Yves Smith asked that this be cross-posted and I am happy to do it.  

I’m certainly not going to write about it.  I haven’t even read her piece yet and I’m not sure I’m going to.  But, by all means, feel free.  Click link below to read the rest on Yves’ site.  I can’t do what she does and respond to this stuff with thoughtful and indignant outrage.

Here’s the deal… I wrote a year ago when the whole AG/banker political circus started that I was not going to follow it, not going to write about it, and certainly not care about it.  It was a colossal waste of time by childlike participants who set out to embarrass themselves and succeeded.  Now everyone is upset that it didn’t turn out to be more.  Why?  It’s to be ignored… unless anyone feels like wagering on any of its promises, in which case, I’m your huckleberry and we should talk.

Remember how the whole thing started… AGs: We want $30 billion.  Banks: No, $5 billion.  AGs: okay $20 billion. Banks: No, $10 billion.  AGs: $20 billion.  Banks: $10 billion. 20… 10… 20… 10… 20… 10…

Like watching two 9 year olds.  No math involved.  Just a stupid tug of war over nothing.  Might as well have set the $20 BILLION ON FIRE!  That’s not a joke, I mean it… set it on fire for all the impact it will have… assuming it ever gets spent, and I’ll bet a whole bunch that unless the money is going to banks, it’s not getting spent.

Remember HAMP was to be $75 billion… then reduced to $50 billion… then reduced to $37 billion.  And we spent $2.4 billion and essentially all of that went to servicers.  Oh, but I’m sure the money is going to be handled very efficiently.  Just watching the jockeying is enough to turn my stomach.  Children… badly behaved children.  And Obama you have the leadership skills of a gerbil, the instincts towards transparency of a criminal. How dare you trumpet this as a success… treat the American people like their idiots… you should be ashamed.

Sorry, it’s Yves time…

Mandelman out.

The Top Twelve Reasons Why You Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement

Another tradition at Casa del Andelman is our Academy Awards Party, held each year on the night the stars come out… for Oscar.  Yes, it’s the time of year when we instruct the staff to roll out the red carpet, polish the chandeliers, dust off the champagne fountain, my wife throws on an evening gown, I always appear in tux and tails… are you buying any of this?  No?

Okay, so would you believe my wife makes a huge amount of chili in the crock-pot along with some delicious cornbread… and I prepare my award-winning specialty… cocktail weenies in my secret, special barbeque sauce. (I’d tell you what’s in it, but then I’d have to kill you.)  They’re best when eaten with a toothpick, by the way… so tangy… mmmm, can’t wait.

The Andelman bar is always pretty much stocked, but everything else is potluck, so someone usually shows up with the ambrosia salad, and others bring whatever else.  We go ahead and spring for the paper plates and plasticwear, and we get the good stuff… you know the Chinette, with the forks and spoons that look like silver even though they’re not, and the red plastic cups.

I’ll tell you what… some years there’s been so much class oozing at our place that it gets to feeling like you’re at a real honest-to-Henry, Hollywood-type soiree.

But all of that is not what keeps bringing people back to our house on Oscar night year after year.  Nope, what everyone comes to our Academy Awards gala for is the gambling.  And we start ‘em young too… I think about 9 years old, if I recall correctly.  Never too young to have your money taken from you, that’s what I always say.  (Okay, so  I’m kidding about that last part.)

I’m not sure how the whole thing got started, it must be about 20 years plus now that we’ve been doing it, but we make up special ballots for a whole bunch of categories and as our guests arrive, they ask for their ballot right after they say hello… grab a pen and start making their picks.

That’s when the house really comes alive… it’s like that scene from “Guys & Dolls”…

“I got a horse right here, his name is Paul Revere, and there a guy who says that if the weather’s clear… Can do… Can do…“  Remember?

“I didn’t see ‘The Help’… did anyone see that?”

 

“Yeah, I did.”

 

“Was it good?”

 

“Yeah, I liked it… kind of sad at the end though.”

 

“Would I have liked it?”

 

“I don’t know, probably.”

 

“What are you voting for in the ‘Documentary Short’ category?”

 

“I’m not telling you.”

 

“Come on…”

 

“Nope, you’ll just have to guess like the rest of us.”

 

“Let me see.”

 

“No, get away from me.”

 

“Why did we include ‘Best Foreign Film’ again, I thought last year we said we weren’t going to do that anymore… who sees foreign films… no one.”

 

“I saw one of the foreign films last year.”

 

“You did not, you’re lying.”

 

“I am not.”

 

“What’d you see?”

 

“Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin.”

 

“You are so lying.”

 

“So what if I am?”

 

“Hey, does anybody remember what’s the difference between sound editing and sound mixing?  Didn’t we look it up or something last year?  I know someone told me last  year but I can never remember.  Honey, would you hand me my iPad.”

 

“No, you can’t use an iPad, you’ll cheat and look up who the favorites are.”

 

“Oh my God, I will not.  How could you say that about me?”

 

“Because I know you.”

 

“I hate you, did you know that about me?  Go sit over there with your friend.”

 

“Fine.”

Yep, it can get a little heated at times, but no one has physically harmed anyone to-date, and the kids have a ball helping the grown-ups guess at which movies are going to be this years’ Oscar winners… while they listen to their parents make idiots out of themselves.

Until mom or dad needs to pick a winner in the Animated Film category, and then all the parents start looking around for their kids… “Meagan, come in here please. I need you.”

It’s $10 to play, by the way and the one who gets the most right, splits the pot with the one who gets the least right… plus there’s usually a bonus category or two that each win ten bucks or something like that.  I won at least one year… took home $180, if I remember correctly… or maybe it was only $80… or maybe we split the $180… I don’t know.  The kids always win something too… it’s a real good time all around.  If you’re in my neck of the woods, come on by… there’s plenty of food and drink… and we’ll take your ten bucks and hand you a ballot, if you’d like.

Well, it seems to me that some years are better than others, when it comes to the Academy Awards, we usually show our age by engaging in a few discussions that lament the fact that they just don’t make movies like they used to very often… but this year we’ve got quite a list of Best Picture nominees… pretty compelling stuff, if you ask me.

I haven’t actually seen any of them, but I’ve gone ahead and described them, so you can see the candidates through my somewhat jaded perspective… and my list is likely a little different than the others you’ll run across… I don’t know why but other reviewers often miss what the movies are really about.  Me… why I see a little bit of the foreclosure crisis in everything, don’t you know.

There are 17 days to go, so you better get to the movies in a hurry if you want to be in the know come Oscar night… Sunday, February 26^th.

And now…

This year at the 84^th Annual Academy Awards, the nominees for Best Picture are…

“The Con-Artist”

The Scary Scummers story, filmed in black & white.  Growing up with prominent professors of economics at the University of Pennsylvania as parents, and the nephew of two Nobel laureates in economics, a young Scary Scummers realizes he can’t follow the conversations at the dinner table.  In one scene, after scoring a combined 480 on his SATs, he overhears his parents saying the family’s genes have obviously skipped a generation.

About to start a job sweeping up in a bagel bakery, his life takes a dramatic turn when a friend fakes his resume.  Because of his last name, no one thinks to check, and next thing we know, he’s chief economist at the World Bank.  When a charismatic, but inexperienced community organizer from Chicago’s south side inexplicably finds himself in the Oval Office, Scary convinces the new president, who knows nothing about economics, that he’s the one who should drive the nation’s economy.  And he does… straight off a cliff.  (Warning: May cause motion sickness.)

“The Defendants”

This fantasy-drama follows a dozen Bank of America senior executives as they are forced to travel from courtroom to courtroom all over the country defending hundreds of lawsuits of all kinds.  Each time the bank execs think things are going well, but invariably lower level employees are called to the stand, completely blowing the bank’s defense.

As the judgments mount into the billions, new suits are being filed each day.  Law school enrollment skyrockets as the country starts churning out lawyers all anxious to take their shot at BofA or any of the too-big-to-fail banks.  As the law firms and the companies that support the new industry grow, so much money is being made beating the banks, that the U.S. economy starts turning around and soon the middle class is debt free.  99% on Putrid Potatoes:  “It’s the feel good movie of the year!” 

“No HELP”

The story centers on attorneys litigating on behalf of homeowners in foreclosure throughout California where judges actually favor MERS’ assignments, sincerely do not care who owns which house, and believe that “securitization,” is what happens when having a home alarm system installed.

As their clients become more and more dissatisfied, they start blackmailing the lawyers, threatening to file bar complaints in order to get their money back.  The frustrated lawyers finally turn to their own state’s bar association for support, but when they do the bar promptly has them arrested.  Filmed in a hand-held style best described as “gritty realism,” the film is based on a true story.

“HUGE”

In this 3-D animated fantasy, Crazy Jamie Diamonds and Johnny Stumpedwells travel together to find Lord Blankcheck, in the hopes that he will do God’s work and tell them how to find King Angelo Mozillion, the one they call Too-Huge-to-Jail.  Along the way they come across all sorts of familiar characters including GS egghead, Fab Faberge, who keeps repeating, “I did nothing wrong, but I could have been more careful,” and Kenny Lewser, who roams the country wide belching as he says, “I can’t believe I bought the whole thing… twice.”  Rated PiG.

“2:00 PM in Paris”

When Frugal Williams lost his job as a loan officer in 2008, he knew he was in trouble.  But then one day, after a year spent living on his savings and a few loans from his parents, he’s about to put his Paris, Texas home up for sale, until he finds himself watching the country’s recently elected president describe a new federal program designed to help him save his home.

That night, he has the best night’s sleep in over a year, but he wakes up on a different planet.  His life is turned upside down from the moment he sends in the package of forms to his his servicer… First Infidelity Bank (FIB).   Theater owners across the country report audiences screaming out, “No!  Stop!  Don’t!” as he slides the package into the Fed-Ex drop-box.

Soon his life is entirely consumed by requirements of his loan modification.  Unable to keep up, his wife is forced to quit her job, as well, in order to help him, and soon the Kinko’s bills for faxing and photocopying drive the family into bankruptcy.  Now there’s a sale date.  But with Hitchcockian flair, no one knows what will happen for sure… tomorrow at “2:00 PM in Paris,” TX.  (NC-17 – Not for viewers over 17 yrs.)

“Moneyballers”           

This futuristic thriller stars ex-Morgan Stanley bond trader Howie Hubler, the man who lost Morgan $9 billion in a single trade, inadvertently kicking off the new favorite competitive-craze among the country’s wealthiest individuals.  The year is 2016, and every megalomaniac hedgefunder wants to be a “Moneyballer.”

In games of Moneyball, the whistle blows and seated at screens equipped with trading platforms, the uber-rich compete to see how fast they can irrationally pump up various stocks, bonds and/or commodities in order to wipe out the retirement savings of middle class Americans, referred to as “pawns,” who follow them as prices rise to disastrous ends.

In an opening scene, we see Hubler in his Central Park South penthouse.  He is laughing almost uncontrollably. “There’s no question, it can be expensive to play.  Last week, I had to throw away $4 million and change just to bankrupt this small business owner from New Rochelle.  He was quite guarded and pretty tenacious, but in the end he took the bait. When everything collapsed, I swear to God, I think he and his wife both soiled themselves… I’m not kidding… I almost choked on my foie gras.”

“The Free for Life”

In this reality-based comedy, John and Jane Q. Public are seen taking their shot at the lottery wheel of justice.  Couples appear before judges in courtrooms across the country hoping to wipe out their mortgage and walk away with a free house.  The laughs come from watching the pro per/pro se litigants go up against lawyers from JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, attempting to explain to judges why it matters that the assignment of the deed of trust was illegally notarized, and why it doesn’t matter that they haven’t made their mortgage payment in 36 months.

“War House”

Brighton Badass and his son, Redneck, have lived in their home all their lives and they don’t plan on leaving it just ‘cause some bankster says so.  In an opening scene, we see and hear Bright talking on the phone, “Well, you just tell the sheriff… she comes out her looking for me and my boy to leave, she better be armed to the teeth, ‘cause I sure will be.  That’s all we invest in out here in the woods… guns and gold,” he laughs as he hangs up the handset.

The camera pulls back and we see that this home is more than just well fortified.  There are snipers in trees, and trenches dug six feet deep for 50 yards all around the property.  Bright pops a few pills in his mouth and washes them down with some white lightening whiskey.  Then he blows his whistle and the hundred or so men, women and children come out from their positions to receive their orders.

The “War House” trailer, voted #1 in 2011, ends when the camera zooms in on Redneck Badass as he says laughing, “Come on, ya’ll… sheriff’s a comin’ so get yourself some amo… time to show the law how we practice foreclosure defense round here. They robo-signing, so we robo-shooting.”

“Extremely Quiet & Incredibly Corrupt”

This semi-historical docudrama chronicles a year of negotiations between 50 state attorneys general and five bankers.  From the beginning we see that neither side knows what in the world they’re doing, as the discussion mostly consists of one side saying, “$20 billion,” and the other side yelling back, “$10 billion.”

Along the way rumors start to swirl as the senseless drama leads to enormous amounts of press coverage, only to end with nothing being accomplished and little being disclosed.  This film concludes Steve Stealbanks’ social commentary on meaningless media hype and corrupt, unfeeling politics, a quadrilogy that began with, “OMG IT’S Y2K,” followed by, “WMD & ME,” and then, who could ever forget, “Hope & Change, 2008.”

OMG, did you see what she was wearing?  See you on the red carpet!

Mandelman out.

Arizona’s hundreds of thousands of hopelessly underwater homeowners are having the best day they’ve had since the “days of equity” back in 2006.  Even with opposition from professional obstructionists to change-in-anything-mortgage-related like MERS own William Hultman, and other banking industry lobbyists including James Lundy, president of the Arizona Bankers Association, among others… the state’s Senate Banking & Insurance Committee’s hearing this afternoon on SB 1451, the Housing Finance Reform Act of 2012, went exceptionally well.  The bill not only passed, but it passed unanimously… ’6′ Ayes to ’0′ Nays.

Hultman flew in to Phoenix last night around 7:00 PM specifically to testify at today’s hearing… and boy were his arms tired.  For those familiar with him from seeing him on C-SPAN and the like, I can tell you that he looks a lot shorter… when he loses.

Actually, Hultman didn’t have too much to say about the bill’s revolutionary approach to revitalizing the state’s increasingly water-logged housing market, which has left over 500,000 Arizona’s homeowners in a hopelessly immobile state.  He said a few things about how the new state program would add complexity and that MERS remains committed to working closely with Sen. Reagan to address the possibly unforeseen and snugligby pomid gibble hmzzzzzzzz … Oh dear.  Sorry about that.  Nodded off there for a moment.

Lundy, a silver-haired smooth talker that one imagines looks marvelous on the links or by the courts in crisp tennis whites delivered the standard banking industry objections… “I fear it will cast a pall over all lending in Arizona for at least a millenium…”  I’m paraphrasing, of course.

Other industry representatives were slightly more vocal expressing concerns that came across as pure scare tactics.  The state can be sued by taking title to a home for any environment damage?  Under the program the state takes title for about an hour… maybe two.  And, of course, all echoed how it’s unconstitutional and in general just not fair.

Sen. Reagan was quite adept at fielding all of the statements made in opposition to the bill… she was calm… entirely confident… and best of all persuasive and I think the rest of the committee fed off of her obvious conviction that the State of Arizona has seen enough of the federal government’s response to the housing crisis and needed to now take matters into the state’s hands.  She made very clear that her bill used private money, cost taxpayers nothing, and offered the equivalent of a much needed rescue ship to people adrift in a sea of unfairness created by the national players in the mortgage industry.

Reagan’s peers on the committee were impressive in their resolve as well, and as the Ayes had it, the bill seemingly passed the committee effortlessly and with a couple of revisions to amendments and the like, is headed to the full senate.  Senator Robert Meza (D-W. Phoenix), in explaining his Aye vote said that “the bill obviously creates tension… and if there’s one thing this problem needs it’s tension.”

Here here!  

The Arizona State Senators that make up the Senate Banking & Insurance Committee: Sen. Gray, Sen. Schapira, Sen. Meza, Sen. Smith, Vice-Chairman Reagan, and Chairman McComish, and although it’s only the beginning and there are certainly battles ahead, it was inspiring to see a bi-partisan group of politicians courageous enough to stare down the empty threats and scare tactics of the banking industry and put the interests of constituents above everything else.

Mandelman out.

It all started early last Saturday morning when I got a call about a homeowner in Massachusetts scheduled to lose her home to foreclosure sale in just two days…

Now, I don’t mind telling you that I had just posted a DOERS ALERT the day before, and to be honest they’re all a lot of work and I really didn’t want to have to write another one the very next day… I was exhausted and looking forward to sleeping for the next couple days.

The client’s name was Lisa Ferrecchia, who I was told was one of the thalidomide babies. At the time, I did’t know if that meant she was part of a sister singing trio… you know… The Thalidomide Babies,” or what, but I’d soon find out.

So, I read about thalidomide and OneWest Bank most of the day and then started writing a DOER ALERT, which was finally ready to post at about 5:30 PM on Sunday afternoon.  I was beyond tired and feeling kind of awful, if you must know.  I hadn’t been outside of my study for yet another weekend straight… my wife wasn’t saying anything, and my daughter was saying she missed me.  But what could I do?  I mean, seriously?  Lisa Ferrecchia’s home was to be sold the very next day at 3:00 PM in Massachusetts.

Plus, in Massachusetts, do you know how they do it?  They auction the home off right on the soon to be ex-homeowner’s front lawn, for all to see.  I’ll tell you what… that is some 17th century nonsense right there.  As in… Me thinketh she is a witch!  Aye, a witch!  Might as well be making the homeowner walk around with a scarlet ‘F’ on his or her clothing.  I figured that Lisa had probably spent a lifetime seeing people stare at her, and the thought of her home being auctioned off in front of her neighbors… well… that just was not going to happen.  Not today.

I had spoken to attorney Glenn Russell early on Saturday, and told him to have a skeletal bankruptcy filing ready just in case.  I had just spent the whole weekend behind closed doors in my study typing and posting at 5:35 PM on Sunday, I wasn’t at all sure my DOERS would DO it in time… or even could DO it in time.  And if that was the case… why the heck did I just blow the whole weekend with my family… again.  I was conflicted and unsure of everything.

To make matters even worse…  and I wouldn’t normally share this publicly… but Steve Diberrt of MFI Miami called me on Sunday evening… he was in Denver for something foreclosure-related.  He had read my DOER ALERT post and asked me what I was doing about Lisa Ferrecchia.  I said I posted a DOER ALERT and my DOERS would handle it.  He asked if I had called Glenn Russell and if Glenn was going to file a TRO, etc. etc. to stop the next day’s sale. He asked a bunch of other technical legal questions until I had a headache.

I said there wasn’t time for any of that, but my DOERS would handle it.  He wasn’t buying any of it.  I said, don’t worry… I’m sure it’ll be fine.

And he replied: “Dude, I think your nuts.  I’ll call Glenn and find out  what else can be done.”  He hung up.

“Oh, ye-of-little-faith-shithead,” I thought to myself.  

We all know what happened next, right?  OneWest Bank’s CEO emailed me late on Sunday night saying that he’d look into the situation the next morning… and the next morning OneWest contacted Lisa… told her that the sale had already been postponed… and that they’d do everything they could to get her a loan modification that would allow her to keep her home.  I wrote to tell everyone the good news, and said that I was certain that OneWest Bank would do exactly what they had promised.  Of course, not everyone was sure whether I was kidding… I was right… or I was a fruit loop.

One West said that they would let Lisa know by today… Tuesday, February 7, 2012.  And so here we are…

OneWest Bank Called Today and Lisa Just Couldn’t Be Happier!  

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s a HAMP modification… 2 percent for 40 years.

Her mortgage payment went from $2700 and change… to $1500 and change.  

~~~

DOERS you DID it again!

(Hey, Dibert… how do you like me now?)

Mandelman out.

It’s an issue that begs to be turned into a riddle, such as…  Who lives hopelessly underwater and in the desert at the same time?

Answer: Arizona’s homeowners.

Over this past year, Arizona State Senator Michelle Reagan (R) began a careful study of what appeared to be some very frightening numbers about her home state, but she was never willing to view them as a fait accompli.

“In Arizona we don’t ignore problems, nor do we pretend they aren’t there,” Sen. Reagan explains.  “Obviously, the federal programs aren’t going to address our state’s needs, and that’s fine.  We’re perfectly capable of doing what’s best for Arizona.”  

This past week Sen. Reagan brought her historically significant solution bill, SB 1451, to the Arizona State Senate.

According to CoreLogic, as of the third quarter of last year, more than 50 percent of Arizona’s homeowners were underwater, meaning they owed more on their mortgage than their homes were worth… 52 percent, to be specific.

If that weren’t bad enough, according to the latest Case-Schiller survey, which uses data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”), by the third quarter of 2012, home prices in the Phoenix metro area are expected to drop another 9.6 percent, and the same study shows an additional 3.4 percent drop a year after that.

And the really frightening thing about such forecasts is that for at the last four or five years, the actual numbers have, in all cases, exceeded forecasted amounts.  The reverse is never true.

Now, run a tape on all that and you’ll be looking at 65 percent of Arizona homeowners being underwater by the third quarter of 2013, then add in the eight percent or so to account for the homeowners “effectively underwater,” meaning they would be underwater were real estate sales commissions and the like factored in, and we’re talking about well over 70 percent of Arizona homeowners underwater within a couple of years, which is to say nothing of the amounts involved.  Recently, one Arizona homeowner wrote to me about the sale of a home across the street from his for $310,000.  He was very upset.  His mortgage, I later learned, was $860,000.

Why hadn’t he just walked away, was my immediate question.  His response was the his adjustable rate mortgage had been reduced annually and was now at 2.25 percent.  Were interest rates to rise even to five percent and he’d be out of there in no time flat.

Want to know why there aren’t more strategic defaulters in places like Phoenix, AZ?  Now you know.

So, what’s the federal government’s response to the soggy situation?  Well, last fall the Obama Administration loosened restrictions on the HARP program, so now it can be used to refinance your home no matter how far it’s underwater… 100 percent, 200 percent… 300 percent… it doesn’t matter.  Of course, you’ll still be just as underwater as you were before, but you might shave a point or two off your interest rate, which might save you a couple hundred bucks a month… maybe.

Not surprisingly, the new HARP program has not exactly taken off like gangbusters in Arizona or anywhere else for that matter.  And just imagining someone signing a promissory note that obligates one to pay an amount two or three times the market value of  the property, will give you an idea why it doesn’t happen all that often.

Moody’s now pegs Arizona’s recovery in the housing markets at 2034, without adjusting for inflation.  One might as well have forecasted recovery as coming… never.  When 70 percent of a housing market is underwater, and recognizing that under normal circumstances at least two-thirds of home buyers are also home sellers, it’s easy to see that future demand will look nothing like demand seen in past years.

More homeowners realizing they are hopelessly underwater and walking away would seem a certainty.  Costs associated with foreclosed homes being incurred by the state are mounting beyond all previous forecasts and the resulting state budget deficits are becoming increasingly difficult to close.  By 2013, many state economies will be caught up in negative feedback loops that will prevent recovery as, for example, requisite budget cuts and tax increases further surpress consumer spending.

Foreclosures breed foreclosures…

So, after five years of being told that next year would be better… Sen. Reagan had enough.

First, she set out to learn everything about the economic meltdown and the situation related to foreclosures and underwater homes, and once she understood the dynamics, she set out to find a way to free homeowners in her home state from the downward spiral in which they were clearly locked, because she came to understand that otherwise the state’s future could only be bleak.  She assembled a team of experts in various disciplines and the result is found in Senate Bill 1451, The Housing Finance Reform Act of 2012.

I like to refer to it as… Raising Arizona… or, sometimes as, “The shot heard ’round the world.”  You’ll see why soon enough.

Senator Reagan’s bill represents BREAKTHROUGH THINKING as far as solutions to the housing crisis are concerned.  To be blunt, there’s been nothing like it proposed anywhere as yet, nothing close… but that’s not going to be the case for long… already other state legislatures are taking a close look.

Want a little taste?  How’s this just for starters… 

• Writes down mortgage balances for Arizona homeowners to up to 125% of  current market value.
• Lowers monthly mortgage payment by at least 33%.
• NO COST to taxpayers, not a dime.
• No credit score requirement, borrower must be current on mortgage or be able to bring loan current.

But, I’m not going to spoil it for you… CLICK PLAY BELOW and listen in on the conversation with Senator Michelle Reagan, along with key members of her team, Ira Hecht, Steve Kravitz and of course, yours truly, as we talk all about… what the bill is all about.  

(You’ll also find a copy of the bill below.)  

Mandelman out.

*******

ATTENTION ARIZONA HOMEOWNERS…

IF YOU WANT IT, YOU HAVE TO SPEAK OUT!

Sen. Reagan NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT to get this revolutionary mortgage financing bill passed into law.  It’s crucial that you email your state representatives and tell them how important this bill is to your life and your future.

To find email addresses for your state assembly and senate representatives…

 CLICK HERE. 

It’s easy and only takes a few seconds, I promise.

AZ Housing Finance Reform Act Bill

When it comes to defending homeowners against wrongful foreclosure, or suing banks on behalf of homeowners, Attorney Nathan Fransen, of the firm Fransen & Molinaro in Corona, California is a very smart, experienced and dedicated attorney.  This I know for a fact.

How do I know this?  It’s simple.  Over the last few years, I’ve watched him literally bang his head against the wall as California’s courts have unabashedly approved of MERS, disregarded flaws in the securitization process, not cared one bit who signed what, and in general ignored everything having to do with foreclosure cases except the fact that the borrowers hadn’t made mortgage payments in so many months.  He argued complex legal theory and simple fraud… he was honing his approach, and although he had his share of frustrating days, he was careful which cases he took on, never following an unproductive path twice.  I’d refer potential clients to him fairly often, and in most cases, he’d talk them out of filing suit against whoever they had thought they had wanted to file suit against.

Don’t tell him I said it, but he’s also just generally a very smart person, you know, paid attention in school kind of person… fairly well-read… knew about things outside his area of expertise… the whole bit.  He also had both the patience and ability to explain things about the law to me when I was frustrated over how things weren’t working.  When someone can keep complicated things simple, you know they understand them inside and out… and when they can hold their own in a debate with me… well, I’m sorry but that’s saying something.

So, he called me a few weeks back and told me quite nonchalantly that he’d had a very good week.  I was happy to hear that someone had.  What was so good about it?  Well, he had won two of his cases and at least one would result in his client getting a “free house.”  The other might be a free house too, or maybe just a pretty good size pile of money.  It’s true… Nathan had gone in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals… his first time, by the way… and beaten US Bank, hands down… in Causey v. US Bank.

It seemed to me to be an impressive win, because he was appealing after losing in the lower court.  He’s smart, patient and methodical… three things that tend to pay off eventually, but he wasn’t just going up against US Bank… no, he was going up against the dreaded “free house,” meaning that if the court ruled in his favor, his client would no longer have a mortgage secured by real property.  At best, the amount owed would be unsecured debt, like credit card debt, and that would mean it could potentially be discharged in bankruptcy.

But, don’t jump to conclusions because it’s not what you’re thinking.

He showed me how I could actually listen to him argue the case in court, the 9th Circuit has audio files of the courtroom proceedings online, and listening to it was fascinating.  So I figured out how to download it and then convert it to a file format that I could put inside a podcast.  Then I asked him to comment before and after the case so listeners would really get valuable information and be able to learn from his experience.

I don’t want to spoil it, so I won’t say anything more… well, okay I’ll say one more thing.  As I listened to him argue his case in court, one thing came through loud and clear: Judges hate the dreaded “free house.”

This is one Mandelman Matters Podcast that you definitely don’t want to miss.  Nathan sets it up in the beginning, then you hear the audio of the actual courtroom arguments, both his and the lawyer for US Bank… and then he and I argue various topics such as whether robo-signing should be prosecuted and by whom, along with several other things that I know are frustrating homeowners today.

This is the real deal… you could call it “reality podcasting.”  Turn up your speakers, sit back, relax, and listen as three justices from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struggle to balance the rule of law against the dreaded “free house.”  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did… 

CLICK BELOW:

Mandelman Out.

Since 1999, Professor David Coates has been the Worrell Chair of Anglo-American Studies at Wake Forest University.  Prior to joining the faculty at Wake Forest he directed the International Centre for Labour Studies, and was Professor of Government at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.  He also writes a blog at www.davidcoates.com, and it’s absolutely a fantastic read in all cases.

I found Professor Coates’ blog last year on my birthday as I was searching the Web for like voices and when I came across his, I felt like I had been given a birthday present.  And I wrote to him at the time and told him exactly that.

David’s latest article, for example, is titled: Republican Truth and the Real Truth: GSEs and the Housing Bubble.

David and I have been communicating over the last year and I invited him to join me on a podcast because he offers points of view that are as fascinating as they are erudite and well-considered.  They are also not the same thing you’ve heard before, as they cover the foreclosure crisis both here in the U.S and in the UK.  He also talks about the global financial crisis and the political ramifications that are manifesting themselves in this country and frankly, what he says is important at every turn.

David has also written two books, both of which you can find on his blog.  One is, “Answering Back,” which offers “liberal responses to conservative arguments,” and the other, “Making the Progressive Case.”  Both are worth reading.

I’ve learned a lot from Professor Coates and I’m confident you will too.  So, turn up your speakers… click below… sit back and relax… and listen to an uninterrupted hour with Professor David Coates as he talks about the foreclosure crisis here and in the UK, why democracy and progressive politics are more important today than perhaps ever before…  and whole lot more… on A Mandelman Matters Podcast.

(Plus… I don’t know about you, but somehow the foreclosure crisis sounds better in a British accent… go figure.)

CLICK BELOW

Mandelman Out.

Hey DOERS… Good News Once Again, this time for

Tom Stover & Jeneane Traynor-Stover

(And that would be 8 out of 8 for the DOERS… but who’s counting?) 

Ooops, you did it again!  Yes, it’s true… Wells Fargo contacted Tom and Jeneane up in Granite Bay, California mid-day today to let them know that their SALE DATE of February 3, 2012 HAS BEEN POSTPONED.  This was the DOER ALERT posted late in the day last Friday, and today is Tuesday, so even though it wasn’t handled within 24 hours as we’ve gotten used to… I can live with 48 hours too.  (I don’t like it, but I can live with it… LOL.)

The truth is that although I did see that some DOERS sent emails in response to the ALERT on Friday, there weren’t nearly enough.  And then when we didn’t hear anything from Wells yesterday, Jeneane called me and mentioned that she thought that maybe the DOER ALERT got lost in people’s inboxes as a result of being posted late on Friday.

So, I reposted it yesterday and last night I sent out about 100 emails to DOERS, and sure enough… a lot more emails started flying towards Wells… and by today at 11:00 AM… it was a brand new day for Jeneane and Tom.  See how that works?  DOERS have got to stay up on this… you promised to for 120 days, right?  And I’ll try not to post late on Fridays… deal?  Cool.

Here’s the email I received from Jeneane at 11:00 AM today.

Dear Mandelman and the DOERS…

I wanted to let you know asap that I received a call from Michael Berg from the executive office of complaints at Wells Fargo.  He was very nice, the first thing he said was the sale was postponed and he is my single point of contact and he is getting a package out to me today and when I receive it tomorrow he wants me to call him back to go over it.    

WOW, that was great, you really are doing an amazing job at getting results, I will keep you posted!

You are a lifesaver, or shall I say a family saver, I do realized that there is not guarantee of a loan modification, but just being given the consideration of being informed is all I asked for!

Thanks again,  

Jeneane

Okay, well now that Wells has stopped the clock on the sale date… I for one have all the confidence in the world that Wells Fargo will find a way to modify this loan so Tom, Jeneane and their beautiful daughter will be able to stay in their home with payments they can afford.  And I’m sure all of our prayers are with Tom that he fully recover so he can get back to work on a full-time basis soon.

Thank you to all the DOERS who helped DO this! But there still aren’t enough of you DOING what you promised you would DO.  If we want to be able to affect bigger issues… national issues… then everyone’s going to have to turn up their game… get with the program… start taking this more seriously and continue spreading the word.

Sorry… it’s work I know.  But it’s not that much work.  You should all be very proud of what we’ve accomplished together and over a very short period of time… so you should be talking about it everyone you know… bragging even.

Stay tuned… unfortunately there are more DOER AlERTS to come!

Mandelman & Field OUT!

