foreclosure statistics

Foreclosure fraud is ruffling a lot of feathers on Wall Street, and while the full scope of losses remains unclear, even major banks are now acknowledging that this is a multi-billion-dollar disaster, not just a set of minor paperwork headaches.

So how bad will it get for Wall Street? There are several disaster scenarios in which the housing market simply shuts down, where the potential losses for Wall Street are simply incalculable. But even situations that do not directly rip apart the basic functioning of the mortgage system could be enough to shut down one or more big banks, creating serious trouble for the financial system, and a major test of the recent Wall Street reform bill.

JPMorgan Chase loves using its research department to push its political agenda, and the bank is currently characterizing the foreclosure fraud outbreak as a set of "process-oriented problems that can be fixed." That puts them in the rosy optimist camp for this crisis, and they're projecting a total of $55 billion to $120 billion in losses for the entire industry, spread out over a few years.

But take a look at the analysts' methodology. The actual scope of losses gets drastically larger if you just change a few arbitrary assumptions.

JPMorgan's analysts look at about $6 trillion in mortgages issued between 2005 and 2007—this is the height of the bubble, but it excludes plenty of lousy loans issued in 2003, 2004 and 2008. They then estimate defaults of $2 trillion and losses of $1.1 trillion on those defaults.

So far, these estimates are reasonable. According to Valparaiso University Law School Professor Alan White, banks lose about 58 percent of the value of a subprime loan at foreclosure. JPMorgan is estimating 55 percent. The notion that one-third of mortgages issued at the height of the bubble will default may seem extreme, but the analysis includes both first-lien mortgages and second-lien mortgages (home equity loans). For houses with multiple mortgages, there's going to be a double-hit when the first lien goes bad. Right now, the official statistics from Mortgage Bankers Association indicate that 14 percent of first mortgages are delinquent or in foreclosure. The longer unemployment stays near 10 percent, the higher that figure will go.

Things don't get out of control until JPMorgan's analysts start deploying their assumptions. First, they assume that Fannie and Freddie will attempt to sack banks with losses from 25 percent of the defaults they see. Of those 25 percent, they assume Fannie and Freddie will successfully force banks to eat losses on 40 percent, leading to total losses of 10 percent. Why 25 percent? Why 40 percent? The analysts don't say. JPMorgan expects private-sector investors to be able to saddle banks with just 5 percent of foreclosure losses, citing a host of technical legal hurdles that make it hard for investors to have their cases heard in court.

So JPMorgan's loss projections are nothing more than a guess—and a low-ball guess at that. JPMorgan is assuming that only five to 10 percent of looming foreclosure losses will actually hit big banks. Change that assumption—20 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent—and things get far worse for Wall Street than JPMorgan's "worst-case" scenario predicts.

Let's consider the exposures of a single bank to put things in context, and let's pick Bank of America, since analysts seem to agree that BofA has the most to worry about right now. They were a big issuer of mortgages themselves, but they also purchased the notoriously predatory Countrywide Financial and also picked up securitization behemoth Merrill Lynch in 2008, giving them far more problems (hilariously, BofA actually paid cash to acquire these balance-sheet-busters).

The most dire estimates for losses on Fannie and Freddie loans at BofA have come from Christopher Whalen at Institutional Risk Analytics and Branch Hill Capital. Whalen has estimated $50 billion in Fannie and Freddie losses for the megabank, while Branch Hill has estimated $70 billion.

The trick is, BofA has $2.1 trillion in total exposure to Fannie and Freddie, according to Whalen. That means even Branch Hill's massive loss projection only amounts to a loss rate of about 3.5 percent.

As of July 2010, Fannie Mae had a serious delinquency rate of 4.82 percent—these are loans where families have missed at least three payments, but haven't been evicted. For Freddie Mac, the number is 3.83 percent. Not all of those losses can be pushed back on the banks, but those numbers will go up as the unemployment rate stays high. Tip the scales just a few percentage points and it's easy to envision catastrophic losses for banks.

But there's reason to believe that Bank of America is in even worse shape with regard to Fannie and Freddie than any of its peers. Countrywide was the single largest provider of loans to Fannie Mae during the housing bubble. Literally 28 percent of the loans Fannie Mae bought up in 2007 came from Countrywide. Fannie even featured a full-page, smiling photograph of Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo in their 2003 Annual Report (.pdf, see page 16).

It's much easier for banks to lose money on bad loans they sold to the GSEs than it is for them to lose money on securities they sold to purely private-sector investors. The fact that Bank of America's most notorious wing was the top provider to Fannie Mae during the peak years of the housing bubble does not bode well for the bank's balance sheet.

But this is just exposure to Fannie and Freddie. The private sector is angry about all kinds of things—from wronged borrowers to deceived investors. Investors are already organizing against both mortgage servicers—for improperly handling troubled loans—and against investment banks—for selling them garbage. They aren't just angry about fraudulent foreclosures—evidence is mounting that mortgage servicers can't even handle the profits from mortgages correctly, and aren't sending investors reliable, verifiable payments.

Yesterday investors sent a letter pressuring Countrywide's servicing arm to push losses from bad mortgage bonds back on the bank that sold them. Legally, it's a complicated maneuver, since Countrywide itself issued those bonds—but that just shows the multiple levels at which megabanks like BofA are exposed to fraud losses. Their original sale of mortgages to borrowers, the packaging of those mortgages into securities, the handling of payments and foreclosures, and the accounting for all of these activities—all of this is about to be subjected to serious fraud examinations by people who are trying to make money.

Up until yesterday, big banks thought they had a get-out-of-jail free card on investor lawsuits. Investors have to bring together 25 percent of the buyers of any mortgage bond in order to sue the bank that issued it—even if the actual lawsuit is an open-and-shut fraud case. Investors had not been cooperating. But yesterday's letter to Countrywide is a big deal—even though it's not (yet) a lawsuit, some of the biggest names in finance were going after Countrywide's cash: BlackRock, PIMCO and even the New York Federal Reserve.

Bill Frey, who runs the hedge fund Greenwich Capital, has organized a massive clearinghouse of mortgage investors for the express purpose of bringing lawsuits against big banks that issued bogus mortgage-backed securities. He told me this afternoon that he's about to move: In the next couple of weeks Greenwich and other investors will bring big lawsuits against major banks.

Will these combined troubles be enough to sink any big banks? If investors can win a couple of lawsuits, easily.

Foreclosure fraud is ruffling a lot of feathers on Wall Street, and while the full scope of losses remains unclear, even major banks are now acknowledging that this is a multi-billion-dollar disaster, not just a set of minor paperwork headaches.

So how bad will it get for Wall Street? There are several disaster scenarios in which the housing market simply shuts down, where the potential losses for Wall Street are simply incalculable. But even situations that do not directly rip apart the basic functioning of the mortgage system could be enough to shut down one or more big banks, creating serious trouble for the financial system, and a major test of the recent Wall Street reform bill.

JPMorgan Chase loves using its research department to push its political agenda, and the bank is currently characterizing the foreclosure fraud outbreak as a set of "process-oriented problems that can be fixed." That puts them in the rosy optimist camp for this crisis, and they're projecting a total of $55 billion to $120 billion in losses for the entire industry, spread out over a few years.

But take a look at the analysts' methodology. The actual scope of losses gets drastically larger if you just change a few arbitrary assumptions.

JPMorgan's analysts look at about $6 trillion in mortgages issued between 2005 and 2007—this is the height of the bubble, but it excludes plenty of lousy loans issued in 2003, 2004 and 2008. They then estimate defaults of $2 trillion and losses of $1.1 trillion on those defaults.

So far, these estimates are reasonable. According to Valparaiso University Law School Professor Alan White, banks lose about 58 percent of the value of a subprime loan at foreclosure. JPMorgan is estimating 55 percent. The notion that one-third of mortgages issued at the height of the bubble will default may seem extreme, but the analysis includes both first-lien mortgages and second-lien mortgages (home equity loans). For houses with multiple mortgages, there's going to be a double-hit when the first lien goes bad. Right now, the official statistics from Mortgage Bankers Association indicate that 14 percent of first mortgages are delinquent or in foreclosure. The longer unemployment stays near 10 percent, the higher that figure will go.

Things don't get out of control until JPMorgan's analysts start deploying their assumptions. First, they assume that Fannie and Freddie will attempt to sack banks with losses from 25 percent of the defaults they see. Of those 25 percent, they assume Fannie and Freddie will successfully force banks to eat losses on 40 percent, leading to total losses of 10 percent. Why 25 percent? Why 40 percent? The analysts don't say. JPMorgan expects private-sector investors to be able to saddle banks with just 5 percent of foreclosure losses, citing a host of technical legal hurdles that make it hard for investors to have their cases heard in court.

So JPMorgan's loss projections are nothing more than a guess—and a low-ball guess at that. JPMorgan is assuming that only five to 10 percent of looming foreclosure losses will actually hit big banks. Change that assumption—20 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent—and things get far worse for Wall Street than JPMorgan's "worst-case" scenario predicts.

