Sad way to end 2010, Tornados devastate communities in Arkansas, Missouri and possibly more states as well.

Bankers should look at this footage over and over so they can see the kind of damage they do to people everyday using electronic and paper documents that add up to foreclosure, even when they should not. I feel badly for the people in these small communities that lost their homes.

On second thought, if bankers were to look at the devastation, i wonder if they would try and come up with a hedge fund for future Tornado devastation.

As for us everyday folk, it becomes easy to think, it's new years eve and nothing bad should happen, but they do. There was another version of this news story that mentioned a man being lifted in the air and carried a quarter of a mile, he is expected to survive.

There was also a shot of furniture in a tree, an awful counterpunch to the Christmas tree that may have been inside the home with small ornaments decorating it. I could not find those last two stories in this version of the youtube video but thought I would share what I heard as those are two powerful stories to know about as well.

In Barack Obama's home town of Chicago, Local Banks work with families to Redo predatory loans.

I discovered a quaint bank in Chicago that probably helps explain how Barack and Michelle Obama worked their way into several philanthropic foundations in and throughout the Chicago, area. It is also an excellent reminder on how banks can work locally to stabilize local communities.

This local Chicago area bank's mission may also help explain why Barack Obama doesn't seem too pre-occupied with helping the rest of the country with their foreclosure problems. You see, the people Barack Obama grew up with in Illinois, the people who he collaborated with while a community activist, the people who supported and launched his political career, had a financial base to work from.

And that financial base was called Shore Bank. So when you hear Barack Obama say, "You would have defaulted anyways even if you had gotten your HAMP mod", remember, Barack Obama would NEVER say that to the communities he served while a Chicago area community activist.

Meanwhile, Banks belonging to ING Direct say NO to HAMP and redoing predatory loans, that's what you and I and the rest of the country get.

I can't prove a connection exists, I don't know if a connection exists, but I wonder if Barack Obama's 2009 Nobel Peace Prize came with any quid pro quo attached to it involving companies like ING group. Sort of like, here's your nobel peace prize, you go ahead and offer HAMP in your country, but understand that our banking region will not support HAMP in any way and reject any attempt by americans to try and get a HAMP modification loan from securitization funds that came from ING direct investors.

Barack Obama's adult life was spent in Chicago, a region that provided financial assistance for homeowners that other parts of america can only dream of.

ING GROUP and the Nobel Peace Prize are not necessarily connected in any way that I know of other than they reside in the same relative geographical area. Was the Nobel Peace Prize a way to "soften up" Barack Obama so that he just looks the other way over all the HAMP abuse such as parallel foreclosure that americans are being put through because after the fact investors such as ING Group don't want to see their profit margin cut?

CTWatchdog - Bank Of America’s Christmas present: Foreclose Even Though Not A Payment Missed - But its much much WORSE than that!

CTWatchdog - Bank Of America’s Christmas present: Foreclose Even Though Not A Payment Missed - But its much much worse than that!

This is the probably the worst story I have read about HAMP, Bank of America, Foreclosure, and the RUSH TO DAMAGE A HOMEOWNERS CREDIT SCORE just for applying for HAMP.

THIS HAS TO BE A FEDERAL HOBBS ACT VIOLATION, THE EXTORTION CLAUSE ! The mere act of applying for HAMP SHOULD IN NO WAY ADVERSELY AFFECT ONES CREDIT SCORE WITHOUT NOTIFYING THE HOMEOWNER OF THE CONSEQUENCES, FIRST.

Please Download the Chase Bank Protest Flyer for FREE, and then all that needs to be done is just give a few copies out, it is really that simple.

NPR "A Mistake that Stole Christmas? A Foreclosure Story, also a Parallel Foreclosure Story.

NPR "A Mistake that Stole Christmas? A Foreclosure Story, also a Parallel Foreclosure story!

I'm thinking of doing a comedy skit about my desire to see a SECOND foreclosure news reporter actually use the phrase "Parallel Foreclosure" (as publicly defined by both Chase Bank and Bank of America) since parallel foreclosures may have become the biggest blight against the HAMP program.

Reporter Sarah Buduson broke the story behind "Parallel Foreclosure" in the fall of 2009, and now over a year later, and its as if her television report never happened.

Dec. 15, 2010 Mortgage Services and Foreclosure Practices - CSPAN link

If the video is not working up above, please click here.

Two of the "stars" of this video are supposed to be Vanessa Fluker and Sandra Hines. I had a bit of a problem with both of their testimonies. Sandra Hines gave no financial details about what actually happened in her situation, and actually admitted she had relatives in

real estate that she found after being evicted from her home. Ms. Hines also mentioned that her mom had said to never refinance the house after it had been paid off.