~~~

OFFICIAL DOER STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

BY MARTIN ANDELMAN & ABIGAIL FIELD

We, Mandelman & Field, are joining forces to end the foreclosure crisis. We’ve been writing about the crisis—Mandelman for more than three years and 600+ articles, Field for about half that—but frankly, writing’s not enough.

We need to DO more to solve the massive crisis our country is enduring. We must act now, because the crisis we’re in will get much, much worse.  This year is an election year… the time for decisive action is now.

But by ourselves we can’t do enough. We need YOU to DO too.

Mandelman has already inspired a core group of DOERS, people who have already solved the mortgage modification nightmares of six people. But to solve the problems faster than one mortgage at a time and to attack bigger problems, we need more DOERS… a lot more.

Here’s what we DOERS DO:

1. We take action.

We are knowledgeable, active and involved. We know that our actions make a difference because we’re all working together, multiplying our impact. That’s why we continue to take action, each and every day.

2. We know there’s no “try” in DO.

Either you DO, or you don’t.

3. We build big victories out of little victories.

We’re singles hitters with a really high on base percentage.   We scratch out the runs it takes to win every way we can. Our actions are simple, discrete, and quick to do, like sending an email, making a call, mailing a letter.

We work this way because swinging for the fences wastes lots of effort and results in more strikeouts than our country has time for. Besides, it took years to make the mess we’re in, and there’s no silver bullet that fixes everything all at once. We have to do many things, and collectively they will make the big changes we need.

4. We focus on our similarities, not our differences.  

We’re not about right and left… we’re about right and wrong. Frankly, our nation’s policies on housing and banks are so bad, we have plenty of solid common ground for everyone. Since we’re focused on fixing those two interrelated issues—housing and bank policy—our divisions on other issues are irrelevant.

5. We believe in “We, the People.”  

We join forces to make change because we are Americans. It’s our Constitutional birthright to be in charge, to make change together. And we know if we act together to make good policy, we all benefit.

6. We recruit more DOERS, because size matters.

To solve the big problems we need to be correspondingly big. We’re not playing games. We are DOING to win.

7. And we are in it to win it.

We are relentless.  We take our tasks seriously.  We do our best. We  never let down our fellow DOERS by not DOING our individual parts.

ProPublica is reporting that Freddie Mac has been placing “multi-billion dollar bets designed to only pay off when homeowners remain “trapped” in high interest rate loans, and that the government-owned mortgage monster began increasing such bets late in 2010, which they say is, “the same time Freddie was making harder for homeowners to get out of high-interest mortgages.”

Now, the ProPublica story goes on to say…

“No evidence has emerged that these decisions were coordinated. The company is a key gatekeeper for home loans but says its traders are “walled off” from the officials who have restricted homeowners from taking advantage of historically low interest rates by imposing higher fees and new rules.”

And I suppose ProPublica had to say that for whatever reason, probably because that’s what the Freddie Mac SpokesLiar said when they asked about this egregious, fraudulent, criminal behavior that is also AT BEST yet another FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT to protect the American people.

Now, let me be very clear here, so as not to leave any doubt in what we should all understand about this situation that has been uncovered by an investigation conducted by NPR and ProPublica…

1. Freddie Mac has essentially been nationalized. It is 100 percent funded by U.S. taxpayers because if it weren’t for U.S. taxpayers Freddie Mac would be bankrupt. 

2. As ProPublica also points out in its story, Freddie Mac’s charter “calls for the company to make home loans more accessible. Its chief executive, Charles Haldeman Jr., recently told Congress that his company is “helping financially strapped families reduce their mortgage costs through refinancing their mortgages.”  Really, Haldeman?  Or maybe, not so much.

3. The statement above about how Freddie’s traders are “WALLED OFF” from the people at Freddie who have restricted homeowners from getting lower rates so they could keep their homes is OFFENSIVE in so many ways I hardly know where to begin.

First of all, Freddie Mac… IT’S A BOLDFACED LIE.  Do you think you are dealing with a nation of 4 year-olds?  How dare you even try to make such a case to the American people?  Secondly, what right do you have to be “restricting homeowners” from doing ANYTHING?  You are a bankrupt mortgage company that failed so spectacularly that you have cost the American taxpayers incalculable and untold billions of dollars.  The way I see it, you have no right to “restrict” anyone from doing anything.

4. Mr. Charles Haldeman Jr. if you do not end up in prison for the rest of your life, it will be an abominable miscarriage of justice.  When you consider the state of the U.S. and even the world’s economy, and the fragile nature of our banking system, in which almost all trust has been destroyed… Freddie’s acts here constitute TREASON, and Mr. Haldeman should be considered nothing less than a TRAITOR to this country.

No, he didn’t declare war on the United States, or give aid and comfort to our enemies, but congress has, at times throughout our history, passed statutes creating offenses related to treason for acts that undermine the government or the national security, and in my mind, Mr. Haldeman as Freddie Mac’s Chief Executive, most certainly allowed such acts to occur in this case.

5. But Haldeman didn’t commit these acts alone… the others involved must be arrested and tried for these crimes so they may be brought to justice as well.  And where is Mr. Edward DeMarco, the head of the FHFA, the conservator of both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?

At an absolute minimum, and to avoid his own prosecution, if that’s even possible, we should all be calling for his IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION, and he should be delivering on national television his most profound apologies to the people of this country, for what he has overseen is a national disgrace at a level I’ve never even contemplated as being possible in this country.

6. Because you should make no mistake about this… the acts committed here have cost more than trillions of dollars in lost wealth, but beyond the incomprehensible monetary cost, they have cost American lives. 

There are children who will grow up without their loving parent or parents because of our foreclosure crisis, senior citizens who have lost all faith in our nation in the last years of their lives… families that have suffered in muted agony for months turned years… and to have used American taxpayer dollars to intentionally exacerbate the effects of the crisis, is so appalling… so contemptible… so utterly vile…  that it truly is unspeakable. 

Eric Holder & Lanny Breuer

Further, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder should also immediately RESIGN in DISGRACE…

That these unconscionable trades of securities and derivatives, whatever they are, had to be uncovered by an investigation ProPublica and NPR illustrates the, at best laughable, and at worst  corrupt nature of Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of In-Justice.

Not only has Eric Holder failed to prosecute any of the banking industry executives responsible for our catastrophic economic collapse, but he hasn’t even lifted a finger to do so, or even taken the time to tell the people of this country anything substantive about anything related to the crisis.

It should go with saying that he needs to be replaced, and perhaps this time we should not hire as our “top cop,” a lawyer from Covington & Burling, one of Washington’s biggest white shoe law firms, widely known to represent… WHILE HOLDER and BREUER WERE PARTNERS AT THE FIRM… some of the largest banks in the country, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, CITIGROUP, WELLS FARGO BANK, MERS, one of the largest servicers, and yes… FREDDIE MAC too.

As reported by Huffington Post on January 19th…

“U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

Covington represented Freddie Mac, one of the nation’s biggest issuers of mortgage-backed securities, in enforcement investigations by federal financial regulators.

A particular concern by those pressing for an investigation is Covington’s involvement with Virginia-based MERS Corp, which runs a vast computerized registry of mortgages. Little known before the mortgage crisis hit, MERS, which stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, has been at the center of complaints about false or erroneous mortgage documents.

Court records show that Covington, in the late 1990s, provided legal opinion letters needed to create MERS on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and several other large banks. It was meant to speed up registration and transfers of mortgages. By 2010, MERS claimed to own about half of all mortgages in the U.S. — roughly 60 million loans.

But evidence in numerous state and federal court cases around the country has shown that MERS authorized thousands of bank employees to sign their names as MERS officials. The banks allegedly drew up fake mortgage assignments, making it appear falsely that they had standing to file foreclosures, and then had their own employees sign the documents as MERS “vice presidents” or “assistant secretaries.”

And get this…

“Covington declined to respond to questions from Reuters. A Covington spokeswoman said the firm had no comment.”

Roger that.  I understand perfectly.  Let me see if I’ve got this straight…

• President Obama announces Making Home Affordable Program.
• Obama puts Treasury Secretary Geithner in charge of HAMP loan modification and HARP refinancing programs.
• Geithner appoints Fannie Mae administrator and Freddie Mac regulator of MHA programs.
• Obama puts Edward DeMarco in charge of FHFA.
• FHFA is responsible for oversight of Fannie and Freddie.
• Obama and Geithner say they want Fannie & Freddie to offer principal reductions to stem tide of defaults.
• But DeMarco says no to principal reductions, claims it’s because of “short-term accounting reasons.”
• In 2010, Obama nominates permanent replacement for DeMarco, but Republicans in Congress block nomination.
• Charles Haldeman Jr. is in charge of Freddie Mac.
• Late in 2010.Freddie starts making it much harder for homeowners to get out of high interest loans. 
• For example, during Thanksgiving week 2010, Freddie increases post-settlement delivery fees charged to borrowers refinancing.
• Also late in 2010, Freddie starts placing multi-billion dollar bets that pay off by keeping homeowners trapped in high interest loans.
• These investments are called “inverse floaters.” Instead of backed mainly by principal, these are banked by interest payments.
• Because inverse floaters are riskier, they pay much higher rate of return, if people remain in higher interest rate loans.
• Meanwhile, Sec. Geithner and President Obama continue to state publicly that they want loans refinanced and/or modified.
• It’s impossible  to believe that Obama, Geithner, DeMarco, and Haldeman haven’t interacted over the last two years.
• FHFA knew about Freddie’s purchase of $3.4 billion in inverse floaters in 2010.
• The Federal Reserve recently said Fannie and Freddie fees charged make it harder to refinance “difficult to justify.”
• And the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was a partner in the law firm representing Freddie Mac, along MERS and major banks.
• Freddie and Fannie need another multi-billion bailout in 2011… and will need more in future.

Does that about cover it?  Awesome.

And President Obama…

If you haven’t figured it out yet, and I think you have, you’ve hired the WRONG PEOPLE, or been given bad advice, because the way your administration has handled the financial and foreclosure crises is fast getting entirely out of anyone’s control.  Today’s crisis is very much like a tsunami in the middle of the ocean when it looks like a small bump on the water.  But it’s approaching the shore and when it arrives it is likely to be 1,000 feet tall and moving at 600 miles per hour.

You are where the buck stops, and ultimately it is your administration that has allowed Freddie Mac to commit these horrific acts against America’s distressed and vulnerable homeowners.  You are the one responsible for putting Covington and Burling lawyers in charge of the DOJ… you are the individual in which we placed our trust and you have let us down.

I wish I thought you were capable of redeeming yourself, but you can’t… can you?  You’re in too deep and can’t see a way out.  You allowed Washington’s powerbrokers and structure to take over your presidency and now you don’t know how to change the path you’re on… I can feel it.  I am truly sorry, as I’ve felt that way before in my life.

All I can say is that you are still the President of the United States and you can break what needs to be broken.  It’s all about inches, like the journey of 1,000 miles beginning with one small step.

ONE LAST THING… A NOTE TO PROPUBLICA and NPR…

Thank you for your work on this.  Now, if you haven’t already done so, would you mind sauntering on over to Fannie Mae to check out what’s trading places over there.  I’m pretty sure I already know, but I don’t want to say because frankly… I don’t want to be right.

And after that… maybe check out what’s trading at all the major banks… you know… just round up the usual suspects and that oughta’ do it, don’t you think?  Yeppers… I think you’ve just uncovered one of the reasons why it’s been so damn hard to get a loan modification.

Because it seems to me that the odds are outstanding that… just like “robo-signing” wasn’t… this ain’t no “isolated incident.”

Mandelman out.

ARE YOU A DOER, OR JUST A READER?

TO FIND OUT MORE CLICK HERE.

Please don’t delay.  It’s FREE, so DO it today  It’s easy to DO.  And to win, we need you.

Becoming a DOER and committing to our code of action is easy. Just send an email to either one of us:

Martin Andelman at: mandelman@mac.com

Abigail Field at: ACFRealityCheck@yahoo.com

And also don’t forget to subscribe here: SUBSCRIBE

All you have to write in the message is: Count on me to be a DOER.  Or,  just say: I’m in.  Tell me what to DO.

About once a week we’ll call on you to DO something important… something that matters a lot.  

It feels really good to be a DOER, ask anyone who is.

Mandelman & Field… OUT!

Who Let the DOERS Out?  Who-Who-Who-Who-Who?

Who Let the DOERS Out?  Who-Who-Who-Who-Who?

First thing this morning and in response to our DOERS… One West Bank STOPPED THE SALE of Lisa Ferrechia’s home in Milford, Massachusetts… asking that we please call of our DOERS!  They have assured Lisa that they are looking at her situation at the highest levels and will do everything possible to make sure she can keep her home.

DOERS… you did it again.  That’s 7 out of 7 DOERS… we really are DOING it and making a real and very meaningful difference not only for the homeowners whose homes we’ve saved by helping them get sustainable loan modifications, but we’re also helping in a bigger picture sense as well by calling attention to situations that no one should want to see happen.

Obviously, we’ll be staying on top of what’s going on in Lisa’s case, but I’m quite confident that One West Bank is going to find a way for Lisa keep her home, they responded quickly… as a matter of fact the CEO emailed last night… Sunday night… to say that they would be looking into the situation first thing this morning… which they obviously did… and we thank them for being responsive and considerate in this instance.

So, thank you ONE WEST BANK.  Let’s get this done for Lisa and thousands of other homeowners… let’s make this into a win-win scenario, instead of the lose-lose-lose situation we have today.

But, we also recognize that we still have a long way to go before this fight will be over.  So, we need more DOERS signing on every day.  We can’t rest on our laurels, our voice needs to get stronger so we can take on bigger and bigger challenges.  Remember what they say… politicians won’t see the light until they feel the heat.  So, here’s what you need to know about DOERS…

OFFICIAL DOER STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

BY MARTIN ANDELMAN & ABIGAIL FIELD

We, Mandelman & Field, are joining forces to end the foreclosure crisis. We’ve been writing about the crisis—Mandelman for more than three years and 600+ articles, Field for about half that—but frankly, writing’s not enough.

We need to DO more to solve the massive crisis our country is enduring. We must act now, because the crisis we’re in will get much, much worse.  This year is an election year… the time for decisive action is now.

But by ourselves we can’t do enough. We need YOU to DO too.

Mandelman has already inspired a core group of DOERS, people who have already solved the mortgage modification nightmares of six people. But to solve the problems faster than one mortgage at a time and to attack bigger problems, we need more DOERS… a lot more.

Here’s what we DOERS DO:

1. We take action.

We are knowledgeable, active and involved. We know that our actions make a difference because we’re all working together, multiplying our impact. That’s why we continue to take action, each and every day.

2. We know there’s no “try” in DO.

Either you DO, or you don’t.

3. We build big victories out of little victories.

We’re singles hitters with a really high on base percentage.   We scratch out the runs it takes to win every way we can. Our actions are simple, discrete, and quick to do, like sending an email, making a call, mailing a letter.

We work this way because swinging for the fences wastes lots of effort and results in more strikeouts than our country has time for. Besides, it took years to make the mess we’re in, and there’s no silver bullet that fixes everything all at once. We have to do many things, and collectively they will make the big changes we need.

4. We focus on our similarities, not our differences.  

We’re not about right and left… we’re about right and wrong. Frankly, our nation’s policies on housing and banks are so bad, we have plenty of solid common ground for everyone. Since we’re focused on fixing those two interrelated issues—housing and bank policy—our divisions on other issues are irrelevant.

5. We believe in “We, the People.”  

We join forces to make change because we are Americans. It’s our Constitutional birthright to be in charge, to make change together. And we know if we act together to make good policy, we all benefit.

6. We recruit more DOERS, because size matters.

To solve the big problems we need to be correspondingly big. We’re not playing games. We are DOING to win.

7. And we are in it to win it.

We are relentless.  We take our tasks seriously.  We do our best. We  never let down our fellow DOERS by not DOING our individual parts.

 SO, HERE’S THE BOTTOM-LINE…

In 1954, Brown v. The Board of Education didn’t end segregation.  It took ten years and hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets before President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Acts of 1964-65.

In 1971, President Nixon saw from his White House windows, tens of thousands of people protesting the war in Viet Nam and became paranoid that he would lose the election in 1972.  It drove those around him to break into the Democratic headquarters and led to the Watergate scandal… even though he won reelection in 1972 by a landslide.

And more recently, in 2009, news of AIG bonuses totaling $160 million and a corporate retreat at the St. Regis luxury resort in Southern California, caused people to take to the streets, outraged that a company recently bailed out by the taxpayers would be allowed to pay out what appeared to be extravagant bonuses.  Within two weeks the House of Representatives authored and passed a bill that would have placed a 90 percent tax on those and other bonuses.  It was killed in the senate, of course, but that’s not the point.

The point is that our elected representatives can move quickly… if they are properly motivated.

To become a DOER you only need to DO 3-4 things and they’re all easy:

1. Click here to SUBSCRIBE to Mandelman Matters.  That’s the only way you’ll get an email whenever there’s a new post and when you see “DOER ALERT” in the headline, you know it’s time to DO something that will matter.
2. Send an email to me at mandelman@mac.com.  Just type: I’m a DOER or something close in the subject line.  I’ll add you to the database of DOER emails.  When we want the element of surprise I won’t post it, I’ll email you the plan.
3. Actually check your email from Mandelman Matters or from mandelman@mac.com and when you see the words DOER ALERT, open it and read it right away or certainly ASAP.  Not the next day… that day.  Then, assuming you want to help make a difference, read it and send an email to the CEO’s email while I always list at the bottom of the DOER Alert.  Of course, the more thoughtful the email the better, but it doesn’t have to be a long email if you’re pressed for time.  Just a few sentences is just fine and dandy.
4. Help recruit other DOERS.  Send others links to articles on Mandelman Matters and tell them you’re DOING it and it’s working.

That’s all there is to it, and all I’m asking for is a four month commitment.  After that, if you agree that it’s worth DOING, then give me another four months.  The more DOERS we have the larger the problem we can tackle.

Consider this… right now there’s all this controversy over the 50 state AG settlement.  A few days ago many people thought the deal was about to be announced and people were very upset.  Well, if we had 100,000 DOERS now, we could stop that deal from getting done for sure.

Just think of being a DOER as being a way to “occupy” without leaving your home, sleeping on the ground, getting arrested and sprayed with pepper spray.  It’s also more effective than doing those things.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t do them, but I’m telling you that DOERS can stop this mess in its tracks this year or next.

]]> http://thepatriotswar.com/index.php/our-doers-did-it-again%e2%80%a6-one-west-bank-stops-sale-in-east/loan-modification/feed/ 0 http://thepatriotswar.com/index.php/doer-alert-onewest-bank-needs-to-stop-a-foreclosure-sale-monday-because-it%e2%80%99s-wrong/loan-modification/ http://thepatriotswar.com/index.php/doer-alert-onewest-bank-needs-to-stop-a-foreclosure-sale-monday-because-it%e2%80%99s-wrong/loan-modification/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:31:18 +0000 Mandelman http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/?p=8805

In just two days from now, on Monday, January 30, 2012, at 3:00 PM… a terrible, tragic and yet easily avoidable event is scheduled to occur… and MUST BE STOPPED. 

OneWest Bank is scheduled to conduct a foreclosure auction of Lisa Ferrecchia’s home in Milford, Massachusetts, a home worth roughly $209,800 today, although the balance of Lisa’s loan is about twice that amount… $396,046, as of January 3rd of this year.

The day on which IndyMac Bank originated Lisa’s mortgage was arguably the worst date in history to get a mortgage, July 24, 2007, but she wouldn’t have had any way of knowing that at the time.  The loan’s interest rate, fixed for 30 years, is 7.625 percent.

In the early part of 2010, Lisa’s income went down, just as happened to countless others, but it’s the reason Lisa’s income went down that’s not so common… it went down because someone said that her job was paying her too much money… she was earning $35,000 a year and that was apparently too much money.

Lisa’s income went down because she lost the disability income that I would imagine she had always received as an adult.  You see, Lisa Ferrecchia is a victim of what is often called: “One of the biggest medical tragedies of modern times.”

Lisa Ferrecchia is one of the thalidomide babies.

German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal launched the drug in October of 1957, claiming that it was an effective tranquilizer and painkiller, and proclaiming it a “wonder drug” for insomnia, coughs, colds and headaches. It was also found to be an effective antiemetic with an inhibitory effect on morning sickness, so thousands of pregnant women took the drug to relieve their symptoms.

Scientists at that time did not believe that any drug taken by a pregnant woman would be able to pass across the placental barrier and harm the developing fetus.  And as it turned out, they were so very wrong.

Here in the U.S. the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) never licensed thalidomide for general use, however, samples were distributed to a numerous physicians as part of a clinical trial, in which 20,000 patients in the U.S. received thalidomide.  It’s impossible to know how many pregnant women actually took the drug to help alleviate morning sickness or as a sedative, between 1957, the year my wife was born… and 1961, the year I was born.

Thalidomide was withdrawn from the market in 1961 after the drug was shown to cause birth defects.  Roughly 10,000 babies had been born with disabilities such as the characteristic stunted arms or legs, and some babies were born with no limbs at all.

Even today, it is not known exactly how many worldwide victims of the drug there have been, although estimates range from 10,000 to 20,000… and Lisa Ferrecchia is one of them… basically, she was born with her hands on her shoulders… they’re often called “flipper limbs.”

Some evidence published by the Thalidomide Trust in the U.K. suggests that the drug was first developed by Otto Ambrose, a Nazi scientist, as a possible antidote to nerve toxins, such as sarin gas.  Furthermore, a relation between testing thalidomide and the Nazi death camps has also been suggested.  And according to Grünenthal, Heinrich Mückter was among those responsible for inventing thalidomide.  Mückter was a pharmacologist who is known to have carried out wartime experiments on Polish prisoners allegedly in an effort to find a cure for typhus, but causing the death of many hundreds in the process.

Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey, Ph.D., M.D., who under pressure from the Richardson-Merrell, the company with the rights to market thalidomide, correctly refused approval of thalidomide by the FDA, saying that further studies were needed.  As a result, she eventually received the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service at a 1962 ceremony with President John F. Kennedy.  That same year, the United States Congress enacted laws requiring tests for safety during pregnancy before a drug can receive approval for sale in this country.

In September 2010, some fifty years later, the FDA honored Kelsey with the first “Kelsey Award,” which is an award now given annually to an FDA staff member.

Lisa Ferrecchia may have been born a thalidomide baby, but she’s not “disabled,” as far as she’s concerned.  She goes to work each day at a medical facility, where she works as a medical coordinator of care.  She bends over in order to write and her handwriting is beautiful.  I’m told that she has learned to apply her make up beautifully, as well.
So, in some sort of cruel joke, her income went down when her income went up, and now it was difficult to keep up with her $320,000 mortgage.

Stay with me, because here’s where her turning point occurs.  Here’s that moment in time when had she not chosen the path she did, everything could be different today and she would not be worrying about where she will go once her home is sold on Monday…

SHE LISTENED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND CALLED ONEWEST BANK FOR HELP.

(If this were a movie, this is the part where the audience, seeing what she’s about to do screams, “No, Lisa… it’s a trap, don’t do it!  Don’t listen to them… get a roommate… anything… don’t call ONE WEST BANK!  Noooooo!)

Not realizing that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was both an uncaring, incompetent and dishonest shithead, and that banks like ONEWEST could not be trusted any further than they could be thrown, Lisa explained her situation to the OneWest representative… and can you guess what that person told her?  I know you can…

The OneWest representative said: “I’m sorry, I can’t even talk to you about this unless you’re 90-days delinquent.”

Ding, ding, ding!  Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Over a year later, still being tortured by today’s version of thalidomide, Lisa decided she needed help and turned to a law firm who thought to themselves… “We have got to be able to get this done.  This is crazy.”

I spoke with someone from that firm and she says they have submitted Lisa’s paperwork on ten separate occasions, although she admits that number could be nine.  Each time, apparently, the bank takes at least 45 days to review the documents and by then they need new ones once again.

They tell me that she’s been turned down for not enough income, too much income, and the latest excuse du jour… her investor doesn’t participate… whatever the heck that means.

Memo to OneWest Bank – If you force me to actually go find out who her investor is and then pull the PSA for that trust, and I end up finding out this is an IndyMac portfolio loan that you bought for 30¢ on the dollar, or if it’s a Fannie or Freddie deal… I swear by all that is holy, that you will regret having made me go through that exercise, and I don’t give a rat’s petute how many multi-zillionaires you stack up over there.  As far as I’m concerned, the richer they are the more fun it is to ruin page one of their Google search.  Run that by Dell and Soros and see what they want to do, because they may have the money, but I’ve got the time.

So, now… TWO YEARS LATER… now Lisa has almost a $400,000 mortgage… thank you for that, by the way, OneWest Bank.  And when I first heard about her numbers, I thought, hmmm… she is short a few bucks on the income side here, but you know what… horse pucky!  You’re charging her 7.625 percent interest… what kind of unnecessary if not predatory garbage is that?  You can take that rate down quite a bit… and if you have any soul at all, you’ll wipe out at the $80k that’s your fault here, and then reduce the principal so that she can afford to keep her home… period.

I’m not usually like this, I’m a numbers person, but I’ve spent all day and night on this article and I’ve decided that you’re just not going to do this to Lisa Ferrecchia… not today.  Not this time.  Not happening.  Your bank told her to stop making her payments because that was the only way she could get her loan modified and that was TWO YEARS AGO.

Fix this thing… Lisa has had to overcome more than any of us… more than you George Soros. And you, a Hungarian Jew that lived through being a part of the Nazi’s own Jewish Council that carried out acts against Jews during the war.  You above all should know what it feels like to have others avert their eyes rather than to look at you, isn’t that right… Mr. Schwartz turned Soros?

And you, Michael Dell, yet another privileged Jew in a long line of over privileged Jews… don’t you want to do something about this?  Then for God’s sake, Dude, make the call and stop Lisa from losing her home, damn it!

And don’t freak out everybody, I’m Jewish so I’m ALLOWED to say what I’ve said here.  Where I come from, Jews don’t stand by and allow injustices like this happen to other people if we can help it… EVER.

Look, I’m not saying that Michael Dell or George Soros knows anything about this prior to my writing about it today, but they do now.  So fix it and do it fast, because the sale is Monday at 3:00 PM.  And just so you know, the house is not going to sell tomorrow no matter what, because we’ve already got foreclosure defense attorney Glenn Russell ready with a bankruptcy filing to stop it if that’s what we need to do.  (You’ve heard of Glenn, right, he was one of the lead attorneys from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court “Ibanez” decision.)

BUT LISA SHOULD NOT HAVE TO FILE BANKRUPTCY, AND IF YOU MAKE HER DO THAT, I AM GOING TO BE SUCH A PROBLEM FOR YOU THAT YOU’LL HAVE TO HIRE AN ENTIRE DEPARTMENT TO CONTEND WITH MY ANTICS GOING FORWARD.  ARE YOU FEELING ME HERE?

One West Bank is the reincarnation of failed IndyMac Bank, brought back from the dead by a list of multi-billionaires, with the support of the FDIC.  The list of multi-billionaires involved includes: J. Christopher Flowers – who comes from Goldman Sachs… John Paulson – who runs a hedge fund that did quite well shorting the meltdown along with Goldman Sachs… George Soros – who should need no further introduction, and Michael Dell, of “Dude, I’m getting a Dell” Computer.

I only offer those names so that everyone recognizes with whom we are dealing here. These are a bunch of guys so rich they could fund their own space program, take their space shuttle out for a spin whenever company comes to town, and even after all that I’m confident that they’d still be multi-billionaires.

On November 25, 2009, Judge Spinner in Long Island, New York penalized OneWest for what he said were, “harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive” actions related to their dealings with a homeowner at risk of foreclosure, by canceling the debt in favor of the borrower.  The decision was ultimately overturned on appeal, but the words still ring out across the land: harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive.

For most of my lifetime, those were not the sorts of words one expected to hear being associated with a bank.  Now, however, one reads them and thinks… Yeah!  You go, Judge. 

And George Soros, you’re referred to as a “philanthropist.”  I read that “Time” magazine says you’ve given away $7 billion to causes you’ve deemed worthy.  You provide funding for important causes all over the world.  You have to be someone who cares.  But how do I reconcile the way Judge Spinner described OneWest as being, “harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive,” against that?  How do you reconcile a contrast that stark?  Surely, it’s not about the money, is it?  Surely it cannot be that.

And you don’t get to average out your philanthropic deeds, you realize that right?

NoBody’s Perfect…

In 2008, Niko Von Glasow, also a “thalidomide baby,” produced and directed his first feature documentary, “NoBody’s Perfect.”  Without any deference to political correctness the film follows eleven people who, like him, were born disabled due to the disastrous side effects of Thalidomide, and who are prepared to pose for a book of photos… and to pose naked.

The film provides those who regularly throw furtive glances at “thalidomiders,” and other physically disabled people, with a good, long look, and along the way introducing us to fascinating characters working in such diverse areas as “politics, the media, sport, astrophysics and acting.”