Let's consider the exposures of a single bank to put things in context, and let's pick Bank of America, since analysts seem to agree that BofA has the most to worry about right now. They were a big issuer of mortgages themselves, but they also purchased the notoriously predatory Countrywide Financial and also picked up securitization behemoth Merrill Lynch in 2008, giving them far more problems (hilariously, BofA actually paid cash to acquire these balance-sheet-busters).

The most dire estimates for losses on Fannie and Freddie loans at BofA have come from Christopher Whalen at Institutional Risk Analytics and Branch Hill Capital. Whalen has estimated $50 billion in Fannie and Freddie losses for the megabank, while Branch Hill has estimated $70 billion.

The trick is, BofA has $2.1 trillion in total exposure to Fannie and Freddie, according to Whalen. That means even Branch Hill's massive loss projection only amounts to a loss rate of about 3.5 percent.

As of July 2010, Fannie Mae had a serious delinquency rate of 4.82 percent—these are loans where families have missed at least three payments, but haven't been evicted. For Freddie Mac, the number is 3.83 percent. Not all of those losses can be pushed back on the banks, but those numbers will go up as the unemployment rate stays high. Tip the scales just a few percentage points and it's easy to envision catastrophic losses for banks.

But there's reason to believe that Bank of America is in even worse shape with regard to Fannie and Freddie than any of its peers. Countrywide was the single largest provider of loans to Fannie Mae during the housing bubble. Literally 28 percent of the loans Fannie Mae bought up in 2007 came from Countrywide. Fannie even featured a full-page, smiling photograph of Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo in their 2003 Annual Report (.pdf, see page 16).

It's much easier for banks to lose money on bad loans they sold to the GSEs than it is for them to lose money on securities they sold to purely private-sector investors. The fact that Bank of America's most notorious wing was the top provider to Fannie Mae during the peak years of the housing bubble does not bode well for the bank's balance sheet.

But this is just exposure to Fannie and Freddie. The private sector is angry about all kinds of things—from wronged borrowers to deceived investors. Investors are already organizing against both mortgage servicers—for improperly handling troubled loans—and against investment banks—for selling them garbage. They aren't just angry about fraudulent foreclosures—evidence is mounting that mortgage servicers can't even handle the profits from mortgages correctly, and aren't sending investors reliable, verifiable payments.

Yesterday investors sent a letter pressuring Countrywide's servicing arm to push losses from bad mortgage bonds back on the bank that sold them. Legally, it's a complicated maneuver, since Countrywide itself issued those bonds—but that just shows the multiple levels at which megabanks like BofA are exposed to fraud losses. Their original sale of mortgages to borrowers, the packaging of those mortgages into securities, the handling of payments and foreclosures, and the accounting for all of these activities—all of this is about to be subjected to serious fraud examinations by people who are trying to make money.

Up until yesterday, big banks thought they had a get-out-of-jail free card on investor lawsuits. Investors have to bring together 25 percent of the buyers of any mortgage bond in order to sue the bank that issued it—even if the actual lawsuit is an open-and-shut fraud case. Investors had not been cooperating. But yesterday's letter to Countrywide is a big deal—even though it's not (yet) a lawsuit, some of the biggest names in finance were going after Countrywide's cash: BlackRock, PIMCO and even the New York Federal Reserve.

Bill Frey, who runs the hedge fund Greenwich Capital, has organized a massive clearinghouse of mortgage investors for the express purpose of bringing lawsuits against big banks that issued bogus mortgage-backed securities. He told me this afternoon that he's about to move: In the next couple of weeks Greenwich and other investors will bring big lawsuits against major banks.

Will these combined troubles be enough to sink any big banks? If investors can win a couple of lawsuits, easily.

ABC <b>News</b> airs big exposé on BMW N54 engine problems, lawsuits [w <b>...</b>

ABC News investigates BMW fuel pump problems – Click above to watch video after the jump ABC News has cottoned on to the story that BMW.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/26 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning! We have a full day of Kansas City Chiefs news. O-line love and praise for the running game and a shout out to DJ are ahead. There are also a few articles on the Buffalo offense and how productive they've been recently.

Exclusive: Yahoo Courts Former <b>News</b> Corp. Digital Exec Ross <b>...</b>

He's baaaaaack. Former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, that is, who is the top candidate to replace Hilary Schneider as Yahoo's US head, according to several sources close to the situation.

bench craft company complaints
bench craft company complaints

ABC <b>News</b> airs big exposé on BMW N54 engine problems, lawsuits [w <b>...</b>

ABC News investigates BMW fuel pump problems – Click above to watch video after the jump ABC News has cottoned on to the story that BMW.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/26 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning! We have a full day of Kansas City Chiefs news. O-line love and praise for the running game and a shout out to DJ are ahead. There are also a few articles on the Buffalo offense and how productive they've been recently.

Exclusive: Yahoo Courts Former <b>News</b> Corp. Digital Exec Ross <b>...</b>

He's baaaaaack. Former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, that is, who is the top candidate to replace Hilary Schneider as Yahoo's US head, according to several sources close to the situation.

bench craft company complaints bench craft company complaints

Foreclosure fraud is ruffling a lot of feathers on Wall Street, and while the full scope of losses remains unclear, even major banks are now acknowledging that this is a multi-billion-dollar disaster, not just a set of minor paperwork headaches.

So how bad will it get for Wall Street? There are several disaster scenarios in which the housing market simply shuts down, where the potential losses for Wall Street are simply incalculable. But even situations that do not directly rip apart the basic functioning of the mortgage system could be enough to shut down one or more big banks, creating serious trouble for the financial system, and a major test of the recent Wall Street reform bill.

JPMorgan Chase loves using its research department to push its political agenda, and the bank is currently characterizing the foreclosure fraud outbreak as a set of "process-oriented problems that can be fixed." That puts them in the rosy optimist camp for this crisis, and they're projecting a total of $55 billion to $120 billion in losses for the entire industry, spread out over a few years.

But take a look at the analysts' methodology. The actual scope of losses gets drastically larger if you just change a few arbitrary assumptions.

JPMorgan's analysts look at about $6 trillion in mortgages issued between 2005 and 2007—this is the height of the bubble, but it excludes plenty of lousy loans issued in 2003, 2004 and 2008. They then estimate defaults of $2 trillion and losses of $1.1 trillion on those defaults.

So far, these estimates are reasonable. According to Valparaiso University Law School Professor Alan White, banks lose about 58 percent of the value of a subprime loan at foreclosure. JPMorgan is estimating 55 percent. The notion that one-third of mortgages issued at the height of the bubble will default may seem extreme, but the analysis includes both first-lien mortgages and second-lien mortgages (home equity loans). For houses with multiple mortgages, there's going to be a double-hit when the first lien goes bad. Right now, the official statistics from Mortgage Bankers Association indicate that 14 percent of first mortgages are delinquent or in foreclosure. The longer unemployment stays near 10 percent, the higher that figure will go.

Things don't get out of control until JPMorgan's analysts start deploying their assumptions. First, they assume that Fannie and Freddie will attempt to sack banks with losses from 25 percent of the defaults they see. Of those 25 percent, they assume Fannie and Freddie will successfully force banks to eat losses on 40 percent, leading to total losses of 10 percent. Why 25 percent? Why 40 percent? The analysts don't say. JPMorgan expects private-sector investors to be able to saddle banks with just 5 percent of foreclosure losses, citing a host of technical legal hurdles that make it hard for investors to have their cases heard in court.

So JPMorgan's loss projections are nothing more than a guess—and a low-ball guess at that. JPMorgan is assuming that only five to 10 percent of looming foreclosure losses will actually hit big banks. Change that assumption—20 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent—and things get far worse for Wall Street than JPMorgan's "worst-case" scenario predicts.

Let's consider the exposures of a single bank to put things in context, and let's pick Bank of America, since analysts seem to agree that BofA has the most to worry about right now. They were a big issuer of mortgages themselves, but they also purchased the notoriously predatory Countrywide Financial and also picked up securitization behemoth Merrill Lynch in 2008, giving them far more problems (hilariously, BofA actually paid cash to acquire these balance-sheet-busters).

The most dire estimates for losses on Fannie and Freddie loans at BofA have come from Christopher Whalen at Institutional Risk Analytics and Branch Hill Capital. Whalen has estimated $50 billion in Fannie and Freddie losses for the megabank, while Branch Hill has estimated $70 billion.

The trick is, BofA has $2.1 trillion in total exposure to Fannie and Freddie, according to Whalen. That means even Branch Hill's massive loss projection only amounts to a loss rate of about 3.5 percent.

As of July 2010, Fannie Mae had a serious delinquency rate of 4.82 percent—these are loans where families have missed at least three payments, but haven't been evicted. For Freddie Mac, the number is 3.83 percent. Not all of those losses can be pushed back on the banks, but those numbers will go up as the unemployment rate stays high. Tip the scales just a few percentage points and it's easy to envision catastrophic losses for banks.

