy. 

Our country can not survive or thrive when we are stagnating and staying at such a high rate of unemployment.  The continued low interest rates do little to stimulate the economy is this environment and it makes lower wages even more problematic because their is no way for the average person to increase their income through saving.  Money in a savings account is just free money for the banks.  They can leverage the funds up to to 10:1 and still get 0% money from the Fed.

We are in a system that is geared toward helping the top 1% survive at the expense of everyone else.  Read the rest of the story at Naked Capitalism. 

Will internal devaluation work? « naked capital

SF Bankers Become First TARP Recipients To Be Charged With Fraud | NBC Bay Area

The occupy Wall Street movement may finally have a poster boy or two to point the finger at.
Three San Francisco bank executives became the first senior executives to receive federal bailout money to be criminally charged with trying to defraud the government.
United Commercial Bank CEO Thomas Wu and vice presidents Ebrahim Shabudin and Thomas Yu are being charged with cooking their books and lying to auditors before accepting a $298 million taxpayer bailout, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
"Shabudin and Yu are the first senior executives of a TARP bank charged in connection with a scheme to defraud investors, which included the Treasury, and by extension the American taxpayer," acting TARP Special Inspector General Christy Romero said in a statement.
In 2008 the bank received $298 million from then President George W. Bush's Troubled Asset Relief Program.
They soon after filed for bankruptcy. Now they are being charged by the government. It does seem a bit odd that it would be a relatively small California bank that is so far removed from Washington is the first to be up on fraud charges. I am not surprised but it is likely, in my opinion, that this bank did nothing different than any of the too big to fail banks or any other bank that was given TARP funds. It is likely that this bank just didn't have as powerful a lobby in Washington or enough money to get defense lawyers to defend them with the zeal of the larger banks. READ THE FULL STORY HERE
SF Bankers Become First TARP Recipients To Be Charged With Fraud | NBC Bay Area

Monday, October 10, 2011

Panic of the Plutocrats - NYTimes.com

Panic of the Plutocrats - NYTimes.com

Kotlikoff | World on brink: As central bankers run out of ammo, the need for alternative models has never been more urgent - Business Exchange

 This story is from Ian Fraser at business week. It is worth a read. 



Kotlikoff: financial system is a Ponzi scheme that could collapse at any time


A leading professor of economics has warned that the global economy is a giant Ponzi scheme that could collapse at any time.
Speaking at a pensions summit in the Netherlands, Professor Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University told delegates that the global financial system – which remains largely unreconstructed despite near implosion following the collapse of Lehman Brothers two years ago – is a massive con trick, characterised by lack of transparency, and largely made up of fraudulent guarantees and financial promises that cannot be kept.
Kotlikoff, also known as Larry, is the author of Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World's Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking, a book endorsed by Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England. He served as senior economist with president Ronald Reagan's council of economic advisers in 1981-82 and has advised the IMF, World Bank, OECD and scores of national governments around the world.
Kotlikoff believes that government bailouts of financial institutions did little to address underlying problems of our financial system and that, in fact, they made things worse. He said:
"AIG insured the uninsurable, and now the US government has taken over that role. But managing the crisis by taking on promises you can't deliver is not a fix to systemic risk. It is itself systemic risk."
He added that, if the United States didn't use "bogus" accounting to keep unfunded liabilities off its balance sheet, it would be in worse shape than Greece: "To cover all those liabilities, federal taxes would have to be raised by 64%, or expenses would have to be cut by 40% – and that is an optimistic estimate."
He said that if the US doesn't take steps to reduce its deficits, its fiscal problems could trigger a second financial crisis worse than we've seen seen so far.
"Once people figure out the government can't actually deliver what it has promised, other than by printing huge amounts of money, this may trigger a bank run. Pimco has already said it will buy no more US Treasuries, which is not a good sign."
Since Kotlikoff spoke in the Netherlands, Standard & Poor’s has lowered its outlook on the long-term rating of US sovereign debt to negative, citing a "material risk" that policymakers may fail to reach an agreement on proposals to trim its massive budget deficit. This, coupled with renewed fears about the eurozone, triggered an immediate fall in US share prices on Monday.
In Kotlikoff's view the financial system is inherently fraudulent because financial institutions insure the uninsurable and take on liabilities they cannot honor, while these institutions and their managers take on only limited liability and pass the buck to the taxpayer when things go pear-shaped. In short, it's what Jeffrey Sachs, in a review of Jimmy Stewart is Dead, has described as "a system in which bankers make promises they can't keep in order to collect outsized earnings unrelated to real productivity."
Kotlikoff believes the only way to fix this is to introduce the "limited purpose banking", the old-fashioned know-your-customer type banking practised by the Bailey Building and Loan Association in Frank Capra's 1947 movie It's a Wonderful Life. Kotlikoff said this
"takes the multifaceted fraud out of our financial system by turning all banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, etc. into fully transparent mutual fund companies. Limited purpose banking also abolishes over 115 federal and state regulatory authorities and replaces them with the Federal Financial Authority, which verifies, fully and immediately discloses, and independently rates and appraises all securities held by the mutual funds. In a nutshell, limited purpose banking makes Wall Street safe for Main Street."
He also believes the pensions system must be reformed so that employers are removed from the picture since "companies have their own interest at heart", and those interests rarely coincide with providing their employees with a good income after retirement. Instead Kotlikoff believes the government should introduce mandatory savings of about 8% of salaries, to be invested collectively in a globally diversified index fund at virtually zero cost, he said.
He told delegates at the conference that he hoped his views would resonate in the Netherlands and inspire measures to overhaul a broken financial system that is living on borrowed time. "Don't expect the US to take the lead in this," he said. "We are the ones who created this mess in the first place."

