An outrageous prediction regarding millions of illegal foreclosures conducted by banks

We now know that many of the “foreclosure experts” who were signing many thousands (perhaps millions) of affidavits that allowed banks to kick delinquent homeowners out of their homes were utterly unqualified to understand the sorts of technical information they were spewing while under oath. In short, the banks were allowing and requiring incompetent employees to lie under oath in order to allow foreclosures to go forward:

In an effort to rush through thousands of home foreclosures since 2007, financial institutions and their mortgage servicing departments hired hair stylists, Walmart floor workers and people who had worked on assembly lines and installed them in "foreclosure expert" jobs with no formal training, a Florida lawyer says. In depositions released Tuesday, many of those workers testified that they barely knew what a mortgage was. Some couldn't define the word "affidavit." Others didn't know what a complaint was, or even what was meant by personal property. Most troubling, several said they knew they were lying when they signed the foreclosure affidavits and that they agreed with the defense lawyers' accusations about document fraud.

Even under the assumption that many or most of these homeowners were actually delinquent, this is incredibly disturbing. Richard H. Neiman, New York's top bank regulator and a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel, a federal bailout watchdog, has expressed concern:

"In recent days, it has become apparent that a number of mortgage loan servicers have submitted affidavits or other foreclosure documents that appear to have procedural defects," the Conference of State Bank Supervisors said in a statement. "In addition, many affidavits may have been signed without a notary public being present.

NPR has provided a more detailed description about the kind of people who served as “robo-signers”:

ARNOLD: [T]his GMAC employee told him that even though he was supposed to be certifying the accuracy of the documents in a homeowner's file... Mr. COX: He said he that doesn't look at them. He doesn't bother to go search them out in the computer to look at them. ARNOLD: And Cox said the sheer volume of foreclosures appeared to make doing a thorough job impossible. Stefan testified he's signing between eight and 10,000 documents a month. Mr. COX: That works out to be about one a minute. Some of those loan files contain a hundred or more documents. ARNOLD: Housing advocates call employees like this robo-signers. They say they barely have a chance to glance at all the documents that they're asked to sign.

These fraudulent foreclosure cases are hitting the courts all over. And they should, because many of these homeowners were lied to on the way in (about "yield spread premiums" and exploding ARM's and hidden penalties), and now they (and the courts) are being lied to on the way out. In fact, based on my personal experience as a consumer lawyer, the lies on the way in, and the shodding servicing, led to the foreclosure. Here’s a synopsis of a lawsuit filed Oct 1, 2010 by Center for Responsible Lending:

Five Maine residents filed a complaint today against GMAC Mortgage, LLC (GMAC) on behalf of themselves and a class of Maine homeowners, alleging that the company routinely and systematically files false certifications that it has a right to foreclose on Maine homeowners, and false affidavits when asking courts to enter foreclosure judgments.

The homeowners complain that GMAC files these false documents knowing that the courts in Maine will rely on them in deciding whether foreclosures can go forward and in allowing GMAC to sell their homes. Depositions of GMAC employees revealed that they do not verify the truth of information necessary to give GMAC the right to foreclose when they sign these court documents and that these improper practices have been in place since at least 2004.

This situation is horrendous. It justifies impolite synonyms for banks: house-jackers. Banksters. If you cringe at this language and consider it overbroad, ask yourself whether "innocent" bankers knew of this problem and whether they often discussed it at the country club with the evil bankers. And they didn't step up and report it. Consider also that the banks so often preach the importance of the “letter of the law” when slapping huge fees and penalties on home-owners, even when the homeowners are only a day late with their payments. Now here are those same banks, absolutely unable to establish a chain of title necessary for a foreclosure, but they utterly don’t give a rat's ass about the letter of the law, because this archaic rule (letter of the law) is now a burden to the banks. From the perspective of the banks, the solution to the problem that they can't figure out how to establish their case in the context of the convoluted system that they themselves created, is to systematically lie under oath. Over and over and over. And now that the banks have been caught by the national media, and because the media is paying attention, the politicians also need to pay attention to this problem, and everything has become awkward for the banks. Very Inconvenient. They might have to pay big money to send thousands of lobbyists to Congress to fix this problem. And then they will have to jack up their rates and penalties and other tricks and traps to pay for those lobbyists. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingAn outrageous prediction regarding millions of illegal foreclosures conducted by banks