But there's reason to believe that Bank of America is in even worse shape with regard to Fannie and Freddie than any of its peers. Countrywide was the single largest provider of loans to Fannie Mae during the housing bubble. Literally 28 percent of the loans Fannie Mae bought up in 2007 came from Countrywide. Fannie even featured a full-page, smiling photograph of Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo in their 2003 Annual Report (.pdf, see page 16).

It's much easier for banks to lose money on bad loans they sold to the GSEs than it is for them to lose money on securities they sold to purely private-sector investors. The fact that Bank of America's most notorious wing was the top provider to Fannie Mae during the peak years of the housing bubble does not bode well for the bank's balance sheet.

But this is just exposure to Fannie and Freddie. The private sector is angry about all kinds of things—from wronged borrowers to deceived investors. Investors are already organizing against both mortgage servicers—for improperly handling troubled loans—and against investment banks—for selling them garbage. They aren't just angry about fraudulent foreclosures—evidence is mounting that mortgage servicers can't even handle the profits from mortgages correctly, and aren't sending investors reliable, verifiable payments.

Yesterday investors sent a letter pressuring Countrywide's servicing arm to push losses from bad mortgage bonds back on the bank that sold them. Legally, it's a complicated maneuver, since Countrywide itself issued those bonds—but that just shows the multiple levels at which megabanks like BofA are exposed to fraud losses. Their original sale of mortgages to borrowers, the packaging of those mortgages into securities, the handling of payments and foreclosures, and the accounting for all of these activities—all of this is about to be subjected to serious fraud examinations by people who are trying to make money.

Up until yesterday, big banks thought they had a get-out-of-jail free card on investor lawsuits. Investors have to bring together 25 percent of the buyers of any mortgage bond in order to sue the bank that issued it—even if the actual lawsuit is an open-and-shut fraud case. Investors had not been cooperating. But yesterday's letter to Countrywide is a big deal—even though it's not (yet) a lawsuit, some of the biggest names in finance were going after Countrywide's cash: BlackRock, PIMCO and even the New York Federal Reserve.

Bill Frey, who runs the hedge fund Greenwich Capital, has organized a massive clearinghouse of mortgage investors for the express purpose of bringing lawsuits against big banks that issued bogus mortgage-backed securities. He told me this afternoon that he's about to move: In the next couple of weeks Greenwich and other investors will bring big lawsuits against major banks.

Will these combined troubles be enough to sink any big banks? If investors can win a couple of lawsuits, easily.

Foreclosure fraud is ruffling a lot of feathers on Wall Street, and while the full scope of losses remains unclear, even major banks are now acknowledging that this is a multi-billion-dollar disaster, not just a set of minor paperwork headaches.

So how bad will it get for Wall Street? There are several disaster scenarios in which the housing market simply shuts down, where the potential losses for Wall Street are simply incalculable. But even situations that do not directly rip apart the basic functioning of the mortgage system could be enough to shut down one or more big banks, creating serious trouble for the financial system, and a major test of the recent Wall Street reform bill.

JPMorgan Chase loves using its research department to push its political agenda, and the bank is currently characterizing the foreclosure fraud outbreak as a set of "process-oriented problems that can be fixed." That puts them in the rosy optimist camp for this crisis, and they're projecting a total of $55 billion to $120 billion in losses for the entire industry, spread out over a few years.

But take a look at the analysts' methodology. The actual scope of losses gets drastically larger if you just change a few arbitrary assumptions.

JPMorgan's analysts look at about $6 trillion in mortgages issued between 2005 and 2007—this is the height of the bubble, but it excludes plenty of lousy loans issued in 2003, 2004 and 2008. They then estimate defaults of $2 trillion and losses of $1.1 trillion on those defaults.

So far, these estimates are reasonable. According to Valparaiso University Law School Professor Alan White, banks lose about 58 percent of the value of a subprime loan at foreclosure. JPMorgan is estimating 55 percent. The notion that one-third of mortgages issued at the height of the bubble will default may seem extreme, but the analysis includes both first-lien mortgages and second-lien mortgages (home equity loans). For houses with multiple mortgages, there's going to be a double-hit when the first lien goes bad. Right now, the official statistics from Mortgage Bankers Association indicate that 14 percent of first mortgages are delinquent or in foreclosure. The longer unemployment stays near 10 percent, the higher that figure will go.

Things don't get out of control until JPMorgan's analysts start deploying their assumptions. First, they assume that Fannie and Freddie will attempt to sack banks with losses from 25 percent of the defaults they see. Of those 25 percent, they assume Fannie and Freddie will successfully force banks to eat losses on 40 percent, leading to total losses of 10 percent. Why 25 percent? Why 40 percent? The analysts don't say. JPMorgan expects private-sector investors to be able to saddle banks with just 5 percent of foreclosure losses, citing a host of technical legal hurdles that make it hard for investors to have their cases heard in court.

So JPMorgan's loss projections are nothing more than a guess—and a low-ball guess at that. JPMorgan is assuming that only five to 10 percent of looming foreclosure losses will actually hit big banks. Change that assumption—20 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent—and things get far worse for Wall Street than JPMorgan's "worst-case" scenario predicts.

Let's consider the exposures of a single bank to put things in context, and let's pick Bank of America, since analysts seem to agree that BofA has the most to worry about right now. They were a big issuer of mortgages themselves, but they also purchased the notoriously predatory Countrywide Financial and also picked up securitization behemoth Merrill Lynch in 2008, giving them far more problems (hilariously, BofA actually paid cash to acquire these balance-sheet-busters).

The most dire estimates for losses on Fannie and Freddie loans at BofA have come from Christopher Whalen at Institutional Risk Analytics and Branch Hill Capital. Whalen has estimated $50 billion in Fannie and Freddie losses for the megabank, while Branch Hill has estimated $70 billion.

The trick is, BofA has $2.1 trillion in total exposure to Fannie and Freddie, according to Whalen. That means even Branch Hill's massive loss projection only amounts to a loss rate of about 3.5 percent.

As of July 2010, Fannie Mae had a serious delinquency rate of 4.82 percent—these are loans where families have missed at least three payments, but haven't been evicted. For Freddie Mac, the number is 3.83 percent. Not all of those losses can be pushed back on the banks, but those numbers will go up as the unemployment rate stays high. Tip the scales just a few percentage points and it's easy to envision catastrophic losses for banks.

But there's reason to believe that Bank of America is in even worse shape with regard to Fannie and Freddie than any of its peers. Countrywide was the single largest provider of loans to Fannie Mae during the housing bubble. Literally 28 percent of the loans Fannie Mae bought up in 2007 came from Countrywide. Fannie even featured a full-page, smiling photograph of Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo in their 2003 Annual Report (.pdf, see page 16).

It's much easier for banks to lose money on bad loans they sold to the GSEs than it is for them to lose money on securities they sold to purely private-sector investors. The fact that Bank of America's most notorious wing was the top provider to Fannie Mae during the peak years of the housing bubble does not bode well for the bank's balance sheet.

But this is just exposure to Fannie and Freddie. The private sector is angry about all kinds of things—from wronged borrowers to deceived investors. Investors are already organizing against both mortgage servicers—for improperly handling troubled loans—and against investment banks—for selling them garbage. They aren't just angry about fraudulent foreclosures—evidence is mounting that mortgage servicers can't even handle the profits from mortgages correctly, and aren't sending investors reliable, verifiable payments.

Yesterday investors sent a letter pressuring Countrywide's servicing arm to push losses from bad mortgage bonds back on the bank that sold them. Legally, it's a complicated maneuver, since Countrywide itself issued those bonds—but that just shows the multiple levels at which megabanks like BofA are exposed to fraud losses. Their original sale of mortgages to borrowers, the packaging of those mortgages into securities, the handling of payments and foreclosures, and the accounting for all of these activities—all of this is about to be subjected to serious fraud examinations by people who are trying to make money.

Up until yesterday, big banks thought they had a get-out-of-jail free card on investor lawsuits. Investors have to bring together 25 percent of the buyers of any mortgage bond in order to sue the bank that issued it—even if the actual lawsuit is an open-and-shut fraud case. Investors had not been cooperating. But yesterday's letter to Countrywide is a big deal—even though it's not (yet) a lawsuit, some of the biggest names in finance were going after Countrywide's cash: BlackRock, PIMCO and even the New York Federal Reserve.

Bill Frey, who runs the hedge fund Greenwich Capital, has organized a massive clearinghouse of mortgage investors for the express purpose of bringing lawsuits against big banks that issued bogus mortgage-backed securities. He told me this afternoon that he's about to move: In the next couple of weeks Greenwich and other investors will bring big lawsuits against major banks.