Kotlikoff | World on brink: As central bankers run out of ammo, the need for alternative models has never been more urgent - Business Exchange

Kotlikoff | World on brink: As central bankers run out of ammo, the need for alternative models has never been more urgent - Business Exchange Make big money in penny stocks today

Too Big to Fail Not Fixed, Despite Dodd-Frank: Simon Johnson - Bloomberg

 This is from a piece on Bloomberg about too big to big to fail banks not being fixed yet.

Break Up Banks

To make the FDIC resolution powers credible, large banks should have been made small enough and simple enough to fail.
Of course, if we had really done that, we wouldn’t need a resolution authority. When CIT Group failed in the fall of 2009, it had a balance sheet of about $80 billion. There was no bailout, the firm’s debts were restructured, and today it is back in business -- with an appropriately slimmer $48 billion in total assets at the end of the 2011 second quarter.
There were no adverse systemic consequences for the financial system. I’ve talked to many analysts and people active in financial markets, and cannot find any measurable consequences from the CIT failure on the real economy, including on access to credit for their customers, which were small and medium-sized businesses.

Cross-Border Banks

This was a success for the market system: Financial failure led to creditor losses and restructuring, rather than systemic panic. Unfortunately, the resolution powers won’t work for the largest cross-border banks. And bankruptcy for financial institutions would seriously undermine confidence, as happened with Lehman.
The financial system hasn’t become safer since September 2008. We are not in a strong position to weather the financial storms that now appear on the horizon.

The Full Article can be read by clicking on the following link:

Too Big to Fail Not Fixed, Despite Dodd-Frank: Simon Johnson - Bloomberg

Sunday, October 9, 2011

George Soros: "People don't realize that the system has actually collapsed" | Credit Writedowns

One of the world's most foremost capitalist, George Soros, in an interview by Bloomberg television today, made his most dramatic remarks about the European debt crisis when he said it reminded him of the final days of the Soviet Union.
The biggest mistake governments made in responding to 2008 credit freeze was failing to approve rules that would regulate banks and other financial firms across the globe, Soros said. While markets have become integrated, individual nations continue to set their own rules, which has allowed “deregulation to spread like a virus,” Soros added.

“Regulation is very difficult and we haven’t solved it at all,” he said. “We are very early in the process and we are not making much progress.”
“Fixing European debt issues is not so easy,” he said. “There is a lot of confusion, and I am also confused on the market direction at the moment.”

The Occupy Wall Street Journal is available now

The Occupy Wall Street protestors have put together an interesting article here for everyone to read. Follow the link to Naked Capitalism below to read the full paper. #OccupyWallStreet Publishes First Issues of “The Occupied Wall Street Journal”

Friday, October 7, 2011

Foreclosure Defense Nationwide - Mortgage Foreclosure Help - Free Advice

 This is what I was talking about last week in a story stating that everyone is part of the 99% even thought they felt removed from the foreclosure crisis because they are paying off their mortgage or have paid their mortgage off.  This article reveals the depth of the issues.  This case dates back to 2005 and finally the judge denied a Well's motion for summary judgement.  The bank, again showing no shame, dared to motion for summary judgement when the already admitted under oath that they didn't have the proper documents to confirm they indeed had the right to foreclose. 

Here is the problem.  100s of these situation exist across the country where the banks are making claims on property when they have no proof of ownership.  If we have a 10, 000 cases that end up the same way, the economy will a giant mess. 


This Article is from:
Foreclosure Defense Nationwide - Mortgage Foreclosure Help - Free Advice