It’s a darkly humorous look at people who have learned to live with their disability to an impressive level of “normality,” completing the picture by showing Niko’s numerous unsuccessful attempts to contact the chemical company Gruenenthal, to talk about Thalidomide and its effects

About making the film, Niko’s wife told him that it was “time to look the devil in the eye.”  And has he explains, “It was the first real cinema film, historically, made by a disabled director about disability.”  In 2009, the film won the German Film Award for Best Documentary.

Von Glasow asked himself, “What’s my biggest fear?  And in his case, he says the answer was public nudity.

“People stare at me anyway, Niko explains.  

“When I go to a beach with my swimming suit on people stare even more, so I don’t go to beaches. I had to find 11 other thalidomiders who strip naked for a calendar and I became Mr. December. It became a dark but very funny comedy. I did it and now I feel better! More secure: in my soul, in my being, inside. Once you go into it, honesty is very healing.”

So… Dear OneWest Bank…

Lisa Ferrechia should not be in the position she is in today, two years behind on her mortgage and facing the loss of her home tomorrow at 3:00 PM… and she wouldn’t be except for you, and a crisis created by Wall Street’s investment bankers.  This is NOT her fault… she has done nothing wrong except to listen to your bank and her government.

If you hadn’t told her to stop making her mortgage payments in order to get her loan modified, I don’t know what would have happened, but I do know she would have done something else… and because Lisa is a person infinitely better than me at overcoming life’s obstacles, I fully believe she would have overcome this one… were it not for OneWest Bank.

Do you, OneWest Bank really want to be the thing that beat her?

It is inconceivable that any of the “Richest Americans” that are OneWest Bank’s owners, would want the bank’s management to do anything but STOP THIS SALE and do everything possible and then some, to keep Lisa in her home.

And I’m sorry if you or anyone else feels that I’ve been unfairly harsh here.  I assure you that I take no pleasure in any of this.  With every article I write, come prayers that it will be the last I ever need to write in this regard.

This article took me over 18 hours to write.  I started early on Saturday morning, worked on it until 11:00 PM on Saturday night.  Picked it up on Sunday morning at 7:00 AM and as I’m wrapping up now my clock reads 5:35 PM.  And the whole time I knew that Lisa would be wondering whether I would be writing something about her situation, as the research involved made it take a long time to get done.

And sure enough, when I just now called the law firm who is representing Lisa to get her loan number, I was told that she has been watching my blog… waiting to see if there was anything left on which she could pin her hopes. The law firm said that I would be… but Lisa, obviously preparing for the worst, replied: “Miracles like that just don’t happen for people like me.”

I wish more than anything that I could turn back the clock for Lisa Ferrechia and all of the other thalidomide babies… all the way back to the years 1957 – 1961.  I wish I could go back and stop what is referred to as, ”One of the biggest medical tragedies of modern times” from ever happening…. I know I can’t, of course… but I want more than anything to be the miracle she needs.

I wish that I could stop her home from being taken away from her… but I can’t DO that either.  All I can DO is write about this tragic situation in an effort to stop it from worsening.  I just don’t know what else I can possibly DO…

BUT LUCKILY MY DOERS DO… AM I RIGHT, DOERS? 

You know exactly what to DO in an effort to stop Lisa’s home from being sold out from under her… I know you DO.  And time is really of the essence here, so let’s DO this in a BIG way for Lisa… it’s Sunday, so everyone has time, right?

Let’s DO together what I couldn’t possibly DO alone… Let’s be her miracle.

Mandelman out. 

Lisa Ferrechia

Loan #3002965774

I assume you have Lisa’s phone number in your records, and you should also have contact information for the law firm that represents her, but just in case contact…

Lisa Reed

Lombardi & Stephenson, Attorneys at Law

Ph. 781-396-4663 Ext. 2205

Cell: 781-718-1993

HERE’S ONEWEST CONTACT INFO:

Steven Mnuchin

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

steven.mnuchin@owb.com

 ~~~

John Casillas

President

john.casillas@owb.com

Ph. 562-904-9001

~~~

Suggestion from a DOER add:

ombudsman@fdic.gov

 ~~~

Rick Hall

President Hall

richardhall@owb.com

 ~~~

Brandon Latman

brandon.latman@owb.com

Ph. 626-535-5970

 ~~~

Joseph M. Otting

Chief Executive Officer, President & Director

Corporate Offices Ph. 626-535-2500

Toll Free: 800-669-2300

joseph.otting@owb.com

~~~

Michael Mayer

Associate General Counsel

michael.mayer@owb.com

 ~~~

Claudia Mann
Default Escalation Specialist

Fax: 626-440-7148

claudia.mann@owb.com

ONE MORE THING…

Make no mistake, although Lisa doesn’t see it this way… this country OWES Lisa, big time.

In 1900, the Canadian government finally compensated thalidomiders with an award of $7.5 million, roughly just $100,000 each, as far as I can tell.  And that’s just not enough considering that government failed to properly warn the public of the dangers involved in using the drug.  Our government, it seems, has done nothing to compensate the victims of this unnecessary tragedy.

SIGN A PETITION seeking justice and dignity for thalidomiders worldwide.

The thalidomide tragedy was Europe’s worst man-made disaster outside of war or genocide since 1945. It came about because a greedy pharmaceutical company put profit ahead of humanity and because German politicians colluded with the profiteers to give the drug the best possible launch pad. Early warning signs were ignored and even discredited, evidence of birth defects was dismissed and thousands more babies were damaged needlessly. The German state allowed the survivors to have their rights trampled underfoot while Chemie Grunenthal continued to prosper.

This was a company that had its roots in the Nazi death camps and was staffed by unrepentant, former Nazis. This was their last, unpunished crime against humanity. It is time that the German Government recognized its own culpability and made a settlement with thalidomide survivors wherever they are and whoever they are. We believe that not doing so continues to heap shame on the German people.

 Thank you… 

Look, Wells Fargo… we have to talk.  And frankly, I’d appreciate it if you’d jot down a few notes as we go because I really don’t want to have to repeat myself on this subject… and dear Lord, trust me when I say that you don’t want me to have to repeat myself either.

Here’s the deal…

When you’re dealing with a family that has lived in their home and been a part of their community for 15 years… who have raised four children in that home… and has contacted you because the father in that family who works for the school district has been seriously injured in a work-related auto accident and placed on workers comp… right after his wife lost her SECOND JOB (that’s right, she works two jobs), and they have a special needs child, a beautiful daughter who is autistic… you KNOW you are dealing with VERY RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE, right?

Because the parents I just described are the embodiment of the word “responsible,” you do see that, right?

So, when you say to them, “Let’s get you qualified for a loan modification.” you’re doing the right thing.  And when they immediately send you all of their information and documentation, including updated paystubs and bank statements every 30 days for six months, you shouldn’t be all that surprised.

Even so, their Wells Fargo representative was quite surprised, so much so that he actually expressed to them how surprised he was, saying that they had done an outstanding job getting together everything he asked for, right on time, and exactly as he had instructed.  Jeneane, the wife, explained that she used to be an escrow officer so she was quite familiar with preparing and submitting such paperwork.

Not that doing everything right and on time mattered all that much, because Wells still filed an NOD and now has scheduled a sale date for February 3, 2012.

Of course, Grant… their Wells Fargo representative, was very comforting when he explained that they should not worry about that pesky little sale date, because if a decision wasn’t made by the underwriting department, he would simply request that the sale be postponed.  Well, that certainly must have been a relief for these parents to hear, I’m sure.

A little more than a week before the sale date Jeneane called again to check on how things were going but wouldn’t you know it, her Wells Fargo specialist, Grant, was just transferred to a different department.  A department without phones, apparently.

She was told that she would have to wait to speak with her newly assigned specialist until he or she was assigned.   (That’s what your people said, Wells Fargo.  I’m not responsible for that sentence.)

So,  Jeneane called back again yesterday and was told that someone had been assigned but, darn the luck, they weren’t available, so she asked the person who answered the phone if her home’s sale date had been postponed or if there had been an answer on their loan modification.

Now, stay with me here because this is the sort of thing that you read… and it makes your hair hurt.

The Wells Fargo woman said that it appeared that they needed some additional documentation.  Jeneane is quite adamant that this was not true, because she had just sent Grant 36 pages last week.  He had said that everything was there and he even told her that he had scheduled the postponement while they were on the phone.

Are you getting confused?  Yeah, well aren’t we all.

(I have to tell you, when it comes to paperwork being together, I believe Jeneane 100 percent.  This woman knows her paperwork.  She’s a paperwork Queen, you might even say.)

Nonetheless, Jeneane asked what Wells needed and was told she needed to send in  her 2010 tax return.  Jeneane replied that she had just sent in her 2010 Tax Return last week and was quite sure that it was there.  The woman placed her on hold for 10 minutes (kind of a long time to be on hold, don’t you think) and when the woman returned she said: “”Yes, I have it,” which by the way is not the proper response in that situation.

Just so you know… in that situation you’re supposed to say, “Oh, I’m sorry… you were right… we do have it.”  Or something to that effect.  I’m not trying to be picky here, in fact my expectations of Wells people have been lowered to such a degree that if they don’t spit or throw up in the middle of a conversation, I consider it pleasant.

Since the tax return thing didn’t stick, the next thing the Wells woman thought of to say was that they would not approve a postponement unless there was approval of the loan modification.

Jeneane asked if there were any notes in her file from last week when good old Grant said that he had requested the postponement.  She said no… and I have no trouble believing that.  In fact, at this point I wouldn’t have any trouble believing that there wasn’t even a file in which to potentially put notes.

Then the woman said, “You can’t even request a postponement until one day prior to the sale date.”

Then the woman told her to contact the trustee… Jeneane had never heard of a trustee before, but she figured you guys needed the extra hands so she made the call.  Can you guess what happened next?

The trustee said they hadn’t received anything about a postponement from Wells Fargo, but that it could be with Wells’ liaison, whatever that means, and that “sometimes you can’t find out if a sale is being postponed until the day before the sale.”

That’s when in her email to me, Jeneane said: “Somebody is playing a game with me!”

A game?  I’m not sure about that.  I don’t think I’d call it a “game.”

So, here we are at the end of the day on January 27th… it’s a Friday, by the way… so Saturday is the 28th, Sunday is the 29th, Monday the 30th, Tuesday the 1st, Wednesday the 2nd… and voila’… Wednesday the 3rd will be upon us.

And still… no call from Wells Fargo. 

I know you guys must be wicked busy over there but can’t you feel what these parents must be feeling as they watch the clock tick-tock into the weekend.  They’re looking at a weekend in HELL because it’s going to be spent knowing that when it ends there will be only two days to do anything about losing your home.  And you’re dealing with an organization that can take two days just to receive a fax.

Memo to Wells Fargo CEO, John Stumpf…

You and I have been around this sort of issue before, and not very long ago.  And the last time, you were very gracious and attentive to the problem at hand, so I’m going to make the assumption… and I want very much to believe… that this is just another unfortunate slipped through the cracks sort of thing.

So, I’m going to assume that you’ll read this and feel the absolute unfairness of what Jeneane and her husband Tom are being forced to endure at the hands of Wells Fargo’s personnel and systems.

Because I just can’t believe that anyone would intentionally do this to the parents of an autistic 12 year-old girl… invite them to apply for a loan modification, and then after six months, leave them over a weekend with the uncertainty of losing the only home they’ve known for 15 years… in a matter of days… the home in which they have raised four children… all because the husband was injured while while working for the school district… and the wife lost her second job… it’s simply unthinkable.

Who will call first… underwriting to say they’ve been saved… or the investor that just bought their home?  It’s positively surreal, Mr. Stumpf.  It is very definitely a form of torture.  How can a consumer brand like Wells Fargo not feel less secure about its future every time something like this happens?  Short memories?  I think not.

And here’s the thing… I’ve looked at this couple’s numbers.  Their mortgage is around $320,000, and their income is right where it should be to qualify for a loan modification relative to that amount.  And not only that, but their home is 50% UNDERWATER, so not only do I believe they qualify, but I would bet you dinner at the Cliff House that they pass any NPV test you’ve got going at Wells.

Wells Fargo Beats Expectations… 

By the way, I couldn’t help but notice that your earnings showed the bank’s income was, “boosted by a release of $600 million from reserves.”  I’ll tell you what… that is some mighty flowery language considering what you really seem to be saying is that income was “padded by the recapture of a prior expense.”

 

So, I’m curious how was it done?  Was it booked as a negative expense provision, or just some kind of a reverse of an expense taken in a prior period?  Six of one half dozen of another, I suppose, but it’s still kind of cutting off the end of the blanket and sewing it onto the other end to make the blanket longer, right?  I don’t suppose we should we be expecting you to shift that amount back over during the next quarter or two, should we?

 

The only reason I ask is that Bloomberg said the following…

 

Slowing economic growth, low interest rates and volatile capital markets have sapped revenue at the largest U.S. banks, leading them to seek other sources and cut expenses. Stumpf, 58, reduced his staff by 3 percent to 264,200 and reaffirmed plans to trim $1.5 billion in quarterly costs by the end of this year.

I realize that I’m kind of the ultimate cynic about these things, especially when they happen in the fourth quarter… you know… bonus season.  So, what was it that led you to conclude that you wouldn’t need the $600 million in reserves for future losses in light of the fact that you reduced staff by three percent and pledged $6 billion in cuts by the end of 2012?  That sounds like you’re expecting the economy to contract this coming year, and that would seem to mean the potential for losses.

Never mind, it’s none of my business anyway.  Besides, net income up 20 percent to $4.11 billion… you beat earnings estimates by a penny a share, and best of all you made Jamie Dimon over at JPM Chase look like a piker.

Okay, back to the issue at hand…

So, Jeneane’s new Wells’ specialist is Albert at Ext. 60613.  I won’t print his last name here.  He’s the one who was just too busy to make a call before taking off for the weekend. So, is it that he just has to many people in the same position as Jeneane and Tom, so there’s not enough time to call all of them, and so what the heck… time to go?  Or if this couple’s situation is at least somewhat unique, and I sure do hope it is… then what kind of person is too busy to make a call in such a situation?  I’d have taken the number home with me… called over weekend.

But, I don’t blame Albert at Ext. 60613… well, or maybe I do… I don’t even know… honestly, the whole thing has me dumbfounded… flummoxed… you might even say that I’m completely STUMPFED?  I just do not know what else to DO…

Lucky for me, I know some people who DO know what to DO…

RIGHT DOERS?

Tom Stover & Jeneane Traynor-Stover

8216 Seeno Ave.

Granite Bay, CA 95746

Loan Number #0150299733

~~~ 

And look what I found… a whole list of email addresses for Wells Fargo execs, but let’s start with letting Mr. John Stumpf know how littler we think of this situation his bank has created.  Let’s let him know we’re here and we’re paying attention… and that there are quite a few of us.

Chairman of the Board, President, CEO: John.G.Stumpf@wellsfargo.com

~~~~

John Stumpf (415) 396-7018
john.g.stumpf@wellsfargo.com
CEO: John G. Stumpf
420 Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94163
1-866-878-5865

~~~

Sharon Cecil, Assistant to Both
WELLS FARGO HOME MORTGAGE
sharon.cecil@wellsfargo.com

~~~

Todd M. Boothroyd
Senior Counsel, Real Estate Division
Todd.M.Boothroyd@wellsfargo.com

~~~

John Stumpf (415) 396-7018
john.g.stumpf@wellsfargo.com
CEO: John G. Stumpf
420 Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94163
1-866-878-5865

~~~

Mark Oman (515) 324-2035
mark.oman@wellsfargo.com

~~~

Cara Heiden (515) 213-4040
cara.heiden@wellsfargo.com
Executive number for members to use to escalate the mod process 1-800-853-8516.
Executive Communications
800 S. Jordan Creek Parkway
West Des Moines, IA 50266
515-324-3130
&
515-324-2872

~~~

Denise Erickson
Executive Mortgage Specialist, Office of the President, WF Home Mortgage
MAC X2302-019
1 Home Campus
Des Moines, IA 50328
denise.erickson@wellsfargo.com
1-515-324-2610

~~~

Cara K. Heiden, CEO
WELLS FARGO HOME MORTGAGE
cara.k.heiden@wellsfargo.com

~~~

Mary Coffin, Vice President
WELLS FARGO HOME MORTGAGE
mary.coffin@wellsfargo.com

~~~

And a few more… just in case… 

Executive Vice President, General Counsel: James.M.Strother@wellsfargo.com

Executive Vice President, Controller: Richard.D.Levy@wellsfargo.com

Senior Executive Vice President – Wholesale Banking: David.A.Hoyt@wellsfargo.com

Senior Executive Vice President David.M.Carroll@wellsfargo.com

Senior Executive Vice President: patricia.r.callahan@wellsfargo.com

Senior Executive Vice President, CIO: kevin.a.rhein@wellsfargo.com

Senior EVP, Community Banking: Carrie.L.Tolstedt@wellsfargo.com

Senior Executive Vice President: AVID.MODJTABAI@wellsfargo.com

The Board of Directors, Wells Fargo Bank: BoardCommunications@wellsfargo.com

Look, Wells Fargo… we have to talk.  And frankly, I’d appreciate it if you’d jot down a few notes as we go because I really don’t want to have to repeat myself on this subject… and dear Lord, trust me when I say that you don’t want me to have to repeat myself either.

Here’s the deal…

When you’re dealing with a family that has lived in their home and been a part of their community for 15 years… who have raised four children in that home… and has contacted you because the father in that family who works for the school district has been seriously injured in a work-related auto accident and placed on workers comp… right after his wife lost her SECOND JOB (that’s right, she works two jobs), and they have a special needs child, a beautiful daughter who is autistic… you KNOW you are dealing with VERY RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE, right?

Because the parents I just described are the embodiment of the word “responsible,” you do see that, right?

So, when you say to them, “Let’s get you qualified for a loan modification.” you’re doing the right thing.  And when they immediately send you all of their information and documentation, including updated paystubs and bank statements every 30 days for six months, you shouldn’t be all that surprised.

Even so, their Wells Fargo representative was quite surprised, so much so that he actually expressed to them how surprised he was, saying that they had done an outstanding job getting together everything he asked for, right on time, and exactly as he had instructed.  Jeneane, the wife, explained that she used to be an escrow officer so she was quite familiar with preparing and submitting such paperwork.

Not that doing everything right and on time mattered all that much, because Wells still filed an NOD and now has scheduled a sale date for February 3, 2012.

Of course, Grant… their Wells Fargo representative, was very comforting when he explained that they should not worry about that pesky little sale date, because if a decision wasn’t made by the underwriting department, he would simply request that the sale be postponed.  Well, that certainly must have been a relief for these parents to hear, I’m sure.

A little more than a week before the sale date Jeneane called again to check on how things were going but wouldn’t you know it, her Wells Fargo specialist, Grant, was just transferred to a different department.  A department without phones, apparently.

She was told that she would have to wait to speak with her newly assigned specialist until he or she was assigned.   (That’s what your people said, Wells Fargo.  I’m not responsible for that sentence.)

So,  Jeneane called back again yesterday and was told that someone had been assigned but, darn the luck, they weren’t available, so she asked the person who answered the phone if her home’s sale date had been postponed or if there had been an answer on their loan modification.

Now, stay with me here because this is the sort of thing that you read… and it makes your hair hurt.

The Wells Fargo woman said that it appeared that they needed some additional documentation.  Jeneane is quite adamant that this was not true, because she had just sent Grant 36 pages last week.  He had said that everything was there and he even told her that he had scheduled the postponement while they were on the phone.

Are you getting confused?  Yeah, well aren’t we all.

(I have to tell you, when it comes to paperwork being together, I believe Jeneane 100 percent.  This woman knows her paperwork.  She’s a paperwork Queen, you might even say.)

Nonetheless, Jeneane asked what Wells needed and was told she needed to send in  her 2010 tax return.  Jeneane replied that she had just sent in her 2010 Tax Return last week and was quite sure that it was there.  The woman placed her on hold for 10 minutes (kind of a long time to be on hold, don’t you think) and when the woman returned she said: “”Yes, I have it,” which by the way is not the proper response in that situation.

Just so you know… in that situation you’re supposed to say, “Oh, I’m sorry… you were right… we do have it.”  Or something to that effect.  I’m not trying to be picky here, in fact my expectations of Wells people have been lowered to such a degree that if they don’t spit or throw up in the middle of a conversation, I consider it pleasant.

The Wells woman then explained that the delay is because… are you ready for this: How does the bank know that Mr. Stover will EVER return to work full-time?  Can you even imagine?  Jeneane pointed out that he is back to work half time, and everyone certainly hopes he ultimately recovers 100%.  They think he will… they’re prayers are… OMG.  Would someone like to explain to me how in the world Wells Fargo would go about answering that question.  Do they have a direct line to the Almighty… I mean, Lloyd Blankfein?  I mean… rude much?

Since the tax return thing didn’t stick… and the obnoxious unanswerable question didn’t seem to help… the next thing the Wells woman thought of to say was:  They won’t approve a postponement unless there was approval of the loan modification.

Come again?  Say what?  Ex-screws me?  Wells Fargo won’t approve a postponement of a sale… unless there’s approval of a loan modification?  Go over that sentence again for me… real slow.  Wells you are starting to make my hair hurt.  Does that make sense to ANYONE?  So, noodle me this:

If there was approval of a loan modification, why would there be a sale date to postpone?  

Jeneane then asked if there were any notes in her file from last week when good old Grant said that he had requested the postponement.  She said no… and I have no trouble believing that.  In fact, at this point I wouldn’t have any trouble believing that there wasn’t even a file in which to potentially put notes.

Then the woman said, “You can’t even request a postponement until one day prior to the sale date.”

I’m getting dizzy… is it hot in here?

Then the woman told her to contact the trustee… Jeneane had never heard of a trustee before, but she figured you guys needed the extra hands so she made the call.  Can you guess what happened next?

The trustee said they hadn’t received anything about a postponement from Wells Fargo, but that it could be with Wells’ liaison, whatever that means, and that “sometimes you can’t find out if a sale is being postponed until the day before the sale.”

That’s when in her email to me, Jeneane said: “Somebody is playing a game with me!”

A game?  I’m not sure about that.  I don’t think I’d call it a “game.”

So, here we are at the end of the day on January 27th… it’s a Friday, by the way… so Saturday is the 28th, Sunday is the 29th, Monday the 30th, Tuesday the 1st, Wednesday the 2nd… and voila’… Wednesday the 3rd will be upon us.

And still… no call from Wells Fargo. 

I know you guys must be wicked busy over there but can’t you feel what these parents must be feeling as they watch the clock tick-tock into the weekend.  They’re looking at a weekend in HELL because it’s going to be spent knowing that when it ends there will be only two days to do anything about losing your home.  And you’re dealing with an organization that can take two days just to receive a fax.

Memo to Wells Fargo CEO, John Stumpf…

You and I have been around this sort of issue before, and not very long ago.  And the last time, you were very gracious and attentive to the problem at hand, so I’m going to make the assumption… and I want very much to believe… that this is just another unfortunate slipped through the cracks sort of thing.

So, I’m going to assume that you’ll read this and feel the absolute unfairness of what Jeneane and her husband Tom are being forced to endure at the hands of Wells Fargo’s personnel and systems.

Because I just can’t believe that anyone would intentionally do this to the parents of an autistic 12 year-old girl… invite them to apply for a loan modification, and then after six months, leave them over a weekend with the uncertainty of losing the only home they’ve known for 15 years… in a matter of days… the home in which they have raised four children… all because the husband was injured while while working for the school district… and the wife lost her second job… it’s simply unthinkable.

Who will call first… underwriting to say they’ve been saved… or the investor that just bought their home?  It’s positively surreal, Mr. Stumpf.  It is very definitely a form of torture.  How can a consumer brand like Wells Fargo not feel less secure about its future every time something like this happens?  Short memories?  I think not.

And here’s the thing… I’ve looked at this couple’s numbers.  Their mortgage is around $320,000, and their income is right where it should be to qualify for a loan modification relative to that amount.  And not only that, but their home is 50% UNDERWATER, so not only do I believe they qualify, but I would bet you dinner at the Cliff House that they pass any NPV test you’ve got going at Wells.

Wells Fargo Beats Expectations… 

By the way, I couldn’t help but notice that your earnings showed the bank’s income was, “boosted by a release of $600 million from reserves.”  I’ll tell you what… that is some mighty flowery language considering what you really seem to be saying is that income was “padded by the recapture of a prior expense.”

 

So, I’m curious how was it done?  Was it booked as a negative expense provision, or just some kind of a reverse of an expense taken in a prior period?  Six of one half dozen of another, I suppose, but it’s still kind of cutting off the end of the blanket and sewing it onto the other end to make the blanket longer, right?  I don’t suppose we should we be expecting you to shift that amount back over during the next quarter or two, should we?

 

The only reason I ask is that Bloomberg said the following…

 

Slowing economic growth, low interest rates and volatile capital markets have sapped revenue at the largest U.S. banks, leading them to seek other sources and cut expenses. Stumpf, 58, reduced his staff by 3 percent to 264,200 and reaffirmed plans to trim $1.5 billion in quarterly costs by the end of this year.

I realize that I’m kind of the ultimate cynic about these things, especially when they happen in the fourth quarter… you know… bonus season.  So, what was it that led you to conclude that you wouldn’t need the $600 million in reserves for future losses in light of the fact that you reduced staff by three percent and pledged $6 billion in cuts by the end of 2012?  That sounds like you’re expecting the economy to contract this coming year, and that would seem to mean the potential for losses.

Never mind, it’s none of my business anyway.  Besides, net income up 20 percent to $4.11 billion… you beat earnings estimates by a penny a share, and best of all you made Jamie Dimon over at JPM Chase look like a piker.

Okay, back to the issue at hand…

So, Jeneane’s new Wells’ specialist is Albert at Ext. 60613.  I won’t print his last name here.  He’s the one who was just too busy to make a call before taking off for the weekend. So, is it that he just has to many people in the same position as Jeneane and Tom, so there’s not enough time to call all of them, and so what the heck… time to go?  Or if this couple’s situation is at least somewhat unique, and I sure do hope it is… then what kind of person is too busy to make a call in such a situation?  I’d have taken the number home with me… called over weekend.

But, I don’t blame Albert at Ext. 60613… well, or maybe I do… I don’t even know… honestly, the whole thing has me dumbfounded… flummoxed… you might even say that I’m completely STUMPFED?  I just do not know what else to DO…

Lucky for me, I know some people who DO know what to DO…

RIGHT DOERS?