Some Of What Follows Is Hyperbole

Christine O'Donnell is one of those public figures that emerge from time to time that make any writer of fiction envious of reality. Only a truly gifted writer could make someone like this up and then sell her as a plausible character. At the heart of it, she is the problem with the Tea Party. Here's the thing I've never understood about the far right: fiscal responsibility is well and good and certainly we could do with a lot more---we could have used some for the last thirty years, certainly, a period during which Republicans (and by inference conservatives) have been largely in control of Congress---but how come is it we can't seem to get candidates who are just about that without dragging all the social issue crap along with them? I for one am tiring of having my alternatives clipped because some whack-a-do who may well have a sound fiscal policy in mind is also hell bent on "correcting" the lax, immoral, godless state of the country. Now we get right down to the basic issues with Ms. O'Donnell: jacking off. It's destroying the country. People are going blind from this, divorce rates are record high because selfish people are doing themselves at the expense of the shared relationship god intended they have. Abstinence means all of it! Tie those peoples' hands behind their backs! Put those genital safety belts on those young fellows who can't leave johnny alone! Why, if we root out the evil of self-pleasuring, we'll be on the road to sound financial policy and security in no time! Then of course there's the usual slate of absurdities---she's a young earth creationist. (What, may I ask, does this have to do with fiscal conservatism? Well, in her case, apparently, a difficulty with basic math...) Naturally she opposes abortion and since she's so down on pud pounding, we may presume she hasn't much use for birth control of any kind, sex education, or possible female orgasm. She is that perfect contradiction of modern far right womanhood---someone who probably thinks women's place is in the home who is attempting to establish a powerful political career in order to legislate herself back into a state of chattel bondage. And then there's the Libertarian wing of the Tea Party that basically believes people ought to be free to choose their own lives without interference from anyone, especially the government, and eventually they will create the fissure in opposition to the Talibaptist contingent who want more than anything to tell people how to live decent lives. It may do this country good to elect some of these folks into public office so we can see, really see how they perform. How they make their philosophies mesh with what most Americans really want. It's a sad time for American politics. We're in a depression (why they insist on continuing to call it a recession is purist political cynicism), Obama has not miraculously fixed that, and people are pissed off. They are in a "Throw the bastards out" mood, but unfortunately they have little to choose from. The Republican Party, self-deluded that they may ride this tide back into power for "all the right reasons", has so bankrupted its credibility right before, during, and since W that even conservatives must hold their noses to vote for them. The Democrats have failed once again to define an American Ideology behind which the people can get and although right now they are probably on the right track fiscally, it will take time for their actions to result in anything fruitful. (Didn't Obama say all along it would take a long time? Didn't he say this would not be painless? Didn't he say a lot of work would have to be done before things started drifting back to something good? Didn't he? But he's been in office 19 months! My god, just how long is a long time?) They haven't "fixed things" so people don't like them either. So there's the Tea Party. This is bottom of the barrel time. These are the screeling, apocalyptic, neo-revisionist, founding-principled-though-illiterate gang of conspiracy theorist candidates who have gained momentum through sheer quality of nerve, who intend to save the country from our foreign-born Muslim president and the anarcho-socialist intellectual elite. They are the ones who wish to remove all the interfering laws and restrictions that hamper the marrow-deep entrepreneurial American essence and allow people to make millions on their own or starve in the gutter with their families because while Darwin was wrong about biology he was right about economic policy and the weak ought to perish so the strong can dominate. These are the folks who would free us to be dominated by Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banking, and Big Insurance. These are people who believe corporations are people, too, and back the American dream nurtured in the heart of every kid who wants to grow up to be a corporation. Or an oligarch. But first, they have to curtail masturbation. The country has had enough of people jacking off. Time to get them back to work.

