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A $200K Mortgage for $2 a Month

A $200K Mortgage for $2 a Month


You saw that title, “A $200K Mortgage for $2 a Month,” and maybe you thought, “that looks like spam.”

No. It’s real.

And then maybe you thought, “a $200,000 mortgage? For only $2 each month? That sounds impossible.”

Well, it is possible. It’s just not possible for you.

For Bank of America, yes. For Citigroup, yes. For Wells Fargo, yes.

For you, no.

The GAO’s main report on its audit of the Federal Reserve exposed who received the trillions and trillions of dollars in Fed bailouts. But the GAO report wasn’t very specific about the terms of those bailouts. For that, we have the Freedom of Information Act records obtained by Bloomberg News, which Bloomberg wrote about last week. Among other things, Bloomberg reported that the Fed lent out this cash to Wall Street at rates “as low as 0.01 percent.

To such worthy recipients as Bear Stearns, AIG, the Royal Bank of Scotland, etc., etc.

Well, it could have been worse. The Fed could have just dumped the money into a wood chipper.

If you do that math, you’ll see that when the Fed gave Citigroup the money for a $200,000 mortgage, at 0.01 percent, Citigroup had to pay less than $2 each month for that money. Citigroup then lent that money to you – if it deigned to lend you anything – for maybe $1,000 a month, maybe more.

And that $40,000 credit card balance? Citigroup paid the Fed less than a dollar a month for that money. And you paid $1,000.

Citigroup pays $1. You pay $1,000. You see how that works?

Citigroup fell into such a deep hole that it had to borrow a “term-adjusted” $58,000,000,000 from the Fed, according to Page 132 of the GAO’s audit report.

And what would you get from the Fed, if you fell into a deep hole? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Diddly-squat. Zero.

You wouldn’t get jack.

If you lose your home, you can sleep in your car. If you lose your car, you can sleep under a bridge. Unless, of course, you’re a Wall Street banker.

Two hundred and thirteen years ago, there was a Member of Congress who said: “Millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute.” Now we have a government that says: “Trillions for Wall Street, but not one penny for you.”

That’s our government. Unless we change it.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.”

– Leonard Cohen, “Everybody Knows”

We need someone in Congress who is PAYING ATTENTION. And someone who is willing to FIGHT FOR US. Click here, and support Alan Grayson’s campaign TODAY.

 

image: Flickr

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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Eliot Spitzer: 5 Ways to Make Banks Pay for Their Secret $7 Trillion Free Ride – AlterNet

Eliot Spitzer: 5 Ways to Make Banks Pay for Their Secret $7 Trillion Free Ride – AlterNet


The CEOs of major banks maintained they were in good financial shape. Meanwhile, they secretly borrowed massive amounts from the government to stay afloat.

AlterNet-

Imagine you walked into a bank, applied for a personal line of credit, and filled out all the paperwork claiming to have no debts and an income of $200,000 per year. The bank, based on these representations, extended you the line of credit. Then, three years later, after fighting disclosure all the way, you were forced by a court to tell the truth: At the time you made the statements to the bank, you actually were unemployed, you had a $1 million mortgage on your house on which you had failed to make payments for six months, and you hadn’t paid even the minimum on your credit-card bills for three months. Do you think the bank would just say: Never mind, don’t worry about it? Of course not. Whether or not you had paid back the personal line of credit, three FBI agents would be at your door within hours.

[ALTERNET]

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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TAIBBI | The REAL Housewives of WALL STREET

TAIBBI | The REAL Housewives of WALL STREET


Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs? 

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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MATT TAIBBI | Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?

MATT TAIBBI | Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?


The Real Housewives of Wall Street

via Rolling Stone

America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we’re broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year’s retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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[VIDEO] Michael Moore ‘America Is NOT Broke’, 400 Wall Streeters Have Our Money

[VIDEO] Michael Moore ‘America Is NOT Broke’, 400 Wall Streeters Have Our Money


Watch this video in it’s entirety. This is not about the right or the left or in between. This is about a plot for the rich to get richer and strip away your savings and your rights! Again, watch this video please and do not think for a moment this does not affect you. IT DOES!

This is about standing up for your rights!

America is NOT broke… Not by a long shot. The country is a wash in wealth and cash…It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred in the greatest HEIST in History. From the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the Über rich.