Tom Stover & Jeneane Traynor-Stover

8216 Seeno Ave.

Granite Bay, CA 95746

Loan Number #0150299733

~~~ 

And look what I found… a whole list of email addresses for Wells Fargo execs, but let’s start with letting Mr. John Stumpf know how littler we think of this situation his bank has created.  Let’s let him know we’re here and we’re paying attention… and that there are quite a few of us.

Chairman of the Board, President, CEO: John.G.Stumpf@wellsfargo.com

~~~~

John Stumpf (415) 396-7018
john.g.stumpf@wellsfargo.com
CEO: John G. Stumpf
420 Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94163
1-866-878-5865

~~~

Howard.I.Atkins@wellsfargo.com

James.M.Strother@wellsfargo.com

Richard.D.Levy@wellsfargo.com

David.A.Hoyt@wellsfargo.com

David.M.Carroll@wellsfargo.com

patricia.r.callahan@wellsfargo.com

kevin.a.rhein@wellsfargo.com

Carrie.L.Tolstedt@wellsfargo.com

AVID.MODJTABAI@wellsfargo.com

BoardCommunications@wellsfargo.com
sharon.cecil@wellsfargo.com
Todd.M.Boothroyd@wellsfargo.com

john.g.stumpf@wellsfargo.com
cara.heiden@wellsfargo.com
denise.erickson@wellsfargo.com
cara.k.heiden@wellsfargo.com
mary.coffin@wellsfargo.com

BoardCommunications@wellsfargo.com

 ombudsman@fdic.gov

On Monday at 5:00 PM, as I was running to catch a flight to Phoenix to work with a state senator on a piece of legislation I’ll be announcing soon, I posted a DOER ALERT titled: “Dear Bank of America,” about an octogenarian by the name of Dale Wright.  He had been trying to get his loan modified for a couple of years… been turned down… reapplied, and was told he was under consideration as recently as December 23, 2011… and then Bank of America sold his home on January 3, 2012.  Mr. Wright found out when an investor showed up at his door saying that he would understand it he needed more than THREE DAYS to get out.

By mid-day on Tuesday, Bank of America had responded to say they were looking into it… and by 4:30 PM that same day Bank of America DID THE WRIGHT THING, and gave Mr. Dale Wright his home back… from a bonafide third party purchaser.  BofA has also notified me to assure me that the bank is also modifying the loan, and I’ll be talking with them tomorrow to get details, among other things.

The point is that there should be no question that my DOERS are very effective, and likewise there shouldn’t be any question as to why that’s the case.  In our democracy, there’s only one thing more important than money and that’s getting reelected.  If our elected officials understand that they are at risk of being voted out of office… they react.  Their loyalties to banking lobbyists dissipate quickly when they realize that no amount of money will overcome the will of the people.  We used to understand this to be the case.

In 1954, Brown v. The Board of Education didn’t end segregation.  It took ten years and hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets before President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Acts of 1964-65.

In 1971, President Nixon saw from his White House windows, tens of thousands of people protesting the war in Viet Nam and became paranoid that he would lose the election in 1972.  It drove those around him to break into the Democratic headquarters and led to the Watergate scandal… even though he won reelection in 1972 by a landslide.

And more recently, in 2009, news of AIG bonuses totaling $160 million and a corporate retreat at the St. Regis luxury resort in Southern California, caused people to take to the streets, outraged that a company recently bailed out by the taxpayers would be allowed to pay out what appeared to be extravagant bonuses.  Within two weeks the House of Representatives authored and passed a bill that would have placed a 90 percent tax on those and other bonuses.  It was killed in the senate, of course, but that’s not the point.  The point is that our elected representatives can move quickly… if they are properly motivated.

We’ve got over a thousand DOERS… and we’ve saved 6 out of 6 homes, all of which were about to be sold within days or already sold as was the case with Mr. Dale Wright.  (6 out of 6 is NOT a coincidence, by the way.)  But, if you really want to stop the foreclosure crisis…

We’ll need at least 100x that number… 

To become a DOER you only need to DO 3-4 things and they’re all easy:

1. Click here to SUBSCRIBE to Mandelman Matters.  That’s the only way you’ll get an email whenever there’s a new post and when you see “DOER ALERT” in the headline, you know it’s time to DO something that will matter.
2. Send an email to me at mandelman@mac.com.  Just type: I’m a DOER or something close in the subject line.  I’ll add you to the database of DOER emails.  When we want the element of surprise I won’t post it, I’ll email you the plan.
3. Actually check your email from Mandelman Matters or from mandelman@mac.com and when you see the words DOER ALERT, open it and read it right away or certainly ASAP.  Not the next day… that day.  Then, assuming you want to help make a difference, read it and send an email to the CEO’s email while I always list at the bottom of the DOER Alert.  Of course, the more thoughtful the email the better, but it doesn’t have to be a long email if you’re pressed for time.  Just a few sentences is just fine and dandy.
4. Help recruit other DOERS.  Send others links to articles on Mandelman Matters and tell them you’re DOING it and it’s working.

That’s all there is to it, and all I’m asking for is a four month commitment.  After that, if you agree that it’s worth DOING, then give me another four months.  The more DOERS we have the larger the problem we can tackle.

Consider this… right now there’s all this controversy over the 50 state AG settlement.  A few days ago many people thought the deal was about to be announced and people were very upset.  Well, if we had 100,000 DOERS now, we could stop that deal from getting done for sure.

Just think of being a DOER as being a way to “occupy” without leaving your home, sleeping on the ground, getting arrested and sprayed with pepper spray.  It’s also more effective than doing those things.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t do them, but I’m telling you that DOERS can stop this mess in its tracks this year or next.

I have to be honest about something…

There are two things that really bother me.  One is that we only have a thousand DOERS.  That means that thousands of people are reading and not signing up as DOERS.  How can that be?  Hopefully it’s because Im haven’t promoted it well, which is something that’s going to change.  But, if its not that… if you’re reading my column and not signing up and subscribing so you can join forces with the rest of us… why the heck not?

How can you not want to help save someone’s home or influence the state legislature, or make congress in Washington D.C. take notice and hear our voice?  I really don’t understand… so please… if you’re not going to DO it, please at least let me know.  Maybe you have a good reason that I’m not thinking of, in which case fair enough.  But if you don’t, why wouldn’t you DO this?  How can you not DO this?

And two… if you’re a DOER and you didn’t send an email this last time around… and please don’t tell me you didn’t have time to send a 3 line email because if I had time to write it, you could send an email about it.  I missed my flight to write about Mr. Wright by the way.  Had to drive all the way back home, then worked until 2:00 AM and then back to the airport the following morning.  And you didn’t have 5 minutes?  Come on…

Not only that, but how could you let down your fellow DOERS… to say nothing of Mr. Wright?  What if BofA hadn’t done what they did, and Mr. Wright had lost his home?  And you didn’t send an email as you promised by being a DOER.  I’m serious about this… I couldn’t DO that and sleep at night.  Your email can be the one that matters.  But you were too busy… so now at 82 years old, a veteran loses his home… and you let down your fellow DOERS?  Not cool, people.  Really, not cool.

Time Matters… A Lot.

DO you not see that we are losing this war… because we definitely are.  More than 3,000 evictions a day, seven days a week.  Foreclosures not slowing a bit.  And interest rates are still low.  What’s going to happen when they are six percent or even higher?

And this is an election year… this is when politicians are the most concerned with reelection.  We have to act and it must be now.  Period.  We’re doing the wave and we need you and everyone else or it doesn’t look like a wave.  And even though it’s just begun, it’s unquestionably working.  What else is working even half that consistently… NOTHING, I’m sorry to say.

Sample emails from a few DOERS to Bank of America this last time around…

Some of the emails received by the bank show just how deeply offended Americans are by what’s being allowed to go on… I’ve excerpted a few paragraphs as examples… they are all addressed to Mr. Brian Moynihan, CEO, Bank of America…

“It seems more and more these days your Bank and the rest of the Banks that are involved in Mortgage backed secured investments are reaching criminal status 

 What has just happened to Mr Wright in Cloverdale, CA should at least bring a long jail sentence to your door. I am sending out as many e-mails as I have contacts and then I am going on every blog site I can find and pass this article to them as well. Then I am writing my congressman and then the Attorney General !!!!!”

###

“As if we needed any more proof that servicers have no clue who owns the loans or how to properly service them, now we have the nincompoops who worked on Mr. Wright’s foreclosure to illustrate the depths of BOA’s incompetence. This one will stick in everyone’s mind because an old man is being thrown out of his house after BOA repeatedly “lost” the papers or “misidentified” the investor in a series of memorably unfortunate events.

I work a lot of real estate buyers and if this mistake isn’t rectified immediately then I’m telling all of them about elderly Mr. Wright and cautioning them to stay away from BOA mortgages from Wednesday until I retire in 20 years. Hope we’re able to do business again in the next two decades Brian, but remember there’s lots of other lenders out there and I can’t recommend BOA with this kind of crap going down.”

###

“I have read the story about Bank of America’s foreclosure sale on January 3, 2012 of the home of Mr. Dale Wright of Cloverdale, California.  He is an 82 year old Veteran and a widower.  Your bank refused to convert his HAMP trial payment plan because of a false claim that he had failed to send you in IRS Form 4506-T.  This was a false claim.  Even if it wasn’t, for the lack of such a minor document, no institution with any moral sense would have allowed that to be a basis to proceed to take away this man’s home. The action of Bank of America feeds the public view of your institution as one which has no corporate responsibility or conscience.

I was recently told by Bank of America’s Maine Market President how Bank of America has improved its practices.   How can anyone believe that when a story such as Mr. Wright’s is exposed.

 Bank of America’s abuse of America’s homeowners has simply got to stop.  Would you please act like a responsible executive of one of America’s largest financial institutions and intervene in this case by telling your people to do what ever it takes to get the title to Mr. Wrights back into his hands, to give him the HAMP permanent modification to which he is entitled, and to compensate him for the enormous emotional distress that your bank has caused him to suffer.

 It would be unconscionable for you to fail to do this at once.”

###

“I’m not sure how much more egregious you can possibly get than to sell a home out from under an 82 year old veteran after 1) approving him for a modification and 2) admitting that after you screwed up the first time since he was making his payments and then 3) while he was “under consideration” a second time as recently as December 23, 2011 you sold his home? 

 And then you BLAMED WELLS FARGO?

It would behoove you to immediately rectify this situation with Mr. Wright.  Make it right!  I don’t really care how you do it, but to turn his home over to a “home flipper” when he not only qualified for a modification but was approved for one and made his payments on time is beyond disgusting. 

 I’m only e-mailing this because your offices are closed at the moment.  Wait until I call, then I’ll give all of your staff an earful.  This really has me steamed.  And they should be ashamed that you are their boss.

 I’m positive that I will not be the only one that will be contacting you on this one.  This is only the first wave of a coming tsunami.      

 Fix it, Moynihan.  We are all tired of you and your cronies shenanigans and the dam of outrage is about to break all over this country.  There will be way too many holes in it for you to plug up, and it will all come crashing down like the worthless paper you claim to hold on all these mortgages.”

###

“Regarding the above-referenced loan, please use your infinite powers to assist this elderly gentleman in the later years of his life to work through this difficult situation.  It is so atrocious the way in which distressed property owners in all age groups, of all ethnicities and from all socioeconomic strata are being treated by institutions that simply do not appear to care about the impact their industry has had on the citizens of this country.  But his particular story goes beyond the customary and usual.  This gentle man has served to defend those of us that are unable or unwilling to put our lives on the line for our country! 

When will you do something about the way in which Bank of America’s servicing departments botch up paperwork, lie to people in life-changing circumstances, and then blame it on others?  As a major institution within the financial realm, one would think that BofA would be on the cutting edge in the technology arena to keep paperwork intact; in hiring capable and ethical employees to problem-solve rather than lie, cheat, or delay, and in providing resources with whom customers can discuss their problems to get back on tract? 

More importantly, however, is when will Bank of America become the financial institution that deserves the trust of the people that keep you in business? 

It is time to stop the spiraling loss of wealth to the vast majority of homeowners that rely on the equity in their homes to enjoy a peaceful and well-deserved retirement. It is time to have compassion for those individual homeowners whose jobs have been cut out and now must move their entire families elsewhere in a real estate market that causes them to go into default.  It is time to develop a plan to actually work on customer service that truly assists (rather than bullies) homeowners in lieu of the almighty dollar. 

Mr. Wright’s story is, without a doubt, a very sad story that requires immediate measures.  Mr. Moynihan, let his story be the catalyst for extreme changes within your institution.  It is, after all, within your power to make these changes.  The bucks stops with YOU.”

###

Having read the story of Mr. Wright and his appalling treatment by Bank of America, I trust you will reverse the sale of this house and return it to its rightful owner.

I hope you are familiar with the details of this horrific treatment by your bank.  If not, then you can read about it here:

http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/2012/01/doer-alert-dear-bank-of-america/

###

OFFICIAL DOER STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

BY MARTIN ANDELMAN & ABIGAIL FIELD

We, Mandelman & Field, are joining forces to end the foreclosure crisis. We’ve been writing about the crisis—Mandelman for more than three years and 600+ articles, Field for about half that—but frankly, writing’s not enough.

We need to DO more to solve the massive crisis our country is enduring. We must act now, because the crisis we’re in will get much, much worse.  This year is an election year… the time for decisive action is now.

But by ourselves we can’t do enough. We need YOU to DO too.

Mandelman has already inspired a core group of DOERS, people who have already solved the mortgage modification nightmares of six people. But to solve the problems faster than one mortgage at a time and to attack bigger problems, we need more DOERS… a lot more.

Here’s what we DOERS DO:

1. We take action.

We are knowledgeable, active and involved. We know that our actions make a difference because we’re all working together, multiplying our impact. That’s why we continue to take action, each and every day.

2. We know there’s no “try” in DO.

Either you DO, or you don’t.

3. We build big victories out of little victories.

We’re singles hitters with a really high on base percentage.   We scratch out the runs it takes to win every way we can. Our actions are simple, discrete, and quick to do, like sending an email, making a call, mailing a letter.

We work this way because swinging for the fences wastes lots of effort and results in more strikeouts than our country has time for. Besides, it took years to make the mess we’re in, and there’s no silver bullet that fixes everything all at once. We have to do many things, and collectively they will make the big changes we need.

4. We focus on our similarities, not our differences.  

We’re not about right and left… we’re about right and wrong. Frankly, our nation’s policies on housing and banks are so bad, we have plenty of solid common ground for everyone. Since we’re focused on fixing those two interrelated issues—housing and bank policy—our divisions on other issues are irrelevant.

5. We believe in “We, the People.”  

We join forces to make change because we are Americans. It’s our Constitutional birthright to be in charge, to make change together. And we know if we act together to make good policy, we all benefit.

6. We recruit more DOERS, because size matters.

To solve the big problems we need to be correspondingly big. We’re not playing games. We are DOING to win.

7. And we are in it to win it.

We are relentless.  We take our tasks seriously.  We do our best. We  never let down our fellow DOERS by not DOING our individual parts.

Please don’t delay… DO it today… it’s easy to DO… and to win, we need you.

Becoming a DOER and committing to our code of action is easy. Just send an email to either one of us:

Martin Andelman at: mandelman@mac.com

Abigail Field at: ACFRealityCheck@yahoo.com

And also don’t forget to subscribe here: SUBSCRIBE

All you have to write in the message is: Count on me to be a DOER.  Or,  just say: I’m in.  Tell me what to DO.

And we’ll be in touch. Something like once a week we’ll call on you to DO something important… something that matters a lot.  It feels really good to be a DOER, ask anyone who is.

Mandelman & Field… OUT!

Haven’t you figured it out yet… if it wouldn’t be so rude, the GOP convention would be nominating OBAMA in 2012, right?

That’s why they’re running Newt, Santorum, Bachman, the black guy with hundreds of sexual harassment suits filed against him that he supposedly knew nothing about, what was his name?  He was awesome.  Rick Perry, another Texas Governor who can’t talk?  Ron Paul isn’t even a Republican, so don’t even go there.

There was Gary Johnson, or was his name John Garyson?  Jon Huntsman was Mormon 1.A.  And Tim Pawlenty had a cup of coffee in the race, took one look around and had to get back to running Minnesota.

Oh wait, I forgot about Thaddeus McCotter?  But then, so did you.

I think the inside joke was that no one told Mitt Romney that the whole thing was a giant gag… that they actually wanted Obama in 2012.  So, Mitt thought the others were actually trying to win. So then, remember when The GOP debates were in Nevada?  And they asked Mitt what to do about foreclosures and someone told him to say that he thought they needed to happen faster?  In Nevada?  Foreclosures need to happen faster?  Come on now… I was rolling on the floor.

I just know I’m right about this.  What about Newt’s plan for 9 year-old janitors in poor neighborhoods?  And you want me to believe that he’s seriously campaigning for president?  Come on now… and Newt’s in first or second place?  Sure he is. The man asks his wife for an open marriage, consults for Freddie Mac and bounces ten grand worth of checks… and then wins in South Carolina?  Look, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

And the Godfather’s Pizza guy… Cain?  That was like a Saturday Night Live sketch.  Every day two or three more women show up and start yelling about how he sexually harassed them.  He had no idea that might happen?  Uh huh, sure.

Don’t even get me started on Bachman… I mean, who would have ever thought that Palin’s job could have been at risk.  But along came Michelle and she said, among so many other zingers…

“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”

Or what about when she was in South Carolina and she said “Happy Birthday” to Elvis on the anniversary of his death?  She was like watching Phoebe on the television sitcom, “Friends.”

And wasn’t Donald Trump in the race at the beginning too?  People, this is a show for sure.  “Candidate Trump, if you were president, what would you say to the leader of Iran.”  And Trump responds: “I’d simply tell him… You’re Fired.”  (Insert laugh track here.)

I knew something was up for sure when Huntsman started making sense, and they got rid of him immediately.

 Golfing with Boehner…

Ask yourself this question: Why would the Republicans want Obama out?  He does everything they want and more. 

He gave Wall Street untold trillions with no conditions… never closed Guantanamo, is still rearranging rocks in Afghanistan, made Bush look good by winning in Iraq… said he was going to spend $75 billion on helping homeowners but only spent $2.4 billion… let the bankers pay themselves whatever they wanted… threw out health care reform and replaced it with a gift to health insurance insurers…. didn’t regulate derivatives… what more could Republicans ask for?

Obama even alienated enough Democrats and Independents to hand the House back to the GOP in the midterms. Four more years of Obama and the Republicans will have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate too.

I’m sure the GOP wanted to just go ahead and campaign for Obama in 2012, but how rude would that have been.  I mean, if Mitt Romney had come out saying what a great job Obama has been doing?  That would have been a total ‘no respect.’

So, they had to run someone who they could be sure had no shot whatsoever.  They put the word out and so may showed up, that they just said… “Go ahead, you can all go at it.  We’ll just book a hundred debates so you can all have a chance to pretend you’re running for president.  Just make sure you don’t start making sense out there.”

Mitt’s not sure what’s going on, so he just keeps changing his positions on everything.  They must have someone working with him every night so he knows how to cover the issues properly.

What’s wrong with business in America, Mitt?  “Too much regulation.”  What do we do about immigration?  “Build a fence.”  What’s your number one priority?  “Repeal ObamaCare.”  And, Iran?  “Nuke ‘em.”  Abortion? “Only in certain cases.”  Noooooo. “Oh yeah, I’ve got this one… “  Okay, let’s try again… Abortion?  “Over my dead body.”   Good, very good.

Of course, every time Obama goes on television they have to send Newt back out there to make sure he doesn’t actually win.

Hey, you can believe what you want.  I’m just saying…

Mandelman out.

Someone recently wrote to me saying that instead of continually telling everyone what’s wrong, I should tell them how to solve the problems we’re facing and I thought to myself… okay, fair enough.  This just isn’t that hard.  We’re not solving things because we don’t want to, not because no one can think of how to solve anything.

So, you ready… I’m going to show you solutions in ONE MINUTE and one solution at a time.. so please try to keep up okay?

1. Problem: Forging documents and filing fraudulent documents in public records… or “Robo-signing,” if you’d prefer.

1. Either pass a law that says these documents don’t need to be signed at all… or stop the filing of forged and fraudulent documents in public records… and Nevada has shown us how to do that… it’s easy and doesn’t cost a nickel.  And foreclosure filings in Nevada dropped by more than 80% as a result of what they did in that state, which was simply to make the penalties criminal and the fines higher for filing a fraudulent document in the public record.  Because, I don’t care if they need to be signed or they don’t need to be signed… but they don’t need to be forged under any circumstances.

2. In simpler terms: If Mickey Mouse is going to sign it, and Donald Duck is going to notarize it… THEN DON’T SIGN IT… because we don’t need it signed.  BUT… if we DO need it signed, then don’t forge it and file a fraudulent document into the public record.  If you do that, it’ll cost you thousands and you could end up in jail.

3. We already have millions of forged and fraudulent docs in our public records thank you very much, and 30 years from now some lawyer will have occasion to pull title docs for whatever reason, he’ll find a forged or otherwise fraudulent document(s) and we’ll be litigating the whole damn thing all over again.  We certainly don’t need that situation exacerbated.  The documents may need to be signed… but they don’t NEED to be forged.

4. We also don’t need to wait until the situation shakes out or the scope of the problem is known… or whatever.  There’s no reason to wait for any of that because it doesn’t matter how we answer any of the unanswered questions… the solution to however you want to define the problem is NOT under any circumstances going to be: “Oh, just forge the signature and file a fraudulent document in the public record.”  NO… that’s not allowed to be the answer no matter how you want to define the problem.

5. I’ve never lost the pink slip to my car… but I’m sure there’s a process to follow if that ever happens.  I call the DMV and fill out some forms and then I… blah, blah, blah… it’s never happened to me so I don’t know what the process is.  But I know what it isn’t.  It isn’t: “Fake one on your Mac, sign Donald Duck’s name, and use it for whatever…”  That is definitely not how it’s done.

6. There shouldn’t be ANY push back to what I’m suggesting here… NONE.  To those who say that the banks will oppose what I’m saying because I’m trying to stop foreclosures I reply: No, I’m not.  I haven’t said a word about stopping foreclosures, I’m talking about stopping the forging of documents and the filing of fraudulent documents into the public record.  I have all the confidence in the world that BofA, Chase and our state/federal  governments are more than capable of coming up with some other process… either that or pass a law that says all you need to do is place a red X on the dotted line… or leave the damn things blank… I don’t care.  But, forgery and fraud are not going to be our chosen methodology for anything ever.

7. The reason for my efforts, as I’ve explained to several state AGs and state legislators, is that what is going on now, with forged and fraudulent docs being used every day all over the country to foreclose on homes, is already changing the nature of the foreclosure crisis.  What was a terribly unfair, incompetent, cronyism, banker friendly, messed up situation is being transformed into organized crime.  Homeowners look at their title documents, and very easily see that the assignments and other affidavits have been robo-signed.  They have tangible proof of a crime having been committed.  They show the judge, he doesn’t care… and they lose their house.

8. That is the definition of organized crime… 5 huge crime families we call banks… committing crimes in the public view… and state law enforcement and the court system refusing to enforce the law because of connections with the banks.  That’s organized crime, period.  And human nature dictates that when people see that their government is failing to uphold the rule of law or enforce the laws against certain individuals or groups… well, they take the law into their own hands.  That’s always been true… it is in fact a fundamental human instinct.

9. If your son or daughter is harmed or your store or home is robbed… and the law refuses to do anything about it because of who you are relative to who the perpetrators are… want to know what happens?  Ask the KKK.  Someone takes the law into their own hands and someone gets shot in the head, or ends up hanging from a tall oak.  Every single time… and any of us are capable of doing just that… taking the law into our own hands.

10. Allowing forgery and fraud to go on unchecked is a BAD idea, and everyone should understand and agree with that.  And aren’t we lucky that we know exactly how to stop it… the State of Nevada has shown us the way.  So, change the law, increase the penalties and problem solved.  Now isn’t that a relief?

And… DING!  

The foreclosure crisis has already been allowed to grow out of control and destroy the American middle class.  Standing by idly while we watch it get even worse, when it’s easy and free to prevent that from happening, is beyond unconscionable.  And if we do it, then we deserve whatever we get as a result.

See, that wasn’t that hard, was it?   ONE MINUTE SOLUTIONS by Mandelman Matters.  Why didn’t I think of that?  Next solution tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Mandelman out.

Someone recently wrote to me saying that instead of continually telling everyone what’s wrong, I should tell them how to solve the problems we’re facing and I thought to myself… okay, fair enough.  This just isn’t that hard.  We’re not solving things because we don’t want to, not because no one can think of how to solve anything.

So, you ready… I’m going to show you solutions in ONE MINUTE and one solution at a time.. so please try to keep up okay?

1. Problem: Forging documents and filing fraudulent documents in public records… or “Robo-signing,” if you’d prefer.

1. Either pass a law that says these documents don’t need to be signed at all… or stop the filing of forged and fraudulent documents in public records… and Nevada has shown us how to do that… it’s easy and doesn’t cost a nickel.  And foreclosure filings in Nevada dropped by more than 80% as a result of what they did in that state, which was simply to make the penalties criminal and the fines higher for filing a fraudulent document in the public record.  Because, I don’t care if they need to be signed or they don’t need to be signed… but they don’t need to be forged under any circumstances.

2. In simpler terms: If Mickey Mouse is going to sign it, and Donald Duck is going to notarize it… THEN DON’T SIGN IT… because we don’t need it signed.  BUT… if we DO need it signed, then don’t forge it and file a fraudulent document into the public record.  If you do that, it’ll cost you thousands and you could end up in jail.

3. We already have millions of forged and fraudulent docs in our public records thank you very much, and 30 years from now some lawyer will have occasion to pull title docs for whatever reason, he’ll find a forged or otherwise fraudulent document(s) and we’ll be litigating the whole damn thing all over again.  We certainly don’t need that situation exacerbated.  The documents may need to be signed… but they don’t NEED to be forged.

4. We also don’t need to wait until the situation shakes out or the scope of the problem is known… or whatever.  There’s no reason to wait for any of that because it doesn’t matter how we answer any of the unanswered questions… the solution to however you want to define the problem is NOT under any circumstances going to be: “Oh, just forge the signature and file a fraudulent document in the public record.”  NO… that’s not allowed to be the answer no matter how you want to define the problem.

5. I’ve never lost the pink slip to my car… but I’m sure there’s a process to follow if that ever happens.  I call the DMV and fill out some forms and then I… blah, blah, blah… it’s never happened to me so I don’t know what the process is.  But I know what it isn’t.  It isn’t: “Fake one on your Mac, sign Donald Duck’s name, and use it for whatever…”  That is definitely not how it’s done.

6. There shouldn’t be ANY push back to what I’m suggesting here… NONE.  To those who say that the banks will oppose what I’m saying because I’m trying to stop foreclosures I reply: No, I’m not.  I haven’t said a word about stopping foreclosures, I’m talking about stopping the forging of documents and the filing of fraudulent documents into the public record.  I have all the confidence in the world that BofA, Chase and our state/federal  governments are more than capable of coming up with some other process… either that or pass a law that says all you need to do is place a red X on the dotted line… or leave the damn things blank… I don’t care.  But, forgery and fraud are not going to be our chosen methodology for anything ever.

7. The reason for my efforts, as I’ve explained to several state AGs and state legislators, is that what is going on now, with forged and fraudulent docs being used every day all over the country to foreclose on homes, is already changing the nature of the foreclosure crisis.  What was a terribly unfair, incompetent, cronyism, banker friendly, messed up situation is being transformed into organized crime.  Homeowners look at their title documents, and very easily see that the assignments and other affidavits have been robo-signed.  They have tangible proof of a crime having been committed.  They show the judge, he doesn’t care… and they lose their house.

8. That is the definition of organized crime… 5 huge crime families we call banks… committing crimes in the public view… and state law enforcement and the court system refusing to enforce the law because of connections with the banks.  That’s organized crime, period.  And human nature dictates that when people see that their government is failing to uphold the rule of law or enforce the laws against certain individuals or groups… well, they take the law into their own hands.  That’s always been true… it is in fact a fundamental human instinct.

9. If your son or daughter is harmed or your store or home is robbed… and the law refuses to do anything about it because of who you are relative to who the perpetrators are… want to know what happens?  Ask the KKK.  Someone takes the law into their own hands and someone gets shot in the head, or ends up hanging from a tall oak.  Every single time… and any of us are capable of doing just that… taking the law into our own hands.

10. Allowing forgery and fraud to go on unchecked is a BAD idea, and everyone should understand and agree with that.  And aren’t we lucky that we know exactly how to stop it… the State of Nevada has shown us the way.  So, change the law, increase the penalties and problem solved.  Now isn’t that a relief?

And… DING!  

The foreclosure crisis has already been allowed to grow out of control and destroy the American middle class.  Standing by idly while we watch it get even worse, when it’s easy and free to prevent that from happening, is beyond unconscionable.  And if we do it, then we deserve whatever we get as a result.

See, that wasn’t that hard, was it?   ONE MINUTE SOLUTIONS by Mandelman Matters.  Why didn’t I think of that?  Next solution tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Mandelman out.

Los Angeles attorney, and Los Angeles Best Lawyers’ First Amendment Law Lawyer of the Year for 2012, Gary Bostwick, of the law firm, Bostwick & Jassey LLP, is taking the California State Bar to court, among other things challenging the state’s Senate Bill 94 (“SB 94″) for its constitutionality or lack thereof.  In a complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on January 13, 2012, Bostwick alleges that certain SB 94 provisions, “as applied and enforced by the State Bar, violate both the United States and California constitutions.”

And all I can say to that is… it’s about damn time.  Followed by, how can I help?  (A copy of the complaint follows this article at bottom.)

Right now, I have to catch a flight… but tune in later for further commentary on:

• How the California State Bar has done irreparable  harm to the people and to the economy of California.
• Why many of the state’s most influential lawyers and policy experts think it shouldn’t be anything more than a trade association.
• Why two years ago Governor Schwarzenegger barred the Bar from collecting its dues from its members.
• My first hand knowledge of how little the State Bar knows about the subject matter it’s supposed to be regulating.  It’s shameful and an embarrassment to the legal community.
• A Mandelman Matters Podcast with Bar Defense and Ethics attorney David Cameron Carr who was an associate trial council for the California State Bar for over a decade, and thinks the Bar is… well, you’ll have to hear it from him, but it’s not at all good, and he knows as much about the inner workings of the Bar as anyone.
• And much, much more!

In California, the efforts to stop lawyers from representing homeowners have been more extreme than in any other state.  Here the campaign to malign the legal profession has been driven by legislative committees and supported by the California State Bar Association.  In October 2009, California’s SB 94 effectively prevented lawyers from offering to represent homeowners who are seeking to avoid foreclosure through modification of their loans.  Under the guise of “charging up front makes you a scammer,” SB 94 has made it illegal for a lawyer to charge a homeowner an upfront retainer for legal fees.

The new law has failed to stop scammers, as was its supposed purpose, and in fact has made it much easier for California’s homeowners to get ripped of by unscrupulous operators because when you remove the legitimate attorneys from the soup, all that remain are the scammers, and they get better and better at looking legit.

I’m not the only one who sees the law as having been ineffective.  Last December, Suzan Anderson, who heads up the bar’s task force on loan modifications, told David Streitfeld of The New York Times…

“I wish the law had worked,” Ms. Anderson said.

So, more than two years later, we are finally going to see how the courts decide this so-called controversy.  As stated in Bostwick’s complaint…

“The State Bar publicly takes the position that an attorney who provides a homeowner loan modification or other forbearance services may not agree with the homeowner that the services requested will be broken down into component parts and that a fee for each component part may not be earned and collected as each component part is completed.”

Bostwick is a First Amendment lawyer and the suit is going after the constitutionality of SB 94 on a state and federal basis.  For example, the complaint alleges that “the challenged provisions of SB 94 as applied by the State Bar…”

… unconstitutionally infringe upon the rights of Plaintiff, other members of the State Bar and citizens of California seeking legal representation under Article I, Section l0 of the United States Constitution, which states that no State shall pass any law “impairing the Obligation of Contracts.”

And…

… unconstitutionally infringe upon the rights of Plaintiff, other members of the State Bar and citizens of California seeking legal representation under Article l, Section 9 of the California Constitution, which states that a “law impairing the obligation of contracts ma)/ not be passed.”

The plaintiff in the case is Los Angeles real estate attorney Swazi Taylor.  A couple of months ago, after being certified by the State Bar Administrative Court as an “expert” in subjects that included HAMP, loan modifications and other matters related to the foreclosure crisis, I testified on Swazi’s behalf when he was charged with violating SB 94.  I helped the court to better understand the dynamics of the crisis and what’s involved when representing homeowners in the loan modification process. To-date, there has been no decision in Swazi’s case.

Other aspects of the suit allege that the State Bar has violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and the Due Process Clauses of Article 1, Section 7 of the California Constitution.  And the suit goes on to ask for both declaratory and injunctive relief.

The core issue, however, is about when a lawyer who represents a homeowner trying to get their loan modified can be compensated.  The Bar claims the law requires an attorney to wait until the very end of the case, however, the actual language contained in SB 94 doesn’t say that… it says lawyers cannot be paid until completing “any and all services (the lawyer) has contracted to perform…” Up until Ms. Anderson’s presentation at the annual meeting, lawyers were dividing services into separate contractual arrangements and accepting payments from homeowners as discreet sets of services were complete.

Not that they were treated as heroes, mind you… in fact, they’ve been treated as anything but, to the point where many have told me that they often have felt uncomfortable telling their peers and others about their practices.  From the very beginning it was painfully obvious that the banks didn’t want homeowners to be represented when applying for a loan modification, they wanted the homeowners to show up alone, unknowledgeable, afraid and ashamed.  It’s so much easier to do whatever you want when you only have a homeowner with which to contend… lawyers, after all, gum everything up, always looking out for their client’s best interests, blah, blah, blah…

Today, we should all understand that going up against the too-big-to-fail banks and their servicing arms, whether in the courts, or when working to obtain agreements to modify loans and keep homeowners in their homes, has been a very difficult and largely thankless job.  It certainly wasn’t my plan, but as I’ve written over 600 in-depth articles on the foreclosure crisis, I’ve had a front row seat, watching talking to literally thousands of homeowners endure the hellish process, and getting to know literally hundreds of lawyers trying to help them save their homes…. many of which have become some of my closest friends not only here in California but all over the country.

For a thorough discussion of SB 94, here’s a link to my latest examination of the law that has caused more harm than good: Bull Meet Chins Shop… California’s SB 94 and the State Bar, Two Years Later.

IF YOU’RE AN ATTORNEY PRACTICING IN CALIFORNIA AND YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HOW YOU CAN HELP SUPPORT THIS CASE AND OTHER RELATED EFFORTS, YOU NEED TO CONTACT ME:

Martin Andelman

mandelman@mac.com

~~~

Now, meet the lawyers with the legal “chops” to handle this case…

and stay tuned because I’ll be writing a lot more about this suit as it proceeds in the courts… 

From the “Attorney Profiles” section of the Bostwick & Jassey LLP Website… 

Gary L. Bostwick

Gary L. Bostwick has been a trial attorney for more than 30 years, and is also a certified specialist in appellate law by The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.  He has tried over 60 cases.  Gary is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an exclusive organization of advocates that only invites members with outstanding trial experience.  He has been prominent in many complex business litigation and constitutional law matters, with a special emphasis on First Amendment and media concerns.  He has represented clients as counsel in three different matters heard by the United States Supreme Court. Chambers USA and The Legal 500 US recognized him as one of California’s leading media and entertainment lawyers, and he is listed as one of “The Best Lawyers in America” in the First Amendment area.