Vanessa Fluker gave a powerful accounting of why banks may want to foreclose rather than modify a mortgage, but was she correct when she said that the banks collect 100% from mortgage insurance, and that it was 100% of the mortgage, not what the house's value may have plummeted to?

I want to give props to CSPAN for the embed feature that allow bloggers to embed a shorter clip if they desire, very cool. I wish Youtube had that feature, however, it appears that the embed feature is not working!

Can someone who know about mortgage insurance reimbursement please share their knowledge as to what is actually paid out when a claim is made by the bank? I had read that mortgage insurance only covered 20% of the value or 20% of the actual mortgage. That 20% figure seems low to me, but, is it 100% as Vanessa Fluker claims?

Banksters Give new Meaning to "Foreclosure Freeze" during the Christmas Season.

While many think the above article means the banksters are being kind for Christmas, the Boehm family of St. Louis now understands the true meaning of a Bankster Christmas, and a Foreclosure Freeze.

As the Boehms just learned, when a Bankster says there will be a foreclosure freeze, they mean, put on your galoshes, down jacket, mittens, cap, and a scarf, because you're going to be freezing this Christmas after you're evicted.

Unless you choose to be arrested so you can spend your Christmas behind some cold, steely bars. Once again, not the kind of bar where everybody knows your name, the kind reserved by bankster criminals, for decent folk.

How much longer will banksters continue to put honest families on thin ice?

Why Banks Don't Care about Home Foreclosures, could it be the oversecuritization games they played for the past several years?

As we follow the bouncing mortgage note from one mortgage servicer to another mortgage servicer, and then to another, and to another, maybe the answer to why banks don't care about home foreclosures is blowing behind the bouncing mortgage note.

What if each time a mortgage note was resold a whole new group of securitization bonds were created? Would not that mean that there are homes out there that could have been securitized several times over? What if securitization bonds exist on PROJECTED values of homes over the next 30 years?

Example, what if in 2001, a homeowner bought a home for 300,000 and 4 years later that home was "worth" 500,000 dollars. What if in between those 5 years that home was sliced into several different securitization bonds, and with each re-securitization the value of the home was increased to match what the home was being appraised for at that same time?

What if securitizations stretch out into the future for another 25 years, and the value of that 300,000 dollar home 25 years from now was estimated to be 2,000.00 dollars? Heck, if the value of the home went from 300,000 to 500,000 in five years time, one could produce mathematical calculations based on the first five years that showed that same 500,000 home being worth 2 million dollars in another 25 years.

Is it possible that banks would rather foreclose on the formerly worth 300,000 dollar home, now worth 500,000 home, so they can generate the 17 income streams I mentioned in a prior article? Do the banks want to control their own oversecuritization evidence by foreclosing on oversecuritized homes. What I can't figure out is, what if the original homeowner never sells their home, then all of those securitizations would have to be based on the original 300,000 dollar mortgage?

Or, do securitizations kick in everytime a home is resold or refinanced? Could that be the way new securitizations are created? Anytime a home is either refinanced or sold, a new securitization is created? Once the prices on the homes start to drop, the banks MUST repossess so at the very least, they have the product in their own possession?

I am just asking these securitization "what if" questions because it seems to me that the banks have little interest in helping homeowners who actually have been responsible for the past 10, 20, or 30 years, have built up huge equity in their home, and may need to tap just a small amount.

Evidence about how little banksters care about the home owner can found in the relationship between the size of the banksters yearly bonuses versus how many millions of homeowners the yearly bankster bonus money could be allocated towards lower mortgage payments.

Robo-signing may just be the tip of the iceberg, we still need to expose theREASON behind the ROBO-SIGNING.

Rortybomb Reports: Federal Reserve Proposing Mortgage Rule to Eliminate Key Foreclosure Protections...

Rortybomb Reports: Federal Reserve Proposing Mortgage Rule to Eliminate Key Foreclosure Protections...

As Mike Konczai reminds us, is this an end around by the Fed to pass a law before the consumer financial protection agency is up and running?

STUNNING REVELATIONS about Home Foreclosure and Mortgage Servicing Conflicts from APRIL 16, 2007 by Tara Twomey.

The more I research the foreclosure fraud issue, the farther back I can go and still find documentation warning of exactly what ended up happening.

How about Tara Twomey's Home Foreclosure and Mortgage Servicing testimony from April 16, 2007! (Edit update: Dec.17, 2010) I was wondering if the date on the report was correct. I think it was supposed to be April 16, 2008 based on data in the report which refers to information from early 2008 - That still would be 2 and 1/2 years ago!)