Will these combined troubles be enough to sink any big banks? If investors can win a couple of lawsuits, easily.

bench craft company complaints

ABC <b>News</b> airs big exposé on BMW N54 engine problems, lawsuits [w <b>...</b>

ABC News investigates BMW fuel pump problems – Click above to watch video after the jump ABC News has cottoned on to the story that BMW.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/26 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning! We have a full day of Kansas City Chiefs news. O-line love and praise for the running game and a shout out to DJ are ahead. There are also a few articles on the Buffalo offense and how productive they've been recently.

Exclusive: Yahoo Courts Former <b>News</b> Corp. Digital Exec Ross <b>...</b>

He's baaaaaack. Former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, that is, who is the top candidate to replace Hilary Schneider as Yahoo's US head, according to several sources close to the situation.

bench craft company complaints bench craft company complaints

ABC <b>News</b> airs big exposé on BMW N54 engine problems, lawsuits [w <b>...</b>

ABC News investigates BMW fuel pump problems – Click above to watch video after the jump ABC News has cottoned on to the story that BMW.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/26 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning! We have a full day of Kansas City Chiefs news. O-line love and praise for the running game and a shout out to DJ are ahead. There are also a few articles on the Buffalo offense and how productive they've been recently.

Exclusive: Yahoo Courts Former <b>News</b> Corp. Digital Exec Ross <b>...</b>

He's baaaaaack. Former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, that is, who is the top candidate to replace Hilary Schneider as Yahoo's US head, according to several sources close to the situation.

bench craft company complaints bench craft company complaints

ABC <b>News</b> airs big exposé on BMW N54 engine problems, lawsuits [w <b>...</b>

ABC News investigates BMW fuel pump problems – Click above to watch video after the jump ABC News has cottoned on to the story that BMW.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/26 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning! We have a full day of Kansas City Chiefs news. O-line love and praise for the running game and a shout out to DJ are ahead. There are also a few articles on the Buffalo offense and how productive they've been recently.

Exclusive: Yahoo Courts Former <b>News</b> Corp. Digital Exec Ross <b>...</b>

He's baaaaaack. Former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, that is, who is the top candidate to replace Hilary Schneider as Yahoo's US head, according to several sources close to the situation.

bench craft company complaints bench craft company complaints

foreclosure defense

Before I get into the update on the financial industry's massive swindling of the world, I'd like to encourage you all to give money to Alan Grayson, one of the few Congressmen who has been making a stink about the enormous fraud that the financial industry has been unleashing on the American people. I shudder to think what will happen to this Congress if we lose one of its few courageous voices and get more shills for the financial services industry. So give to Grayson. Give, give, give.

So now, back to Wall Street's continuing quest to loot America. BoA has become the latest pack of scumbags to realize that they didn't do a good enough job of forging documents to evict people from their homes and that they'll have to backtrack a bit:

Bank of America said Friday it is halting all foreclosure sales and foreclosure proceedings nationwide while it reviews the documents being used to justify homeowner evictions.

It is the first bank to put a moratorium on foreclosures in all 50 states. Previously, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and others were only pausing foreclosures in states where a court has to participate in foreclosure proceedings.

To review how we got to this point, click here. It basically boils down this: After the securitization process the banks had no idea what mortgages were and were not on their books. So they started making stuff up to compensate. This is theft, pure and simple.

Megan McArdle predictably comes leaping to the poor banks' defense, saying they may have made a few oopsies but are overall swell people:

The story on the foreclosure mess has become a bit overblown in some tellings. It's clear that banks have been taking some shortcuts in preparing their foreclosure documents. The banks are obviously overwhelmed with the volume of foreclosures, and the (apparently) many instances in which sloppy securitization has resulted in lost paper trails, obscuring who, exactly has a right to foreclose. Rather than seeking legislative or judicial clarification, they've resorted to dubious practices that seem (to my non-legally-trained eye) illegal.

That is bad. But as Arnold Kling points out, there's little evidence that this has resulted in improper foreclosures: evicting people who've paid, or who never had a mortgage with your company. Anectdotally, these things do seem to have happened, but there's no evidence that they're frequent, or that they are connected to the procedural irregularities that we're now discovering with foreclosure documents.

Arnold says that the real scandal is our antiquated title system.

I love how this is framed. The poor banks are simply being overwhelmed by the foreclosure process! They're working so hard! And what happens when you work hard? That's right, you get sloppy. You might even take a few shortcuts to ease the dreadful burden that has been thrust upon you by those irresponsible homeowners! But certainly these little oopsies are forgivable, right? I mean, who hasn't hired thugs to break into peoples' houses and change their locks, even when their house hasn't been foreclosed? It could happen to any major financial institution!

But this isn't the only heist the banks are pulling right now. From across the pond, we have this charming story from the Guardian about the banks "threatening" to leave Europe if limits are placed on their precious, precious bonus checks:

New proposals to cap bankers' bonuses and restrict cash payments will force banks to relocate outside the City and Europe, it was warned today.

As lobbying began ahead of a one-month consultation on the proposals published by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors, experts warned that European banks would be expected to comply with the guidelines wherever they employed their staff - be they in Europe, Asia or the US.

Under the proposals, bankers would only receive 20% of their bonuses in cash with the remainder paid in shares or some other financial instrument and deferred for between three and five years.

Jon Terry of PwC said that this could result in a major change in where banks do business.

"Of particular concern will be the requirements that will apply to European banks operating, for example, in Asia, compared with local firms. Unfortunately this deviation from global trends in banking remuneration could make it more likely that banks move operations, or at least expand, outside of the European Union," Terry said.

"Many banking organisations could question why a globally mobile bank employee would continue to work for a European institution that will subject their pay to these provisions as opposed to a non-EU competitor bank," Terry added.

In other words, "If you don't let us keep our bonuses we might lose the incentive to steal peoples' houses."

Wanna know my solution to this problem? Let them go.

I mean it. What do these guys provide our economy besides housing bubbles and fraudulent foreclosure documents? I say let them go over to China and wreck their economy. In fact, now that I think about it, why do we keep employing Goldman Sachs CEOs in the Treasury Department when we should be hiring them in the Pentagon. Think about how quickly Goldman and pals could sink countries like Iran and North Korea if they moved their operations over there and began looting them just as much as they've been looting us!

Frigging scumbags.

It take a fair degree of skill to pen a journalistic story that hews to the appearance of objectivity yet is out to sell a point of view.

The lead article in the Journal tonight, “Niche Lawyers Spawned Housing Fracas” telegraphs its bias in its headline: the foreclosure crisis is merely the creation of two bit lawyers who by implication don’t know what they are doing, and are pumping trivial issues up for their own enrichment, with the housing market as collateral damage.

Funny that anyone can think this spin is remotely true. The fact that solo practitioner lawyers could have such an impact on the system is not proof that they are miscreants, as the Journal implies. It is that the foundation of mortgage securitzations is rotten as a result of widespread abuses, first on the origination end, later in the foreclosure process. These small firm players are using the legal equivalent of toothpicks; the fact that their efforts have destablized the foundation of the residential mortgage backed securities market is tangible proof that they were imperiled to begin with.

Let’s parse some sections of the article, starting from the top:

The paperwork mess muddying home foreclosures erupted last month. But the legal strategy behind it traces to a lawyer’s gambit in 2006 that has helped keep one couple in their home six years beyond their last mortgage payment.

Not bad in the drive-by shooting category. The foreclosure crisis, which is the result of what increasingly appears to be a widespread failure to convey borrower promissory notes and related liens properly to the the securitization entity is reduced to a mere “paperwork mess”. So the idea that the shortcomings are serious is dismissed. Similarly, the efforts of various attorneys who have been chipping away as aspects of this problem are incorrectly lumped together, as if there was really only a single, simpleminded strategy, a mere “lawyer’s gambit” which by implication, was copied by other low life attorneys. And this effort was to keep a deadbeat borrower illegitimately housed.

Funny, this James Kowalski, the attorney behind this dastardly act, did what members of the bar normally do (at least if they are competent): they look for weaknesses in fact and law in the case presented by the other side. And part of the process involves, stunningly enough, depositions! Kowalski’s evil deed was that he was early, perhaps first, to find a robo signer, back in 2006.

But robo signers are an abuse of court process. You can’t have it one way, and say you believe in law and order and the sanctity of contract, and then say it’s just fine to abuse legal procedures if you are pretty sure you are right. Well you can’t unless you are the Journal, skilled in the art of defending plutocrats, no matter how much in the way of mental gymnastics that might require.

But this implicit focus on robo signers (which admittedly did bring the bigger issue of foreclosure abuses into the limelight) again is a convenient diversion, since the robo signer is far from the most serious problem now affecting the foreclosure process.

Back to the Journal’s account:

It was a first step in the growth of a legal sub-specialty called foreclosure defense that has sown confusion and turmoil in the housing market. Lawyers in the field now commonly use a technique more identified with corporate litigation: probing depositions, designed to uncover any lapses in judgment, flaws in a process or wrongdoing. In the 23 states where foreclosures entail a court hearing, the bank may be ordered to pay the homeowner’s legal bill if a lawyer can convince a judge that the bank has submitted false documents, such as affidavits saying employees personally reviewed the details of loans when they didn’t.