He has authored numerous articles, including, A Taxonomy of Privacy: Repose, Sanctuary & Intimate Decision, 64 CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW 1447 (1976), which has been cited by the California Supreme Court.

Gary has served as an adjunct professor of law at Loyola Law School, Southwestern Law School and USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, teaching about the First Amendment, defamation, privacy and other legal issues impacting journalists.

Gary has a J.D. and M.P.P. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he served as Articles Editor of the California Law Review at Boalt Hall, and he has a B.S. in engineering from Northwestern University.  He is a member of the California and Wyoming State Bars.  Gary is fluent in Spanish and German.

Jean-Paul Jassy

Jean-Paul Jassy is an experienced litigator at all levels, ranging from document-intensive, multi-million dollar business disputes to free speech and free press cases before the United States Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of California.  For over a decade, Jean-Paul typically has represented media and entertainment companies and others with free press, free speech and copyright concerns.  He also has extensive experience representing small, mid-sized and large companies in business disputes and appeals.

Jean-Paul was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2011 in the field of First Amendment Law. Selection to Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive and rigorous peer-review survey comprising more than 3.1 million confidential evaluations by the top attorneys in the country.  The publishers of Los Angeles Magazine and  Law & Politics call Jean-Paul “one of the top First Amendment and media attorneys” in Los Angeles, and, for the sixth consecutive year, have recognized him as a “Rising Star” — a peer-reviewed honor given to only 2.5% of attorneys in Southern California — in the fields of First Amendment/media/advertising law, general litigation and appellate law. [See Article]

Jean-Paul and his work have been discussed in American Lawyer,California Lawyer, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily Journal and many other publications.  He is often called upon to offer expert commentary on First Amendment and media law issues.

Jean-Paul has served as an adjunct professor at UC Irvine’s new law school, teaching a course on media law and, in Spring 2012, he will teach a course on First Amendment law at UC Irvine School of Law.  He also has served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Southern California Law School (teaching Constitutional Law II – First Amendment law) and at Southwestern University Law School (teaching a course on the law of defamation, privacy and publicity).   And, for four years, Jean-Paul taught legal and ethical issues in journalism, a required course for a journalism certificate, at UCLA Extension.

Jean-Paul is Membership Chair of the American Bar Association’s Forum on Communications Law, a national committee of over 6,000 members focusing on issues relating to legal counseling of print media, the telecommunications industry and electronic media. He is the former Co-Chair of the California Chapter of the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC), a non-profit information clearinghouse that monitors developments in media law and First Amendment rights.

Jean-Paul received a J.D. from the University of Southern California Law School, where he was Chair of the Hale Moot Court Honors Program, and he has a B.A., with highest honors, in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mandelman out.

And here’s the complaint itself:

Declatory Relief Taylor v. CA State Bar

Dear Bank of America, and by Bank of America I mean CEO Brian Moynihan…

Brian, I am running out the door at the moment.  I have to make a flight to Arizona so I can attend a meeting this evening and another in the morning at the state capitol.  A state senator called me last week asking for my help on a bill related to the foreclosure situation there.  Were it not for my schedule, I’d be ripping you and your bank to pieces in this column, and then asking all of my DOERS to inundate you with emails and letters in support of yet another homeowner who’s life you have irrevocably, unconscionably and inconceivably harmed.

I’ll be back at my desk tomorrow, so I was just going to wait until then to deal with you, but you see… this story brought tears to my eyes asa I sat here checking in for my flight… I guess I’m just emotional (although I think “human” is the more appropriate word) about such things, while you apparent;y are not.  Anyway, after I wiped them away I decided even though I didn’t have time to write the story in detail… I’d let you know what’s coming soon to a theater near you.

My thinking is, if you want to avoid me having to spend the eight or so hours it takes me to write all of the details into a piece that will be read and remembered by tens of thousands of people all over the country, you’ll address this situation before I get home tomorrow afternoon.  I hope you don’t view this as some sort of threat… I don’t mean it that way… I hate people that threaten, you know what I mean?  Either do it or shut up, has always been my motto.

I’m just giving you a heads up, if you will of what tomorrow afternoon is absolutely certain to bring if you don’t do something about… do you remember the Perry Mason television show from days gone by…

The Case of the Grieving Grandpa and the Lying Lender

Starring…

Mr. Dale Wright of Cloverdale, California

Loan Number 149664284

Brian, this one’s going to make a great story too, so if you can’t make time to handle it before I’[m home tomorrow afternoon, you’re going to wish you had.  Here are a few highlights… think of it as the show’s preview, if you will.

Mr. Dale Wright of Cloverdale, California turned to Bank of America for help in 2009 after being told by the President of the United States that Bank of America would help him if at all possible.  Mr. Wright is an 82 year old veteran who’s been a pillar of his community since before you were born, Brian.

He was approved for his trial modification under the Making Home Affordable program on March 23, 2010.  I’m told by several people involved in his case that he made all of his payments on time and as agreed and I have reason to believe they are correct.  He was denied for a permanent loan modification because of Bank of America claimed not to have received a new 4506T… even though they had received said 4506T 30 days earlier and I’m told those things are good for 90 or 120 days.

No matter… he was told he was being reconsidered as of December 6, 2011.  In fact, he was told he was under consideration as of December 23rd.  You SOLD his house on January 3rd, Brian. He’s 82 years old, Brian.  December 25th is Christmas, Brian.  January 3rd is two days after New Years, Brian.  God damnit… Bank of America doesn’t need to do shit that week, Brian. (I’m sorry, for my language, but I can’t take much more of this without swearing, Brian.)

Of course, your bank didn’t tell him it was sold on January 3rd.  He found out when the investor knocked on his door on January 3rd and told him that it would be understood if he needed more than three days to move out!  The investor told Dale he was buying the property to “flip it.”

(SIDEBAR: You might want to mention to whoever that was that said that to him, that he’s damn lucky that it wasn’t me that answered the door that day because I don’t have any prior criminal record and I’d be willing to pick up a first offense charge for beating the crap out of him for doing that to my grandfather. But, I don’t suppose he would have said it to me, now would he.  No, he only says things like that to 82 year olds, I am sure.)

Mr. Wright called and Bank of America was like… “Wo, wo, wo… we don’t know how this happened… we were trying to postpone the sale, but Wells Fargo wouldn’t do it and they’re the investor that owns the loan. It wasn’t our fault… blah, blah, blah.”

Your bank sold the home of an 82 year old vet right after New Years so some investor could flip it, and couldn’t even be bothered to make a call to let him know?  No… instead you blamed it on Wells Fargo, saying they were the investor and they wouldn’t agree to delay the sale or modify the loan.  Hmmm… think that’s true, Brian?  I wonder…

But I didn’t have to wonder for very long… here’s the email from Wells Fargo from just a few days ago:

From: catherine.h.martin@wellsfargo.com

To: kristiesheets@hotmail.com

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:01:19 -0600

Subject: Dale Wright

 Dear Ms. Sheets,

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. received and reviewed your recent correspondence regarding your concerns as it relates to your Grandfather’s mortgage.

After researching this matter, we have verified that Wells Fargo Bank is not the Investor/Owner and does not have a direct role in servicing the loan.  That being said, I am forwarding your letter to the servicer, Bank of America, instructing that they subsequently respond in a timely manner to your concerns giving Mr. Wright every consideration allowed. 

I urge that you continue addressing Bank of America with concerns pertaining to this matter.  You may contact Ms. Nora Jones at 817-864-2293 at Bank of America to request that she escalate this matter within Bank of America. 

Wells Fargo Bank makes every effort to facilitate and inform servicers of such issues so they may properly respond. 

Respectfully,

Cathy Martin 

Client Service Consultant 

Wells Fargo Bank 

9062 Old Annapolis Road 

Columbia, MD  21045 

410-884-2161 FAX 866-493-7814 

Ooopsie!  I guess your system was wrong… or your bank’s wires got crossed.  Or maybe they were just feeding Mr. Wright “Lie Number 32,863,” from the Bank of America Handbook?

The man’s wife passed away in 2006.  They were married for 53 years.  Your bank explained that a request for postponement went in on the 23rd of December 2011 on a loan which Bank of America agreed to review for HAMP on December 1, 2011 and then you sold  the home on January 3, 2012… Brian, are you trying to punish this man?

Fix this, Brian.  Fix it so that it doesn’t happen to even one more elderly person.  Because if you’ve heard of karma, your later years are going to be a bear if you don’t.

COME ON DOERS… DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS… I CAN’T SAY ANYTHING ELSE WITHOUT BREAKING MY KEYBOARD AND MISSING MY FLIGHT, AND BESIDES I CAN’T SEE AGAIN…

BRIAN… Kristie Sheets is his granddaughter… HER NUMBER IS: 707-632-6101.  You can call her and ask how to make this right, if you have the mind to do so.  I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll check with her before I do anything else.  This, as I mentioned, was just a preview of coming attractions.  (Insert Perry Mason Music here.)

Mandelman out.

DOERS YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!

Brian Moynihan, President, CEO & Chairman

Bank of America

Email: brian.t.moynihan@bankofamerica.com

Matthew Task, Executive Relations, 
Office of the CEO (At BofA)

Phone: 813-805-4873

Dear Bank of America, and by Bank of America I mean CEO Brian Moynihan…

Brian, I’m running out the door at the moment.  I have to make a flight to Arizona so I can attend a meeting in the morning at the state capitol.  A state senator called me last week asking for my help promoting a bill related to the foreclosure situation there.  Were it not for my schedule, I’d be ripping you and your bank to pieces in this column, and then asking all of my DOERS to inundate you with emails and letters in support of yet another homeowner who’s life you have irrevocably, unconscionably and inconceivably harmed.

I’ll be back at my desk tomorrow, and I was just going to wait until then to deal with you, but you see… this story brought tears to my eyes asa I sat here checking in for my flight… I guess I’m just emotional (although I think “human” is the more appropriate word) about such things, while you perhaps are not.  Anyway, I decided that even though I didn’t have time to write the story in detail… I’d let you know what’s coming soon to a theater near you.

My thinking is, if you want to avoid me having to spend the eight or so hours it takes me to write all of the details into a piece that will be read and remembered by tens of thousands of people all over the country, you’ll address this situation before I get home tomorrow afternoon.  I hope you don’t view this as some sort of threat… I don’t mean it that way… I hate people that threaten, you know what I mean?  Either do it or shut up, has always been my motto.

I’m just giving you a heads up, if you will, of what tomorrow afternoon is absolutely certain to bring if you don’t do something about… hey, do you remember the Perry Mason television show from days gone by…

The Case of the Grieving Grandpa and the Lying Lender

Starring…

Mr. Dale Wright of Cloverdale, California

Loan Number 149664284

Brian, this one’s going to make a great story too, so if you can’t make time to handle it before I’m home tomorrow afternoon, you’re going to wish you had.  Here are a few highlights… think of it as the show’s preview or a movie trailer…

Mr. Dale Wright of Cloverdale, California turned to Bank of America for help in 2009 after being told by the President of the United States that Bank of America would help him, if at all possible.  Mr. Wright is an 82 year-old veteran who’s been a pillar of his community since before you were born, Brian.

He was approved for his trial modification under the Making Home Affordable program on March 23, 2010.  I’m told by several people involved in his case that he made all of his payments on time and as agreed and I have reason to believe they are correct.  He was denied for a permanent loan modification because of Bank of America claimed not to have received a new 4506T… even though you had received said 4506T, 30 days earlier and I’m told those things are good for 90 or 120 days.

No matter… he was told he was being reconsidered as of December 6, 2011.  In fact, he was told he was under consideration as of December 23rd.  You SOLD his house on January 3rd, Brian. He’s 82 years old, Brian.  December 25th is Christmas, Brian.  January 3rd is two days after New Years, Brian.  God damnit… Bank of America doesn’t need to do sh#t that week, Brian. (I’m sorry, for my language, but I can’t take much more of this without swearing, Brian.)

Of course, your bank didn’t tell him it was sold on January 3rd.  He found out when the investor knocked on his door on January 3rd and told him that it would be understood if he needed more than three days to move out!  The investor told Dale he was buying the property to “flip it.”

(SIDEBAR: You might want to mention to whoever that was that said that to him, that he’s damn lucky that it wasn’t me that answered the door that day because I don’t have any prior criminal record and I’d be willing to pick up a first offense charge for beating the crap out of someone for doing that to my grandfather. But, I don’t suppose he would have said it to me, now would he?  No, he only says things like that to 82 year olds, I’m fairly sure.)

So, Mr. Wright called and Bank of America was like…

“Wo, wo, wo… we don’t know how this happened… we were trying to postpone the sale, but Wells Fargo wouldn’t do it and they’re the investor that owns the loan. It wasn’t our fault… blah, blah, blah.”

Your bank sold the home of an 82 year-old veteran right after New Years so some investor could flip it, and couldn’t even be bothered to make a call to let him know?  No… instead you blamed it on Wells Fargo, saying they were the investor and they wouldn’t agree to delay the sale or modify the loan.  Hmmm… think that’s true, Brian?  I wonder…

But luckily, I didn’t have to wonder for very long… here’s the email from Wells Fargo from just a few days ago:

From: catherine.h.martin@wellsfargo.com

To: kristiesheets@hotmail.com

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:01:19 -0600

Subject: Dale Wright

 Dear Ms. Sheets,

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. received and reviewed your recent correspondence regarding your concerns as it relates to your Grandfather’s mortgage.

After researching this matter, we have verified that Wells Fargo Bank is not the Investor/Owner and does not have a direct role in servicing the loan.  That being said, I am forwarding your letter to the servicer, Bank of America, instructing that they subsequently respond in a timely manner to your concerns giving Mr. Wright every consideration allowed. 

I urge that you continue addressing Bank of America with concerns pertaining to this matter.  You may contact Ms. Nora Jones at 817-864-2293 at Bank of America to request that she escalate this matter within Bank of America. 

Wells Fargo Bank makes every effort to facilitate and inform servicers of such issues so they may properly respond. 

Respectfully,

Cathy Martin 

Client Service Consultant 

Wells Fargo Bank 

9062 Old Annapolis Road 

Columbia, MD  21045 

410-884-2161 FAX 866-493-7814 

Ooopsie!  I guess your system was wrong… or your bank’s wires got crossed.  Or maybe they were just feeding Mr. Wright “Lie Number 32,863,” from the Bank of America Handbook?

The man’s wife passed away in 2006.  They were married for 53 years.  Your bank explained that a request for postponement went in on the 23rd of December 2011 on a loan which Bank of America agreed to review for HAMP on December 1, 2011 and then you sold  the home on January 3, 2012… Brian, are you trying to punish this man?

Fix this, Brian.  Fix it so that it doesn’t happen to even one more elderly person.  Because if you’ve heard of karma, your later years are likely going to be a real bear if you don’t.

COME ON DOERS… DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS…

I CAN’T SAY ANYTHING ELSE WITHOUT BREAKING MY KEYBOARD AND MISSING MY FLIGHT, AND BESIDES I CAN’T SEE AGAIN, THIS IS JUST TOO UPSETTING… I FEEL LIKE IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY…

BRIAN… Kristie Sheets is his granddaughter… HER NUMBER IS: 707-632-6101.  You can call her and ask how to make this right, if you have a mind to do so.  I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll check with her before I do anything else.  This, as I mentioned, was just a preview of coming attractions.  (Insert Perry Mason Music here.)

Mandelman out.

DOERS YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!

Brian Moynihan, President, CEO & Chairman

Bank of America

Email: brian.t.moynihan@bankofamerica.com

Matthew Task, Executive Relations, 
Office of the CEO (At BofA)

Phone: 813-805-4873

Believe it or not, I’m not an easy person to shock or offend.  No one that knows me would ever say that I possess delicate sensibilities, or anything close.  For example, the only thing I found at all shocking upon learning that Newt Gingrich had asked his now ex-wife if they could have an “open marriage,” was that there were more than two women (or even one gay man), that would even consider having sex with Newt.

But, when I read Bloomberg’s headline yesterday, “Mortgage Principal Cuts Don’t Help Homeowners, Says Credit Suisse,” I have to admit that I found myself recoiling in total shock that, in view of what’s happening today in the housing market, anyone would put forth such an utterly preposterous argument.

Here’s the beginning of the Bloomberg piece, you can read the rest later.

Reducing mortgage balances is a risky idea that hasn’t been shown to keep borrowers who owe more than their property’s worth in their homes, according to Credit Suisse Group AG. (CSGN).

 

Of the 11 million of “underwater” homeowners, about 6.5 million have never missed a payment and 2 million more are making on-time payments after a delinquency, said Dale Westhoff, the bank’s global head of structured products research. Widespread principal reductions may drive defaults “much, much higher” as borrowers seek the aid, he said.

 

“We’ve never done this before; we don’t know what the risk is,” Westhoff, a top-ranked mortgage-bond analyst in polls by Institutional Investor magazine for 15 years in a row while at Bear Stearns Cos., said today at a briefing for reporters in New York. Along with creating so-called moral hazard, the step may also tighten lending by forcing banks to offer “price protection” to borrowers, he said.

 

Credit Suisse’s view puts it at odds with Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley; Amherst Securities Group LP analyst Laurie Goodman, a member of the Fixed Income Analysts Society’s Hall of Fame; and hedge-fund manager Greg Lippmann, who last year advocated principal reductions, citing data from his former employer, Deutsche Bank AG.

 

Pretty offensive stuff, don’t you think… as you sit there reading this in your home that’s underwater by six figures and going down further every day?  Feel a little like wringing the guy’s neck that said it?  Yeah, well… me too.

Instead, I’ve written a corresponding article that I’d like to see Bloomberg run in the interest of being… what should I say… fair and balanced?  If you want the full impact, however, go back and read the Bloomberg version above one more time, then continue…

Not Recognizing Losses and Unlimited 0% Interest Loans Don’t Help Banks, Says Credit Slush

 

Suspending accounting rules is a risky idea that hasn’t been shown to keep banks that borrowed more than their assets are worth from becoming insolvent, according to Credit Slush Fund PIG.

 

Of the 11 most bailed out banks, about 6 have never been able to make their payments, and 2 more are making on time payments after being allowed to become bank holding companies in name only so they could borrow unlimited amounts from the Fed’s discount window at zero percent interest, said Bail Worstoff, the consumer’s global head-case for unstructured thinking. 

 

Widespread zero interest borrowing and the ongoing suspension of accounting rules that allow banks to push off the recognition of losses far into the future may drive insolvency rates “much, much higher” as banks become entirely dependent on the unrealistic and inappropriate aid.

 

“We’ve never done this before; we don’t know what the risk is,” Worsthoff, a top-ranked banking behavior analyst in polls by Concerned Citizens with Common Sense for 15 years in a row, said today at a briefing for reporters in New York.  Along with creating so-called “moral hazard,” these steps are also likely to perpetuate the irresponsible risk taking and amounts of leverage taken on by banks, which is what caused the global financial crisis in the first place, and would force congress to once again be unable to offer “any protection” to taxpayers who will be on the hook when the bankers invariably become insolvent once again, he said.

 

Credit Slush Fund’s view puts it at odds with Federal Unreserved Chair Ben Bailsnakee, Treasury Secretary Skim Getmore, Scary Summers, a member of the Fixed Outcome & Opacity Legion (“FOOL”); and sludge-fund manager Greed Hittmann, who last year advocated unlimited and unreported zero interest borrowing, undisclosed backdoor bailouts, and the elimination of all bank accounting and reporting requirements, citing data from his former employer, Deushbag Bank PIG.

First of all, the idea that reducing the dollar amount someone owes on his or her mortgage isn’t helpful to the homeowner… well, it’s simply a goofy thing to say.  I mean, it has to be a question of degree, right?  Like, reducing someone’s $100,000 balance by $1 wouldn’t be terribly helpful, I understand.  It’s the Sorites Paradox, I suppose… which back in my debate-the-useless days as an undergrad we used to refer to as the “Paradox of the Heap.”

(Assuming you have no idea what I’m talking about, but would like to… the Paradox of the Heap deals with a heap of sand from which one grain of sand at a time is removed.  The first premise is that one million grains of sand is a heap of sand.  And the second premise is that a heap of sand minus one grain of sand is STILL a heap of sand.  With me so far?  Good. 

So, the question is… when a single grain of sand is all that’s remains, is it STILL a “heap of sand?”  If you answer yes, then you sound ridiculous because a heap is defined as a group of things placed or thrown on top of each other.” And if you answer no to that question, then the follow-up question is when did it stop being a heap… when it was two grains of sand… three… four… 100? 

I can’t remember exactly, it’s been too many years… but I think after that you either run screaming from the room, beat the crap out of your roommate for dragging you into this inane conversation, or take a hit off the bong.)

Am I getting my point across here?  Or am I being too subtle?

Because I often worry that my use of humor or sarcasm either goes over too many heads or is solely as thought of as being entertainment… instead of as the less-than-veiled threat to societal tranquility that was my actual intention.  (That was supposed to be funny, people… stay with me, okay?)

After reading the Bloomberg article, it occurred to me that this was not the first time I was being shocked at the hubris of Credit Suisse’s conclusions allegedly derived from some review of distressed homeowner data.  The last time it happened was more than two years ago, November 2009, when I wrote about it in an article titled: “Why Banks Are Better at Making Loans Than Modifying Them.”

Back then Credit Suisse in conjunction with UBS, published a statistic saying that loan modifications were re-defaulting in 60 percent of cases after just 10 months… the clear implication being that loan modifications didn’t work, so better for all involved to simply foreclose.  It took some digging as I recall, but in the end it came out that in 2008… 60 percent of the loans modified ended up with higher monthly payments than before they were modified… which would explain the 60 percent re-default rate quite handedly.

It’s been a while, but I remember having an exasperating conversation with a banker during which I was trying to make the point that when the payment amount increases, it should not be called or classified as a “loan modification.”  The banker I was talking to… bless his heart… was trying to patiently explain to me why in point of fact, it was a “modification” of the loan and therefore had to be classified and reported as a “loan modification.”  (Amazing I’m still alive, don’t you think?  Or that the banker is… I’m not sure which.)

I replied that it didn’t matter.  What mattered is that if I were to line up 10 million homeowners in this country, and ask them whether a loan modification makes your monthly mortgage payments go up or down, for the most part they’d all say down.  Therefore, the term “loan modification” should only be used when the modification results in a reduced payment amount.

“So, what should we call it if the loan gets modified but the payments go up,” he inquired.  His tone made it sound as if he was sure that he’d have me in one or two more moves on an imaginary chessboard.

“Well, I’m not sure,” I replied.  “I’m not a banker or anything, and I wouldn’t want to presume to know your job better than you do by any means, but you could give some thought to calling it… oh, I don’t know… A PAYMENT INCREASE?”

Unfortunately, our conversation had to wrap up quickly after that… apparently something unexpected had come up and he had to run.

Do Principal Reductions Help, or Are they the Poster Child for Moral Hazard?

Credit Suisse should be exposed and discredited for being banking industry propagandists more than willing to risk further destruction of America’s middle class economy and our reduced standard of living before they lift a finger to make things better economically speaking.  That much is certain… and all too obvious.

But, the question is: Would principal reductions help homeowners avoid foreclosure?  And I want to address the substance of Mr. Dale Westhoff’s/Credit Suisse’s arguments against, lest anyone think that I’m being purely snarky about this whole thing, and therefore am in any sense being non-responsive to the issue at hand.

It’s not a simple subject, by the way.  So, don’t expect me to offer an oversimplified and hence meaningless response.

Mr. Westhoff, the bank’s “global head of structured product research,” the term “research” being used extremely lightly… hinges his argument against principal reductions for homeowners as a means for preventing foreclosure on the same old argument: it will create a moral hazard.

Now, let’s take a look at what this “moral hazard” thing is all about.

Traditionally, moral hazard exists when a party can make decisions about how much risk to take on, while another party bears the costs of that risk going badly.  And if that’s how we were defining it here, the only moral hazard that we’ve got to be concerned about is the moral hazard resulting from banks taking on too much risk knowing that they are “too big to fail.”

That’s the type of moral hazard that’s gotten us into this mess in the first place, and since the bailouts of banks in 2008, it’s the most significant risk we bear as a nation because if banks think they’ll be bailed out no matter what because they are too big to fail… we can all count on them needing to be bailed out again… and again… and again.  So, that’s that.

Westhoff, however, is using the term moral hazard in a different sense.  He’s asserting that if homeowners know that there are principal reductions available to those in default, more and more homeowners will intentionally go into default in order to get their principals reduced.

Moral Hazard and Principal Reductions

It’s shocking how little the financial services industry understands about the people it serves.  One particularly telling example of this was seen in May of 2011, when one of the three major credit bureaus, TransUnion, published the results of a study that shocked the banking industry by concluding that many who have lost homes to foreclosure did so because of the downturn in the economy and not as a result of an inability to handle debt, as was previously thought.

“Lenders always try to distinguish a one-off, life-crisis event like divorce or a medical catastrophe versus people who are just ineffective at managing credit,” said Ezra Becker, TransUnion vice president of research and consulting, and one of the study’s authors.

 “Our argument is that this economy disproportionately affected certain people in a way akin to a one-time crisis. Those consumers have not in fact forever changed their personal philosophy on repaying debt. It was a one-time event because of the specific and personal circumstances of the recession, and they otherwise would be good credit risks.”

What’s most amazing about the TransUnion study is that they needed to conduct a study to establish that people losing homes to foreclosure in the last few years were not irresponsible deadbeats, as the financial services industry had been assuming, but rather… well, it was the economy, stupid.  That anyone in financial services needed a study to tell them that foreclosures were being caused by the credit crisis that their industry brethren created is either some distorted form of irony or disingenuous nonsense.

The banking industry’s abysmal knowledge of consumers is also readily apparent when looking at the issue of moral hazard as related to principal reductions, or the incidence of strategic default, which is when someone chooses to walk away from a mortgage even though they can afford to make their payments.  These are the two subjects from which one might write a book of scary bedtime stories for bankers.

To understand this topic, first you have to understand how regular people view their homes. 

The years 2003-2007 notwithstanding, homes are not seen by regular people as investments in the traditional sense, they are more like forced irrational savings accounts we inhabit.  We don’t care what interest rate we’re getting on our “home/account,” but we do know the balance will be significant if we pay it off, and so they are a key component of America’s retirement plan.

Most people save money for a down payment on a house during the early part of their lives when their costs of living are relatively low.  After that, if property values are rising, they become relatively more mobile because they use the equity in one home to purchase the next.  It’s true that our incomes rise as we get older, but life gets more expensive over the years too.

Because the costs and expenses of buying a home and moving, if property values are falling or flat, we do everything we can to hold on to the homes we have, which is why so many underwater homeowners have applied for loan modifications even though from a strictly financial perspective, it doesn’t appear to make any sense.

It actually does make sense, however, once you understand that most people know that their only hope of buying another home will come from equity they build up in their current one.  And even if they don’t build that equity as a result of market price appreciation, that’s okay because the forced savings account functionality will eventually kick in, and they’ll have the equity to move up, or an asset of significant value for unplanned emergencies or retirement years, or the foundation of an estate to leave to our children.

It should be obvious that this line of thinking is foreign to financial investment types who think in terms of comparing returns on different investments.  It would be easy to show someone why it would be advantageous to accumulate wealth through a diversified set of investment vehicles while renting a home, but regular people know that they can’t trust themselves to be disciplined about saving and investing, but they can make a mortgage payment each month for 30 years because not paying that payment means disrupting their family’s tranquility… and having nowhere to live.

As a result, to stop making one’s mortgage payments on a primary residence is in general a big deal… a huge risk… you may end up losing your home… you can’t tell a living soul about what you’ve done… and your credit score goes to pot within a couple of months.  It’s immensely stressful, and no one does it unless financially speaking it’s absolutely necessary, meaning that some significant life event has occurred… job or income loss, injury or illness, divorce… those are the big ones anyway.

The bottom-line is, if people can afford to make their mortgage payments… they make their mortgage payments, and this is most easily verified by looking at how low foreclosure rates have been historically, again these past few years notwithstanding, even though between 1950 and 2000, home prices nationally were flat if adjusted for inflation.

So, will homeowners in any meaningful number take the risk inherent to going into default on their mortgage in order to get their principal balance reduced?  The answer should be obvious… it depends on how far underwater the homeowner is, how does the homeowner view the potential and timeframe for home price appreciation to occur, how certain is it that by defaulting they will be granted the principal reduction, and what are their options if their principal isn’t reduced and they lose their home to foreclosure.

Obviously, someone $200,000 underwater who thinks it will be 20 years before the market price appreciates by that amount, is much more likely than someone less severely underwater who views prices as coming back in five years, to walk away… or to go into default in order to try to get their bank to reduce the principal balance of their mortgage.

The other question about the efficacy of principal reductions in foreclosure prevention, applies to homeowners who are already seriously delinquent and seriously underwater, who are applying for a loan modification.  Lowering this homeowner’s interest rate and extending his or her term can make the monthly payment affordable and therefore prevent a foreclosure in the short term, but the question is, by leaving the homeowner so far underwater, are we just creating a strategic default in the future?

A couple of years ago, there were a slew of articles in places like the Wall Street Journal among others, that claimed that there a rash of strategic defaulters, which are defined as people that can afford to pay their mortgage no problem, but choose not to because they owe more than the home is worth.  And a couple of years ago, I wrote that strategic defaults are nonsense because no one that can afford their mortgage payments gets up on Sunday and says to their spouse:

“Honey, I realize that we can afford our mortgage payments no problem, but I was just thinking how far underwater we are and thought now might be a good time to clean out our garage, ruin our credit scores, endure the hassles of moving, and go rent a place for a five years.”