If everybody is warned three years (or even 2.5 years ago) earlier about the wrongs that are about to happen, and they all happen exactly as described, have we not entered the home foreclosure class action lawsuit zone?

Banksters Biggest Lie about Credit Card Debt is Harming HAMP's ability to work and is also prolonging our economic downturn as well.

Banksters claim that if they don't charge exhorbitant rates on credit card debt, their money supply will shrink and there will be less high interest rate credit card money to sprinkle onto other deserving souls. Lets put this ridiculous argument to rest.

First off, banks can get free money from the fed. I don't know if it is as easy to get free money for unsecured debt as it is for home mortgages, but the interest rate the banks charge on unsecured debt is astronomically higher which should make up for the fact that the loan is unsecured.

However, it is time to realize that credit card debt cannot continue to rise forever. Consumer credit card debt needs to be a closed loop system. At some point, the credit card debt NEEDS TO BE PAID BACK, this is a fact the banks REFUSE to acknowledge.

If ever there was a time when consumer credit card debt needed to be paid down and paid back, it would be now. However, now is the worst time for many consumers to be paying back their credit card debt as many are struggling to just pay their mortgage, utilities and food bills each month. This is why the banks, and our government, need to step up and offer consumers credit card debt interest rate reduction incentives.

The consumer, the banks, federal governments and local governments WOULD ALL BENEFIT from a credit card debt interest rate reduction incentive program, I'll outline how, AND NO NEW TAXES WOULD BE REQUIRED.

If one wants to avoid artificial methods to fake an economic recovery, (such as raising taxes that create pork projects), the best way in my opinion is for people to pay back what they owe, but in a manner which does not cause them economic hardship. Because consumers would actually be paying DOWN their overall credit card debt (with a severely reduced credit card interest rate incentive program), a higher percentage of unsecured debt would actually be paid back rather than lost to default, and many, many, many good things would happen as a result.

Consumers who are in a position to pay down their credit card debt if the interest rate were reduced to near zero percent, (how about 2.9%), would be able to both begin paying down their credit card debt while still respending a modest portion every month as well. The ability to pay down an existing credit card debt while also being able to respend a smaller amount than what is being paid down every month is the entire key to a main street economic recovery.

1. The banks benefit from a more stable income of money each and every month from their unsecured accounts.

2. The consumer benefits by being able to stretch their income so they can still make small purchases every month even as they reduce their overall credit card debt.

3. The consumer is in a better position to make their HAMP or mortgage payments as well as they reduce their overall consumer credit card debt load.

4. Local cities and states benefit since less foreclosures result in a SIGNIFICANT increase in property tax income and less strain on their court system as well.

5. As the credit card debt interest rate reduction incentive program ages, consumers will have more and more of their own income staying in their own wallets, resulting in an increase in savings, and or spending on local products and services, which in turn may help reseed small businesses.

6. Consumer reliability begins to grow, which once again benefits the banks and their long term investments in home mortgages.

7. As a certain percentage of consumers are able to get out of debt, their spending power begins to create green shoots for other consuers who are still looking for work. The result is more and more people now have a better chance at a long term job and can be relied on to take care of their own financial obligations.

8. Small businesses can begin to create green opportunities without use of massive amounts of federal funds or "tax breaks" as more and more consumers actually have spendable money and also ok with the idea of long term savings.

9. Best of all, NO NEW TAXES or pork projects would be required!

Until a credit card debt interest rate reduction incentive program is offered to those who can afford to pay down their credit card debt, I believe we are being deceived by those in power into believing it will take other sources of income to fix what consumers could actually fix themselves.

You can read the SHORT, four point economic program that incorporates the above ideas plus two other simple, logical ideas that would accelerate economic stability at Wall Street Change.

Banksters Causing Huge Revenue loss: Governments across state lose revenue when banks get repossessed homes' tax breaks - OrlandoSentinel.com

Revenue loss: Governments across state lose revenue when banks get repossessed homes' tax breaks - OrlandoSentinel.com

Not only do banks get repossessed homes' tax breaks in Florida, but foreclosed homes throughout the entire United States sell for approximately 32% less than unforeclosed homes, so once the bank actually sells the home, the property tax loss to the state becomes even greater.

In other words, once a home is foreclosed upon by the banksters, the state loses money by either giving the bank a homeowners tax break, or by having the home resold at a 32% price reduction. Lets not forget that the banksters are also using taxpayer resources to fund the actual foreclosure process through the state courts.

And to think that close to a million homeowners have actually been accelerated through the foreclosure process by the Parallel Foreclosure procedure that the banksters adhere to.