Huh? With all due respect, this is the first time I’ve heard of this “foreclosure defense” sub specialty. Please. These are consumer lawyers, and some of them have gotten good enough at fighting foreclosures that they do it full time. But “sub-speciality” implies a degree of fomalization and coordination of effort that isn’t there. Oh, and the Journal deems it to be bad form for mere consumer lawyers to use the techniques of decent trial lawyers (only corporations are supposed to have access to competent litigators, it seems).

But it gets even better. The Journal couldn’t be bothered letting facts get in the way of a tidy narrative. Kowalski weighed in in the comment section of the article:

Despite my best efforts to answer all of Mr. Whelan’s questions, the article contains a number of misstatements. First, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson did not face a foreclosure hearing after simply stopping payment – they paid the entire amount due per a statement sent to them by GMAC, and paid by certified check. GMAC mistakenly refused the check, alleging it was an NSF payment (not possible with certified funds), then placed the couple in foreclosure. I was simply trying to track the facts of the payment by deposing a witness who had sworn in court documents that she had reviewed the entire file and was familiar with the payment history, when, as it turned out, she was not only not familiar with the payment history, but the substance of her entire affidavit was false, including the allegation that the affidavit was sworn to in front of a notary. These were substantive questions I needed answers to – not an excuse for a delay. Further, the judge did not “throw out the case” – it is still pending, with GMAC still suing the Jacksons, years later.

I, and most of my fellow consumer attorneys who are members of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, do not raise these issues for delay – we raise them because we all have cases (this is the bulk of my foreclosure defense practice) where all or part of the foreclosure is purely the fault of the servicer or mill law firm – from homeowners whose payments were misrouted by the servicer, to servicers who simply changed the address of the property and then force-placed flood insurance, to servicers who ignore insurance plans the borrowers paid for (all examples from my cases) to servicers who refuse to even accept HAMP-type loan modification documents – all are substantive, real problems that were not the fault of the borrowers. The deposition was, in the Jackson case, merely an effort to get at the truth of the reversed payment – instead, GMAC admitted to wholesale manufacture of court documents, then promised to fix the practice, then continued that practice unabated for 4 more years.

Most of what we have uncovered are criminal violations – false testimony under oath, notary fraud, etc. These problems will continue until the attorneys general who have formed a task force recognize and confront the significant criminal violations, and will continue unless we have real reform of the servicing practices that emphasize speed over the truth.

Not a single one of my clients wants (or deserves) a free house. What they want (and deserve) is for their voices to be heard, and, for better or worse, consumer lawyers are the only ones capable of achieving this at the moment.

Oh, and it would have been nice if Mr. Whelan had taken the time to spell my name correctly throughout the article.

Yves here. Servicer abuses that result in foreclosures are simply not getting the media attention they deserve. The prevailing perception, and the party line from the banks, is that the borrowers are all deadbeats and therefore any efforts to aid them are simply an abuse of court processes.

But servicers are modern judges, juries, and to the extent they can railroad foreclosures through, executioners. When a payment arrives after the due date (and servicers have been found to hold checks to render payments late), under RESPA and the bank’s agreement with the borrower, the bank is supposed to apply payments to principal and interest first, then any late fees. But if you incur a late fee, they instead apply the payment to that first, which makes your regular monthly payment come up short. So then you get an insufficiency fee.

Servicers don’t send detailed monthly statements like credit card companies, telling you how your payments were applied. This process of misapplication of payment and failure to notify borrowers when fees have been incurred guarantees that the charges will balloon. It isn’t until months have passed and the extra balance become large, say $2000 or more, that the homeowner realizes they are under water according to their servicer, even though they have made all their regular payments. Many lack the extra money to clear out all these largely bogus fees; other have tried fighting, only to find the servicer won’t budge, and they rack up more charges, which forces them either to capitulate or lose their home.

Nevertheless, the Journal runs the party line that nothing is wrong with the foreclosure machinery, when the intense pushback suggests otherwise, and brandishes the usual financial services industry threat: hurt us, and it will hurt you even more:

“There is a movement afoot by [state attorneys general] and private lawyers to use technical problems to avoid foreclosures where the borrower is in default and the foreclosure is in all respects substantively appropriate. These are lawyers where the best job they can do for their clients is to keep them in their houses without paying the mortgage,” said Andrew L. Sandler, a Washington securities lawyer who represents banks and firms that service mortgages.

Mr. Sandler added: “The class-action lawyers are swarming around this issue right now, because they perceive that it can result in significant fees for them. But they’re not well-founded cases, and the banks will vigorously contest any class action around these issues.”

The big risk to banks and the housing market, indeed, is that more homeowners and lawyers come to see such cases as attractive to fight.

It’s certainly fair to say some legal actions are based on weak theories; we dissed the widely touted investor suit against Countrywide on mortgage putbacks yesterday, and have selectively argued against other legal theories. But some of these cases are based on careful study of real abuses and are attacking improper, potentially fraudulent actions. This is one of the few checks we have left on misuse of power, but the powers that be want the public to see these legal challenges as a threat to their financial security and accept compromises, just as we have been forced to accept diminished civil liberties and ever more intrusive surveillance in the name of personal security.

One encouraging sign: I didn’t take a careful tally, but despite the Journal’s heavy spin on this story, its comment section seemed to be running at only a 50% acceptance of its position. The more the banks try to press the merits of their case on dubious evidence, the more the public is coming to realize they are not to be believed.

Fashion, sports and magic: Moscow expats talk <b>news</b> over booze - RT

New Moscow Mayor, Russian Fashion Week and the Spartak – Chelsea match were among the most heavily discussed news items this week among Moscow expats.

Macsimum <b>News</b> - Jobs comments on Java-Mac OS X situation

MacsimumNews - Your Leading Apple News Alternative. Jobs comments on Java-Mac OS X situation. Posted by Dennis Sellers Apple ico Oct 22, 2010 at 10:52am. image Apple's announcement that they would be ceasing future development of their ...

Surprise: Fox <b>News</b> signs Juan Williams to new $2 million deal <b>...</b>

Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes handed Williams a new three-year contract Thursday morning, in a deal that amounts to nearly $2 million, a considerable bump up from his previous salary, the Tribune Washington Bureau has learned. ...

eric seiger eric seiger
Before I get into the update on the financial industry's massive swindling of the world, I'd like to encourage you all to give money to Alan Grayson, one of the few Congressmen who has been making a stink about the enormous fraud that the financial industry has been unleashing on the American people. I shudder to think what will happen to this Congress if we lose one of its few courageous voices and get more shills for the financial services industry. So give to Grayson. Give, give, give.

So now, back to Wall Street's continuing quest to loot America. BoA has become the latest pack of scumbags to realize that they didn't do a good enough job of forging documents to evict people from their homes and that they'll have to backtrack a bit:

Bank of America said Friday it is halting all foreclosure sales and foreclosure proceedings nationwide while it reviews the documents being used to justify homeowner evictions.

It is the first bank to put a moratorium on foreclosures in all 50 states. Previously, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and others were only pausing foreclosures in states where a court has to participate in foreclosure proceedings.

To review how we got to this point, click here. It basically boils down this: After the securitization process the banks had no idea what mortgages were and were not on their books. So they started making stuff up to compensate. This is theft, pure and simple.

Megan McArdle predictably comes leaping to the poor banks' defense, saying they may have made a few oopsies but are overall swell people:

The story on the foreclosure mess has become a bit overblown in some tellings. It's clear that banks have been taking some shortcuts in preparing their foreclosure documents. The banks are obviously overwhelmed with the volume of foreclosures, and the (apparently) many instances in which sloppy securitization has resulted in lost paper trails, obscuring who, exactly has a right to foreclose. Rather than seeking legislative or judicial clarification, they've resorted to dubious practices that seem (to my non-legally-trained eye) illegal.

That is bad. But as Arnold Kling points out, there's little evidence that this has resulted in improper foreclosures: evicting people who've paid, or who never had a mortgage with your company. Anectdotally, these things do seem to have happened, but there's no evidence that they're frequent, or that they are connected to the procedural irregularities that we're now discovering with foreclosure documents.

Arnold says that the real scandal is our antiquated title system.

I love how this is framed. The poor banks are simply being overwhelmed by the foreclosure process! They're working so hard! And what happens when you work hard? That's right, you get sloppy. You might even take a few shortcuts to ease the dreadful burden that has been thrust upon you by those irresponsible homeowners! But certainly these little oopsies are forgivable, right? I mean, who hasn't hired thugs to break into peoples' houses and change their locks, even when their house hasn't been foreclosed? It could happen to any major financial institution!

But this isn't the only heist the banks are pulling right now. From across the pond, we have this charming story from the Guardian about the banks "threatening" to leave Europe if limits are placed on their precious, precious bonus checks:

New proposals to cap bankers' bonuses and restrict cash payments will force banks to relocate outside the City and Europe, it was warned today.