Right now there are 400 Americans who have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

M. Moore, WI Speech 3/5/2011

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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10 bailed-out banks spent $16.3M lobbying in 1H

10 bailed-out banks spent $16.3M lobbying in 1H


mostly “MERS SHAREHOLDERS”

Top 10 bailed-out banks spent over $16 million in 2010 first half lobbying on financial reform

Eileen Aj Connelly, AP Business Writer, On Tuesday August 31, 2010, 7:00 pm EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — The 10 banks that received the most bailout aid during the financial crisis spent over $16 million on lobbying efforts in the first half of 2010, as the debate over financial regulatory reform reached its height.

Disclosure reports show that the banks that got the most government help in late 2008 and early 2009 also invested the most to influence members of Congress, the White House, the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and a long list of federal agencies as new rules were enacted governing Wall Street and the nation’s financial system.

“I’m not shocked that they spent that much money because I saw them every day,” said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at U.S. Public Interest Research Group, who said more than 2,000 lobbyists worked on the financial reform bill.

The sweeping law signed by President Barack Obama in July topped 2,300 pages, and outlined broad rules for issues ranging from derivatives trading to the fees merchants are charged for processing credit and debit card transactions. It also covered the creation of a consumer financial protection bureau. Banks are continuing efforts to try to shape many of the new rules that are still being finalized.

The $16.32 million spent in the first half of 2010 was 26 percent higher than the combined $12.94 million they spent in the first half of 2009.

In prior years, the spending crept up at a much slower pace: 2009’s total was about 2 percent higher than the nearly $12.7 million spent in the first half of 2008. And that was only 3.7 percent above the $12.25 million spent in the first half of 2007.

Leading the pack this year was JPMorgan Chase & Co., which spent $1.52 million on lobbying in the second quarter, on top of $1.51 million in the first quarter of 2010, for a total of $3.03 million, according to disclosure reports filed with the House of Representatives clerk’s office.

Citigroup Inc., the largest bank recipient of government funds during the crisis in late 2008 and early 2009, was second. The New York-based bank spend $1.47 million on lobbyists in the second quarter, after spending $1.31 million in the first quarter for a total of $2.78 million.

And Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was third, with $1.58 million spent in the second quarter, on top of $1.19 million in the first quarter of 2010.

All three banks declined to comment on their lobbying spending, which went toward hiring advocates to discuss the legislation with lawmakers and regulators. Lobbying figures do not include any campaign contributions that banks or their employees might also have made.

Mierzwinski said the big win for consumers was the financial protection bureau, which banks tried to remove from the law. The financial industry was in a weakened position during the debate, however, because of public anger over the economy’s collapse and publicity over issues like Wall Street bonuses. Nevertheless, banks were rewarded for their efforts, he said. “They did manage to make changes.”

Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. both also spent more than $2 million in the first half of the year. Spending far less were PNC Bank, US Bancorp, Capital One Financial Corp. and Regions Financial Corp. The American Bankers Association, the main trade group for the industry, also lobbied heavily, spending $4.2 million in the first half of 2010.

Consumer advocacy groups had their own lobbyists working the Capitol’s halls during the finance reform debate as well, but their spending was dwarfed by the banks — a total of $792,000 in the first half of the year for four of the top organizations. The Center for Responsible Lending topped the list, with $335,000 spent in the first six months of the year. U.S. PIRG tallied $227,000. The Consumers Union listed $150,000 and The Consumer Federation of America spent $80,000.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the heavy spending in part reflects the number of people needed to discuss issues with 535 members of Congress. One sentence in a law regulating the financial markets can have a big impact on a company’s profit, she noted, and the industry made sure they had experts on hand to discuss every aspect with lawmakers.

“We’re talking billions,” Sloan said. “So the lobbying money is the most effective money you’ll spend.”

“It’s not that I don’t think that many would have preferred a different outcome,” she added. “But I doubt that any of those banks didn’t think it was worth it to have those lobbyists.”

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in bank of america, capital one, CitiGroup, concealment, conflict of interest, conspiracy, CONTROL FRAUD, corruption, Economy, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, geithner, goldman sachs, MERS, MERSCORP, mortgage, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, scam, servicers, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUD, sub-primeComments (0)

Default can spur revenge desire…

Default can spur revenge desire…


Maybe they are staying there for free because they are jobless…and the government that keeps bailing out the CROOKS …probably don’t give a “hoot” what happens to these families. For Mr. Sanchez…you should be ashamed for yourself!

You got that right…WE ARE PISSED OFF… YES!!

TAMPA, Fla. – April 6, 2010 – The mortgage crisis is causing more than just heartburn for homeowners. It’s changing their moral compass.

Homeowners are walking away – even when they can afford their payments. Some loot on the way out the door, carting off light fixtures, appliances, anything of value.

