Ohio Uses State Monies to Deal with Mortgage Fraudsters and Foreclosures.

I had posted earlier that a lot of the mortgages were turned into Credit Default Swaps, which meant that the mortgages themselves were not held by financial companies, but split over and over into some very ugly, shady deals.

My earlier post on this issue, click here.

The State of Ohio has found grounds to agree with me, and they are actually going ahead with a plan to deal with the greedy jerks who perpetrated some pretty nasty frauds.

How significant is the foreclosure problem in Ohio?
It’s immense. One in 58 households [is] facing foreclosure. That’s one per neighborhood.

Why did you decide to address the mortgage problem by creating this team of lawyers?
The first thing we talked about was whether we could create mediation programs in the courts by asking the judges to encourage or force the servicers to at least sit down and talk to borrowers about an arrangement. But what we concluded was that there is a real inequality, because to file a mortgage foreclosure you have to be a lawyer. And homeowners—particularly those that are in default on their mortgage note—don’t have lawyers. They are at a real disadvantage in negotiating. So it was not good enough just to have mediation, but both parties in the mediation need to be represented by lawyers.

What will the lawyers do?
The lawyers will work with the borrowers to see if there are defenses to the actual foreclosure, whether there was fraud or unsuitability in the creation of the mortgage to begin with, and then to assist in two other ways: either to help litigate the case or to help structure a settlement.

What legal footing might you have to mount defenses against foreclosures?
With these complex mortgage products—the adjustable rates, the no-document loans that were out there—there are all types of things in the generation of loans that give rise to defenses. And with the fact that these loans then started to become sold seven, eight, nine, 10 times in the process, there are even legitimate legal issues as to whether or not the person filing the foreclosure has the legal right to file a foreclosure because they don’t have ownership of the mortgage note.

In Ohio, documents related to real estate have to be in writing; it’s called the statute of fraud. We just convinced a court of appeals—the 10th District Court of Appeals in Franklin County, Ohio—to find that you can’t bring a foreclosure action if you don’t have paper that proves that you own the house.

What percentage of struggling Ohio homeowners could mount a credible defense against foreclosure?
I think in probably 25 percent to 50 percent of the cases. If you look at the foreclosures, I use the following rules of thumb. About half of them are related to some form of financial catastrophe—a medical problem, loss of a job. Of the remaining half, about 25 percent are mortgages that involved outright fraud, where the buyer, the seller, the appraiser—everybody was cut in. So it’s that last 25 percent where people got in over their heads through buying a house that they simply couldn’t afford, or they got loans that they didn’t understand the terms of.

What percentage of home foreclosures do you think you might be able to prevent?
I think the vast majority of them. It would be in the best interest of the servicer and the borrower to try to find some accommodation.

But these contracts are between the borrower and the lender. Why should the government of Ohio be legally challenging them?
The fact is that the evidence is mounting that these wholesalers—and mortgage brokers who supplied them—targeted working-class, middle-class, unsophisticated consumers for generating these loans. So the fact is that there was a conscious effort to find people who wouldn’t be able to negotiate the contract at arm’s length. If a mortgage professional says, “Look, your payment is $500. I know this says it goes up in a year—don’t worry, we’ll come back and refinance you,” I think it’s very reasonable to think that it is not entirely the homeowner’s fault that the mortgage goes into default.

Yep. This is what my own point is, that some people got “snookered” by some people who made money off the backs of people who trusted in financial services, brokers and others.

Frankly, I would love to see these fraudsters charged, fined, lose their own property as “assets gained through illegal actions”. Yes, even the heads of banks, brokerages, real estate companies, developers should be dealt severely by the law.

For those living in Ohio, you need to be very glad you, at least, have someone willing to step up and do something effective.

White Phosphorus Does Not Belong in Gaza City

I am furious with the Israelis now. They have GPS coordinates for the NGO agencies in Gaza City, they have knowledge of where NOT to fire, yet the fired white phosphorus on the United Nations Rights and Works Agency buildings, setting it afire. This means medicines sent by international governments, international donations are now burning.

Don’t even think of trying to convince me this is even possibly an accident! It cannot be, because the UN has been in constant telephone and internet contact with the Israeli government, it’s military forces, and above all, has given both the Palestinian and Israeli forces complete and detailed information.

This action infuriates me. The medicine is for the innocent kids who get injured, the women who flee bullets and get hit, and certainly the food and other goods are NOT, in any way, a threat to Israel.

Damnit! The Red Crescent  has also had their buildings hit. The only forces with white phosphorus arms are the Israelis, and the bombs that hit the Red Crescent buildings came from Israeli guns. Neither of these agencies have buildings that are unknown to anyone in this mess, yet both are hit!

John Ging has said, ” It is damn lucky that our staff did not get hurt, did not get killed or burned by white phosphorus bombs!”

There is absolutely NO excuse for using white phosphorus in civilian areas, especially those with extremely dense populations!

The international agencies in Gaza City are trying, desperately, to help with the crisis and the misery in that city, yet they are being targeted by the Israelis! This shows an utter contempt for any humanitarian aid, an utter contempt for international donors who give as much as possible to alleviate the misery and suffering. In short, the Israelis are telling the international community that they have NO regard for our donations, our own compassion, and are showing a huge lack of compassion themselves.