That is not what’s been happening to-date.  Not that it never has or will happen, but it’s exceedingly rare.  Everyone that hasn’t made a mortgage payment in months or even years is in their current situation because of money.  They didn’t stop making their mortgage payment because they became upset about being underwater, nor was it because of an ability to handle debt.  They stopped, in the vast majority of cases, because the economy or a life event knocked them down financially, and after using whatever savings they had, there came a day when they simply couldn’t make the payment… it wasn’t because they didn’t want to.

Optimism is a hard thing of which to let go…

I think I can remember the exact day that the dot-com bubble popped… it was April 10, 2000… and I was watching it happen on a television screen showing CNN as I waited in line to board a flight home from San Jose where I had spent the day in meetings.  I remember saying to my assistant at that time, that’s it… it’s all over now, or something to that effect.

I also remember seeing the cover of Newsweek two months later; I think it was the June issue.  It suggested that the tech sector would be coming back by December of that year, the obvious message being, “Don’t sell.”  I laughed when I read it… but not as much as I did two years later when I was at my favorite local watering hole after work with a friend of mine.  Mid-sip of my martini, he told me he was still holding onto his shares in Cisco Systems, purchased at $84, causing me to spit out my drink, choking as I laughed.

At the time, I think Cisco was trading at around $9, but my innumerate and hopelessly optimistic friend was explaining that he was only hoping the stock would return to half of its $84 price so he could then get out, losing only half of his dough.  I tried to explain the math involved showing him why he should sell and take the loss on his tax returns, and he listened… but it was another year before he took the advice and I learned that optimism is a hard thing of which to let go and this crisis has been no exception.

In the early stages of the crisis, essentially everyone listened to the administration, other government sources, and financial industry PR, and as a result believed that we were experiencing a temporary downturn as had happened before… that the housing market would start to come back around in a few years.  The idea of a “lost decade” was something that only happened in Japan… and everyone was saying that we were not Japan, which made sense to most folks because we cooked our fish before eating it in most if not all cases.

Recovery, the so-called experts said, would come by the end of 2010… then it was 2011… and then 2012.  As the years passed and home prices continued falling, consumer spending followed, and people came to realize that any recovery in the housing market would take longer than it had after past downturns… maybe it would be five years… maybe seven, so maybe by 2014 or 2015?

As long as most people believed that what was happening had happened before they could remain grounded, go on with their lives, and await our return to national prosperity.  This was the way people felt through 2009, 2010 and some part of 2011.

Last year, the news started to change and for a large segment of the population hope for recovery within a decade started to seem overly optimistic.  A lost decade was now understood to be almost a certainty, and the idea of a 20-year downturn, unthinkable only a couple of years earlier, now seemed a possibility.

Of course, there will come a time when some significant number of people sans money problems walking away from their mortgages en masse, and if we continue on our current path, that time will be here soon enough.

For millions of homeowners today, their situation has deteriorated to the point that it has become close to paralyzing.  Government programs have in all cases, not only been spectacular failures, they’ve also been spectacular lies.  As a result people have lost both trust and confidence in those they elected as they have plainly misled and ultimately abandoned them.

Additionally, having been televised it’s now widely recognized that too many courts have been ambivalent to the flagrant forgeries and fraudulent documents banks have used in the foreclosure process.  And losing faith in the courts and rule of law, is leading millions of homeowners to increasingly view their future as potentially dire.

And you know what they say: Desperate people take desperate measures.  (Or is that… “Disparate people choose different pleasures.  I can never remember how these sayings go… LOL.)

So, the bottom-line is that today, the issue of moral hazard as it relates to principal reductions is an entirely different matter than it was even a year or two ago. Today, and looking forward, I’m sure there is increasing reason to be concerned about homeowners being inspired to intentionally default in order to have their principal balances reduced, but the banking industry should realize that those that do so… well, if they’re willing to take that sort of risk then they’re on their way to a strategic default anyway… so, it’s really just a matter of choosing your poison.

ENTER: Mr. Dale Westhoff of Credit Suisse…

Dale Westhoff, our insipid bond analyst from Bear Stearns, says that beyond the creation of moral hazard, offering to reduce principal may also tighten lending by forcing banks to offer “price protection” to borrowers.

Now, I have no idea what “price protection” is, but I would like to say something to Dale about the idea that offering to reduce principal balances may result in tighter lending standards… so if you’ll just excuse me for a moment… be right back.

Dale?  Hi there.  Mandelman here.  Listen, I want to be diplomatic about this… you know that pseudo-threat you made about tighter lending standards as a result of principal reductions?  Did someone tell you that if you run out of rationales for not reducing principal balances, hit them with the old “banks will tighten lending” line? 

 

Well, Dale… that would sure make for an interesting threat that I might actually care about… if banks were actually lending… or, I don’t know… maybe if anyone was interested in borrowing.  However, since neither is the case, nor is it likely to be the case anytime soon, I’d say the only thing that comes to mind in response to your empty and barely veiled threat about tighter lending in the future as a result of principal reductions is… Shut the front door, Dale.

 

Let me share a little something with you and your banking pals… it has to do with principal reductions.  Do them… don’t do them… stick them up your tailpipe… homeowners barely give a rat’s behind anymore what you do or don’t do… think or don’t think.

 

You see… I guess you could say that it’s wearing kind of thin, Dale my boy… and homeowners wouldn’t believe you if you said the sky was blue.  Loan modifications don’t work because of their re-default rate… and now it’s principal reductions aren’t worth a darn because they create moral hazard. 

 

Well, what would “work” for you and yours, Dale?  I think I have an idea of what you and Credit Suisse are all about actually… tell me if I’m getting warm…

Just a scant couple of days ago Credit Suisse won the bidding process and as a result bought $7.014 billion in face value RMBS (“Residential Mortgage-backed Securities”) from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  The New York Fed bought them from AIG and had them in their Maiden Lane II, which is the New York Fed’s… what do you call that sort of entity… shell company?

So, when Maiden Lane II bought the assets their face value was $39 billion… and they paid $20.5 billion.  Now their face value is just over $7 billion and Credit Suisse paid… oh dear, wouldn’t you know it… darn the luck… the NY Fed says the actual price you guys paid won’t be disclosed until April 16, 2012.

Why is that, Dale?  How about a little research on that issue?  Why can’t the Fed disclose how much the Credit Suisse bid was until April 16, 2012, when the sale was made on January 19, 2012?  I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason don’t get me wrong… I’m sure it’s just something to protect the interests of us U.S. taxpayers.  Always looking out for us, aren’t you Dale?

So, I hate to even mention it, but does the fact that you guys at Credit Suisse are running around like vulture investors trying to scoop up distressed residential mortgage-back backed securities at bargain basement prices bother you at all… I mean, considering that at the same time you’re publishing supposed “research” under headlines like, “Mortgage Principal Cuts Don’t Help Homeowners, Says Credit Suisse?”

The only reason I’m asking is that Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities was quoted in that same Bloomberg article and she said…

“Amherst’s Goodman says that principal reductions are needed to avoid 8 million to 10 million more distressed-property sales.”

See, she said that because she felt it would be a bad thing to have 8-10 million more distressed property sales, but it looks like Credit Suisse wouldn’t actually mind at all if there were lots more distressed property sales, since Credit Suisse is scampering about in the night buying them for pennies on the… no, that’s not right… for some undisclosed amount to be disclosed on April 16, 2012.

The suspense is killing me, Dale.  I wonder if Credit Suisse overpaid for the distressed assets they bought?  Any guesses on how it will turn out?

On January 6, 2012, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley, had the following to say on this very subject…

“Analysis by my staff that looks at likely borrower behavior over an extended time horizon suggests that without a significant turnaround in home prices and employment, a substantial proportion of those loans that are deeply underwater will ultimately default — absent an earned principal reduction program.”

Yeppers… so absent principal reductions, looks like I was about right once again… a whole bunch of loans are going to default… which will create a whole bunch of distressed RMBS assets for sale at pennies on the… well, at undisclosed prices for three months.

And Credit Suisse would just HATE that, right Dale? Since it’s evidently the bank’s business model at the moment.  I wonder why the bank isn’t making it’s money LENDING, like banks used to do.  You know, lending before all that tightening that we’re supposed to be so afraid of, according to you, if we allow principal reductions.

I’m actually thinking that you’re the moral hazard here, Dale… because you certainly don’t seem to have a moral compass.  And besides, you’re statements are starting to make me dizzy.

I scanned that Bloomberg article over and over, and it must have slipped your mind because you forgot to mention the bit about Credit Suisse having bought the distressed RMBS assets from Maiden Lane II… two days before you gave the story… or rather the press release…. to Bloomberg… nicely done, Dale… very nicely done… in fact, I’d have to say crackerjack work, my slimy friend.

Don’t feel too badly about this whole thing coming out this way though… I have skills.

Oh, and one more key point… Laurie Goodman made it… it’s about the one place where principal reductions appear to be very effective in preventing defaults…

“We have shown that, even controlling for all other factors, principal reductions are more effective.  Realize also that banks are doing it on their own portfolios and have been for years. Why would they continue if it was not more effective?”

Got to hand it to her there… it’s a darn fine question, isn’t it Dale?  Why do you suppose banks offer principal reductions when it’s their own portfolio loans, but not when it’s the taxpayers who are on the hook, such as when the loan is owned by Fannie, Freddie, or insured by FHA?

Or, maybe the whole moral hazard thing doesn’t apply when it’s a portfolio loans on a bank’s balance sheet, is that what it is… or isn’t?  Or, whatever Dale… no need to reply…no one is listening to you anymore.

Mandelman out.

It’s time for me to have an adult conversation with the experienced practicing attorneys in this country.  Other grown-ups are welcome to sit in as well, but it’s time for children to be in bed or occupied elsewhere, okay?

Well, today we have a mammoth size foreclosure problem in this country, and it’s being talked about like it’s damn near an unsolvable problem… as if solving it would require determining the chemical origins of life, or figuring out whether black holes really do exist in space.

The foreclosure crisis, thank goodness, is not a black hole-type problem as many would have us believe.  It is a problem that, political constraints notwithstanding, exists at the juncture of economics and the rule of law.  In other words… it’s an oil spill… perhaps the worst oil spill of which the world has ever conceived… the Exxon Valdez meets Deepwater Horizon x 100, if you will… but it’s still just an oil spill.

It’s also important to note that as an economics problem alone, the foreclosure crisis is not a particularly challenging one to solve.  Some would rush to remind me that any proposed solution would be rife with “moral hazard,” and while that may be true, it doesn’t make the problem insoluble, by any means.

The elephant in the room is that what we’re facing in this country today is not just a foreclosure crisis, what we’re dealing with with is much better described as a FRAUDclosure crisis.

A couple of years ago, many would have said that my use of the word “fraud” before “closure,” is just hyperbole.  Today, however, anyone voicing that sort of opinion is selling something.  Even a cursory review of last year’s scathing “consent orders,” that federal regulators issued after months spent investigating mortgage servicers… or a quick perusal of the complaints filed against the servicers by attorneys general in Massachusetts, Nevada, Maryland, or Arizona… or by reading any number of published court decisions favoring homeowners… and one can only conclude that use of the word “fraud” is, if anything, understatement.

Additionally, this past year has been a turning point for the general public as far as FRAUDclosures are concerned.  Television’s most venerable news magazine, “60 Minutes,” along with newspaper-of-record, “The New York Times,” joined a long list of others documenting the many ways that banks and mortgage servicers are routinely breaking numerous laws in order to take advantage of homeowners in foreclosure.  It’s now widely understood to be something that’s occurring all over the country, and even though the banking industry continues to try to dismiss publicized instances as insignificant dalliances or “isolated incidents,” their sheer number has made such attempts laughable.  And the levels of wholesale anger and dissatisfaction with government felt among the populace are both palpable and rising fast.

Today, even forecasts from the likes of Goldman Sachs and Amherst Securities peg the number of foreclosures between 10.4 and 14 million by year-end 2014, and those numbers could easily go higher should home prices continue to fall… which they invariably will.  Add those numbers to the millions of foreclosures already water under the bridge, and were talking about a crisis that results in ONE IN FOUR Americans with mortgages losing their homes to foreclosure in the next handful of years.

What I’m describing will unquestionably devastate any hope for recovery in our broader economy for any number of reasons.  For one thing, as banks are forced to recognize their losses incurred on the mortgage-backed securities and CDOs that capitalize their balance sheets, they will become insolvent… and this time many will be forced to fail.  For another, home prices will continue falling pushing more and more homeowners underwater and consumer spending will continue to decline and that will lead to rising unemployment, which will in turn fuel further foreclosures.  And those hopelessly underwater will begin walking away en masse, which will further exacerbate the decline in prices and become impossible to combat.

All of these factors and more will combine to reduce future demand for residential real estate dramatically… perhaps by half, but in addition, with no secondary mortgage market… no ability to securitize debt… even those wanting to buy homes going forward will find credit to be tight and tighter, destroying any potential for recovery in the housing market.

And I’m no longer in a small group of people writing about this deteriorating situation as was the case three plus years ago.  Every day others are waking up to the fact that what we’ve been told about foreclosures to-date by our government and the financial services and related industries, has proven itself to be at best mistaken… at worst misdirection… or, not to put too fine a point on it, outright folderol.

As conservative columnist, Peggy Noonan, has pointed out recently, it’s simply impossible to imagine this sort of future without also seeing social unrest on a scale not seen in this country since at least the 1930s.  Writing recently about the Occupy Wall Street (“OWS”) movement, Noonan echoes my sentiments on the situation to a tee…

“OWS is an expression of American discontent, and others will follow.  Protests and social unrest are particularly likely if people feel they are unfairly losing their homes to support irresponsible, law-breaking institutions that have successfully disregarded the fundamental rules of capitalism and good citizenship.”

There should be no question in anyone’s mind… there are only two paths ahead from which to choose.  Both involve fighting a war… but on one path the battle is fought by lawyers in our courts… on the other, by citizens in our streets.

Make no mistake about it… if we are to mitigate any of the  damage being caused, uphold the rule of law, and protect the rights of millions of homeowners… it should be obvious to anyone that WE NEED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LAWYERS trained in foreclosure defense, loss mitigation and bankruptcy.  And yet, more than four years into the FRAUDclosure crisis, we don’t have anywhere near the number of trained, ethical attorneys required to meet the demand.

We’re all adults here, so let’s not kid ourselves about why that’s the case.  

We all know why we don’t have the lawyers we need to marshall a more effective defense of homeowners engulfed by the FRAUDclosure crisis… it’s because THERE’S NO MONEY IN IT.  Or, at least that’s what lawyers have been told they are supposed to believe.  Not only that, but the message has been that there  shouldn’t be any money in representing homeowners at risk of FRAUDclosure. It’s as if attorneys profiting from representing homeowners at risk of FRAUDclosure is somehow a bad thing.

AND THAT’S JUST 100% BANKER-INSPIRED B.S.

Don’t you see what’s happened here?  We’ve allowed the banks, and the government that’s been bailing them out, to essentially criminalize the profit potential in representing homeowners at risk of foreclosure… and wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles… here we sit with what appears to be an unsolvable problem.

Consider this… bankers say that they’ve been overwhelmed by the millions of homeowners unexpectedly seeking loan modifications and that’s why applying for a loan modification has been such a nightmare.  But, what about the number of foreclosures occurring in the same time frame?  Haven’t there been an unprecedented and unexpected number of foreclosures too?  So,why is it that the banks have no problems accommodating the millions of unexpected foreclosures, but the millions of unexpected loan modifications represent an unsolvable problem?

It’s simple… because on the foreclosure side of the equation, banks allow lawyers to be profitably compensated for handling foreclosures, and sure enough those law firms have figured out how to handle any number of foreclosures that come down the pike… in fact, the more the merrier, as they say.  On the loan modification side of the house, however, profits are a dirty word… and wouldn’t you know it, the problem is unsolvable.  Why am I not surprised?

Over the TWO YEARS following the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP spent $21 billion to clean up the Gulf of Mexico.  In the FOUR YEARS since the tsunami of foreclosures began, we’ve spent roughly ten percent of what BP spent cleaning up the Gulf… $2.4 billion… and the vast majority of that amount paid to mortgage servicers… and we’re wondering why the problem can’t be solved?

 A MESSAGE TO OUR NATION’S LAWYERS…

It’s the biggest financial opportunity for the legal profession

SINCE THE REAR END COLLISION. 

The fact is… there is a HUGE OPPORTUNITY today to build a very profitable legal practice based on the ethical and effective representation of homeowners caught in the FRAUDclosure crisis.

From the very beginning of the mortgage meltdown, banks have tried to make sure that homeowners were not represented by attorneys when trying to save their homes from FRAUDclosure.   The reason is now apparent: Banks knew it was a FRAUDclosure crisis before the rest of us did because they’re the ones who put the FRAUD into FRAUDclosure.  From the earliest days of the crisis, the banks and the Obama Administration have been reinforcing TWO LIES:

1. Homeowners at risk of foreclosure don’t need lawyers… they can just call their bank directly.  That’s like the police telling someone under arrest that he or she doesn’t need a lawyer because any questions can be answered by the District Attorney.  It’s a damn lie… homeowners DO NEED LAWYERS to help them save their homes because it’s not just a foreclosure crisis, it’s a FRAUDclosure crisis.
2. A lawyer who charges a homeowner at risk of foreclosure up front… is a “SCAMMER.”  That is not only a LIE, but it’s a lie to achieve two key bank objectives.  One – It stopped many homeowners from seeking legal representation, thus allowing the banks to do whatever they wanted as related to foreclosing on their homes.  Two – It stopped countless attorneys from building a profitable practice based on representing homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

The California Example…

In California, the efforts to stop lawyers from representing homeowners have been more extreme than in any other state.  Here the campaign to malign the legal profession has been driven by legislative committees and supported by the California State Bar Association.  In October 2009, California’s SB 94 created a law that has effectively prevented lawyers from offering to represent homeowners who are seeking to avoid foreclosure through modification of their loans.  Under the guise of “charging up front makes you a scammer,” SB 94 has made it illegal for a lawyer to charge a homeowner an upfront retainer for legal fees.

Quite predictably, the law has made it difficult or even impossible for California homeowners to find quality legal representation related to seeking loan modifications, forcing those at risk of foreclosure who want to be represented by an attorney into either litigation or bankruptcy.  Writing for The New York Times in December 2010, David Streitfeld’s article titled, “Homes at Risk, and No Help from Lawyers,” described the situation in California related to SB 94.

In California, where foreclosures are more abundant than in any other state, homeowners trying to win a loan modification have always had a tough time. 

Now they face yet another obstacle: hiring a lawyer.

Sharon Bell, a retiree who lives in Laguna Niguel, southeast of Los Angeles, needs a modification to keep her home. She says she is scared of her bank and its plentiful resources, so much so that she cannot even open its certified letters inquiring where her mortgage payments may be. Yet the half-dozen lawyers she has called have refused to represent her.

“They said they couldn’t help,” said Ms. Bell, 63. “But I’ve got to find help, because I’m dying every day.”

Lawyers throughout California say they have no choice but to reject clients like Ms. Bell because of a new state law that sharply restricts how they can be paid. Under the measure, passed overwhelmingly by the State Legislature and backed by the state bar association, lawyers who work on loan modifications cannot receive any money until the work is complete. The bar association says that under the law, clients cannot put retainers in trust accounts.

To make matters worse, SB 94 has recently become controversial.  In late September 2011, Suzan Anderson, who is the supervising trial council of the state bar’s special team on loan modifications, made an unscheduled appearance at the bar’s annual conference, presenting what she purported to be the bar’s new interpretation of SB 94.  Literally hundreds of attorneys and legal scholars disagree, however, and litigation has recently been filed against the bar seeking declaratory relief, so we’ll soon see the courts decide the issue.

The core issue is about when a lawyer who represents a homeowner trying to get their loan modified can be compensated.  The bar claims the law requires an attorney to wait until the very end of the case, however, the actual language contained in SB 94 doesn’t say that… it says lawyers cannot be paid until completing “any and all services (the lawyer) has contracted to perform…” Up until Ms. Anderson’s presentation at the annual meeting, lawyers were dividing services into separate contractual arrangements and accepting payments from homeowners as discreet sets of services were completed.

Regardless of which side of the debate you’re on, the issue highlights how far the banking lobby will push a state legislature and state bar association in an attempt to prevent homeowners from being represented by legal council when trying to to avoid foreclosure, and it should come as absolutely no surprise that SB 94 was born in the state’s Senate Banking Committee, sponsored by Sen. Ron Calderon, who chairs that committee.

Advocates of SB 94 claim that it was needed to stop “scammers” who were preying on homeowners in distress from accepting up-front fees.  As quoted from Streitfeld’s article in The New York Times…

A spokesman for the Mortgage Bankers Association said it simply wanted to protect homeowners from fraud. “Be very careful about anyone who wants you to pay them to help you get a loan modification,” said the spokesman, John Mechem.

The evidence of any sort of army of lawyers-turned-scammers ripping off homeowners has always been thin, and by “thin” I mean nonexistant.  In the two years since the bill became law, the bar has taken some type of disciplinary action related to the representation of homeowners in foreclosure against two dozen lawyers, give or take a few.  In a state with more than 200,000 lawyers and 2 million homeowners in foreclosure, two dozen lawyers disciplined would hardly seem justification for a law that effectively prevents lawyers from helping homeowners get their loans modified.

Last December, Suzan Anderson, who heads up the bar’s task force on loan modifications, told The New York Times…

“I wish the law had worked,” Ms. Anderson said.

It’s also telling that no other state in the country has a law anything like SB 94, in fact, the rest of the states follow the FTC’s Mortgage Assistance Relief Services rule, MARS, which was adopted on January 30, 2011, and it does allow attorneys representing homeowners seeking loan modifications to accept funds in advance into their trust accounts.

The New York Times article also offered the perspective of several California homeowners seeking legal assistance in a post SB 94 world…

Mark Stone, a 56-year-old general contractor in Sierra Madre, feels differently. A few years ago, he got sick with hepatitis C. Unable to work full time, he began to miss mortgage payments. The drugs he was taking left him “a little confused,” he said.

Mr. Stone knew that his condition put him at a disadvantage in negotiations with his bank. So he hired Gregory Royston, a real estate lawyer in Redondo Beach. It took Mr. Royston nearly a year, but he restructured the loan.

 Without the lawyer, Mr. Stone said, “I’d be living under a bridge.

”The legal bill, paid in advance, was $3,500. “Worth every penny,” said Mr. Stone, who is now back at work.

“This law,” Mr. Royston said, “took the wrong people out of the game.”

A Bleak Picture in California…

California’s approach to discouraging lawyers from representing homeowners at risk of foreclosure has not served the state or its residents well at all.  California is the “hardest hit” of all 50 states, accounting for one of every five foreclosures in the U.S.  Almost half of California’s homeowners are either underwater or effectively underwater today.  Since 2008, there have been 1.2 million foreclosures statewide, and that number is expected to exceed 2 million by the end of 2012.  And, according to the report published by the California Reinvestment Coalition…

The 2 million foreclosures expected by the end of this year are forecasted to cost the state and its residents $650 billion statewide.

Today, in California alone there are roughly TWO MILLION homeowners in foreclosure.  I don’t know exactly how many we have nationwide, estimates vary, but are in the 5 million range.  I do know that if two million people needed just 10 hours of legal assistance, it would take 20 million man hours.  Assuming a six hour work day and a 260 day work year… that’s just under 13,000 years assuming only one lawyer were involved.  To help two million people, assuming 10 hours each, at best would require more than 10,000 lawyers trained and working efficiently.

How many attorneys do we have  trained and ready to help loans get modified, represent homeowners in foreclosure defense matters and/or in bankruptcy.  Nowhere near 13,000 that’s for sure… in fact, we might not find 1300 either… and many would say the number could be closer to 130, and with the proliferating fraudulent documents… the abuses by servicers… the number of people who are foreclosed on illegally… its become easy to see the disease, and trained ethical lawyers would seem the only cure.