Others trash the home to ruin the bank’s chances of selling it. They pour cement down the drains, flood the house or punch holes in the walls.

A few years ago, such behavior would have been considered reprehensible.

But today’s homeowners are tired of watching the lenders who triggered the financial meltdown get bailed out while they suffer. They want revenge.

They feel entitled.

“It went from being a shame to being behind on your mortgage to feeling like it’s a big joke,” said Jim Kelly, a Tampa homeowner who said numerous neighbors have stopped paying. “The big talk at cocktail parties is how underwater is your house and how long have you lived there for free.”

Homeowners’ attitudes are changing as they realize their home values have dropped below what they owe. Nearly one-quarter of U.S. mortgages are underwater.

In some neighborhoods, experts say, it could take a decade or longer for prices to catch up. Some people blame lenders for steering them into a bad loan. Even homeowners who have faithfully paid their bills are angry. With so many of their neighbors defaulting, more people are giving in to the temptation.

“The social norms are changing,” said Luigi Zingales, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “The more people hear about their neighbors doing these things, the more acceptable it is.”

About 36 percent of the nation’s defaults in December were what Zingales calls “strategic defaults,” meaning homeowners deliberately let the home go into foreclosure. That’s up from 25 percent in March 2009, according to research Zingales conducted with colleagues at Northwestern University’s School of Business.

“People are afraid to walk away if they don’t know what will happen to them,” Zingales said. “Once they learn it’s not that bad, they’re more likely to do it.”

Consider Lutz’s Shawn Aaron, a friend of Kelly’s.

Expensive paintings and flat-screen TVs line the walls of his 5,800-square-foot home in the Cheval community. A Corvette sits in his garage. He paid $1.3 million for the home in November 2004.

More than two years ago, he stopped paying his mortgage and thinks a lot of other homeowners should follow his example. The way Aaron sees it, after the lender to which he agreed to make payments sold his mortgage, he doesn’t have a contract with the loan’s new owner. That lender, he says, has filed for foreclosure but has yet to prove it owns his loan.

“No one has answered my questions about my mortgage,” Aaron said. “I hope I win the case and stay here long term.”

Aaron said he also has stopped paying the mortgage on an investment property.

Aaron has such intense feelings about the housing crisis that he started a company, US Lender Audit, to help homeowners fight banks. The company reviews mortgages and finds what it thinks are problems with loans. Attorneys then use the report to fight for their clients in foreclosure cases.

“People have a right to question their mortgage,” Aaron said.

Aaron’s rationalization puts Kelly in an uncomfortable spot. The two are good friends, but have conflicting views on the mortgage crisis. They agree to disagree and don’t let it affect their friendship.

Kelly paid off his mortgage 17 years ago and never tapped his equity, even though he saw the appraised value jump a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

Neighbors of his took a different approach. That couple bought a house 25 years ago for $80,000, took out home-equity loans, and bought furniture and went on exotic trips. They owe $250,000 and stopped paying the mortgage.

“It’s a moral issue,” Kelly said. “You borrowed the money and because of the world credit issues that have nothing to do with your house, you think you’re entitled to something.”

Tampa real estate agent Paul De La Torre said he often sees the entitled attitude. Clients who are trying to sell their homes for less than the mortgage – called a short sale – are increasingly asking to take items with them.

“They want to take the appliances and other things they bought with their equity money,” said De La Torre, of Keller Williams. “I tell people that if you didn’t pay for it with your own money, it should stay with the house. Taking it just makes it more difficult to find a buyer.

“I just sold one house where the guy took the wall plates,” De La Torre said. “Those are like 60 cents at Home Depot.”

De La Torre said he has come across homes for sale that look great on the outside but are destroyed inside. Some people left food in the sink to stink up the house. They ripped out cabinets and toilets.

“Everybody says: Look what the bank did to me,” De La Torre said. “But when people were selling their homes for $100,000 profit, no one complained.”

Alex Sanchez, president and chief executive of the Florida Bankers Association, said people who destroy homes or deliberately stop paying should be ashamed.

“What happened to the American values of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?” he said. “By the time we get our hands on these homes, they are ruined. People take sledgehammers to them. … It’s something our parents would not be proud of.”

Professor Zingales said his research has shown that the economy is continuing to change homeowners’ perceptions of right and wrong.

“We asked homeowners, ‘Would you walk away if your value dropped $50,000 below what you owe? What about $100,000 or $150,000?’” he said. “Eighty percent said they thought it was immoral to walk away. But that doesn’t mean they won’t.”