As lobbying began ahead of a one-month consultation on the proposals published by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors, experts warned that European banks would be expected to comply with the guidelines wherever they employed their staff - be they in Europe, Asia or the US.

Under the proposals, bankers would only receive 20% of their bonuses in cash with the remainder paid in shares or some other financial instrument and deferred for between three and five years.

Jon Terry of PwC said that this could result in a major change in where banks do business.

"Of particular concern will be the requirements that will apply to European banks operating, for example, in Asia, compared with local firms. Unfortunately this deviation from global trends in banking remuneration could make it more likely that banks move operations, or at least expand, outside of the European Union," Terry said.

"Many banking organisations could question why a globally mobile bank employee would continue to work for a European institution that will subject their pay to these provisions as opposed to a non-EU competitor bank," Terry added.

In other words, "If you don't let us keep our bonuses we might lose the incentive to steal peoples' houses."

Wanna know my solution to this problem? Let them go.

I mean it. What do these guys provide our economy besides housing bubbles and fraudulent foreclosure documents? I say let them go over to China and wreck their economy. In fact, now that I think about it, why do we keep employing Goldman Sachs CEOs in the Treasury Department when we should be hiring them in the Pentagon. Think about how quickly Goldman and pals could sink countries like Iran and North Korea if they moved their operations over there and began looting them just as much as they've been looting us!

Frigging scumbags.

It take a fair degree of skill to pen a journalistic story that hews to the appearance of objectivity yet is out to sell a point of view.

The lead article in the Journal tonight, “Niche Lawyers Spawned Housing Fracas” telegraphs its bias in its headline: the foreclosure crisis is merely the creation of two bit lawyers who by implication don’t know what they are doing, and are pumping trivial issues up for their own enrichment, with the housing market as collateral damage.

Funny that anyone can think this spin is remotely true. The fact that solo practitioner lawyers could have such an impact on the system is not proof that they are miscreants, as the Journal implies. It is that the foundation of mortgage securitzations is rotten as a result of widespread abuses, first on the origination end, later in the foreclosure process. These small firm players are using the legal equivalent of toothpicks; the fact that their efforts have destablized the foundation of the residential mortgage backed securities market is tangible proof that they were imperiled to begin with.

Let’s parse some sections of the article, starting from the top:

The paperwork mess muddying home foreclosures erupted last month. But the legal strategy behind it traces to a lawyer’s gambit in 2006 that has helped keep one couple in their home six years beyond their last mortgage payment.

Not bad in the drive-by shooting category. The foreclosure crisis, which is the result of what increasingly appears to be a widespread failure to convey borrower promissory notes and related liens properly to the the securitization entity is reduced to a mere “paperwork mess”. So the idea that the shortcomings are serious is dismissed. Similarly, the efforts of various attorneys who have been chipping away as aspects of this problem are incorrectly lumped together, as if there was really only a single, simpleminded strategy, a mere “lawyer’s gambit” which by implication, was copied by other low life attorneys. And this effort was to keep a deadbeat borrower illegitimately housed.

Funny, this James Kowalski, the attorney behind this dastardly act, did what members of the bar normally do (at least if they are competent): they look for weaknesses in fact and law in the case presented by the other side. And part of the process involves, stunningly enough, depositions! Kowalski’s evil deed was that he was early, perhaps first, to find a robo signer, back in 2006.

But robo signers are an abuse of court process. You can’t have it one way, and say you believe in law and order and the sanctity of contract, and then say it’s just fine to abuse legal procedures if you are pretty sure you are right. Well you can’t unless you are the Journal, skilled in the art of defending plutocrats, no matter how much in the way of mental gymnastics that might require.

But this implicit focus on robo signers (which admittedly did bring the bigger issue of foreclosure abuses into the limelight) again is a convenient diversion, since the robo signer is far from the most serious problem now affecting the foreclosure process.

Back to the Journal’s account:

It was a first step in the growth of a legal sub-specialty called foreclosure defense that has sown confusion and turmoil in the housing market. Lawyers in the field now commonly use a technique more identified with corporate litigation: probing depositions, designed to uncover any lapses in judgment, flaws in a process or wrongdoing. In the 23 states where foreclosures entail a court hearing, the bank may be ordered to pay the homeowner’s legal bill if a lawyer can convince a judge that the bank has submitted false documents, such as affidavits saying employees personally reviewed the details of loans when they didn’t.

Huh? With all due respect, this is the first time I’ve heard of this “foreclosure defense” sub specialty. Please. These are consumer lawyers, and some of them have gotten good enough at fighting foreclosures that they do it full time. But “sub-speciality” implies a degree of fomalization and coordination of effort that isn’t there. Oh, and the Journal deems it to be bad form for mere consumer lawyers to use the techniques of decent trial lawyers (only corporations are supposed to have access to competent litigators, it seems).

But it gets even better. The Journal couldn’t be bothered letting facts get in the way of a tidy narrative. Kowalski weighed in in the comment section of the article:

Despite my best efforts to answer all of Mr. Whelan’s questions, the article contains a number of misstatements. First, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson did not face a foreclosure hearing after simply stopping payment – they paid the entire amount due per a statement sent to them by GMAC, and paid by certified check. GMAC mistakenly refused the check, alleging it was an NSF payment (not possible with certified funds), then placed the couple in foreclosure. I was simply trying to track the facts of the payment by deposing a witness who had sworn in court documents that she had reviewed the entire file and was familiar with the payment history, when, as it turned out, she was not only not familiar with the payment history, but the substance of her entire affidavit was false, including the allegation that the affidavit was sworn to in front of a notary. These were substantive questions I needed answers to – not an excuse for a delay. Further, the judge did not “throw out the case” – it is still pending, with GMAC still suing the Jacksons, years later.

I, and most of my fellow consumer attorneys who are members of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, do not raise these issues for delay – we raise them because we all have cases (this is the bulk of my foreclosure defense practice) where all or part of the foreclosure is purely the fault of the servicer or mill law firm – from homeowners whose payments were misrouted by the servicer, to servicers who simply changed the address of the property and then force-placed flood insurance, to servicers who ignore insurance plans the borrowers paid for (all examples from my cases) to servicers who refuse to even accept HAMP-type loan modification documents – all are substantive, real problems that were not the fault of the borrowers. The deposition was, in the Jackson case, merely an effort to get at the truth of the reversed payment – instead, GMAC admitted to wholesale manufacture of court documents, then promised to fix the practice, then continued that practice unabated for 4 more years.

Most of what we have uncovered are criminal violations – false testimony under oath, notary fraud, etc. These problems will continue until the attorneys general who have formed a task force recognize and confront the significant criminal violations, and will continue unless we have real reform of the servicing practices that emphasize speed over the truth.

Not a single one of my clients wants (or deserves) a free house. What they want (and deserve) is for their voices to be heard, and, for better or worse, consumer lawyers are the only ones capable of achieving this at the moment.

Oh, and it would have been nice if Mr. Whelan had taken the time to spell my name correctly throughout the article.

Yves here. Servicer abuses that result in foreclosures are simply not getting the media attention they deserve. The prevailing perception, and the party line from the banks, is that the borrowers are all deadbeats and therefore any efforts to aid them are simply an abuse of court processes.

But servicers are modern judges, juries, and to the extent they can railroad foreclosures through, executioners. When a payment arrives after the due date (and servicers have been found to hold checks to render payments late), under RESPA and the bank’s agreement with the borrower, the bank is supposed to apply payments to principal and interest first, then any late fees. But if you incur a late fee, they instead apply the payment to that first, which makes your regular monthly payment come up short. So then you get an insufficiency fee.

Servicers don’t send detailed monthly statements like credit card companies, telling you how your payments were applied. This process of misapplication of payment and failure to notify borrowers when fees have been incurred guarantees that the charges will balloon. It isn’t until months have passed and the extra balance become large, say $2000 or more, that the homeowner realizes they are under water according to their servicer, even though they have made all their regular payments. Many lack the extra money to clear out all these largely bogus fees; other have tried fighting, only to find the servicer won’t budge, and they rack up more charges, which forces them either to capitulate or lose their home.

Nevertheless, the Journal runs the party line that nothing is wrong with the foreclosure machinery, when the intense pushback suggests otherwise, and brandishes the usual financial services industry threat: hurt us, and it will hurt you even more:

“There is a movement afoot by [state attorneys general] and private lawyers to use technical problems to avoid foreclosures where the borrower is in default and the foreclosure is in all respects substantively appropriate. These are lawyers where the best job they can do for their clients is to keep them in their houses without paying the mortgage,” said Andrew L. Sandler, a Washington securities lawyer who represents banks and firms that service mortgages.

Mr. Sandler added: “The class-action lawyers are swarming around this issue right now, because they perceive that it can result in significant fees for them. But they’re not well-founded cases, and the banks will vigorously contest any class action around these issues.”

The big risk to banks and the housing market, indeed, is that more homeowners and lawyers come to see such cases as attractive to fight.

