The Connecticut Watchdog.com posted another doozy of a story on the total dysfunction of BofA. In an article ‘Bank Of America’s Christmas present: Foreclose Even Though Not A Payment Missed George Gombassy reported: Bank of America notified Shock Baitch and his wife that foreclosure action will start today – Christmas eve – unless the couple agrees to put their home up for a forced sale. Another unit of Bank of America erroneously reported to credit agencies that the family was seeking a loan modification, ruining their credit rating and as the result putting their mortgage into default. In a nutshell, the other creditors will not reinstate the old credit limits because they use the current credit reports, BofA will not help because they use the current credit reports, and monthly minimum payments have more than doubled because of the BofA’s errors. . . . → Read More: Bank of America’s Christmas Present
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Judges in Florida have been particularly notorious, and new rulings show at least some members of the Florida judiciary seem more committed to speeding foreclosures through to completion than anything else. For example, Florida’s infamous “rocket dockets,” in which a foreclosure case can take mere seconds or a few minutes to complete, continue. The Florida Supreme Court acted last February to improve the integrity of its process by requiring foreclosing banks to verify the accuracy of their attorneys’ filings, the rule was widely ignored. Attorneys claimed it wasn’t yet in effect. So the Florida Supreme Court clarified in June that the rule was indeed in effect. . . . → Read More: Florida judges ignore their own State Supreme court in facilitating foreclosure This is one of the saddest Christmas stories I have read recently. A small Alabama town has stopped paying its pensions to the town’s retirees. The New York Times writes: This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund . . . → Read More: Pritchard Alabama stops paying its pensioners Many pundits like to excoriate people who supposedly cheated by buying houses while misstating their income. However, it is clear to many studying the current economic crisis that the processes and systems at the major banks are weak. In many instances they are civilly and perhaps criminally negligent, and in some cases fraudulent behavior on the part of banks, servicers, and their lawyers has been noted. An article today in the Huffington Post by Mary Bottari called Trapped in Bank of America Hell the case of one normal middle class family which has always been on time in its mortgage payments is told. . . . → Read More: Foreclosuregate: Bank of America mess Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth . . . → Read More: Agnotology The Economist has often really cogent views of America that American commentators cannot get into, a sort of self-myopia. The recent article on Peter Orzag’s transfer from the cabinet of government to the wood paneled offices of a bailed out Wall Street institution, Citigroup, is a case in point. This passage is really germane: Progressives laudably seek to oppose injustice by deploying government . . . → Read More: The rigged revolving door Bloomberg reports that housing values are set to decline another $1.7 Trillion in 2011. This is on top of the already realized losses of $9 Trillion. This year’s estimated decline, more than the $1.05 trillion drop in 2009, brings the loss since the June 2006 home-price peak to $9 trillion, the Seattle-based company said today in a statement. The drop in home values . . . → Read More: Housing declines still not at bottom Measured in 2009 dollars, total wages fell to just above $5.9 trillion, down $215 billion from the previous year. Compared with 2007, when the economy peaked, total wages were down $313 billion or 5 percent in real terms. The number of Americans with any wages in 2009 fell by more than 4.5 million compared with the previous year. Because the population grew by about 1 percent, the number of idle hands and minds grew by 6 million. This means a real under- and unemployment rate of more than 22 percent. . . . → Read More: What’s happened to wages? President Obama has twisted the arms of the Senate Republicans so much that they are going to give him exactly what they want: extension of the Bush tax cuts for two years. Ezra Klein at the Wall Street Journal reported on Mark Zandi‘s thoughts: I also asked him about the Bush tax cuts. His own figures say they’re a horrible deal on stimulus . . . → Read More: Taxcut haircut James K. Galbraith reset the discourse on the Catfood Commission in June. Most of the meetings were secret. Secrecy breeds the suspicion that the discussions are at a level of discourse they are embarrassing. A bipartisan commission should approach its task in a judicious, open-minded and dispassionate way. The attitude and temperament of the leadership are critical. The leader of a commission intended to sway the public cannot display contempt for the public. Senator Simpson has plainly shown that he lacked the temperament to do a fair and impartial job from the abusive response he made to Social Security Works. With just one economist on board they denied access to the professional arguments surrounding this highly controversial issue. It is impossible to have a fair discussion of any important question when the professional participants in that discussion have been picked, in advance, to represent a single point of view. The Commission was supported by Peter G. Peterson, who has for decades conducted a relentless campaign to cut Social Security and Medicare. This act must be condemned. A Commission serving public purpose cannot accept funds or other help from a private party with a strong interest in the outcome of that Commission’s work. Having done so is a disgrace. . . . → Read More: The Catfood Commission called out |
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