That leaves Kelly, who owns his house free and clear, feeling stuck.

“I feel like a jerk in some respects,” Kelly said. “I paid my mortgage and worked hard to pay off my house and send my kids to college. Others lived like champs, and they’ll end up getting their houses for free.”

Copyright © 2010 Tampa Tribune, Fla., Shannon Behnken. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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BOY WERE WE SCREWED! Bailout Tally $4.6 TRILLION

BOY WERE WE SCREWED! Bailout Tally $4.6 TRILLION


To think we all lost and keep losing our homes!

Comprehensive Bailout Tally: $4.6 Trillion Spent on the Bailout to Date

Submitted by Mary Bottari on April 1, 2010 – 7:05am. PRWATCH.org

Today, the Real Economy Project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released an assessment of the total cost to taxpayers of the Wall Street bailout. CMD concludes that multiple federal agencies have disbursed $4.6 trillion dollars in supporting the financial sector since the meltdown in 2007-2008. Of that, $2 trillion is still outstanding. Our tally shows that the Federal Reserve is the real source of the bailout funds.

CMD’s assessment demonstrates that while the press has focused its attention on the $700 billion TARP bill passed by Congress, the Federal Reserve has provided by far the bulk of the funding for the bailout in the form of loans amounting to $3.8 trillion. Little information has been disclosed about what collateral taxpayers have received in return for these loans, sparking the Bloomberg News lawsuit covered earlier. CMD also concludes that the bailout is far from over as the government has active programs authorized to cost up to $2.9 trillion and still has $2 trillion in outstanding investments and loans.

Learn more about the 35 programs included in the CMD tally by visiting our Total Wall Street Bailout Cost Table, which contains links to pages on each bailout program with details including the current balance sheet for each program.

Treasury Department Self-Congratulations Premature

While the Treasury Department has been patting itself on the back for recouping some of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds and allegedly making money off of its aid to Citigroup, the CMD accounting shows that TARP is only a small fraction of the federal funds that have gone out the door in support of the financial sector. Far more has been done to aid Wall Street through the back door of the Federal Reserve than through the front door of Congressional appropriations.

The tally shows that more scrutiny needs to be given by policymakers and the media to the role of the Federal Reserve especially as the Fed has accounted for the vast majority of the bailout funds, yet provides far less disclosure and is far less directly accountable than the Treasury.

Download the Financial Crisis Tracker

In addition to a comprehensive here Wall Street Bailout Table which will be updated monthly as a resource for press and the public, CMD is also making available a Financial Crisis Tracker, a widget that links to the table that can be downloaded to websites and provides up–to-date numbers on the financial crisis and the bailout. The Financial Crisis Tracker shows unemployment rates, housing foreclosure rates and the bailout total on a monthly basis. It is a more accurate measure of how we are doing as a nation than any Wall Street ticker.

* Key Findings

* Wall Street Bailout Table

* Financial Crisis Tracker

Among the Key Findings:

1) $4.6 Trillion in Taxpayer Funds Have Been Disbursed

All together, $4.6 trillion of taxpayer funds have been disbursed in the form of direct loans to Wall Street companies and banks, purchases of toxic assets, and support for the mortgage and mortgage-backed securities markets through federal housing agencies. This is an astonishing 32% of our GDP (2008) 130% of the federal budget (FY 2009).

2) TARP vs. Non-TARP Funding

Most accountings of the financial bailout focus on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), enacted by Congress with the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. However, a complete analysis of the activities of all the agencies involved in the bailout including the FDIC, Federal Reserve and the Treasury reveals that TARP, which ended up disbursing about $410 billion was less than a tenth of the total U.S. government effort to contain the financial crisis. TARP funds only account for about 20% of the maximum commitments made through the bailout and less than 10% of the actual funds disbursed.

3) The Federal Reserve has Played the Primary Role in the Bailout

The Federal Reserve has provided by far the bulk of the funding for the bailout in the form of loans — $3.8 trillion in total. Little information has been disclosed about what collateral taxpayers have received in return for many of these loans. Bloomberg News is suing the Federal Reserve to make this information public. On March 19, 2010 Bloomberg won its suit in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, but it is not clear if this case will continue to be litigated to the Supreme Court.

4) Federal Support for the Housing Market is on the Rise

A key component of the bailout has been the federal support for mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, primarily through the Federal Reserve. All together, the government has disbursed more than $1.5 trillion in non-TARP funds to directly support the mortgage and housing market since 2007.

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