Banks and Republicans are blocking short-sales of homes

A middle-aged couple who bought a home in my neighborhood are in a terrible situation. They paid too much for their new house, which needed a lot of repairs, and they failed to aggressively work to sell their existing home. Therefore, they now have two houses. They continue to live in their original home while their new house (two houses away from where I live) has been vacant for three years and it is falling apart. I’m not talking about chipped paint. There are huge holes in the roof that are causing the house to rot out. Check out the garage roof too: Image by Erich Vieth[/caption] People who know a lot about rehabbing houses tell me that if this house and garage don’t get immediate attention, they will need to be completely torn down.

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Massively dysfunctional enforcement at the SEC and the Fed

TMP has presented a terrible, yet not surprising, description of the enforcement arm of the SEC. Based on this detailed description of this dyfunctional enforcement arm, no wonder securities fraud has been running rampant. Oh, and on a related note, Huffpo reports that:

The inspector general tasked with overseeing and auditing the Federal Reserve knows pretty much nothing about what the Fed is doing. . . . She did not know where the Fed has invested its $2 trillion on the liability side of the balance sheet. "I do not know. We have not looked at that specific area at this particular point on," she said.

Continue ReadingMassively dysfunctional enforcement at the SEC and the Fed

Obama to credit card companies: stop ripping off American consumers

Could you ever imagine George W. Bush scolding credit card companies for "ripping off" and "abusing" American consumers? Barack Obama is proposing to do away with the fine print and to do away with profits that depend on misleading hard-working families by hiding fees and penalties. He wants to sign a bill reforming the industry by Memorial Day.

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MPAA to teachers – fair use needs a VCR!

According to the MPAA the fair use provision in our copyright laws is flawed and needs to be qualified. During the continuing DCMA hearings they have again surfaced the claim that ripping a DVD shouldn't be allowed, since the teacher can copy the video using a video camera pointed at the TV screen. Seriously! That's as ludicrous as requiring that teachers may only copy from a photocopy, and not from the original book! They even created a video to demonstrate the process. Anyone concerned about fair use and copyright should be aghast at this blatantly stupid, but well financed, attack on rights. This 'process' is not only more cumbersome and time consuming (but teachers have loads of free time, right?) but also significantly more costly (you need a camcorder, tapes, and a tripod - in addition to the equipment you already have). MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set from timothy vollmer on Vimeo. via [Ars Technica] video after the fold

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Ann Coulter Free? – sadly not!

I was browsing the interwebs when I saw an ad that said "Ann Coulter Free". thought - that's good - this must be an idiot free zone! Then I saw it was an ad for her blog, which is free! They should pay you to read it - the resultant therapy bills must be quite high. Although I'm certain that reading Ann Coulter would free your mind - more than few paragraphs and I'm certain mine would be running for the hills.

Continue ReadingAnn Coulter Free? – sadly not!