It’s certainly fair to say some legal actions are based on weak theories; we dissed the widely touted investor suit against Countrywide on mortgage putbacks yesterday, and have selectively argued against other legal theories. But some of these cases are based on careful study of real abuses and are attacking improper, potentially fraudulent actions. This is one of the few checks we have left on misuse of power, but the powers that be want the public to see these legal challenges as a threat to their financial security and accept compromises, just as we have been forced to accept diminished civil liberties and ever more intrusive surveillance in the name of personal security.

One encouraging sign: I didn’t take a careful tally, but despite the Journal’s heavy spin on this story, its comment section seemed to be running at only a 50% acceptance of its position. The more the banks try to press the merits of their case on dubious evidence, the more the public is coming to realize they are not to be believed.

Fashion, sports and magic: Moscow expats talk <b>news</b> over booze - RT

New Moscow Mayor, Russian Fashion Week and the Spartak – Chelsea match were among the most heavily discussed news items this week among Moscow expats.

Macsimum <b>News</b> - Jobs comments on Java-Mac OS X situation

MacsimumNews - Your Leading Apple News Alternative. Jobs comments on Java-Mac OS X situation. Posted by Dennis Sellers Apple ico Oct 22, 2010 at 10:52am. image Apple's announcement that they would be ceasing future development of their ...

Surprise: Fox <b>News</b> signs Juan Williams to new $2 million deal <b>...</b>

Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes handed Williams a new three-year contract Thursday morning, in a deal that amounts to nearly $2 million, a considerable bump up from his previous salary, the Tribune Washington Bureau has learned. ...

eric seiger eric seiger

Being Right or Making Money

Getting out of recessions is much like the old joke that if you treat a cold, you'll get over it in seven days; otherwise, it takes a week. If government helps, a recession lasts four quarters, but if it doesn't, the recession lasts a year. The trouble is, the government helped a lot this time (TARP, multiple stimuli), and the recession lasted a year and a half, longer than usual. We are supposed to trust the experts that things would have been even worse without their help.

Daniel Greenfield aptly sums up the prevailing madness and denial as it played out recently in the sentencing of Times Square would-be jihad bomber Faisal Shahzad. "It's About The Jihad, Stupid," by Daniel Greenfield in Eurasia Review, October 11:

So at long last the case of the Times Square Bomber is over and we heard it straight from the camel's mouth, that Faisal Shahzad wasn't upset over his mortgage or angry over Obamacare-- he was what he had always been, a Muslim terrorist trying to kill infidels in the name of Islam.

After the attempted attacked, the liberal media insisted on painting Faisal Shahzad as a tragic victim of the mortgage crisis, suggesting that the whole "car bomb near the Lion King" matter could have been averted with more government bailouts of borrowers who weren't paying their bills. That is how the axis of liberal media responds to every act of Muslim terrorism, by blaming Republicans and offering their own policies as the solution.

Worried about airplane hijackings? Elect us, and we'll make the Muslim world love us with hearty doses of appeasement and long deep bows. Afraid of shootings at army bases, vote the right way and we'll pull out all the troops so no more kindly Muslim psychiatrists come down with secondhand PTSD. Worried about car bombs, with more socialism no one will want to car bomb Times Square anymore.

But then Faisal Shahzad ruined everything by opening his mouth. "This is but one life," he said. "If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system."

The Judge did her usual liberal shtick, foolishly lecturing Shahzad on how moderate Islam is. She suggested that Shahzad should "spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people".

But who knows better what Islam really represents, Faisal Shahzad or Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum? Clearly Miriam thinks she knows better, as Time Magazine and Newsweek and the New York Times insist that they know Islam, better than the Muslims who keep misunderstanding what Islam really is.

But Shahzad wasn't quoting some wacky preacher living in a cave somewhere, he was quoting the Koran. The same book that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer suggested might be illegal to burn. The same book that Democrats and many Republicans insist is really a beautiful book that teaches tolerance. Unlike Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, Faisal Shahzad didn't need to spend a whole lot of time thinking about whether the Koran really wants him to kill lots of people. He could just read it...

"He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist." Koran 61:9

That is the source of Faisal Shahzad's justification for his Jihad.

But surely this lovely verse has nothing to do with violence, you might say. It just means that Muslims should go out and persuade people that Islam is the only true religion. That sounds convincing, doesn't it?

Except Koran 61 is titled, "Al-Saff" or "Ranks, Battle Array". That title comes from verse 61:4 which proclaims, "Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array". The next two verses go on to curse the Jews, like Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, for their unbelief.

Two verses down from Faisal Shahzad's quote, the Koran promises Muslims a way to save themselves from hell. What's their "Get Out of Hell" free card? "That ye strive (your utmost) in the Cause of Allah, with your property and your persons." The Arabic word used for "strive" is, "watujahidoona" or "You will make Jihad".

Yes. It's the Jihad, stupid.

Faisal Shahzad didn't lose his home to foreclosure because of the injustice of the American banking system. He gave up his home to foreclosure because he was using that money to build a bomb instead. This wasn't some sort of radicalization in response to failure, it was a plan all along.

He led the facade of a normal life. He got a good job and a mortgage. He had a line of credit. And he had Facebook. And then right after he got US citizenship, he quit his job, went to Pakistan for explosives training, and the Times Square Car bombing was set into motion. He didn't lose his home, he abandoned it. The home and the job, and the rest of the facade of the American Dream was a sham, a disguise. Just like the 9/11 hijackers.

Faisal Shahzad was carrying out the words of the Koran, to use his property and person to carry on the Jihad against the unbelievers. His property and money were assets in a religious war.

The media refuses to understand that. Even the judge sentencing him refuses to understand that. Instead Faisal Shahzad is being treated like some sort of stupid child who doesn't know his own religion, even though he has practiced it all his life and probably knows the entire Koran by heart.

Isn't presuming to know what Islam is about better than Muslims do, the same kind of arrogance toward the Muslim world that liberals routinely accuse America of? And doesn't that drive Muslims toward greater acts of terror just to define clearly what Islam really is? In the words of the Ayatollah Khomeni; "Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless... Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors!"

That is the great liberal farce, in which liberals begin by lecturing Americans on what Islam really is, and then conclude by lecturing Muslims on what Islam really is. And the Muslims laugh in their faces, when they aren't blowing them off. Liberals haven't convinced very many Americans that Islam is a religion of peace, and they certainly aren't going to convince very many Muslims....

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Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

robert shumake detroit
Getting out of recessions is much like the old joke that if you treat a cold, you'll get over it in seven days; otherwise, it takes a week. If government helps, a recession lasts four quarters, but if it doesn't, the recession lasts a year. The trouble is, the government helped a lot this time (TARP, multiple stimuli), and the recession lasted a year and a half, longer than usual. We are supposed to trust the experts that things would have been even worse without their help.

Daniel Greenfield aptly sums up the prevailing madness and denial as it played out recently in the sentencing of Times Square would-be jihad bomber Faisal Shahzad. "It's About The Jihad, Stupid," by Daniel Greenfield in Eurasia Review, October 11:

So at long last the case of the Times Square Bomber is over and we heard it straight from the camel's mouth, that Faisal Shahzad wasn't upset over his mortgage or angry over Obamacare-- he was what he had always been, a Muslim terrorist trying to kill infidels in the name of Islam.

After the attempted attacked, the liberal media insisted on painting Faisal Shahzad as a tragic victim of the mortgage crisis, suggesting that the whole "car bomb near the Lion King" matter could have been averted with more government bailouts of borrowers who weren't paying their bills. That is how the axis of liberal media responds to every act of Muslim terrorism, by blaming Republicans and offering their own policies as the solution.

Worried about airplane hijackings? Elect us, and we'll make the Muslim world love us with hearty doses of appeasement and long deep bows. Afraid of shootings at army bases, vote the right way and we'll pull out all the troops so no more kindly Muslim psychiatrists come down with secondhand PTSD. Worried about car bombs, with more socialism no one will want to car bomb Times Square anymore.

But then Faisal Shahzad ruined everything by opening his mouth. "This is but one life," he said. "If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system."

The Judge did her usual liberal shtick, foolishly lecturing Shahzad on how moderate Islam is. She suggested that Shahzad should "spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people".

But who knows better what Islam really represents, Faisal Shahzad or Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum? Clearly Miriam thinks she knows better, as Time Magazine and Newsweek and the New York Times insist that they know Islam, better than the Muslims who keep misunderstanding what Islam really is.

But Shahzad wasn't quoting some wacky preacher living in a cave somewhere, he was quoting the Koran. The same book that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer suggested might be illegal to burn. The same book that Democrats and many Republicans insist is really a beautiful book that teaches tolerance. Unlike Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, Faisal Shahzad didn't need to spend a whole lot of time thinking about whether the Koran really wants him to kill lots of people. He could just read it...

"He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist." Koran 61:9

That is the source of Faisal Shahzad's justification for his Jihad.

But surely this lovely verse has nothing to do with violence, you might say. It just means that Muslims should go out and persuade people that Islam is the only true religion. That sounds convincing, doesn't it?

