Showing posts with label Banksters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Banksters. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Bill Bonner On The Federal Government's Active Role In Shrinking The Wealth Of The American Family
There's a sort of cold comfort in this article for OS, because for the past twenty years or so, he has felt like he and his family have had to run at full tilt just to tread slowly into a semi-comfortable and dignified existence. It is a modest life, for which he is deeply grateful, so please--this is not a whine or a pity party. But at times, he thought, 'What's wrong with me? I'm working so hard and making so little progress.' Maybe, OS sez to himself, it wasn't all about you after all.
At the same time, OS always has had the sneaking suspicion that things were not, well, exactly healthy, even as the suburbs and shopping malls sprang up around the every major city in the heartland. Actually, we're at the point that it is hard to tell if one is in the suburbs of Dayton, Louisville, Memphis, Birmingham....it's all depressingly the same, with different weather in each location.
It was smoke and mirrors, and when things hit the wall, the Gubbermint came to the rescue of the people who had created TheGreatBubble, and stuck the rest of us with the bill. It may take decades to repair the damage, assuming we begin acting sanely this week.
The choice between Obama and Romney is quite disheartening. A vote for Obama is not possible. So, OS plans to vote for Romney, and donate to and work for state house and Congressional candidates that make Paul Ryan look like a girly-man. Someone has got to stand up a loud 'Hell-No', and it that Someone needs to be a comfortable majority of both House and Senate, and in every state and county legislative body in the country.
In the meantime, OS is tending his garden...
In the meantime, OS is tending his garden...
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Orphaned Housing, Declining Neighbohoods In Louisville--A Cautionary Tale Of the Shadow Inventory
You might not know it, but Louisville has much more going on, and much bigger problems than the current food fight between labor and management at the Louisville Orchestra.
This article gives some insight:
Sweet. The banks write mortgages that at bottom say: 'Make your payments, or we'll seize the property.' This owner went through bankruptcy, and voluntarily surrendered the banks' property back to them. They refused to take them back, and also refused to release the lien. In other words, they know the properties are deep under water, that they were never worth the money lent on them. They now refuse to have them on the books, and simultaneously insist that the debtor still owes the full amount of the remaining mortgage. The taxes have piled up as well in the meantime, but the city doesn't wish to seize them either.
So the houses sit and rot, attract vermin vagrants and criminals, and serve to pull the neighborhood down into the black hole with them. Whose gunna lend money on the house next door to one of these houses, or down the block for that matter?
After all that money was shoved at the banks via TARP, the Fed, and the FDIC to save them from themselves, we have this mess on our hands.
Mr. Hill's former houses are part of that large 'shadow inventory', in legal and financial limbo. Until someone begins telling the truth, and takes the initiative to clean up this mess, this problem only gets worse.
OS nominates the banks for the role. They lent the money, it's their risk.
Not ours.
This article gives some insight:
97-year-old house at Virginia Avenue and South 32nd Street in Parkland has languished for years, with its overgrown grass and a piece of metal drip edge hanging over the porch.Last April, Louisville Metro Government employees made an “emergency” visit to board up the house because “people have been going in and out stealing copper and hanging out.”
.
A month later, metro officials filed criminal charges against the property owner, Dartanya Hill — a move reserved for only the most negligent property owners.
But while he remains the house’s legal owner, Hill contends that he “surrendered” the $42,910 one-story home and three other western Louisville rental properties in 2007 when he went through bankruptcy.
Now he is suing Bank of America, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, claiming the mortgage creditors have left him in “legal limbo” by keeping their liens on the dilapidated houses but also refusing to take title — and thus legal responsibility — for them.
Sweet. The banks write mortgages that at bottom say: 'Make your payments, or we'll seize the property.' This owner went through bankruptcy, and voluntarily surrendered the banks' property back to them. They refused to take them back, and also refused to release the lien. In other words, they know the properties are deep under water, that they were never worth the money lent on them. They now refuse to have them on the books, and simultaneously insist that the debtor still owes the full amount of the remaining mortgage. The taxes have piled up as well in the meantime, but the city doesn't wish to seize them either.
So the houses sit and rot, attract vermin vagrants and criminals, and serve to pull the neighborhood down into the black hole with them. Whose gunna lend money on the house next door to one of these houses, or down the block for that matter?
After all that money was shoved at the banks via TARP, the Fed, and the FDIC to save them from themselves, we have this mess on our hands.
Mr. Hill's former houses are part of that large 'shadow inventory', in legal and financial limbo. Until someone begins telling the truth, and takes the initiative to clean up this mess, this problem only gets worse.
OS nominates the banks for the role. They lent the money, it's their risk.
Not ours.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Eurozone? We Don't Need No Effin' EuroZone! Iceland Stands Tall, And Is Recovering
As Robert Peston so succinctly phrased it a few years back, the bankers and government of Iceland had essentially transformed the country into a large hedge fund, backed by the taxpayers (without telling them about it).
As these things always do, it all blew up, and instead of paying to bail out the bankers, and the politicians, and the Eurocrats, the Icelanders reverted back to their traditional life of freedom, told them all to stuff it, and got on with their business.
It worked. Which is why you hear so little news of it in general.
Iceland’s approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn.
Once it became clear back in October 2008 that the island’s banks were beyond saving, the government stepped in, ring-fenced the domestic accounts, and left international creditors in the lurch. The central bank imposed capital controls to halt the ensuing sell-off of the krona and new state-controlled banks were created from the remnants of the lenders that failed.