The Israeli representatives say there were Hamas firing from there, but that, like the attack on the Red Crescent/Red Cross building is pure fallacy. No-one from Hamas or any other fighters were even close to the building, and there has been a concerted effort to try to blame anyone else but the Israeli tanks and bombs for this. Phooey! This was a deliberate action to make sure any humanitarian help was blown, literally, away from the Palestinian people.

The Israeli forces just blew up our tax dollars, our humanitarian aid, and now they are trying to blame Hamas?  This is pure garbage.

The U.N. is demanding a complete investigation and prosecution of those who did this, and I completely agree.

I also think it is time foreign countries put sanctions on any humanitarian aid or funds for Israel until this is done.

Damn! This is totally unforgivable, even in “war”!

New Year Gloom, A Better Tomorrow

We all wish each other “Happy New Year” and sometimes we actually mean it. Like most years in history, there is happiness, but often the new year brings in sadness, loss, and malaise. We all strive for a better tomorrow, that is as natural as breathing. How “better” is defined becomes the yardstick that is personal.

Better tomorrows are far more simplified in places where the essentials for life are scarce. Water, food, even shelter, may be the goals. Some have lived without these for a long time, and often those people are just looking for a better tomorrow in the very simplest terms.

Better tomorrows may be measured in having 3 houses instead of 2 for some, while others just believe in having at least some shelter that is affordable.

When we compare ourselves with others, we will always find someone who is better at what we do, smarter than us, or who have more than we do. It becomes a fruitless passion to compare ourselves against others. There are people who have lived through hell, and when we compare ourselves against them, we feel fortunate, but we still are engaged in a fruitless path.

There are often those who would point fingers, blame others for whatever has happened or will happen, and often our laws are invoked because of the resentment and anger.

Why am I even going through this discussion? Simple. Each of us has the ability to be excellent, even if it is as a barber, a farmer, a machinist, a mother or friend. When we use our energy, our own drive to be the best WE can be,  blame disappears, resentment often lessens or even goes away, and certainly we find far less time to blame.

Sure, work depends on someone hiring us, trusting us to do the work as well as we can, and we are, in a sense, dependent on them for our income. Losing a job can mean we feel betrayed, hopeless, powerless, and start on the path to comparing what we are, what we have, with thousands of “them”. What we forget, or just do not know, is that most companies that have to let us go, either by layoff or firing, don’t want to do that. They are feeling much the same things we are, especially when the company is depending on suppliers or buyers who have disappeared. Yes, the industrial and commercial world is built on cooperation, not competition, just as our lives are.

Companies depend on us, they cannot live without people working for them, people buying their product, and the social recognition of their existence. Companies NEED us. This is where some of the international flaws have widened into chasms and the financial earthquake that hit in the last few months is as natural as weather. Companies that believe that dollars are the base for existence are based on fallacy. Stockholders are NOT the lifeblood of corporate health, nor are those CEO’s who “manage”, but the ordinary people who work, often out of the light of recognition, YOU and ME.

WE are the ones that companies MUST learn they NEED. The Great Depression was NOT caused by the collapse of Wall Street, or the markets, it was caused by mechanization. Instead of having people making the cars, the goods people bought, machines began to do that work. When people were put out of work, the market for the goods faded, often dying because no-one had the income to buy. There is a parallel in our modern society. We have mechanized jobs with computers. Instead of having people write out the purchase orders, package the goods, computers have moved into doing those jobs. Basically, if taken to the extreme, companies could work with a tech support team and one or two people making decisions.

Personally I am NOT surprised that economies have gone down, mostly because I have watched the computerization of work to an extreme, without any compensating change for people needing to work.

The world economies have faded and probably will continue to fade, unless WE find our way to our own solid ground. This may mean we look at our own excellent abilities which each of us DO have, and trust ourselves to find the way to make a better tomorrow.

Oddly enough, the fade, the change in thinking, may be the best thing that could happen. It forces us to focus on what WE are, what we are part of. Nature SUPPORTS us, not the other way around. Farmers know this quite well. Those who work with nature know it. Our lives depend on nature, not cars, not plastic cups to drink from, not computers.  Water, air, soil, and the interdependence of all animals, including us, is nature.  This is the focus that Barack Obama has found, and for once, I am pleased.

So, each of us can make some impact here. Grow a head of lettuce, a hill of potatoes, or plant as many tree seeds as we can. Protect the endangered animals, the environment, and we all will have a better tomorrow, because WE DEPEND ON NATURE.

We live in cooperation with each other, our neighbours, our friends, our families, our communities, and most importantly, our world. Wars may reduce populations, but they also violate life, and history proves beyond any doubt, that violence using weapons will return to those who attack.

May our new year be one of reflection, spirituality, peace, and most importantly, a year of our own possibilities. Trust in our own inner drive, our own inner desire to have that better tomorrow, with the understanding that what we do can and does ripple out to affect far more than we know, may well be the lesson for this new year. Hope, acted upon, may just make our tomorrow better.