Give them 8 more years of Total Control and burn baby burn in streets of America
Equality in a true Democracy has Wealth distribution   30-60-10
America has 80-20-0

They are choking us now.

The Huffington Post   |  Ryan McCarthy

First Posted: 12- 5-10 12:58 PM   |   Updated: 12- 5-10 01:04 PM

After Friday’s grim jobs data, which showed that the U.S. added just 39,000 net jobs in November, it’s worth noting again just how severely the recession has impacted the job market.

This disturbing chart — repeatedly referred to as “the scariest job chart ever” by Henry Blodget — from Calculated Risk shows, in percentage terms, how the job market has failed to rebound at the rates seen after previous recessions. “This is by far the worst post-WWII employment recession,” Calculated Risk notes.

With 15 million officially unemployed, the job situation may actually be worse than the headline figures. As HuffPost’s Peter S. Goodman noted, some 17 percent of Americans couldn’t find enough work or had given up looking for work in November. Among black Americans the unemployment rate hit 16 percent, compared to 9.8 percent nationally.

All of which makes it even more troubling that 4 million Americans are set to lose unemployment benefits even if Congress passes an extension to the 99-week limit, as HuffPost’s Shahien Nasiripour reported last week. As millions of Americans lose a crucial source of income, the economy is sure to suffer as a result.

The social costs of a mass lapse in unemployment benefits could be even more devastating. “Look for homelessness to rise and food lines to get longer as we approach Christmas if the situation can’t be resolved,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, told the AP.

Check out the chart below — and check out Calculated Risk for more information:

Shock Therapy for Wall Street: JPMorgan Suspends 56,000 Foreclosures; GMAC and BOA Many More

Saturday 02 October 2010

by: Ellen Brown   |  WebofDebt.com | News Analysis

–Economist Karl E. Case, quoted in The New York Times.

The hits are coming fast and furiously. It appears major Wall Street mortgage lenders could again be in serious trouble – and looking again for handouts.

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: House Committee on Education and Labor, Emmanuel Huybrechts)

On September 20th, Ally Financial Inc., which owns GMAC Mortgage, the nation’s 4th largest lender, halted evictions and the resale of repossessed homes in 23 states. This was after a document processor for the company admitted that he had signed off on 10,000 pieces of foreclosure paperwork a month without reading them. The 23 states were all those where foreclosures must be approved by a court, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida and Illinois.

On September 24th, Representatives Alan Grayson (D-FL), Barney Frank (D- MA) and Corrine Brown (D-FL) directed a letter to Fannie Mae questioning its use of “foreclosure mills,” which were described as “law firms representing lenders that specialize in speeding up the foreclose process, often without regard to process, substance or legal propriety.” The letter followed a report by the Florida attorney general’s office in August that it was investigating three law firms that had allegedly fabricated documents in thousands of cases to obtain final judgments of foreclosure.

On September 24, California attorney general Jerry Brown asked GMAC to halt foreclosures in his state until the lender could prove it was complying with a law that prohibits lenders from taking steps to foreclose a home before making an effort to work with the borrower. California is a non-judicial foreclosure state, meaning foreclosures do not require the prior approval of a court.

On September 28, JPMorgan Chase said it was halting 56,000 foreclosures because some of its employees might have improperly prepared the necessary documents. All of the suspensions were in the 23 states where foreclosures require court approval.

On September 29, the Washington Post reported that a top federal bank regulator had directed seven of the nation’s largest lenders to review their foreclosure processes, after learning about widespread mishandling of homeowner evictions. Besides JPMorgan Chase, they included Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo. The Washington Post noted:

“The paperwork problems range from potentially forged documents to bank employees who never read borrowers’ files before signing off on an eviction. . . .”While we don’t expect our review to find that consumers were harmed, we will take appropriate action if we find any impact,” JP Morgan spokesman Tom Kelly said.”

No harm perhaps except the illegal taking of thousands of homes without due process . . . .

On September 30, Rep. Alan Grayson posted a devastating seven-minute video, in which he gave four real-world examples of such travesties of justice, including a man who was foreclosed on when he didn’t have a mortgage and paid cash for the home; a home that had two foreclosure suits against it because both servicers claimed ownership of the title; and a couple foreclosed on over a contested $75 late fee.

Grayson blamed the massive foreclosure problems largely on the electronic shortcut called MERS. “The banks simply digitized mortgage titles into a privatized system, called the Mortgage Electronic Registry System (or MERS),” he said. “And it did the transfers by trading Excel spreadsheets among the banks and trusts, rather than endorsing the notes as required by their own contracts, by state real estate law and by IRS rules.” He stated that 60 million properties are recorded in the name of MERS — 60% of the mortgages in the USA, and 97% of the loans made between 2005 and 2008.

On October 1, Bank of America announced that it was delaying foreclosures in 23 states.

The same day, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal took the radical step of putting a halt to all foreclosures from all banks in his state.

All of this is a major headache for the banks, but according to the New York Times, “The companies say they are reviewing their procedures to take care of any violations.” They seem to think they can correct the problem by redoing some paperwork. But if the holdings in recent court decisions are upheld, it will not be just a question of hiring extra staff to clean up some files. For all those mortgages filed in the name of MERS, say these courts, the chain of title has been irretrievably broken. Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall and cannot be put back together again.