Foreclosure Settlement to benefit Kansas - Pittsburg, KS - Morning Sun

Settlement to benefit Kansas - Pittsburg, KS - Morning Sun

While it is probably good news that a "deal" has been struck to benefit homeowners who are trying to lower their mortgage payment, what about those already victimized by Parallel Foreclosure?

50 Attorneys General initiate an investigation of the mortgage services industry.

Click here to read the Beasley Allen article about the 50 state attorneys general mortgage services industry investigation.

With No Funds for Lawyers, Brooklyn Homeowners Must Represent Themselves

With No Funds for Lawyers, Brooklyn Homeowners Must Represent Themselves.

Where are all the students who passed the bar and are looking for work. Why not take a few of these cases? Isn't that better than waiting for a job offer that maybe isn't going to happen? And if a job offer does come, wouldn't it be better to show the firm some actual courtroom experience?

It also gives someone who passes the bar a legitimate excuse to contact a legal firm for some simple advice. I bet legal firms would rather give small amount of time helping out someone who is learning the ropes, then taking endless calls from people who are looking for work.

If you're a not yet hired but passed the bar kind of person, why not get involved in this type of a case and make a NAME for yourself.

US Bank vs Mathon, it appears that Parallel Foreclosure is frowned upon by the courts, even if the courts don't call it Parallel Foreclosure.

"Here, the Court has serious and grave concerns regarding Plaintiff’s conduct in this matter, which appears to be rife with bad faith. This can be amply seen by the acceptance of multiple payments following the three trial payments, the promise albeit unfulfilled of the permanent modification and the verbal assurances that the modification had been approved juxtaposed with the vague denial issued one year after the trial agreement, the spurious claims of non-cooperation by Defendants, the seeming offer of a “new” modification and the withdrawal of the motion for judgment in an apparent attempt to divest this Court of jurisdiction to deal with this Order To Show Cause."

Is it correct to state that Parallel Foreclosure actions by banks are "rife with bad faith"?

You can read the entire article and ruling here. You can learn more about the public discovery of Parallel Foreclosure here.

In US Bank vs Mathon, it seems to me that if the mortgage servicing company had accepted the loan modification payments for three months, but then refused to do the home loan mod and also refused to accept any more payments, that it would have been up to the homeowner to set up a bank account and make a monthly mortgage payment deposit to demonstrate to the court that they were still making their payments. The mortgage servicing company instead continually accepted the mortgage payments up until foreclosure, which appears to have not have set well with the judge.

This may explain why mortgage servicers will stop accepting payments when they have resolved they want to foreclose. It looks better in court if the mortgage servicer can say the homeowner has lived for "free" in the home for the past number of months or longer.

if the homeowner did not make a monthly mortgage deposit for every month their payments were being refused by the mortgage servicer, the judge might be more favorable to the mortgage servicer side and less so to the homeowner, (that is just my opinion).

Of course where this last point can get sticky is if the monthly mortgage amount is in dispute.

Main Street vs Wall Street, the board game edition.

Ok, I don't have the time or the focus to come up with a board game called Main Street vs Wall Street, the board game edition, but what a wonderful tool this could be to educate people on what has gone wrong in the past decade or so with wall street, main street, and our economy.

If some of the well known economic blogs combined forces and came up with a board game about main street vs wall street, it could be one of those fundraiser type of deals where readers buy the game from their favorite economic blog.

Federal Reserve 3.3 trillion dollar magical mystery tour, not a drop for main street, USA.

CLICK HERE TO GO VIDEO.

Frank Garay and Brian Stevens of Think Big Work Small make an excellent point about how little attention was paid to Ben's Bernanke's bombshell that 3.3 TRILLION DOLLARS was "donated" to international banks with no recognizable paper trail.

(Update, Friday 8:19 am, Dec. 10, 2010 - In retrospect, donated is too harsh of a word. The money is supposedly going to be returned, but the point is, no public timetable for disclosure is set, nor are any terms made public. The reason that no initial publicity is given is to prevent a "run on a bank", but that does not mean that a year or two down the road we can't automatically be told who got what, when, and where, without having to sue to get that information.)

My additional concern involves the possibility of a political donation boomerang that 3.3 trillion dollars could bring, back to the United States. Just the "exchange rate" fee from 3.3 trillion dollars could be enough to fund a 2012 presidential campaign coffer in the United States.

3.3 trillion dollars could also easily lead to Federal Hobbs Act violations down the road.

Reviewing Link Etiquette when scraping copyrighted articles.

As a general rule, bloggers probably tend to obey "less rules" then news sites such as the A.P. and Reuters (although whose to say if AP writers don't occasionally news scrape from bloggers without giving credit, or ignoring salient points in their own report that a blogger has already discovered).