Mandelman out.

~~~

We need a literal army of experienced litigators, and Max Gardner’s Bankruptcy Boot Camp has trained close to 900 attorneys to protect the rights of homeowners in foreclosure.  I’ve attended Max’s Boot Camp… I could never recommend it strongly enough… and often do.  But, there’s more than legal training that’s required here… and if we’re going to attract the number of lawyers we need to fight this war…

The Answer is Money…

What Was Your Question?

Ohio’s former Attorney General Marc Dann is a highly experienced foreclosure defense attorney and a graduate of Max Gardner’s Boot Camp. He’s proven in his own successful practice that lawyers have the opportunity to DO GOOD… and DO WELL at the same time by learning the ins and outs of this, unfortunately, very fast growing and specialized field.  And he’s developed a comprehensive training and ongoing support program that allows experienced foreclosure defense attorneys to immediately access new clients and the right clients, improve operations within their firms, and yes… increase their profitability dramatically.

Marc understands our need for an experienced army of foreclosure defense lawyers, but he also understands the reality that lawyers have to make money in order to operate effectively.  In a phrase, a lawyer that can provide effective representation for homeowners at risk of foreclosure today, should not be worried about losing his or her own home to foreclosure because that benefits no one.

So, Marc has developed and employed best practices in building his own successful foreclosure defense practice, and now he’s teaching other attorneys how to make money in foreclosure defense so that ultimately he will have provided countless thousands of homeowners all over the country with access to highly capable, ethical and experienced attorneys.

Marc Dann’s LAW PROFITS program will take experienced and effective attorneys committed to foreclosure defense and protecting the rights of homeowners, and help transform them into vibrant, profitable firms or individual legal practices.  Some of the innovative solutions Marc will be delivering include:

• How to cut through the noise created by scammers, reaching out to homeowners in a very honest and compelling way.
• When and how to sue the bad modification company or bad lawyer.
• Suing the foreclosure mills for fun and profits.
• Using Fair Debt Collection Practices and State Consumer Protection.
• Learn about the new practices available under Dodd Frank.
• Harnessing TILA and RESPA inside and outside bankruptcy court.
• Unconventional approaches stay one step ahead of servicer practices.
• Billing structures, methodologies, and practice accounting.
• Designing compensation programs that balance the needs of homeowners with the needs of your firm.  
• Never lose clients – Ongoing communications program that’s turn-key and educates clients so they become fans.
• Fee agreements – for contingency and hourly clients.
• Become part of a highly visible network of top foreclosure defense attorneys, and strategic partners.
• Communications strategies and tactics proven effective and unavailable anywhere else.

Making little or no money in foreclosure defense isn’t doing your clients any favors because you cannot be your best without it.  Marc Dann’s LAW PROFITS is not a pot of gold, or a winning lottery ticket, but it is a proven process and suite of best practices that makes a law practice profitable… essentially immediately.  It’s work, no question about it, but it’s important and gratifying work.

I wholeheartedly support Mar’c Dann’s LAW PROFITS initiative.  And I strongly urge all of the lawyers reading this to take action now by clicking the link below, so you can find out more about what his LAW PROFITS program for foreclosure defense and bankruptcy lawyers can do for you and your firm.  The FRAUDclosure crisis and its ancillary topics, I’m sorry to say, are going to be with us for a long time… a decade plus, if we’re lucky.  Longer if we’re not.  It’s time to settle in and start capitalizing on being one of the best at solving on of the worst case scenarios.

Click below to find out more about…

Marc Dann’s 

LAW PROFITS

It’s time for me to have an adult conversation with the experienced practicing attorneys in this country.  Other grown-ups are welcome to sit in as well, but it’s time for children to be in bed or occupied elsewhere, okay?

Well, today we have a mammoth size foreclosure problem in this country, and it’s being talked about like it’s damn near an unsolvable problem… as if solving it would require determining the chemical origins of life, or figuring out whether black holes really do exist in space.

The foreclosure crisis, thank goodness, is not a black hole-type problem as many would have us believe.  It is a problem that, political constraints notwithstanding, exists at the juncture of economics and the rule of law.  In other words… it’s an oil spill… perhaps the worst oil spill of which the world has ever conceived… the Exxon Valdez meets Deepwater Horizon x 100, if you will… but it’s still just an oil spill.

It’s also important to note that as an economics problem alone, the foreclosure crisis is not a particularly challenging one to solve.  Some would rush to remind me that any proposed solution would be rife with “moral hazard,” and while that may be true, it doesn’t make the problem insoluble, by any means.

The elephant in the room is that what we’re facing in this country today is not just a foreclosure crisis, what we’re dealing with with is much better described as a FRAUDclosure crisis.

A couple of years ago, many would have said that my use of the word “fraud” before “closure,” is just hyperbole.  Today, however, anyone voicing that sort of opinion is selling something.  Even a cursory review of last year’s scathing “consent orders,” that federal regulators issued after months spent investigating mortgage servicers… or a quick perusal of the complaints filed against the servicers by attorneys general in Massachusetts, Nevada, Maryland, or Arizona… or by reading any number of published court decisions favoring homeowners… and one can only conclude that use of the word “fraud” is, if anything, understatement.

Additionally, this past year has been a turning point for the general public as far as FRAUDclosures are concerned.  Television’s most venerable news magazine, “60 Minutes,” along with newspaper-of-record, “The New York Times,” joined a long list of others documenting the many ways that banks and mortgage servicers are routinely breaking numerous laws in order to take advantage of homeowners in foreclosure.  It’s now widely understood to be something that’s occurring all over the country, and even though the banking industry continues to try to dismiss publicized instances as insignificant dalliances or “isolated incidents,” their sheer number has made such attempts laughable.  And the levels of wholesale anger and dissatisfaction with government felt among the populace are both palpable and rising fast.

Today, even forecasts from the likes of Goldman Sachs and Amherst Securities peg the number of foreclosures between 10.4 and 14 million by year-end 2014, and those numbers could easily go higher should home prices continue to fall… which they invariably will.  Add those numbers to the millions of foreclosures already water under the bridge, and were talking about a crisis that results in ONE IN FOUR Americans with mortgages losing their homes to foreclosure in the next handful of years.

What I’m describing will unquestionably devastate any hope for recovery in our broader economy for any number of reasons.  For one thing, as banks are forced to recognize their losses incurred on the mortgage-backed securities and CDOs that capitalize their balance sheets, they will become insolvent… and this time many will be forced to fail.  For another, home prices will continue falling pushing more and more homeowners underwater and consumer spending will continue to decline and that will lead to rising unemployment, which will in turn fuel further foreclosures.  And those hopelessly underwater will begin walking away en masse, which will further exacerbate the decline in prices and become impossible to combat.

All of these factors and more will combine to reduce future demand for residential real estate dramatically… perhaps by half, but in addition, with no secondary mortgage market… no ability to securitize debt… even those wanting to buy homes going forward will find credit to be tight and tighter, destroying any potential for recovery in the housing market.

And I’m no longer in a small group of people writing about this deteriorating situation as was the case three plus years ago.  Every day others are waking up to the fact that what we’ve been told about foreclosures to-date by our government and the financial services and related industries, has proven itself to be at best mistaken… at worst misdirection… or, not to put too fine a point on it, outright folderol.

As conservative columnist, Peggy Noonan, has pointed out recently, it’s simply impossible to imagine this sort of future without also seeing social unrest on a scale not seen in this country since at least the 1930s.  Writing recently about the Occupy Wall Street (“OWS”) movement, Noonan echoes my sentiments on the situation to a tee…

“OWS is an expression of American discontent, and others will follow.  Protests and social unrest are particularly likely if people feel they are unfairly losing their homes to support irresponsible, law-breaking institutions that have successfully disregarded the fundamental rules of capitalism and good citizenship.”

There should be no question in anyone’s mind… there are only two paths ahead from which to choose.  Both involve fighting a war… but on one path the battle is fought by lawyers in our courts… on the other, by citizens in our streets.

Make no mistake about it… if we are to mitigate any of the  damage being caused, uphold the rule of law, and protect the rights of millions of homeowners… it should be obvious to anyone that WE NEED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LAWYERS trained in foreclosure defense, loss mitigation and bankruptcy.  And yet, more than four years into the FRAUDclosure crisis, we don’t have anywhere near the number of trained, ethical attorneys required to meet the demand.

We’re all adults here, so let’s not kid ourselves about why that’s the case.  

We all know why we don’t have the lawyers we need to marshall a more effective defense of homeowners engulfed by the FRAUDclosure crisis… it’s because THERE’S NO MONEY IN IT.  Or, at least that’s what lawyers have been told they are supposed to believe.  Not only that, but the message has been that there  shouldn’t be any money in representing homeowners at risk of FRAUDclosure. It’s as if attorneys profiting from representing homeowners at risk of FRAUDclosure is somehow a bad thing.

AND THAT’S JUST 100% BANKER-INSPIRED B.S.

Don’t you see what’s happened here?  We’ve allowed the banks, and the government that’s been bailing them out, to essentially criminalize the profit potential in representing homeowners at risk of foreclosure… and wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles… here we sit with what appears to be an unsolvable problem.

Consider this… bankers say that they’ve been overwhelmed by the millions of homeowners unexpectedly seeking loan modifications and that’s why applying for a loan modification has been such a nightmare.  But, what about the number of foreclosures occurring in the same time frame?  Haven’t there been an unprecedented and unexpected number of foreclosures too?  So,why is it that the banks have no problems accommodating the millions of unexpected foreclosures, but the millions of unexpected loan modifications represent an unsolvable problem?

It’s simple… because on the foreclosure side of the equation, banks allow lawyers to be profitably compensated for handling foreclosures, and sure enough those law firms have figured out how to handle any number of foreclosures that come down the pike… in fact, the more the merrier, as they say.  On the loan modification side of the house, however, profits are a dirty word… and wouldn’t you know it, the problem is unsolvable.  Why am I not surprised?

Over the TWO YEARS following the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP spent $21 billion to clean up the Gulf of Mexico.  In the FOUR YEARS since the tsunami of foreclosures began, we’ve spent roughly ten percent of what BP spent cleaning up the Gulf… $2.4 billion… and the vast majority of that amount paid to mortgage servicers… and we’re wondering why the problem can’t be solved?

 A MESSAGE TO OUR NATION’S LAWYERS…

It’s the biggest financial opportunity for the legal profession

SINCE THE REAR END COLLISION. 

The fact is… there is a HUGE OPPORTUNITY today to build a very profitable legal practice based on the ethical and effective representation of homeowners caught in the FRAUDclosure crisis.

From the very beginning of the mortgage meltdown, banks have tried to make sure that homeowners were not represented by attorneys when trying to save their homes from FRAUDclosure.   The reason is now apparent: Banks knew it was a FRAUDclosure crisis before the rest of us did because they’re the ones who put the FRAUD into FRAUDclosure.  From the earliest days of the crisis, the banks and the Obama Administration have been reinforcing TWO LIES:

1. Homeowners at risk of foreclosure don’t need lawyers… they can just call their bank directly.  That’s like the police telling someone under arrest that he or she doesn’t need a lawyer because any questions can be answered by the District Attorney.  It’s a damn lie… homeowners DO NEED LAWYERS to help them save their homes because it’s not just a foreclosure crisis, it’s a FRAUDclosure crisis.
2. A lawyer who charges a homeowner at risk of foreclosure up front… is a “SCAMMER.”  That is not only a LIE, but it’s a lie to achieve two key bank objectives.  One – It stopped many homeowners from seeking legal representation, thus allowing the banks to do whatever they wanted as related to foreclosing on their homes.  Two – It stopped countless attorneys from building a profitable practice based on representing homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

The California Example…

In California, the efforts to stop lawyers from representing homeowners have been more extreme than in any other state.  Here the campaign to malign the legal profession has been driven by legislative committees and supported by the California State Bar Association.  In October 2009, California’s SB 94 created a law that has effectively prevented lawyers from offering to represent homeowners who are seeking to avoid foreclosure through modification of their loans.  Under the guise of “charging up front makes you a scammer,” SB 94 has made it illegal for a lawyer to charge a homeowner an upfront retainer for legal fees.

Quite predictably, the law has made it difficult or even impossible for California homeowners to find quality legal representation related to seeking loan modifications, forcing those at risk of foreclosure who want to be represented by an attorney into either litigation or bankruptcy.  Writing for The New York Times in December 2010, David Streitfeld’s article titled, “Homes at Risk, and No Help from Lawyers,” described the situation in California related to SB 94.

In California, where foreclosures are more abundant than in any other state, homeowners trying to win a loan modification have always had a tough time. 

Now they face yet another obstacle: hiring a lawyer.

Sharon Bell, a retiree who lives in Laguna Niguel, southeast of Los Angeles, needs a modification to keep her home. She says she is scared of her bank and its plentiful resources, so much so that she cannot even open its certified letters inquiring where her mortgage payments may be. Yet the half-dozen lawyers she has called have refused to represent her.

“They said they couldn’t help,” said Ms. Bell, 63. “But I’ve got to find help, because I’m dying every day.”

Lawyers throughout California say they have no choice but to reject clients like Ms. Bell because of a new state law that sharply restricts how they can be paid. Under the measure, passed overwhelmingly by the State Legislature and backed by the state bar association, lawyers who work on loan modifications cannot receive any money until the work is complete. The bar association says that under the law, clients cannot put retainers in trust accounts.

To make matters worse, SB 94 has recently become controversial.  In late September 2011, Suzan Anderson, who is the supervising trial council of the state bar’s special team on loan modifications, made an unscheduled appearance at the bar’s annual conference, presenting what she purported to be the bar’s new interpretation of SB 94.  Literally hundreds of attorneys and legal scholars disagree, however, and litigation has recently been filed against the bar seeking declaratory relief, so we’ll soon see the courts decide the issue.

The core issue is about when a lawyer who represents a homeowner trying to get their loan modified can be compensated.  The bar claims the law requires an attorney to wait until the very end of the case, however, the actual language contained in SB 94 doesn’t say that… it says lawyers cannot be paid until completing “any and all services (the lawyer) has contracted to perform…” Up until Ms. Anderson’s presentation at the annual meeting, lawyers were dividing services into separate contractual arrangements and accepting payments from homeowners as discreet sets of services were completed.

Regardless of which side of the debate you’re on, the issue highlights how far the banking lobby will push a state legislature and state bar association in an attempt to prevent homeowners from being represented by legal council when trying to to avoid foreclosure, and it should come as absolutely no surprise that SB 94 was born in the state’s Senate Banking Committee, sponsored by Sen. Ron Calderon, who chairs that committee.

Advocates of SB 94 claim that it was needed to stop “scammers” who were preying on homeowners in distress from accepting up-front fees.  As quoted from Streitfeld’s article in The New York Times…

A spokesman for the Mortgage Bankers Association said it simply wanted to protect homeowners from fraud. “Be very careful about anyone who wants you to pay them to help you get a loan modification,” said the spokesman, John Mechem.

The evidence of any sort of army of lawyers-turned-scammers ripping off homeowners has always been thin, and by “thin” I mean nonexistant.  In the two years since the bill became law, the bar has taken some type of disciplinary action related to the representation of homeowners in foreclosure against two dozen lawyers, give or take a few.  In a state with more than 200,000 lawyers and 2 million homeowners in foreclosure, two dozen lawyers disciplined would hardly seem justification for a law that effectively prevents lawyers from helping homeowners get their loans modified.

Last December, Suzan Anderson, who heads up the bar’s task force on loan modifications, told The New York Times…

“I wish the law had worked,” Ms. Anderson said.

It’s also telling that no other state in the country has a law anything like SB 94, in fact, the rest of the states follow the FTC’s Mortgage Assistance Relief Services rule, MARS, which was adopted on January 30, 2011, and it does allow attorneys representing homeowners seeking loan modifications to accept funds in advance into their trust accounts.

The New York Times article also offered the perspective of several California homeowners seeking legal assistance in a post SB 94 world…

Mark Stone, a 56-year-old general contractor in Sierra Madre, feels differently. A few years ago, he got sick with hepatitis C. Unable to work full time, he began to miss mortgage payments. The drugs he was taking left him “a little confused,” he said.

Mr. Stone knew that his condition put him at a disadvantage in negotiations with his bank. So he hired Gregory Royston, a real estate lawyer in Redondo Beach. It took Mr. Royston nearly a year, but he restructured the loan.

 Without the lawyer, Mr. Stone said, “I’d be living under a bridge.

”The legal bill, paid in advance, was $3,500. “Worth every penny,” said Mr. Stone, who is now back at work.

“This law,” Mr. Royston said, “took the wrong people out of the game.”

A Bleak Picture in California…

California’s approach to discouraging lawyers from representing homeowners at risk of foreclosure has not served the state or its residents well at all.  California is the “hardest hit” of all 50 states, accounting for one of every five foreclosures in the U.S.  Almost half of California’s homeowners are either underwater or effectively underwater today.  Since 2008, there have been 1.2 million foreclosures statewide, and that number is expected to exceed 2 million by the end of 2012.  And, according to the report published by the California Reinvestment Coalition…

The 2 million foreclosures expected by the end of this year are forecasted to cost the state and its residents $650 billion statewide.

Today, in California alone there are roughly TWO MILLION homeowners in foreclosure.  I don’t know exactly how many we have nationwide, estimates vary, but are in the 5 million range.  I do know that if two million people needed just 10 hours of legal assistance, it would take 20 million man hours.  Assuming a six hour work day and a 260 day work year… that’s just under 13,000 years assuming only one lawyer were involved.  To help two million people, assuming 10 hours each, at best would require more than 10,000 lawyers trained and working efficiently.

How many attorneys do we have  trained and ready to help loans get modified, represent homeowners in foreclosure defense matters and/or in bankruptcy.  Nowhere near 13,000 that’s for sure… in fact, we might not find 1300 either… and many would say the number could be closer to 130, and with the proliferating fraudulent documents… the abuses by servicers… the number of people who are foreclosed on illegally… its become easy to see the disease, and trained ethical lawyers would seem the only cure.

Mandelman out.

~~~

We need a literal army of experienced litigators, and Max Gardner’s Bankruptcy Boot Camp has trained close to 900 attorneys to protect the rights of homeowners in foreclosure.  I’ve attended Max’s Boot Camp… I could never recommend it strongly enough… and often do.  But, there’s more than legal training that’s required here… and if we’re going to attract the number of lawyers we need to fight this war…

The Answer is Money…

What Was Your Question?

Ohio’s former Attorney General Marc Dann is a highly experienced foreclosure defense attorney and a graduate of Max Gardner’s Boot Camp. He’s proven in his own successful practice that lawyers have the opportunity to DO GOOD… and DO WELL at the same time by learning the ins and outs of this, unfortunately, very fast growing and specialized field.  And he’s developed a comprehensive training and ongoing support program that allows experienced foreclosure defense attorneys to immediately access new clients and the right clients, improve operations within their firms, and yes… increase their profitability dramatically.

Marc understands our need for an experienced army of foreclosure defense lawyers, but he also understands the reality that lawyers have to make money in order to operate effectively.  In a phrase, a lawyer that can provide effective representation for homeowners at risk of foreclosure today, should not be worried about losing his or her own home to foreclosure because that benefits no one.

So, Marc has developed and employed best practices in building his own successful foreclosure defense practice, and now he’s teaching other attorneys how to make money in foreclosure defense so that ultimately he will have provided countless thousands of homeowners all over the country with access to highly capable, ethical and experienced attorneys.

Marc Dann’s LAW PROFITS program will take experienced and effective attorneys committed to foreclosure defense and protecting the rights of homeowners, and help transform them into vibrant, profitable firms or individual legal practices.  Some of the innovative solutions Marc will be delivering include:

• How to cut through the noise created by scammers, reaching out to homeowners in a very honest and compelling way.
• When and how to sue the bad modification company or bad lawyer.
• Suing the foreclosure mills for fun and profits.
• Using Fair Debt Collection Practices and State Consumer Protection.
• Learn about the new practices available under Dodd Frank.
• Harnessing TILA and RESPA inside and outside bankruptcy court.
• Unconventional approaches stay one step ahead of servicer practices.
• Billing structures, methodologies, and practice accounting.
• Designing compensation programs that balance the needs of homeowners with the needs of your firm.  
• Never lose clients – Ongoing communications program that’s turn-key and educates clients so they become fans.
• Fee agreements – for contingency and hourly clients.
• Become part of a highly visible network of top foreclosure defense attorneys, and strategic partners.
• Communications strategies and tactics proven effective and unavailable anywhere else.

Making little or no money in foreclosure defense isn’t doing your clients any favors because you cannot be your best without it.  Marc Dann’s LAW PROFITS is not a pot of gold, or a winning lottery ticket, but it is a proven process and suite of best practices that makes a law practice profitable… essentially immediately.  It’s work, no question about it, but it’s important and gratifying work.

I wholeheartedly support Mar’c Dann’s LAW PROFITS initiative.  And I strongly urge all of the lawyers reading this to take action now by clicking the link below, so you can find out more about what his LAW PROFITS program for foreclosure defense and bankruptcy lawyers can do for you and your firm.  The FRAUDclosure crisis and its ancillary topics, I’m sorry to say, are going to be with us for a long time… a decade plus, if we’re lucky.  Longer if we’re not.  It’s time to settle in and start capitalizing on being one of the best at solving on of the worst case scenarios.

Click below to find out more about…

Marc Dann’s 

LAW PROFITS

Saturday night, while I was searching around on iTunes for a podcast on the economy… (OMG, did I just say that out loud?  How sad is that?  Let’s just keep that part about Saturday night between us, okay?)

But, you know the deal, right?  I’ve been doing more and more podcasts and a lot of people really like them and I wanted to see how other podcasts are done in case there was something I could do better or add in, whatever.  In other words, I was checking to see if there were any ideas I could steal… LOL

So, I happen upon a podcast published a few days ago… January 13, 2012… available free on iTunes: NPR on the Economy.  The show’s host is David Green from Morning Edition, and his guest, David Wessell, is the Wall Street Journal’s Economics Editor, and the author of “In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic.”

The topic was the Federal Reserve and how Fed officials have been talking to congress about how our country’s economy can’t recover without the housing market, so I figured… perfect… it’s my favorite issue.  Green opens the show by saying:

“Lately, Federal Reserve officials have been focusing on housing… they’ve been out in public pushing measures they think will help the housing market.”

Have they now, I thought to myself.  How could I have missed the Fed doing that?

Green kicked the discussion into gear by broadly asking Wessell what the Fed is trying to do.  He replied that Fed officials have been saying in speeches and in a 26 page white paper that’s apparently been sent to congress recently, that one reason our economy isn’t doing better is that our housing market is not healing very fast.

I couldn’t help but wonder how that idea could possibly take up 26 pages, but then remembering that it was the Federal Reserve we were talking about, I figured that the first 25 pages were probably cherry-picked data points showing how well the economy is doing, with this tidbit about housing on page 26.

Wessell went on to point out that the President of the New York Fed recently said the following:

“… it was difficult to achieve economic recovery unless the ongoing weakness in housing was addressed,” and that the new President of the San Francisco Fed, John Williams, talked about a “housing depression.”

The “housing depression” phrase caught my attention, as I’m sure it did yours, but then I figured he probably used the phrase in the context of what we would avoid, thanks to the swift and decisive actions of the Fed.

You see, I’m not falling for another goofy “we’re going to save the housing market plan,” that turns out to be another voluntary refinancing program that Fannie and Freddie have already pronounced DOA, but that we won’t hear the abysmal results for until next year at this time.

According to Wessell the Fed is now saying that they’ve done what they can to get the economy working better, and that now the other areas of the government are going to have to pay attention to getting the housing and mortgage market going again.

Sort of a funny way to phrase things, don’t you think?  It sort of made it sound as if we’re supposed to believe that the last three years have been somehow planned the way sub-contractors work together when building a home… “Okay, Congress… we’ve got the framing up, the electrical wired and the slabs poured so you can go ahead with the tile, the window treatments and doors.”

Of course, the reality is that the last three years have looked and felt more like a scene out of Ringling Bros. Greatest Show on Earth, when something like 50 clowns all come rushing in from everywhere, ten of them get out of a tiny car, one gets shot from a cannon, and three monkeys in spandex start circling on bicycles while blowing noisemakers.

Wessell then tells Green that the Fed is now saying that “the alphabet soup of programs that the government has tried to help housing and homeowners isn’t doing enough.”  Green asks if they had any suggestions as to what should be done and Wessell sounds almost exuberant when he replies that yes, “they’ve come up with a list of things they think the government ought to do.”

At this point, the anticipation was practically killing me, and I thought I might pee my pants if I didn’t hear what the Fed had in mind soon.  It’s an election year, you see… and as such, anything is possible.  If you don’t think so, just consider that Obama, after presiding over an administration that pumped $16 trillion into financial sector, is again running as some sort of populist.

So, Green and Wessell then start listing the things the Fed presented to congress in its white paper ostensibly in order to heal the housing market and thereby remove the last standing impediment to beginning our march back to economic prosperity in earnest.

And please remember… in the third paragraph from the top of this article, I placed a link to the specific NPR podcast to which I’m referring, and the reader is encouraged to listen to it after reading what follows to confirm that I have faithfully reprinted what was said by Wessell… verbatim, as it were.

What the Fed told congress will be in bold type, my questions and comments will be plain text.  I really need everyone’s help here, because I think I may have discovered some sort of glitch in the space-time continuum that would explain why Washington appears so entirely out of touch with reality and the rest of the country, if not the world. Either that, or maybe they’re all just dumb and that’s why they wanted government jobs.

 1.    The Fed thinks the government “ought to find a way to reduce the glut of houses for sale, because the banks have taken over so many foreclosed houses there’s just a glut of supply and they’d like to make it easier for banks and others to rent them out in order to reduce the number for sale.”

1. First of all, why does the Fed think there’s a “glut of houses for sale?”  Did someone tell them that’s the case because I think that person may have just been pulling their little Feddy legs.  You see… there isn’t any sort of “glut” of homes on the market.  That’s why it’s called the “shadow inventory,” right?  If the homes were on the market and for sale, I think they’d just call it “the inventory,” and drop the whole “shadow” part.
2. Banks renting out homes does nothing to reduce the number of homes for sale.  Renting out a vacant home does reduce the number of vacant homes, but renting a home doesn’t preclude its owner from selling it.  So, if a home was on the market before it was rented, it’s likely still on the market after you rent it out.
3. The only ways that one could reduce the supply of homes for sale would be to: 1) Stop building new homes and listing them for sale. 2) Stop kicking people out of the ones they own.  3) Tear down the houses listed for sale. 4) Start promising doctors, lawyers, or other high income or net worth individuals that are citizens of foreign countries that if they move here, we’ll give them a new car and send their kids to Harvard for free.  5) Start giving away homes on game shows.
4. And there are no anti-renting statutes in this country that I could find.  In fact, in this country it’s really already very easy to rent something to someone assuming there’s someone who wants to and can rent it.  Maybe someone should introduce the Fed to Craig’s list.

More importantly, are we experiencing a shortage of homes that are available for rent?  I looked online for rentals in zip codes all over the country, and there were rental properties available in all of them.  I think today there are two reasons that many people don’t have a home of their own in which to live: a shortage of money… or the shortage of jobs that pay good money.

If the Fed is so concerned that a glut of homes for sale will derail any chance we have for recovery in our housing market going forward, which in turn will prevent our broader economic recovery, then why doesn’t the Fed’s list suggest that congress do something to prevent the 10.4 million foreclosures that will occur in the next few years, as forecasted by numerous industry experts whose predictions at this stage are based on hard data and mathematics.

CONCLUSION:

Recognizing that without recovery in our housing market our nation can’t sustain any sort of broader economic recovery, the Fed thinks congress should concentrate on reducing the glut of homes for sale… the glut that technically doesn’t exist yet… by making it easier to rent out repossessed homes?

That’s what we should do instead of doing something to prevent the 10.4 million new foreclosures that are certain to occur in the next few years?  The Federal Reserve wrote a white paper to the United States Congress saying that instead we need to address a glut of homes for sale that isn’t here yet by making it easier to rent out repossessed homes?

Read the two paragraphs under CONCLUSION again… slowly.  Now, would anyone care to explain that whole situation to me, because I find the whole thing terrifying.

2. The Fed thinks that “more should be done to make sure that the lenders, Fannie and Freddie and the federal banking regulators haven’t over-reacted to the crisis and are being too stingy and too picky about lending.”  According to Wessell: “The Fed actually said that if mortgages had been this hard to get over the past few decades, we MIGHT today be a nation of renters.”

• The Fed told congress that if people couldn’t get mortgages over the last few decades we MIGHT today be a nation of renters?  No mortgages available MIGHT have meant more renters?  The Fed is not sure that fewer mortgages being available would lead to more renters??  Okay, but I wonder what else MIGHT have occurred.Then, the Fed is UNSURE about why lending in this country is bordering on non-existent and they want Congress to do more to investigate whether there’s been an over-reaction among “picky and stingy” lenders?  Did I get that right?

  Aren’t the guys at the Federal Reserve supposed to understand the issues surrounding lending?  They are, right?

• The Fed has lowered rates to right around zero percent and pumped TRILLIONS into the financial system through all sorts of vehicles… and it hasn’t had any more sustained impact on lending than had they burned incense while chanting Hopi fertility prayers.
• Is it possible in anyone’s mind that the volume of lending available in this country is related to the degree of over-reaction on some sort of pickiness and stinginess index for bankers?
• Or could it be that a powerful wizard has cast a super glue spell on our nation so that no matter what amount of cash is pumped into our lenders, it sticks to the walls of their vaults and therefore can’t be lent out no matter what.

Isn’t it clear by now that the problem with lending in this country is NOT a LIQUIDITY problem and therefore it cannot be addressed through the use of MONETARY POLICY, of which the Fed is in charge?

You don’t need to be an “industry expert” to know what I’m saying here is true.  If it were a liquidity problem, then lowering the rates and pumping cash into the system would have worked and increased lending.  It didn’t, so, it’s not… get it?

One more time…

In this country, ever since the third or fourth quarter of 2007, the securitization market, credit markets, and secondary mortgage markets collapsed and froze solid when investors stopped trusting the credit ratings on mortgage-backed securities and CDOs.  Since then, lending in this country had to be effectively NATIONALIZED.

I say that lending has been NATIONALIZED because over the last three or four years, something north of 95% of the loans related to residential real estate were either Fannie, Freddie, FHA, Ginny, and… well, no that’s it, actually.

Remember when the Fed bought $1.5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities a few years back?   Do you understand WHY the Fed bought those mortgage-backed securities?  Because NO PRIVATE INVESTORS WOULD BUY THEM.  And why might that have been?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Come on now class… let’s not always see the same hands.

They don’t TRUST the securities anymore, very good class.  Why doesn’t the Fed remember any of this?  Or for that matter, the Economics Editor from the Wall Street Journal… to say nothing of the folks at NPR?

3.    According to Wessell, the Fed “is looking for alternatives to foreclosure, that if someone is not going to be able to pay their loan, and a lender is going to have to take it over, they’d like to find a way to speed the process up so it’s not so cumbersome.”

Okay, so the Fed is “looking for alternatives to foreclosure,” but what the Fed means by that is that they want the foreclosure process to be less “cumbersome?”  Less cumbersome than it is now?  Seriously?  What would that process look like, I’m curious to know?

I mean, now… in order to foreclose as a servicer, you don’t need much more than the relatively unsubstantiated claim that the borrower is not making their mortgage payments.  You don’t need to prove you’re the representative of the actual investor(s).  You don’t need to prove that the trust actually holds the note or that it was properly negotiated into the trust.   You can use a MERS assignment, even though it’s been established that the MERS database is often wrong.  You don’t need to show an unbroken chain of title.

In the non-judicial foreclosure states, you need even less, but my point is that you need so little to foreclose in either type of state that servicers have in numerous instances foreclosed on the wrong homes… yes, even with judicial oversight, the wrong home was foreclosed upon more than once or twice.

And, by the way, should you need any sort of paperwork to effectuate the foreclosure, is absolutely SOP to simply manufacture the documents and forge a signature or two… or three… a few hundred thousand times is fine.  Robo-signing is the norm, and I hear the forgeries are getting better, meaning they’re harder to detect.

Oh sure, Nevada has a new tougher law about these things, and other states are sniffing around the need to change things as well, but the Fed wants a “less cumbersome” foreclosure process?

So, what might such a process look like? 

Maybe the whole thing could be handled by phone or online?  That would probably cut down on the need for forged documents.  You could just call everything in.  The screen would just ask the foreclosing party a series of questions, like do you have the right to foreclose?  Yes.  Is this borrower in default?  Yes.  After one or two more questions, the servicer could just email the borrower the eviction notice.

That would be “less cumbersome.”

Look, 85% of homeowners go through the foreclosure process unrepresented by council… they just give up and leave.  Borrowers are not slowing the foreclosure process down or making it too burdensome.  Servicers are, in the vast majority of cases, and by vast I do mean almost all, able to mow down delinquent homeowners at will.

Last fall, I believe Treasury officials admitted that they thought HAMP a success because it slowed down the foreclosure process at a time when the banks couldn’t afford to take back that many homes.  That sentence speaks to accounting policy, and it’s why the banks haven’t taken more homes back to-date.  It’s not that the process is too cumbersome.

And I absolutely promise you… the Fed knows this intimately.

WRAP-UP…

After those stunningly brilliant and thought-leading insights, the host asked Wessell what the reaction from congress has been… and Wessell replied first by exclaiming what a good question that was.  I sounded like Wessell might have given Green a cookie, if he’d had one in his pocket.

Wessell then said the reaction has been “mixed,” and that Sen. Orin Hatch of Utah, a member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, “sent a blistering letter to Bernanke saying that the Fed is treading on the turf of congress and the regulators and ought to back off and that he’s sure that the Fed wouldn’t appreciate a white paper from congress outlining how the Fed should be thinking about monetary policy.”

Ohhh, snap!

Wessell went on to explain…

“… some people think that this is putting pressure on the regulator of Fannie and Freddie… the FHFA… to do something more to help the housing market during an election season… the Fed says that’s not so.

 

Others say that maybe what the Fed is doing is giving the regulator some cover here by saying that the Fed thinks this is a good idea, it’s in the long-term interests of the taxpayer so we ought to do something here.”

 

Now, Wessell is talking about Ed DeMarco, the guy in charge of the FHFA, which is the conservator for the bankrupt Fannie and Freddie.  We’ve been over this with DeMarco in the past and he’s been very clear that his job is to protect Fannie and Freddie in the short run… period.

I want to be blunt here… whoever Wessell got either of those “insights” from… whichever nameless source… they’re both meaningless.

In fact, the whole podcast is meaningless, and that’s at some of its most useful moments.  What the heck is going on here?

How does the Fed write a white paper and present it to the United State Congress that is packed with proof positive of an entirely inadequate level of knowledge, understanding… education, even?  Am I going to find out that next week, the Fed sends congress a while paper about some issue from 4-5 years ago, and NPR treats it like it’s hot-off-the-press news again.

Is this evidence of a time warp of some design?  Am I on the Truman Show and none of this is real?  Are the politicians in D.C. that amateurish and obtuse?  Do our politicians simply not care, because so few of us pay any attention?  And what in the world happened to NPR?  Was that podcast produced for young children with Down Syndrome or some other physically or mentally impaired group?

I’m serious about this… I want to know how this podcast exists. It’s not 2008… are the people involved just that shallow as far as to their knowledge of the subject?  If you’re not with me here, I’d suggest you go back and read what was said slowly.  Or, better yet, go up to the third paragraph from the top and you can hear moron one and moron two do idiocy in harmony.

That was David Green on Morning Edition on National Public Radio with David Wessell, Economic Editor from the Wall Street Journal, who joins us regularly to talk about the economy…

Mandelman out.

Racial segregation. The idea sickens me. I try to imagine growing up under the horrors of segregation. I try to imagine how it must feel to not be allowed to go where others go, eat where others eat, drink from the same drinking fountains others drink from, use the bathroom that others use. I try to imagine how it could not hurt badly… how it could not scar deeply.

I close my eyes and see the face of a young boy, my age in 1968, but with skin of darker brown. I look deep into his eyes. I see him pressing his face up against the glass, looking longingly at what others have, that he does not. What he may never be allowed to have. I see him questioning… why? And I want to weep. I want to stop him from hurting. Save him from that pain.  I want to scream louder than any scream that has ever been heard… Nooooooooooo! I am ashamed of my country for its policy of racial segregation. And I am seven years old.

I didn’t see racial segregation with my own eyes. If I had, I’m quite sure that it would have burned an impression into my soul that could never have been removed. I don’t know how you grow up and make it through something like that. Do you always feel uncomfortable… always… forever? Do you look at everyone and wonder what they’re thinking about you? Will you always be angry, no matter what? Do you wake up every morning and wonder how it could be that such injustice is allowed to happen?

Today is Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

As a young boy I learned of Dr. King from my parents at home, and from teachers in school. He was fighting racial segregation… fighting for civil rights.  He was strong. Immeasurably strong. Strong like Superman was strong. He had a dream. He was right. He was a hero to so many. He was a hero to me.

Martin King would not back down from what must have seemed like insurmountable odds. Nor would he allow himself to express the rage he must have felt as much as any. He was the youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to fight discrimination and racial segregation through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. He was the greatest kind of American. Because of what he did, what he stood for, what he accomplished… because of him we are the country we are today. Without him we are nothing.