Continue ReadingSome Of What Follows Is Hyperbole

Fakeonomics

Ian Fletcher has noticed that they don't discuss economics much anymore. Instead, we mostly hear something that pretends to be economics but is judgmental lecturing unsupported by any critical thinking. He calls it "fakeonomics," and it goes something like this...

  • Free markets are always right, always and everywhere.
  • Anyone who doesn't believe this is stupid. Smart people not only understand that free markets are best, they like free markets, because free markets mean opportunities to get rich.
  • Or maybe they're corrupt. The opposite of free markets is government. Government is always incompetent. It never does anything right. Ever.
  • Or maybe they're evil. Anyone who doesn't believe in perfectly free markets is a Marxist wannabe or a loser jealous of more-successful people.
  • Free trade is just free markets applied internationally.

Continue ReadingFakeonomics

How to refuse to look at evidence and how to evade simple questions

The arrows of my title are not being directed toward Richard Dawkins, one of the two people engaged in this extraordinary conversation. My title is directed toward creationist Wendy Wright. Her obstructionist tactics suggest that it is simply not fruitful to discuss evolution by natural selection with someone who doesn't understand it and doesn't want to understand it. I've pasted Part 2 of 7 of this exchange above. The other parts are available at Youtube. Richard Dawkins is a model of patience here. Ms. Wright repeatedly invokes a handful of tactics to stretch out this ostensible conversation endlessly. One tactic is to change the topic whenever Dawkins tries to focus upon real world facts. Another is to send out broad accusations, such as accusing Darwin of racism when, in reality, the Victorian world was filled with people who held views that would now be considered racist and, in fact, Darwin and his writings were notably not racist. In fact, Darwin expressed abolitionist views. In a recent comment I wrote the following:

I’m tempted to begin a new “policy” from today forward. Those disparaging the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection must, in order to deserve a reply (other than a copy and paste of this comment) must, in their own words, describe the basic elements of the theory and at least a few of the many types of evidence supporting the theory. They must also make it clear that they know how a scientific theory differs from pure speculation.

It is my repeated impression that those attempting to criticize the facts and theory of evolution by natural selection are actually attacking some something else, something that biologists, geo-biologists, geneticists, botanists and other scientists do not support. In short, they are attacking straw men. The only reasonable reply to such attacks is to direct the commenter to set aside a few hours and to read a good book on natural selection.

There's a lot more discussion about this video a website with a most extraordinary name: WhyWontGodHealAmputee.com. Soricidae's Blog offers a play by play for one section of the Wright-Dawkins exchange.

Continue ReadingHow to refuse to look at evidence and how to evade simple questions

ASCAP attacks Creative Commons

No, this is not a comical make-believe headline from The Onion. ASCAP has lashed out at Creative Commons.

At this moment, we are facing our biggest challenge ever. Many forces including Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and technology companies with deep pockets are mobilizing to promote "Copyleft" in order to undermine our "Copyright." They say they are advocates of consumer rights, but the truth is these groups simply do not want to pay for the use of our music. Their mission is to spread the word that our music should be free.
This smear campaign is a staggering display of ignorance. Did ASCAP actually hire a lawyer to advise them here? Do they have the faintest idea of what Creative Commons is all about? Here's the response of Creative Commons:
Last week, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) sent a fundraising letter to its members calling on them to fight “opponents” such as Creative Commons, falsely claiming that we work to undermine copyright.* Creative Commons licenses are copyright licenses – plain and simple. Period. CC licenses are legal tools that creators can use to offer certain usage rights to the public, while reserving other rights. Without copyright, these tools don’t work. Artists and record labels that want to make their music available to the public for certain uses, like noncommercial sharing or remixing, should consider using CC licenses. Artists and labels that want to reserve all of their copyright rights should absolutely not use CC licenses.
Here's more analysis, from Techdirt.
ASCAP's blatant attack on Creative Commons (and EFF and PK; both of whom focus on consumer rights, but not undermining artist's rights at all) shows their true colors. They're not about artists' rights at all. They're about greater protectionism -- which is not (at all) the same thing.

Continue ReadingASCAP attacks Creative Commons