Bank of America's Spin Cycle and Politics

It was announced today with great fanfare in the mainstream media that Bank of America, the "largest" bank in the United States, has called a halt to its ongoing foreclosures.

However, there appears to be many, many caveats to this story.

First, the foreclosures are simply going to be halted in order to "review" those that are now in the process in simply the 23 states where judicial review of foreclosures is required. That eliminates any "saves" for those state where non-judicial foreclosures are afforded (illegally, but what the heck? If there is ANY equity in those homes, see the provisions on "life, liberty or property" in the Constitution for a clue on what the legal process should be, and for jury trials on deprivation of property if there is actually ANY equity, including offsets in all those upfront junk fees and costs).

Which maybe be good news to those homeowners in 23 states, but does nothing for those in many of the hardest hit.

Second, this review was publicized heavily right before the election, which makes such announcement suspect at best, and also was facilitated due to the fact that the housing market isn't improving under this Administration as with the last, and it has been claimed that one executive of this bank admitted that she had initiated over 8,000 foreclosures last month alone without even reading any of the documents.

Although, of course, most of those loans were Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans merely sold by Bank of America to homeowners with those usurous and banker friendly terms included.

Third, since most of that "paper" (contracts) was rebundled and resold over the global exchange due to another unconstitutional Act of Congress affording these banks to so do in order to "stimulate" the global economy at the Americans expense once again ultimately, for many after that bailout there is actually no underlying debt to many of those mortgages, at least to the banks anyway.

And I have always wondered as a Constitution believing American, how those banks could resell those mortgages to even other banks to begin with without one of the parties to that contracts consent. That flies in the face of the common law of contracts as intended in this country from the outset.

And those mere "disclosure" provisions simply have become nothing more than a license to steal, or renegotiate those contracts by those banking entities almost at will even before the ink is dried on those closing documents.

Those global investors MAYBE may be still out some cash, but I doubt that since many foreign entities and foreign banks were also included in that bailout too, of course, then billed to OUR deficit.

Many of whom, of course, were savvy investors to begin with and some even looking for tax write-offs on their massive wealth. I mean how many average Joes in this country can invest in banking and financial stocks, even at their lower market values now?

Corporations and union pension plans, maybe, but not your Average American.

This "announcement" most of all seems like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.

Of course, the realtors also got into the act, with an agent from San Diego posturing about how this move just might make those "lining up" to buy these cheap properties take a step back.

I mean, the original owner just might have been ousted illegally, and just think of all those lawyers that would then be needed to sort this all out in such an event as the original owner still having a legal claim to the property he maybe has lived in for ten, twenty or even almost thirty years (since these "creative" adjustable rate mortgages have been in existence since at least the early 1980's, and there have been two other recessions since then meaning many also just might still have seconds also on them in order to pay their assundry increasing costs of ownership and debts from those years).

What timing! What publicity! What a political maneuver!

I went into the mall in a community in the West that has kiosks set up by several real estate agencies hawking those foreclosed properties to the public. In over an hour and a half observing while I was visiting a social service agency that has taken up residency in that same mall after the retailer folded, I saw only one person even stop at the kiosk.

Too many have been burned this time, and this is the third market manipulation in the housing industry (or fourth, I've lost count) in my lifetime. Don't you think that those that have been burned, and are standing now in the social services offices have warned their posterity that "if it looks too good to be true, it most likely is."

Or instructed them to simply run the other way?

I mean all those new carbon and health care "taxes" are also coming up, so just how can you budget for those expenses, and still afford all those closing costs?

Not to mention, the next cyclical meltdown in less than 15 years, if history serves. And those 50+ page loan docs now even dictating "useage" and also repair standards and such, not to mention having to send at least your first born out to work should you miss simply one of those payments, if you have any equity in those properties. The hatchet will fall that much quicker for the bottom line profits of those banks.

So don't even think of taking out one of those 15 year "fixed" notes, either.

Nothing is fixed, except the roulette wheel in the 21st century housing market.

Tinkerbell, Fairy Dust and The American Economy

It was announced with great fanfare by economists in Washington today that the "Great Recession" beginning in 2007 was over officially in June, 2009.

Say, what?

Apparently, in a townhall style meeting held by Mr. Obama later the American public just isn't buying it.

Those economists are failing to disclose, it appears, just which economy they are speaking of. The American economy, or the global one?

Could it be that the global economy has recovered, at the cost of the American economy which still is in a freefall, from the looks of those lining up still at the unemployment offices, and social service agencies.

I still am scratching my head, since the American economy began its freefall in 2006, back when the mortgage crisis began and the bubble burst in the West, Southwest, and other parts of the country, and that was in June, 2006.

I should know since I was one of those affected whose "creative" refinanced loan based on British LIBOR interest rates was scheduled to readjust (and for which hefty closing costs on that loan in which I was forced to take out due to escalating costs of ownership during the bubble), and who then watched the value of my home decrease then by the week it seemed while I was attempting to then sell it.

I was luckier than many, although the true circumstances under which I "lost" my home were egregiously assisted by state and federal banking and governmental friendly property statutes that had fundamentally changed even the terms of my ownership since I purchased my small townhouse back in 1994, and a court action then that upheld "the state" and its special interests groups over my property ownership rights in a house I had lived in for over 12 years.

I don't think that GM plant in Detroit has reopened, or am I missing something?

And the new jobs created in Louisiana appear to be coastline cleanup jobs, most held by the former fishermen and shrimpers from that region post Katrina, Gustav and Deepwater.

A member of the Wall Street linebackers attended the townhall, bemoaning the beating the bankers took (although if my memory serves, many of them were soaking up the rays in California with pina coladas with their executive bonuses, weren't they, when this all began?)

Seems that the housing market hasn't rallied, but then the terms under those loans that are now being offered for refinances haven't really changed much at all, simply a half percent or so drop in those lending rates. And fixed rates still, unless credit reports are in the 700's, are rare and hard to obtain.

It is those usurous loans which are now the bread and butter of the banking industry, and apparently Americans still are having a hard time justifying buying even a "cheap" home that they may in turn lose during the next housing meltdown within the next decade or two, since this cycle harkens back to the 70's 80' and even 90's in its scope, although affecting many, many more due to the amount of those loans which were marketed to the public by both East and West coast banking houses.

Foreclosure contracts at the get go, and how many now since so many thousands have been affected can, due to their lack of jobs, savings or bad credit, even qualify for those "interest only," cheap deals, or would have the means or inclination to put much "sweat equity" into those purchases?

Between those affected in both the 90's and this cycle, that removes quite a few Americans from ever having another shot at the American dream.

The jobs which have been created appear to be mostly directed toward those tech, science based jobs, or construction due to all these "disasters" that keep occurring on top of the piss poor economy and many of those jobs are going to foreigners at any rate due to all the insourcing and outsourcing.

So I guess my question is, who's writing these economic reports?

The author of Peter Pan, James Barrie?

Or are these reports actually bi-partisan efforts, since it seems that the only "change" that has occurred since the last election cycle, is simply a change of the face behind the podium, and the supporting players from the blue team now in this global economic rebalancing act.

Or is Robin Hood also a major player here too?

Taking from the poor Americans on balance, and redistributing their wealth, or whatever is now left of it from the formerly middle class private sector minions, globally?

If those dates are correct, must be another new invention of science-based technology.

The Tinkerbell calender.