Martin King was a man of faith. Faith in the United States of America. Faith in its people. Faith in all of us. Faith in me. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be that strong… some day.

Then he was assassinated. Shot. Killed. It was April 4th, 1968. My mother cried. My father did not want to talk about it. I could not understand how… why… I wanted to shoot the person who had shot him. I learned about death from Martin King. I learned about peace from Martin King. I learned about hope from Martin King. I learned about struggle from Martin King. I learned about my country from Martin King. I learned to love and I learned to hate hate because of Dr. King.

Yes, today is his day and he deserves this day as much if not more than any other for whom a day is named… he earned this day… gave his life for this day. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill that made today Dr. King’s day. He didn’t want to though, but he had no choice. Many others fought against this day. I’m sure now they wish they hadn’t.

I was eight years old one month after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. left this world forever. They sang happy birthday to me, and I was called Marty for the very last time. Because from that day forward… for the rest of my life… I told everyone…

My name is MARTIN.

I was born and raised in the Northeast… born in Manhattan… father’s family from Boston with too many Harvard grads to count… and I grew up in Pittsburgh.  As a result… well, it’d be more than safe to say that I’ve never been at risk of being confused with a Southerner.  To my knowledge, after meeting me, nary a soul has later posited: “I forgot to ask, is Martin originally from Alabama or Mississippi?”

Truth be told, people from the Northeast are not bothered in the least by the fact that they’re never mistaken for Southerners.  Truth be told, as soon as many Northeasterners hear an opinion uttered in a Southern accent, we get tempted to respond by saying things like, “Thanks Ebb.  Now go on… don’t you have a lunch counter to segregate, or something like that?”

All right, calm down… it’s a joke… sort of… but my point here is that I’m familiar with the pompous air of intellectual superiority invariably inbred in the stereotypical cartoon Northeasterner, but let’s face it… you held onto the whole segregation thing far too long, and whenever there’s controversy over whether evolution should be taught alongside “creation science,” in public schools, it’s never coming out of Philadelphia.

Alright, I’ll stop fooling around… you know what I’m saying, and besides my point is that while I perhaps used to be capable of leaning that way when it came to southern accents, once I turned 18 years of age, enlisted in the United States Air Force, and found myself sans hair wearing fatigues and combat boots and saluting second lieutenants like they were four-star generals, all that Northeastern intellectual superiority crap flew straight out the window… of the pick-up truck for which I was now inexplicably longing.

You meet and come to respect all kind of folk when you serve in the U.S. military, and before you know it you’re craving SOS on toast, and saying, “Thank you, Ma’am,” with Gomer Pyle-like enthusiasm for the extra scoop of sausage gravy ladled onto your plate.

The fact is, joining the service, as we used to call it, does wonders to wipe any sort of superior smirk of your face, no matter how it got there in the first place.  You act like an idiot at the NCO Club bar, as I did once just after my 21^st birthday, and a Master Sargent cured me of that little behavioral shortcoming with just one punch to my not-so-superior nose.  Say what you will about his methods, but that man knew how to get a point across.

So, why was I telling you about all this?  Heck if I know.… no, wait… I remember… it’s because although I grew up in the Northeast, over the years I’ve learned to love the English language as spoken by those that hail from our nation’s southernmost states.  It’s not that I still didn’t cringe just a little every time Jesse Helms stepped to the podium, but I sure do love the way Southerners communicate with each other.

I remember sitting at the counter of a Waffle House in the Florida panhandle one time, watching these two women waitresses interact as they went about their work serving us all breakfast one morning.  One woman was clearly the more experienced of the two, and you could tell that she was in charge, even though they were both taking orders and refilling coffee cups as they communicated back and forth with each other as needed.

The less experienced waitress was having a problem with the coffee maker and figured she’d solicit help from her more experienced co-worker by calling out to explain the specific nature of the problem she had brewing.  Without missing a single beat in the tempo of the dialog, her more experienced co-worker replied in a tone and cadence straight off of the Steel Magnolia’s set: “Why Sugaah, I’m sure I don’t caahar.”

And that was that… the problem got solved and I can’t remember how… it didn’t matter… and I returned to my biscuits and gravy.

See, the New York City version of that same sentiment would have been something like, “Hey, what do I look like, Mrs. Coffee over here?  Figure it out yourself, bafangool.”  And then, silently… the patrons would have immediately divided into two camps, with half agreeing that the less experienced waitress was in fact, bafangool… and the other half thinking the more experienced waitress was a jerk… picking back up a dollar or two that they were about to leave her as a tip before she had revealed her true self through her chosen reply.

“Why Sugaah, I’m sure I don’t caahar,” was a much better way of saying things.  It was Southern speak for… “F#@k you,” but in a way that didn’t make anyone feel like taking sides.

So, why am I going the long way around the barn telling you this story?  Well, because of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, silly.  Aren’t you following me yet?  Okay, let me spell it out for you.

Yesterday, the Federal Open Market Committee or FOMC, which is a group of Federal Reserve Bank presidents and members of the Fed’s Board of Governors, that since being established by the Banking Act of 1933, meets eight times a year to set “monetary policy” by establishing the Fed’s short-term “open market operations,” which is what they call it when the Fed buys and sells U.S. Treasury securities.

The FOMC sets the target for the “federal funds rate,” the interest rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans, and that target rate impacts the interest rates charged on various loans to both businesses and consumers, which in turn impacts the U.S. money supply.

(If that’s all Geek to you and you’re interested in learning more about how it all works, here’s a link to a Wikipedia page about the FOMC, or send me an email and I’ll be happy to help you translate it from finance geek to regular English.)

Anyway, the FOMC releases transcripts of it’s meeting minutes and slide presentations five years after they’ve taken place, and yesterday the 2006 meeting transcripts were made public.  (You can find the entire year of 2006 FOMC transcripts, etc. HERE.  However, please consult your physician before reading too much of them, as certain combinations of medications and FOMC transcripts can lead to depression and suicidal thoughts… I’m pretty sure.)

That’s why you’ve seen a flurry of articles over the last 48 hours talking about how Bernanke, who assumed the throne in 2006, following the Reign of Greenspan that had lasted as long as anyone could remember, had totally blown it as far as seeing what the housing bust would bring.

Now, first let me just point out that none of this should be considered “news,” unless of course you’ve been incarcerated in Kazakhstan until quite recently, and even then, I have it on good authority that many Eastern Block prison guards were involved in flipping condos in Tampa, so you should have even been able to keep up with U.S housing market news from there.

That Bernanke blew it as related to the housing bust is legendary, although at this point, he’s blown it on so many other pivotal events that criticizing him for this is about like going after Joseph Stalin for overlooking the idea of a Bolshevik dental plan for Siberia’s Gulag-imprisoned dissidents.

Quite a few of my readers obviously felt as if this newly released evidence that Bernanke had in fact blown it would exert a vindicating influence on my psyche, as I’ve been known to rail on about how Bernanke couldn’t keep a hot dog stand on Atlantic City’s boardwalk open for the summer, let alone handle the responsibilities of guiding our country through what will someday be understood to have been, the Great Depression Part Deux… so, many sent me links to the plethora of “Ben blew it” type stories.

I, however, had already visited my personal physician and had him write me a note excusing me from having to expose myself to the 2006 FOMC transcripts… hey, I turned 50 this year and you just have to start limiting the risks you take at a certain point.  I mean, no one lives forever, and although I once went out on Lake Erie in a metal canoe during a lightning storm after drinking, as I recall, about half a gallon of Thunderbird wine, I was like 18 at the time and thus invincible.

Today if I tried something like that, I’d need to stop for Dramamine and TUMS at the very least, and then I’d realize that I didn’t really have the right shoes on, talking myself out of the whole thing and ending up back at the room in time for “The Daily Show,” with Jon Stewart, and perhaps some skim milk and Nilla Wafers if I felt like I needed a treat.

After maybe a dozen calls alerting me to the FOMC’s release of 2006 meeting transcripts, and another 25 people sending me links to this new evidence of Bernanke’s boobery, I somehow weakened and clicked on one that took me to AP ‘s coverage of the apparently earth shattering news.

Here’s how the story began…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ben Bernanke presided over his first meeting as Federal Reserve chairman in March 2006 believing the nation’s economy could pull off a “soft landing” from falling home prices. Three months later, Bernanke had begun to grasp that he and others had underestimated the risk housing posed to the economy.

Okay, so… no.  That’s not even true.  Three months later than March of 2006 Bernanke realized he had underestimated something related to risk to the U.S. economy?  No, sir… not a chance in the world that’s even close to correct.  In fact, there’s so much wrong with that sentence, that I don’t even know where to begin, so all I’m going to say is…

“Why Sugaah, I’m sure I don’t caahar.”  And let’s move further into AP’s article…

Newly released transcripts of Fed meetings during Bernanke’s first year as chairman show that, among Fed officials, he often expressed the most concern about housing. But no official, according to the transcripts, recognized the extent of the damage a housing bubble would cause. A year later, the housing market’s collapse helped send the nation into its worst recession since the Great Depression.

Nope… again that is not a correct statement.  Do you see the inconsistencies here?  A minute ago the article said that Bernanke had realized something three months after March of ’06, which would have been June of ’06.  Now the article is saying that it was a year later that the housing market collapsed, sending us hurdling towards rampant overuse of Depression era metaphors.

Let’s keep going…

In fact, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then a Fed official, expressed confidence in September 2006 that “collateral damage” from housing could be avoided.

Well, big beans for Timmy.  In September of 2006, the housing bubble had barely even started to deflate… credit was still flowing like boxed wine at a Sunday afternoon Open House in Phoenix.  Heck, Bear Stearns wasn’t even institutionally lying to clients yet, and someone was able to convince BofA CEO Kenny Lewis that Countrywide was worth $4 billion.

(Besides, when Tim said that he thought we could avoid “collateral damage,” he was probably referring to FDIC Chair Sheila Bair.  I’m told that was his pet name fore Sheila… “Collateral Damage.”  Don’t look at me like that, that’s what I was told… prove I wasn’t.)

Back to the AP article…

… Geithner, who was then president of the Fed’s New York regional bank, expressed more confidence that the economy could weather the troubles in housing, saying the issue would be the impact on consumer and business spending.

 

The discussion by the members of the FOMC, the Fed board members in Washington and 12 regional bank presidents, gave no indication that any of them foresaw the devastating impact that the collapse of the housing bubble would have. The country fell into a deep recession and severe financial crisis that led to the loss of more than 8 million jobs.

Stay with me here… are you starting to see where this is going?

So, first of all we see that Tim Geithner is a babbling brook.  He’s talking about the economy “weathering” a cooling off of the housing market and how the issue would be some resulting impact on “consumer and business spending.”  Why is he saying that?

“Why Sugaah, I’m sure I don’t caahar.”  Let’s keep going…

Bernanke and other Fed officials have said that they failed to see the severity of the shock waves from the housing bust. But the transcripts of their closed-door discussions in 2006 provide new details about how the central bank was responding to the unfolding crisis.

No they don’t.  The transcripts don’t provide any “new details about how the central bank was responding to the unfolding crisis,” unless maybe this reporter is 11 years old and everything he reads is to him, a “new detail.”  The transcripts could provide any such new detail, because the crisis hadn’t happened yet.

The “crisis,” we’re all referring to today didn’t begin until August of 2007.  The official “recession,” didn’t officially begin until December of 2007, and it wasn’t announced as having begun in December of 2007… UNTIL NOVEMBER of 2008.

And the article wraps up with…

The transcripts of the final meeting of the year, in December, showed that Bernanke was still expecting that the economy would experience a “soft landing” in which growth would slow enough to cool inflation but not drop into a recession.

You see, as I’ve written many times in the past, our “CRISIS” has never been the deflating of a housing bubble.  It would have been… but it wasn’t.  It would have been… but in July of 2007… a year after the housing bubble started deflating in earnest, the sudden downgrading of debt securities tied to mortgages caused investors to turn cold essentially overnight, the credit markets froze solid making loans far less available overnight… and soon very near entirely unavailable.

Home prices went into a free fall, and various fleeting stimulus programs and tax incentives notwithstanding, they continue in that free fall today.

As more and more homeowners found themselves underwater, owing more than their home’s value… life events such as job loss, divorce and illness/injury started fueling foreclosures, which added to the other forces that were also creating record numbers of foreclosures… and the deflationary spiral slowly but steadily gained speed incinerating to-date more than $10 trillion in consumer wealth and eroding state revenues at an increasingly alarming pace.

The reporter who wrote the story for AP News referenced above, simply lacked the knowledge base to interpret the FOMC meeting transcripts.

The transcripts, in a way, do show that Bernanke and the Fed missed the housing bust, but only because the housing bust was entirely eclipsed by the global credit crisis, and that’s what we’ve been dealing with ever since the summer of 2007.

Want to have some fun?  Come with me… follow the bouncing boobs, Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson… and don’t forget to watch the dates… with compiled quotes courtesy of austrianfilter.blogspot.com.

March 28th, 2007 – Ben Bernanke: “At this juncture . . . the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained.”

 

April 20th, 2007 – Paulson: “I don’t see subprime mortgage market troubles imposing a serious problem. I think it’s going to be largely contained.  All the signs I look at show the housing market is at or near the bottom.”

 

June 20th, 2007 – Bernanke: (the subprime fallout) “will not affect the economy overall.”

 

July 12th, 2007 – Paulson: “This is far and away the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business lifetime.”

 

October 15th, 2007 – Bernanke: “It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve – nor would it be appropriate – to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.”  (That was the last time we heard from Bernanke on this subject until February of 2008.)

 

February 29th, 2008 – Bernanke: “I expect there will be some failures. I don’t anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system.”

 

February 28th, 2008 – Paulson: “I’m seeing a series of ideas suggested involving major government intervention in the housing market, and these things are usually presented or sold as a way of helping homeowners stay in their homes. Then when you look at them more carefully what they really amount to is a bailout for financial institutions or Wall Street.”

 

March 16th, 2008 – Paulson: “We’ve got strong financial institutions . . . Our markets are the envy of the world. They’re resilient, they’re…innovative, they’re flexible. I think we move very quickly to address situations in this country, and, as I said, our financial institutions are strong.”

 

March 18th, 2008 – Bear Stearns Bailout Announced

 

May 7, 2008 – Paulson: ‘The worst is likely to be behind us,”

 

May 16th, 2008 – Paulson: “In my judgment, we are closer to the end of the market turmoil than the beginning.”

 

June 9th, 2008 – Bernanke: Despite a recent spike in the nation’s unemployment rate, the danger that the economy has fallen into a “substantial downturn” appears to have waned,

 

July 16th, 2008 – Bernanke: (Freddie and Fannie) “…will make it through the storm,” “… in no danger of failing.  … they are adequately capitalized.”

 

July 20th, 2008 – Paulson: “It’s a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation.”

 

August 10th, 2008 – Paulson: “We have no plans to insert money into either of those two institutions.” (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)

 

September 8th, 2008 – Fannie and Freddie nationalized. The taxpayer is on the hook for an estimated $1-1.5 trillion dollars. Over $5 trillion is added to the nation’s balance sheet.

 

September 19th, 2008 – Bernanke: “… most severe financial crisis” in the post-World War II era. Investment banks are seeing “tremendous runs on their cash. Without action, they will fail soon.”

 

September 21st, 2008 – Paulson: “The credit markets are still very fragile right now and frozen. We need to deal with this and deal with it quickly.  The financial security of all Americans … depends on our ability to restore our financial institutions to a sound footing.”

 

September 23rd, 2008 – Paulson: “We must [enact a program quickly] in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets that threaten American families’ financial well-being, the viability of businesses, both small and large, and the very health of our economy.”

Look… are you feeling me here?  Do you see what I’m saying?  What’s the deal?  Are they lying or are they stupid, because there’s no way in the world we should be talking about whether the FOMC meeting transcripts show Bennie and the Feds missed the housing bust.

So, to everyone who sent me the news of the FOMC’s transcripts being released… thank you.  I always appreciate it when my readers send me links to news events they think I should know of, so don’t let my sarcasm about the whole thing prevent that from happening in the future.  But on this subject, I don’t need to be vindicated… what I need is for people to realize how distorted the coverage of the subject has been from the beginning.

Think about it… the banks and the mainstream media have us looking for love in all the wrong places.  We’ve been told to blame borrowers, brokers, servicers… everyone but the bankers who caused the global credit crisis and have continued to defraud… well, everyone involved as they’ve driven our nation’s economy to new lows.

And in the event that you’ve read all of this and still don’t agree, then at this point all I can think of to say to you is…

“Why Sugaah, I’m sure I don’t caahar.”

Mandelman out.

Utah Attorney Walter Keane is the lawyer that filed four quiet title claims last year, which means he was seeking to obtain a court order granting clear title to the properties in question.  And all four were granted by the Utah courts… four quieted titles to the four homes.  And at least one of the homeowners subsequently sold his home and went on his very merry way.  This month’s in Harper’s magazine, Christopher Ketcham wrote a feature story about Walter, among other things, titled: “STOP PAYMENT! A homeowners’ revolt against the banks.” 

I got to know Chris Ketcham as he was writing the story for Harpers, and yes I was a bit concerned that Walter’s experience obtaining quiet title would be met with… well, I don’t know… problems of one sort or another… and sure enough the state appeals court ended up saying no way.  Free houses are just few and far between, so what’s new?  Maybe if Walter Keane was your average foreclosure defense attorney, the story would have ended there, but Walter is anything but average… in fact, he’s nothing if not interesting… fascinating even.  So, the story is not over, far from it. In fact, he’s more fired up than ever to help homeowners battle the banks.

Walter Keane is a very knowledgable and experienced lawyer who is also an out-of-the-box thinker.  I really enjoyed interviewing him on this podcast, and whether you’re a homeowner or foreclosure defense attorney, I think you’ll find him sincere, interesting, smart… and very entertaining. You can find out more about him at his firm’s Website: www.waltertkeane.com.

This podcast is divided into Part One and Part Two.  Part One is all about the quiet title experience, but in Part Two the real fun begins.  Click PLAY below for Part One… and then come back for Part Two when you’re ready.

He’s The Quiet Man… Utah Attorney Walter Keane…

a Mandelman Matters Podcast

PART 1:

###

PART 2:

Mandelman out.

Oh, I know… it’s such a complex problem we’re having lately.  Clearly, it’s far too complicated a problem for any normal mortal brain to grasp…. there seems no hope that we shall ever be able to come to terms with what’s transpired.

Fine.  Absolutely ridiculous… but fine, I guess.  It’s rocket surgery… so be it.

It’s no wonder that we’re struggling to understand things, because according to some, the contributing factors to today’s too-complicated-to-understand crisis go all the way back to 1979.  I’m frankly surprised no one has tracked its roots back to the 1930s… although as I say that, I’m sure some have done just that.  Some are even blaming excessive regulation, a claim so entirely preposterous that it defies imagination.  To blame our global economic meltdown on excessive regulation, is like blaming 9-11 on excessive airport security.

The Attorneys General in Nevada, Massachusetts, Maryland, Arizona, and it is all but certain that there will be others to be named later, have all filed foreclosure process related lawsuits that read like John Grisham novels and in a few cases have even brought criminal charges having to do with what is clearly rampant forgery and fraud in the foreclosure process.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) concluded their investigations in April of 2011, issuing “consent orders,” which basically said that the bankers were guilty of unsafe and unsound practices related to foreclosures, also specified a laundry list of felonious acts and nefarious behaviors.

And, although many are complaining… and perhaps justifiably so… about the absence of criminal prosecutions related to the bankrupting of our financial institutions, we have seen some record-setting settlements to civil lawsuits brought by the SEC… the agency’s settling with Goldman Sachs for $550 million related to the bank’s lack of disclosure in the Abacus 2007-AC1 CDO comes immediately to mind.  Oh, I know… GS admitted no wrongdoing, but that’s the sort of statement issued to placate lawyers and young children.  No one agrees to pay half a billion dollars for doing nothing wrong.

The proposed $285 million mortgage securities fraud settlement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission was more of the same non-admission nor denial of guilt silliness, but at least it was rejected by Judge Jed Rakoff who described the deal as being “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest,” and further that it deprived the public “of ever knowing the truth in a matter of obvious public importance.”

Citi is to face trial over the allegations in July 2012, but grown-ups should all know the score here… these banks were dirty in their dealings and they are guilty as all get out.  If that weren’t true, they would not be readily offering to settle for three hundred million dollars, and saying that the settlement does not include an admission of guilt is laughable.

There’s also a cadre of class action lawsuits against banks and mortgage servicers whose complaints filed with the courts make damn clear that laws have been broken with reckless abandon, regardless of the settlements-to-come, which I’m sure will also be delivered in no admission of guilt wrapping paper.

Okay, but for the moment anyway… I’m going to say something that will no doubt bother many engaged in the battle for truth, justice and the American way: So what and who cares?

I don’t want to debate with anyone whether they think the problem is bigger than I’ve made it out to be… or smaller.  That’s right… I don’t care which side of this fight you’re on.  For the purposes of this article, you can be a foreclosure defense fanatic who believes that our democracy, the rule of law, and entire free world’s fiscal future hangs in the balance, or you can be a banking industry apologist still claiming a victory in the Ibanez decision and describing robo-signing as merely dotting t’s and crossing i’s… and I don’t care which.

In simpler terms, maybe you think the situation related to foreclosures in this country is a floor wax… or maybe you see it as being a desert topping… my point here applies equally across the board regardless of your view.

However the debate is ultimately resolved, whether foreclosures are ultimately judged floor wax or desert topping… can we all agree on one thing?

The ANSWER to the problems we’re debating related to foreclosures CANNOT and WILL NOT be allowed to be forging signatures on fraudulent documents presented in courts and recorded in our public records.  Can we all please agree that there is NO CHANCE THOSE ARE THE ANSWERS… and I don’t give a rat’s petute how you want to frame the questions… the solution cannot be forgery and fraud, right?

It’s become abundantly clear that Wall Street’s investment bankers, in their bubble-inspired rush to securitize anything with the potential to generate a payment stream, and then rip someone’s face off, derivatively speaking… they screwed up everything but their bonus calculations.  (That documentation they unwaveringly get right, don’t you know.)

Who owns your loan?  I don’t know… and for the moment, I don’t care.  Is the MERS business model salubrious and copacetic, or has it undermined and permanently destroyed property rights in this country?  Not sure, and for the moment not interested.

Did investors invest in “Mortgage-backed Securities?”  Or, does the acronym MBS more appropriately stand for, “Mouthy-backed Sacrilege,” or perhaps, “Monetary-babbled Sacrifices?”  For the purposes of today’s discussion… just give it a rest.

For the moment, I don’t care about Pooling and Servicing Agreements unless they are in place to make sure a pool stays both clean and heated through the winter months.  And if the word “tranches” is really French for “slices,” then I’ll take a couple of tranches of the French Toast, three tranches of bacon, not too crispy, and your finest maple syrup, Garçon.

And I recognize that there is a veritable cluster of you still insistent that the irresponsible acts of Stockton, California’s homeowners effectively eviscerated all of Wall Street’s investment banking powerhouses along with most of the Sovereign Wealth Funds on the planet… and for today… why not… have at it.  For today, I’m even willing to endure your distinctive brand of faith-based foolishness.

But… regardless of how the questions associated with the foreclosure crisis continue to be answered, whether in the courts or state legislatures, we should be able to agree that whatever the questions are… the answer isn’t to allow forgeries of signatures on a fraudulent documents in order to evict someone from a home that can’t be sold for years anyway.  Fraud and forgery are never the answer to anything in a society governed by the rule of law.

If that is going to be allowed to happen, we… and I mean WE, as in ALL OF US… should demand that we stop signing such things altogether.  If a Linda Green look-a-like is going to sign a fraudulent affidavit so that it can be illegally notarized… just don’t sign it or notarize it. 

We don’t need to sign and notarize things if we are committing fraud and forgery every time we do so.  And we very clearly are… it is NOT, as the banks have told us in the past… any sort of isolated incident.

How do we know that?  It’s simple.  Nevada gave us the proof when it passed Assembly Bill 284, which took effect in October 2011. 

The new state law requires those foreclosing on a home to file an affidavit proving they have the right to bring the action — and it increases civil and criminal penalties for using fraudulent documents in a foreclosure.  That same month, foreclosures in Nevada declined by 75 percent.

History cannot be permitted to look back on this crisis and say… well, we fixed it looking the other way on issues that are quite literally forgery and fraud.  It’s as simple as that.  I don’t care who is or isn’t making their mortgage payment… that’s irrelevant.  I don’t care if it’s inconvenient for the banks to do something else.  But we cannot continue to allow our nation’s financial institutions to lie about the nature of the problem and then continue to attempt to solve whatever it is through rampant forgery and fraud.

It has to stop and I do mean NOW.  If you are reading this and you don’t see it the same way, you either lack the capacity for rational thought… or you are just an ass who would be well-served to avoid debating me in public, I assure you.

Euphemistically, they’re called austerity measures.  They hurt the oldest, youngest and poorest in a society.  And although you may not feel their sharp edge quite yet, such programs are very much upon us.

Those who know me know my views about foreclosures today.  In my view, it’s an economic crisis of endemic proportion that is needlessly incinerating the accumulated wealth of our country’s middle class to such a degree that at 50 years old, the idea of recovery in my lifetime is already laughable.  I see the foreclosure crisis as nothing more than a lose-lose scenario… a pointless race to a cancerous bottom with no prospects for winners to be present at its finish line.

I also see the foreclosure crisis through its numerical realities that will soon leave us with no choices… no options… like flotsam and jetsam, a society entirely lost, doomed to invariably and inadequately react, but with no hope of meaningful improvement.  I see the iceberg dead ahead, as the band plays on.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, states are facing record shortfalls in fiscal year 2012 because state tax collections remain low, the cost of providing services is rising, and emergency federal aid has largely been depleted.  In 2012, state budget shortfalls started at $103 billion, but some percentage of that amount has already been closed by spending cuts as shown below.  However, 24 states have already projected shortfalls totaling $46 billion for FY2013.  As more states prepare estimates, this total is likely to grow.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports declines in state tax collections during this economic slowdown are the worst ever.  Sales taxes provide the largest source of state tax revenue, and they are steadily declining due to reductions in personal consumption and business purchases. Income taxes and other taxes are also falling as wages and investment income decline.

Of course, spending cuts also reduce economic growth even further.  With the federal aid for states now essentially over, taxes have to be increased and at least 30 states already have enacted tax increases, closed loopholes, restricted tax credits, increased tobacco taxes, raised tuitions, or implemented other revenue-raising measures.

And for those who think they are somehow going to remain above it all… the plain fact is, tax increases on higher-income families are understood to be the least damaging mechanism for addressing state fiscal deficits in the short run. Cutting government spending, or reductions in transfer payments to lower-income families have been proven to be more damaging to a state’s economy than tax increases focused on higher-income families.

When this has happened in Europe, we call them “austerity programs,” and they negatively and significantly impact everyone.  As I’ve assured my readers on countless occasions, no one is getting out of this unscathed.

In California and Massachusetts, recent studies have been conducted to quantify the monetary costs directly attributed to the foreclosure crisis.  Massachusetts found the grand total to be $4 billion a month, including lost equity, a number especially striking because it’s twice the amount forecasted by the CBO in 2007-08.

California’s study, conducted by the California Reinvestment Coalition in conjunction with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, broke down the costs of the crisis by county.  The following represents the costs of foreclosures for Los Angeles County alone, realized to-date:

• Costs to local governments – $19,229 PER FORECLOSURE for increased costs of safety inspections, police and fire calls, trash removal, and maintenance.  Total costs to LA County to-date… $1.2 billion.

• Property tax revenue losses of $481 million.

• Homeowner equity lost to-date – $78.8 billion.

• Between 2008 – 2012 Californians will have lost 2 million homes to foreclosure.  The costs to the state’s homeowners, local governments and property taxes are estimated to be $650 BILLION statewide.

For fiscal year 2012, California faces a $9.6 billion budget shortfall.  The state has already cut nearly all funding for services supporting HIV/AIDS patients, and it has completely eliminated funding for the state’s domestic violence shelter program and maternal, child, and adolescent health programs.

In addition, California has cut funding for the state’s Healthy Families program, the state’s CHIP program. To make up for the lost funds, the nearly 1 million children in the program will have to pay more for visits to health care providers, and many will have to pay higher premiums as well. These cost increases are certain to cause some percentage of families to drop from the program.

These types of cuts to state spending are only the tip of the iceberg, no pun intended. 

• An estimated 8,200 families in Arizona lost eligibility for temporary cash assistance. The time limit for that assistance was cut to 36 months from 60.
• Alabama has ended homemaker services for approximately 1,100 older adults. These services often allow people to stay in their own homes and avoid nursing home care.
• Colorado cut public school spending by $260 million, nearly a 5 percent decline from fiscal year 2010. The cuts equal more than $400 per student.
• Florida’s 11 public universities raised tuition by 15 percent for the 2010-11 academic year and with a similar increase in 2009-10, means a total two-year increase of 32 percent.
• In Minnesota, as a result of higher education funding cuts, approximately 9,400 students lost their state financial aid grants entirely, and the remaining state financial aid recipients will see their grants cut by 19 percent.
• Virginia’s $700 million in K-12 education cuts for the current biennium include the state’s share of school district operating and capital expenses, and funding for class-size reduction in Kindergarten through third grade.
• Washington reduced assistance for thousands of people physically or mentally incapacitated and unable to work in 2011. For 28,000 adults enrolled in the state’s Disability Lifeline program, the typical monthly benefit has fallen by $81 to $258 from $339.
• Changes in Connecticut’s Medicaid program will result in over 220,000 pregnant women, parents, caretaker relatives and disabled and elderly adults losing coverage for over-the-counter medications and nutritional supplements.
• Massachusetts has cut $2.2 million from HIV/AIDS prevention programs, and cut dental benefits for approximately 700,000 low-income residents. The cuts also ended a health insurance program for low-income legal immigrants.
• Michigan will end a medical coverage program for 950 adults with dependent children unable to afford employer-sponsored health insurance after transitioning from welfare to work and exhausting the 12-month transitional medical assistance available to them.
• New Hampshire’s fiscal year 2011 budget reduced the state hospital’s beds by 15, which will result in 500 fewer patients treated per year.
• New Jersey’s cuts will result in approximately 50,700 low-income adults losing access to health care coverage.
• Washington is increasing premiums by an average of 70 percent for a health plan serving low-income residents.  Premiums for the poorest plan members will double and are expected to cause between 7,000 and 17,000 enrollees with no medical plan coverage.
• Several states, including California, Michigan, Nevada, and Utah, have dropped coverage of dental and/or vision services for adult Medicaid recipients.

And that’s not even close to the whole story on what are a growing number of austerity programs that will s