The mortgage foreclosure crisis - industrial strength fraud

[geckosfeet]

My awareness of 'irregularities' in our nations banking system starts around the time of the savings and loan crisis during the reign of Bush the first. Although the S&L crisis represented a microcosm of depression era bank failures it was an unprecedented event for people of my generation. It also foreshadowed todays financial crisis. We all watched agape as huge government bailouts were dolled out with little oversight to well connected banks.

Fundamental to the manipulative economic practices that facilitated the S&L crisis was the idea that the best way to rob a bank was to own one. Once you owned it, you could do whatever you wanted and stick the taxpayers with the bill.

But what the banksters learned from their 'mistakes' was not how to avoid bankruptcy. Ooooo noooo. What they learned was how to 'encourage a pro-business government' and tap directly into the taxpayer honey pot for bailouts and free money after looting their bank/financial institution. Oligarchical game on. The best way to rob a whole country is to own the government.

No Mr. President, Larry Summers Did Not Resolve the Financial Crisis for a Pittance, He Just Papered Over the Problem

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President Obama on Wednesday night told Jon Stewart that the administration had resolved the crisis for a pittance -- vastly less than their measure of the costs of resolution in early 2009. He also claimed that the administration deserved credit for preventing a second Great Depression.
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Recall George Akerlof's and Paul Romer's title -- Looting: the Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit. They showed that even without a bailout the fraudulent CEO could grow wealthy by destroying "his" bank. With a bailout -- and the Bush and Obama administration's de facto grant of impunity and an unlimited guarantee to the SDIs -- the CEOs can loot without it leading inevitably to bankruptcy. This has made banking an even more criminogenic environment for accounting control fraud and will cause recurrent, intensifying crises.
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No Mr. President, Larry Summers Did Not Resolve the Financial Crisis for a Pittance, He Just Papered Over the Problem

Before the dust settled on the S&L crisis banksters were laying the ground work for their next heist. In order for their plan to work boardrooms had to buy enough congressman and senators to repeal the Glass-Steagall act. They did, and the rest is history.

But the scam continues. After stealing billions in investment money and tax money the banks are now after the last major investment most Americans have - our homes - and they are blaming us. They are taking our homes without having clear and unambiguous proof that they are in the legal chain of ownership.

In the feeding frenzy the mortgage mills neglected to properly transfer paperwork to the financial institutions that packaged the mortgages into securities. This means that besides not being able to demonstrate that the security itself is valid, financial institutions are unable to demonstrate that they in fact have the right to foreclose on homes. The foreclosure system is in chaos because many of the mortgage backed securities the financial industry wants to use to establish ownership are composed of fraudulent mortgages.

Most excellent.

Getting Medieval On Your Assets: Four Reasons Foreclosure Fraud Really, Really Matters

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... they intended to make quick and easy money by pumping up housing values, churning loans to customers who they knew couldn't pay. (The customers didn't know that, but the banks did.) They thought they could float this crap game forever, riding an ever-growing bubble and tossing the defaulting homeowners away when they couldn't pay the nut. But the bubble burst and the crap game got shut down.
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They were able to walk away from this massive nationwide scam by convincing the country that the only irresponsible parties were people who "bought more house than they could afford." It worked, too. But now they've been caught in widespread fraud -- and they want to walk away from that, too. Nobody's suggesting there weren't irresponsible buyers out there, too. But so far, the bankers have been able to convince the country that the "moral hazard" was everybody's but theirs -- even though they were running the entire system, and it's the entire system that's broken down.
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This time, the guilty parties should be made to pay for criminal behavior. And they should be forced to accept some of the financial consequences of their bad behavior by writing down some of the principal on the bad loans they've issued and sold.
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Getting Medieval On Your Assets: Four Reasons Foreclosure Fraud Really, Really Matters

Legal requirements vary by state, but many states require unambiguous paperwork trails in order to demonstrate title and deed ownership in order to foreclose. As it should be. But somehow, this is not slowing down the foreclosure rate. Personally I think that this is because many homeowners lack the resources to fight the fraud.

Once the bank forecloses the bank in effect establishes ownership. Before the bank forecloses the occupant of the home holds the upper hand. Possession is nine tenths of the law. That is why the banks are foreclosing rather than restructuring mortgages. They need to establish clear and unambiguous ownership. They know that they lose if they do not get that homeowner out. They know that if they restructure someone will have to show that they really own the mortgage. This will of course alert the homeowner that the bank is NOT the owner of the mortgage and ensure that the bank loses everything.

Amid mortgage mess, owners blindsided

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During the last month, several major lenders have temporarily halted thousands of foreclosure cases amid reports that fraudulent court documents and improper procedures have been used to evict people from their homes. But disarray within the mortgage industry goes much further. And the foreclosure pause has done little to address the common industry practice of taking homes from people who'd been led to believe they could save them.

"It's still happening everywhere," said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who has tried to bar the dual-track process in his state, one of the hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. "It's one of the largest complaints I get. . . . The lenders need to make a choice. What do they want: a foreclosure or a loan modification?"
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Amid mortgage mess, owners blindsided

THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS BOGUS – FABRICATED MORTGAGE ASSIGNMENTS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY

But through it all banks, lenders and financial institutions have been remarkably consistent. They keep taking advantage of people. Keep taking taxpayer bailouts. Keep stealing. How do they get away with it?

Getting Medieval On Your Assets: Four Reasons Foreclosure Fraud Really, Really Matters

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The problem isn't that some people bought "more house than they can afford." The problem is that we have more rights as free citizens than the banking industry can afford. So, naturally, they want us to pretend those rights don't exist. If we do, we'll lose them. And that will be a really big deal.
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Getting Medieval On Your Assets: Four Reasons Foreclosure Fraud Really, Really Matters

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[DeSwiss]

1. K&R n/t

[EFerrari]

2. The biggest rip off in our lifetime and no one is doing squat about it. n/t

[KT2000]

3. Imagine what they could

do with all the assets from social security. I think that is about the last pocket to be picked.

There is nothing in the works to fix this either. America is dying from greed.

[geckosfeet]

4. I bet you are right. Back room social security money schemes are afoot..