Activists say the banks should go even further in their debt relief. Andrea J. Olafsdottir, chairman of the Icelandic Homes Coalition, said she doubts the numbers provided by the banks are reliable.
“There are indications that some of the financial institutions in question haven’t lost a penny with the measures that they’ve undertaken,” she said.
It was painful, and to some extent still is. But no one from Brussels has arrived to install their own government in a defacto coup, as has happened in Greece and Italy. Or, it may be argued, here.
Just sayin'...
As these things always do, it all blew up, and instead of paying to bail out the bankers, and the politicians, and the Eurocrats, the Icelanders reverted back to their traditional life of freedom, told them all to stuff it, and got on with their business.
It worked. Which is why you hear so little news of it in general.
Iceland’s approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn.
Once it became clear back in October 2008 that the island’s banks were beyond saving, the government stepped in, ring-fenced the domestic accounts, and left international creditors in the lurch. The central bank imposed capital controls to halt the ensuing sell-off of the krona and new state-controlled banks were created from the remnants of the lenders that failed.
Activists say the banks should go even further in their debt relief. Andrea J. Olafsdottir, chairman of the Icelandic Homes Coalition, said she doubts the numbers provided by the banks are reliable.
“There are indications that some of the financial institutions in question haven’t lost a penny with the measures that they’ve undertaken,” she said.
It was painful, and to some extent still is. But no one from Brussels has arrived to install their own government in a defacto coup, as has happened in Greece and Italy. Or, it may be argued, here.
Just sayin'...
Thursday, December 8, 2011
MF Global Quote Of The Day: Amy Klobuchar (D) Minnesota
The MF Global scandal will eventually take its place beside Lehman, Enron, Merrill-Lynch, GM, Goldman-Sachs and the rest. Its tentacles reach far beyond Wall Street and City of London. It is landing, like an enormous cow-pie, into the lives of farmers on the American prairie.
There are legitimate participants in the commodities markets, doing legitimate business for good reasons. One reason is to stabilize feed costs for livestock producers.
From the Minnesota Star-Tribune:
Dennis Magnuson is a farmer, not a gambler. He trades in the commodity futures markets hoping to stabilize the cost of feed for the pigs he sells. The Austin, Minn., resident said he would never put his money into bonds issued by European countries flirting with economic collapse.
But the now-collapsed MF Global Holdings Ltd. may have done that for him.
Magnuson is among more than 100 Minnesota farmers estimated to have assets frozen as a result of MF Global's bankruptcy filing and an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer funds. Most of the farmers didn't choose to do business with the huge brokerage house that has become one of the biggest financial failures in U.S. history. They invested through brokers or financial advisers who eventually used MF Global to clear trades.
On Thursday, members of the Senate agriculture committee, including Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, grilled the heads of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over apparent loopholes in rules that allowed farmers' commodity trades to end up in risky European bonds.
What??!!!???
The article is horrifying to read, but OS hopes you read it. The final paragraph is out quote of the day:
"I don't have a scandal meter," she said. "I just think it's another example of why we just can't let these financial firms run roughshod over people on Main Street or people who are doing nothing but growing crops or raising pigs. They should not have to know every in and out of the regulatory system to protect their money."
Ya'll--if Corzine and company don't go to jail for the rest of their lives, then Bernie Madoff is owed an apology. This is just the front end of the woes to befall this country from MF Global.
Remember who Corzine is, and who his HomeBoy in the White House is. Less than a year to go until we get to register our opinions at the ballot. OS just hopes someone can staunch the financial blood loss sufficiently until then.
Before this is over, Corzine will have loaded up the Gulfstream and high-tailed it to somewhere like Paraguay. He still has his passport, and access to all sorts of cash and assets everywhere.
Heaven help us.
There are legitimate participants in the commodities markets, doing legitimate business for good reasons. One reason is to stabilize feed costs for livestock producers.
From the Minnesota Star-Tribune:
Dennis Magnuson is a farmer, not a gambler. He trades in the commodity futures markets hoping to stabilize the cost of feed for the pigs he sells. The Austin, Minn., resident said he would never put his money into bonds issued by European countries flirting with economic collapse.
But the now-collapsed MF Global Holdings Ltd. may have done that for him.
Magnuson is among more than 100 Minnesota farmers estimated to have assets frozen as a result of MF Global's bankruptcy filing and an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer funds. Most of the farmers didn't choose to do business with the huge brokerage house that has become one of the biggest financial failures in U.S. history. They invested through brokers or financial advisers who eventually used MF Global to clear trades.
On Thursday, members of the Senate agriculture committee, including Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, grilled the heads of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over apparent loopholes in rules that allowed farmers' commodity trades to end up in risky European bonds.
What??!!!???
The article is horrifying to read, but OS hopes you read it. The final paragraph is out quote of the day:
"I don't have a scandal meter," she said. "I just think it's another example of why we just can't let these financial firms run roughshod over people on Main Street or people who are doing nothing but growing crops or raising pigs. They should not have to know every in and out of the regulatory system to protect their money."
Ya'll--if Corzine and company don't go to jail for the rest of their lives, then Bernie Madoff is owed an apology. This is just the front end of the woes to befall this country from MF Global.
Remember who Corzine is, and who his HomeBoy in the White House is. Less than a year to go until we get to register our opinions at the ballot. OS just hopes someone can staunch the financial blood loss sufficiently until then.
Before this is over, Corzine will have loaded up the Gulfstream and high-tailed it to somewhere like Paraguay. He still has his passport, and access to all sorts of cash and assets everywhere.
Heaven help us.
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