If the AP had it their way, everybody would pay for everything at all times, but this is not realistic. The AP, and Reuters, and so on, provide original content, then this content is purchased by regional newspapers all across the world.

However, if it were not for bloggers commenting on local and national news stories that they are interested in, The AP articles would have less impact. Bloggers actually provide a service called "Curation".

The problem of theft occurs when A, bloggers lift articles in their entirety, or even when over 20-25% of the article is lifted aka news scraping, and B. when no link back and credit is provided for either photo or articles that come from a news bureau or someone who has Paid for the right to publish the article.

If you blog, curate responsibly and give story and picture credit where it is due.

CSPAN Transcript and Archived Video Coverage of the Dec. 1, 2010 Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Mortgage Service & Foreclosure Practices Hearing.

CSPAN Transcript and Archived Video Coverage of the Dec. 1, 2010 Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Mortgage Service & Foreclosure Practices Hearing links can be found by clicking here!

Why Homeowners in foreclosure because of Predatory Interest Rate Loans, Buying "too much House", or because of "Securitization" are not at fault.

Why are homeowners being blamed for the foreclosure mess?

"They bought too much house" is one common accusation. If the homeowners are married, it sounds like what they really did was think ahead and decided to GROW INTO THEIR HOME. One rule of thumb that applied before 2008 was that the longer one lived in a house, the actual cost of property taxes compared to newer homeowners becomes less over time.

Moving expenses can justify buying a long term house. Moving is EXPENSIVE. Moving costs can be as much as 50,000 dollars when ALL COSTS (including realtor costs) are considered. So homeowners who "bought too much house" were many times planning for the long haul and would have RECOUPED significant savings from not having to move for quite some time, and they would also have lower property taxes compared to those who move more often.

Buying "too much house" also allows for a parent, grandparent, or son or daughter to move back in if the economy goes south. ahem.

Buying "too much house" also allows for the possibility of a start up small business venture, long term storage, possibility of renting a room out, even converting a room or two for exercise to promote long term health.

"They should never have agreed to a subprime loan".

BANKS WERE NOT GOING TO GIVE UP ON THEIR CRAZY SUBPRIME OFFERS UNTIL THEY MET THEIR SECURITIZATION QUOTAS BECAUSE THEY WERE MAKING FRAUDULENT, MASSIVELY EXCESSIVE BONUSES AND PROFITS.

It was homeowners trying to do the right thing and be cautious that caused the banks to keep upping and upping and reupping their crazy offers until homeowners gave in to the fact that, THIS WAS A BANK, GOVERNED BY RULES AND REGULATIONS, and homeowners CORRECTLY ASSUMED that the banks could not make these offers if they were not legitimate.

When banks could mathematically show that the homeowner could move into a home for equivalent cost to renting, but it required a predatory loan to accomplish this, the banks crossed the line, not the homeowner.

Predatory loans are masked as low credit score punishment loans when the real risk is that the loan simply has too high of an interest rate attached to it. Did you know that if one homeowner receives a 4% interest rate, and another homeowner receives an 8.08% interest rate on the same amount of money, the 8.08% loan will need to be paid off in twice the time, even though the monthly payments and down payment are identical!

It's important to understand just how predatory the above example is. Imagine that two homeowners receive loans for an identical amount, and their monthly mortgage payments are identical. One homeowner pays off their home in 15 years, while the predatory loan will require 30 years to pay off, even though the loan amount and monthly payments are identical. That is a predatory loan!

An effective way to reduce predatory loans is not allow predatory percentage rates to exist, rather, just don't offer as much loan money and keep the interest rate more competitive.

"Investors need to be paid for securitizing mortgages no matter how bad the mortgage deal was that the homeowner signed." This is the scandal of all scandals.

There can be NO CHANGE IN TERMS to an original, pre-securitized mortgage agreement unless the homeowner agrees to it. If anything changes regarding the mortgage agreement, securitization included, without the homeowner's expressed, written, consent, the securitization should be voided and the homeowner should incur no consequences that result from change in terms that the homeowner did not agree to.

I'm not saying the homeowner does not have to pay their mortgage, I am saying that the terms MUST REMAIN UNCHANGED to what they were at the time the home owner signed their mortgage papers.

In my opinion, ALL securitized mortgage loans MUST RETURNED BACK TO THE ORIGINAL TERMS, and any payments, fees or predatory tactics that accelerated a foreclosure MUST BE UNDONE, investors CANNOT BE PRIORITIZED over the HOMEOWNER, and restitutions need to be offered to every homeowner affected, including those who have already lost their homes to foreclosure.