October 4, 2011
Wells Fargo has voluntarily dismissed a foreclosure action in Iowa after the state Court Judge denied Wells Fargo’s Motion for Summary Judgment and set the case for trial. This case, which began in 2005, has been discussed several times on this website throughout its interesting history.
The homeowner, who had originally represented herself, had been told by Wells Fargo back in 2005 that Lehman Brothers was the “investor” on the loan. Notwithstanding this issue relating directly to chain of title to the note and mortgage and the ability of the servicer (WF) to foreclose, the Court granted summary judgment to WF in 2005, which it later vacated in 2010 after WF brought Lehman into the case as a party Defendant and made certain admissions as to lack of ownership of the mortgage loan. The Court was concerned as to many issues, including how WF could claim under oath in 2005 that it owned the loan but admitted in 2010 that it did not and that the Note was lost, with WF not knowing the details as to the “loss”.
WF nonetheless moved for summary judgment a second time in 2011. The homeowner asserted numerous disputed issues of material fact, including the failure of WF to file or record any Assignment pursuant to a Servicing Agreement between WF and Lehman; failure of WF to demonstrate compliance with the Seller’s Warranties in the Servicing Agreement; failure to demonstrate compliance with the Custodial Agreement; Plaintiff’s admission that it has no knowledge of the true and present owner of the Note; failure to offer any proof as to when the Note was lost; failure to identify the nature and extent of admitted interests in the Note on the part of a Lehman securitized trust; infirmities in WF’s “Affidavit” of the “Default Litigation Specialist”; and failure to satisfy Iowa Code Sec. 554.1201 (relating to proof requirements in lost note claims).
The Court issued a written opinion denying WF’s second Motion for Summary Judgment. The case was thereafter set for trial. Today, the Notice of Voluntary Dismissal was received.
The homeowner is represented by Jeff Barnes, Esq. (who was admitted pro hac vice in the case and prepared the opposition to WF’s second Motion for Summary Judgment) and local Iowa counsel Christine Sand, Esq. of the Beverly Wild Law Office.

Santorum try reading the news! Coverage Grows for Wall Street Protest - NYTimes.com

 Maybe Rick Santorum has been too busy  to read the news the past few weeks.  Here is an article from the NY TIMES October 5, 2011.  He is missing the boat here and being brainwashed by the big banks, money and the administration.  Clearly he hasn't been keeping up on the news. 


Coverage Grows for Wall Street Protest - NYTimes.com
“Live, from Occupy Wall Street.”
The Occupy Wall Street protesters and people sympathetic to their movement accused mainstream media outlets of playing down the first days of their protests in New York City in September.
But as the protests have spread to other cities in recent days, there has been a surge in media coverage on television, online and in print. And on Wednesday, for the first time, a national television news program moved itself to Lower Manhattan to cover the protests at length.
The program was that of Tamron Hall, the 2 p.m. anchor on MSNBC. Standing beside Zuccotti Park, the focal point of the Occupy Wall Street protests, Ms. Hall said that “protests are being held and planned right now in more than 50 cities.” On the screen were videos of earlier protests in New York, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles.
There are no immediate plans for other programs on MSNBC to broadcast from the protest site. Still, the presence of Ms. Hall attests to the growing amount of media attention that the protests are garnering. While there were reporters at the park on Sept. 17, the first day of the occupation, there are many more now.
There were only a smattering of mentions of the protests on television in the first week, and some of those mentions — like the first one on Current TV’s “Countdown,” the liberal program anchored by Keith Olbermann — were about the lack of media coverage.
Television regulars like Michael Moore helped spur some coverage in late September. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that the protests represented a small sliver of the national news hole last week: the economy accounted for 14 percent of news coverage, and Occupy Wall Street accounted for about 12 percent of that economic coverage.
Arrests of protesters on two consecutive Saturdays, Sept. 24 and Oct. 1, generated much more coverage, including reports on nightly newscasts. By the time the protests entered a third workweek on Monday, all of the network morning news shows were discussing them.
“In a matter of weeks, Occupy Wall Street has grown from a small group of protesters squatting in New York’s Zuccotti Park to a national movement,” Mr. Olbermann said on his program Tuesday night. “Support from organized labor and progressive groups is increasing by the day, while the protesters — who were once sneered at by most national media and The New York Times — are now part of the testimony on Capitol Hill, part of the conversation on the campaign trail, and part of the calculations on Wall Street.”
The proximity of the main Occupy Wall Street protest to the newsrooms of television networks and national newspapers may have helped draw coverage. Erin Burnett, a new anchor for CNN, visited the park, interviewed protesters and showed one of the interviews on her program with a heavy dose of sarcasm on Monday night.
In a separate segment, Ms. Burnett told one of her guests, “I was in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, and this lacked the intensity, to say the least.”
Others seem to disagree.
When Nick Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, visited the park on Sept. 29, he wrote on Twitter, “I’ve just been interviewing people at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Reminds me of Tahrir Square.” Mr. Kristof, too, was in Egypt during the revolution there, and he said he saw similarities in the “social media savvy, carnival mood and deep sense of frustration & disenfranchisement” of both crowds.
Dylan Ratigan, an afternoon MSNBC anchor who rails against what he calls financial and governmental corruption, has spent time at the park each day since Sept. 30, and spoke with Ms. Hall on her show on Wednesday. He sent an e-mail to fellow journalists on Tuesday that read, “If you haven’t been down to Zuccotti Park I highly recommend it. Not to simply get crowd shots, but to actually meet and talk with some of these people who are of all kinds, ages and economic standings.”
He has not yet broadcast his daily TV show from the park, however.