Except Koran 61 is titled, "Al-Saff" or "Ranks, Battle Array". That title comes from verse 61:4 which proclaims, "Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array". The next two verses go on to curse the Jews, like Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, for their unbelief.

Two verses down from Faisal Shahzad's quote, the Koran promises Muslims a way to save themselves from hell. What's their "Get Out of Hell" free card? "That ye strive (your utmost) in the Cause of Allah, with your property and your persons." The Arabic word used for "strive" is, "watujahidoona" or "You will make Jihad".

Yes. It's the Jihad, stupid.

Faisal Shahzad didn't lose his home to foreclosure because of the injustice of the American banking system. He gave up his home to foreclosure because he was using that money to build a bomb instead. This wasn't some sort of radicalization in response to failure, it was a plan all along.

He led the facade of a normal life. He got a good job and a mortgage. He had a line of credit. And he had Facebook. And then right after he got US citizenship, he quit his job, went to Pakistan for explosives training, and the Times Square Car bombing was set into motion. He didn't lose his home, he abandoned it. The home and the job, and the rest of the facade of the American Dream was a sham, a disguise. Just like the 9/11 hijackers.

Faisal Shahzad was carrying out the words of the Koran, to use his property and person to carry on the Jihad against the unbelievers. His property and money were assets in a religious war.

The media refuses to understand that. Even the judge sentencing him refuses to understand that. Instead Faisal Shahzad is being treated like some sort of stupid child who doesn't know his own religion, even though he has practiced it all his life and probably knows the entire Koran by heart.

Isn't presuming to know what Islam is about better than Muslims do, the same kind of arrogance toward the Muslim world that liberals routinely accuse America of? And doesn't that drive Muslims toward greater acts of terror just to define clearly what Islam really is? In the words of the Ayatollah Khomeni; "Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless... Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors!"

That is the great liberal farce, in which liberals begin by lecturing Americans on what Islam really is, and then conclude by lecturing Muslims on what Islam really is. And the Muslims laugh in their faces, when they aren't blowing them off. Liberals haven't convinced very many Americans that Islam is a religion of peace, and they certainly aren't going to convince very many Muslims....

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Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

robert shumake detroit

robert shumake twitter

robert shumake detroit

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

robert shumake hall of shame
Getting out of recessions is much like the old joke that if you treat a cold, you'll get over it in seven days; otherwise, it takes a week. If government helps, a recession lasts four quarters, but if it doesn't, the recession lasts a year. The trouble is, the government helped a lot this time (TARP, multiple stimuli), and the recession lasted a year and a half, longer than usual. We are supposed to trust the experts that things would have been even worse without their help.

Daniel Greenfield aptly sums up the prevailing madness and denial as it played out recently in the sentencing of Times Square would-be jihad bomber Faisal Shahzad. "It's About The Jihad, Stupid," by Daniel Greenfield in Eurasia Review, October 11:

So at long last the case of the Times Square Bomber is over and we heard it straight from the camel's mouth, that Faisal Shahzad wasn't upset over his mortgage or angry over Obamacare-- he was what he had always been, a Muslim terrorist trying to kill infidels in the name of Islam.

After the attempted attacked, the liberal media insisted on painting Faisal Shahzad as a tragic victim of the mortgage crisis, suggesting that the whole "car bomb near the Lion King" matter could have been averted with more government bailouts of borrowers who weren't paying their bills. That is how the axis of liberal media responds to every act of Muslim terrorism, by blaming Republicans and offering their own policies as the solution.

Worried about airplane hijackings? Elect us, and we'll make the Muslim world love us with hearty doses of appeasement and long deep bows. Afraid of shootings at army bases, vote the right way and we'll pull out all the troops so no more kindly Muslim psychiatrists come down with secondhand PTSD. Worried about car bombs, with more socialism no one will want to car bomb Times Square anymore.

But then Faisal Shahzad ruined everything by opening his mouth. "This is but one life," he said. "If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system."

The Judge did her usual liberal shtick, foolishly lecturing Shahzad on how moderate Islam is. She suggested that Shahzad should "spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people".

But who knows better what Islam really represents, Faisal Shahzad or Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum? Clearly Miriam thinks she knows better, as Time Magazine and Newsweek and the New York Times insist that they know Islam, better than the Muslims who keep misunderstanding what Islam really is.

But Shahzad wasn't quoting some wacky preacher living in a cave somewhere, he was quoting the Koran. The same book that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer suggested might be illegal to burn. The same book that Democrats and many Republicans insist is really a beautiful book that teaches tolerance. Unlike Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, Faisal Shahzad didn't need to spend a whole lot of time thinking about whether the Koran really wants him to kill lots of people. He could just read it...

"He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist." Koran 61:9

That is the source of Faisal Shahzad's justification for his Jihad.

But surely this lovely verse has nothing to do with violence, you might say. It just means that Muslims should go out and persuade people that Islam is the only true religion. That sounds convincing, doesn't it?

Except Koran 61 is titled, "Al-Saff" or "Ranks, Battle Array". That title comes from verse 61:4 which proclaims, "Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array". The next two verses go on to curse the Jews, like Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, for their unbelief.

Two verses down from Faisal Shahzad's quote, the Koran promises Muslims a way to save themselves from hell. What's their "Get Out of Hell" free card? "That ye strive (your utmost) in the Cause of Allah, with your property and your persons." The Arabic word used for "strive" is, "watujahidoona" or "You will make Jihad".

Yes. It's the Jihad, stupid.

Faisal Shahzad didn't lose his home to foreclosure because of the injustice of the American banking system. He gave up his home to foreclosure because he was using that money to build a bomb instead. This wasn't some sort of radicalization in response to failure, it was a plan all along.

He led the facade of a normal life. He got a good job and a mortgage. He had a line of credit. And he had Facebook. And then right after he got US citizenship, he quit his job, went to Pakistan for explosives training, and the Times Square Car bombing was set into motion. He didn't lose his home, he abandoned it. The home and the job, and the rest of the facade of the American Dream was a sham, a disguise. Just like the 9/11 hijackers.

Faisal Shahzad was carrying out the words of the Koran, to use his property and person to carry on the Jihad against the unbelievers. His property and money were assets in a religious war.

The media refuses to understand that. Even the judge sentencing him refuses to understand that. Instead Faisal Shahzad is being treated like some sort of stupid child who doesn't know his own religion, even though he has practiced it all his life and probably knows the entire Koran by heart.

Isn't presuming to know what Islam is about better than Muslims do, the same kind of arrogance toward the Muslim world that liberals routinely accuse America of? And doesn't that drive Muslims toward greater acts of terror just to define clearly what Islam really is? In the words of the Ayatollah Khomeni; "Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless... Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors!"

That is the great liberal farce, in which liberals begin by lecturing Americans on what Islam really is, and then conclude by lecturing Muslims on what Islam really is. And the Muslims laugh in their faces, when they aren't blowing them off. Liberals haven't convinced very many Americans that Islam is a religion of peace, and they certainly aren't going to convince very many Muslims....

robert shumake detroit

robert shumake hall of shame

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

robert shumake twitter

robert shumake twitter

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

robert shumake detroit

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

robert shumake twitter

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

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robert shumake detroit

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

robert shumake hall of shame

There are quite a few ways you can invest your money when automobiles come into the picture. The first thing to decide, is how much money you think you'll make off the car. The second thing you need to decide is the speed in which you need to get a return on your investment.

Around tax return time every year, new cars are on the market. It's not coincidence. Car dealers know that people have will have big cash returns coming in and are looking at bigger ticket items. You can use this simple fact to benefit you in several different ways. First, there are more people on the market looking to buy. Secondly, there are plenty of people looking to sell in the market. A shrewd negotiator should be able to get cars for a good price.

That's not to say purchasing is the only option to be considered here. Renting automobiles at this time of year is also a great way of making money. There are plenty of corporations that uses this very tactic today. Simply allowing other people to use your newly purchased car for a fee is another step to being successful. With this method even though you don't get a big payment up front, if you're patient and careful in selecting your customers you get a steady stream over the next year.

However, if you're one of the unlucky few that need your money right now, you can stick with the buy and sell option. Buying low and selling high is always a solid business approach especially when you can do it with a big-ticket item like automobiles.

The nice thing is, once you do this once you can do it several times. The first time is always the hardest. But, the more you do the easier it gets. In no time at all you can be buying and selling cars quite easily. It's really just a question of practice and persistence. Over time your contacts, clients, and customers are only sure to grow.

Nothing ventured nothing gained. The sooner you get started, the sooner you consider being profitable. here's to your success.


robert shumake hall of shame

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

robert shumake twitter

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Sex Education FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Sex Education FAIL.

Small Business <b>News</b>: BlogWorld Wrap Up

BlogWorld 2010 has come and gone with more than a few new revelations imperative to the small business community. This post will feature as kind of a wrap up of.

Loopt adds Facebook Places integration | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Loopt adds Facebook Places integration. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.