MERS is simply an electronic data base. On its website and in assorted court pleadings, it declares that it owns nothing. It was set up that way intentionally so that it would be “bankruptcy-remote,” something required by the credit rating agencies in order to turn the mortgages passing through it into highly rated securities that could be sold to investors. MERS not only has no assets; it has no employees. The thousands of people enlisted to sign affidavits on its behalf are merely conduits. The arrangement satisfied the ratings agencies, but it has not satisfied the courts. Increasingly, judges are holding that if MERS owns nothing, it cannot foreclose, and it cannot convey title by assignment so that the trustee for the investors can foreclose. MERS breaks the chain of title so that no one has standing to foreclose. The homes are effectively owned free and clear.

That does not mean the homeowners don’t owe money to someone. They do. But the claim for relief is not in “law” (by virtue of an enforceable contract or rule) but in “equity” (a remedy provided just because it is fair), and MERS is not the proper plaintiff. Every MERS case involves a securitization, which means the real parties in interest are a group of investors somewhere; and before the homeowners can be made to pay, the investors have to come forward and prove not only that they are the parties owed the money, but the actual sums they are owed. In some cases they might already have been paid; for example, by insurers on credit default swaps held by the investment pool. The investors are entitled to recover in equity only so much as they are actually out of pocket, not the full amount of the original promissory notes, since they were not parties to those notes and there is no way to re-establish the chain of title.

Foreclosures have been suspended by JPMorgan, GMAC and BOA in 23 states, but what about the rest? The others are non-judicial foreclosure states, which means they allow foreclosure through a power of sale clause in a deed of trust without going to court. The presumption is that if the lender doesn’t have to prove his standing to sue before a judge, he can proceed. State laws in non-judicial states allow the sale of a property to satisfy a foreclosure as long as the trustee follows the regulations concerning notice. That would seem to violate Constitutional due process, but the United States Constitution has held that due process protections apply only when the government is involved in the taking of property. When a deed of trust and promissory note are executed between two private parties (homeowners and lenders), there is no automatic due process protection. The homeowners agreed to it in writing; case closed.

But here’s the catch: what if the lender signing the original documents is not the party foreclosing on the property? Then it becomes a question of fact whether the foreclosing party has authority to proceed, and that makes it a judicial issue – a question of fact for the courts. If the foreclosing party can show a clear chain of title – an assignment or progression of assignments from the original lender to himself – he is home free. But courts have increasingly been holding that MERS breaks the chain of title. Foreclosure expert Neil Garfield argues that even in non-judicial foreclosure states, that means the investors have to go to court to prove their case. And when they do, they will run up against the brick wall of MERS. He concludes:

“There will be a head-slapping moment when title carriers, attorneys, judges and administrative agencies and clerks suddenly realize that the monster created on Wall Street has its equivalent in the public records of counties across the nation. I doubt if more than 6-7% of all the foreclosures in the past 10 years have resulted in clear title delivered to anyone. And the only corrective instrument can come from the original owner. That homeowner is sitting in the catbird seat and doesn’t know it. Millions of people who THINK they have lost their homes still own them and if anyone wants a signature from those people to clear title, they are going to be required to pay dearly, which is at it should be. Eventually the purse gets returned to the victim from whom it was snatched.”

Where does that leave JPMorgan, GMAC, Bank of America, and the other major lenders? Investors have massive claims against these banks, and so do homeowners. A major title insurance company has already said it will not insure title to properties foreclosed upon by GMAC until further notice. Moody’s has placed the servicer ratings of GMAC and JPMorgan Chase on review for possible downgrade, and the Treasury is asking regulators for an investigation.

Investment adviser Christopher Whalen thinks we could soon be looking at more Wall Street bankruptcies. If so, hopefully we won’t fall into the trap this time of underwriting the losses while letting the banks keep the profits. If we the people are picking up the tab, we should insist on owning the banks.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

CHICAGO (AFP) – Labor and religious leaders in Detroit announced plans Thursday to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from JPMorgan Chase to protest the bank’s refusal to freeze foreclosures in Michigan.

“This is a matter of life and death,” said Pastor Alexander Bullock of the Rainbow PUSH coalition.

“The words of Chase officials that they are willing to help the thousands who are living in undervalued homes and facing possible eviction is unconvincing in light of their refusal to seriously consider a moratorium on foreclosures.”

Some 1.42 million US homes have been lost to foreclosure since April 2009 in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, credit crunch and economic downturn.

While the pace is finally slackening, nearly 339,000 properties — or one in every 381 US housing units — received a foreclosure filing in August, according to RealtyTrac.

Economically hard-hit Michigan has been devastated by the combined crises and nearly 18,000 homes there were in foreclosure last month.

The withdrawal of funds from Chase was also prompted by the bank’s continuing ties with tobacco company RJ Reynolds Corp, the United Auto Workers union said in a statement.

RJ Reynolds has come under fire for refusing to engage in negotiations with labor organizers over allegations of low wages and unsafe working conditions at farms of contract growers in North Carolina.

“Chase needs to help unemployed homeowners in Michigan and underpaid farm workers in the Carolinas,” UAW President Bob King said.

“The bank could make a huge difference by suspending foreclosures and pressuring RJ Reynolds to do the right thing.”

About 1,000 demonstrators marched on Chase earlier this year.

At a subsequent meeting, union and faith leaders urged bank officials to implement a temporary foreclosure freeze and participate in a federal program to assist homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

Chase spokesman Tom Kelly declined to comment on the withdrawals, but noted that the bank has offered more than 900,000 mortgage modifications since the beginning of 2009 and that two of its 51 mortgage counseling centers are in the Detroit area.

The groups called for congressional hearings “on the failure of Chase and other banks to effectively implement federal programs calling for mortgage modifications to keep people in their homes” and urged others to close their Chase accounts.

A UAW spokeswoman declined to disclose exactly how much money was being withdrawn from Chase. But the statement said the total would be “hundreds of millions” of dollars.