World Revolution Update

The fraud is about to be finalized

A Huge Housing Bargain -- but Not for You
This column by Roger Arnold originally appeared on RealMoney on Aug. 11

NEW YORK (RealMoney) -- The largest transfer of wealth from the public to private sector is about to begin. The federal government will be bulk-selling the massive portfolio of foreclosed homes now owned by HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to private investors -- vulture funds.
These homes, which are now the property of the U.S. government, the U.S. taxpayer, U.S. citizens collectively, are going to be sold to private investor conglomerates at extraordinarily large discounts to real value.
You and I will not be allowed to participate. These investors will come from the private-equity and hedge-fund community, Goldman Sachs(GS_) and its derivatives, as well as foreign sovereign wealth funds that can bring a billion dollars or more to each transaction.
In the process, these investors will instantaneously become the largest improved real estate owners and landlords in the world. The U.S. taxpayer will get pennies on the dollar for these homes and then be allowed to rent them back at market rates.
On Wednesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Treasury Department issued a Request for Information (RFI) concerning the disposition of the inventory of foreclosed homes owned by the federal government.
An RFI is ostensibly a way for the federal government to get input from the private sector on how to accomplish the goals laid out in the request. But that's really just a facade, as the RFI was structured by the investors to begin with.
In reality, the RFI is a way for the members of Congress to find out if they can get away with bulk-selling these homes to private companies without incurring the wrath of their constituents, taxpayers and former owners of the properties.
Assuming taxpayers don't push back, the next step will be to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP). The RFP will be the bid and plan for these homes by investors.
The way to keep taxpayers from pushing back is to structure the RFI so that the real intention, the bulk sales, is masked by feel-good goals, such as stabilizing neighborhoods and increasing the supply of rental properties.
As intended, the mass media are playing their part in classic style. Every major newspaper in the U.S. has run articles discussing the plan as a rental conversion, allowing readers to assume that Fannie, Freddie and HUD will be renting the properties directly to families who need housing. And although there is an allowance for these kinds of rentals, it is a minor political facade to the obvious true goal of bulk-sale privatization of these homes.
The investors in this program have been waiting for this opportunity since the portfolio of homes owned by HUD began to spike in 2007, when foreclosures surged first in the "Rust Belt," principally Ohio and Michigan.
Since then, of course, the systemic collapse of housing has engulfed all of the major urban coastal regions of the U.S., as well as Phoenix and Las Vegas, and caused the homes owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are now under the direct control of the U.S. Treasury Department, to spike as well.
Even before this crisis occurred, HUD, i.e. the U.S. government, was the largest improved real estate owner in the world, because of its portfolio of foreclosed homes, which is classified as "real estate owned" (REO). The entire massive HUD REO Portfolio is quietly managed by a handful of private firms already, a group listed as Management and Marketing Contractors.
These M&M companies are principally owned by and employ former high-ranking government officials from the various germane agencies -- the Treasury, HUD, FHA and others. And they will provide the necessary access to the current government employees who are tasked with bringing this program to fruition. Once the privatization is complete, those government employees will move from their positions, and many will take up new employment at one of the M&Ms or the new vulture funds.
I am not currently aware of any way for retail investors to participate in this process.
It is probable, however, that once the privatization has occurred and the properties are generating rental income for the investors, the initial investors will cash out by forming real estate investment trusts (REITs), real estate operating companies (REOCs) or limited partnerships (LPs) that will be made available to retail investors.
-The Street

Recycling collapse

The city of Dayton, Ohio is fighting crime and blight by tearing down thousands of vacant homes, and they're creating jobs in the process.
Surrounded by blighted properties where families once lived, some for generations, I'm a huge fan of this program.

Robo-signing fraudclosures

"It was a common practice..."

Robo-signing, which involves people signing foreclosure-related court documents and swearing to personal knowledge of the contents when they in fact don't have ANY, came to national attention in the fall.
In response, officials in Michigan, Massachusetts and North Carolina have started combing through filings looking for known robo-signers (like the now infamous "Linda Green"), documenting irregularities in signatures and forwarding their findings to law enforcement, federal regulators and attorneys general.
Massachusetts Register of Deeds John O’Brien has now gone so far as to reject foreclosure documents signed by known robo-signers.

O’Brien is one of a handful of officials nationwide who began pulling court documents following a 60 Minutes story on foreclosure fraud that featured a Palm Beach County homeowner.

On Tuesday, Obrien said he rejected two robo-signed documents submitted to his registry for recording and plans to continue doing so.

“My registry will not be a knowing participant in this fraud against homeowners,” O’Brien said in a statement. “From today forward, lenders be on notice, the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds will not record robo-signed documents.”
-Palm Beach Post

KofC sues BofA

First the Mormons, now the Catholics. The Knights of Columbus are seeking a court order to allow them to look into the fraudclosure practices of Bank of America. Bank of America is not specifially named in the lawsuit, but the Bank of New York is.

Knights of Columbus requested the court order in a lawsuit against Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK) that seeks an accounting of two trusts that hold mortgage loans. Knights of Columbus owns mortgage securities in the two trusts, for which Bank of New York is the trustee, according to the complaint.

The complaint doesn’t assert any claims against Bank of New York or seek damages, Kevin Heine, a spokesman for the bank, said in an e-mailed statement.

An accounting is necessary to learn of losses to investors stemming from failures by Bank of America to promptly pursue valid foreclosures and sell homes it has seized, Knights of Columbus said. The group also said investors have no assurance that fees and costs associated with so-called robo-signing are being borne by Bank of America or being passed on to investors.

Robo-Signing
Robo-signing is the practice by bank representatives of signing foreclosure paperwork without verify the information in the documents. Expenses include attorneys’ fees for fixing paperwork and defending government investigations into mortgage- servicing practices, and any resulting settlements, according to the complaint.
-Bloomberg

Given the sacklessness of Eric Holder's Justice Dept., ultimate accountability may never materialize, but it is good to know that at least some bankstas are scrambling to deal with lawsuits, which aren't exactly revenue-generating endeavors.

Don’t mess with the Mormons

Simply put, things are spinning out of the Fed's control. The Fed has been transferring the wealth of the nation to the banking cartel and the financial Power Elite for three long years, and the fraud at the heart of their claim to be "stimulating" the real economy is now in plain view.
-Charles Hugh Smith

Earlier this month, a law in Utah went into effect that gives homeowners incentives to sue if foreclosures are illegal. Today, news out of the Salt Lake state bode very ominous for the fraudclosure gangstas at Bank of America:

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has sent a letter to Bank of America President Brian Moynihan saying his office intends to enforce a Utah foreclosure law it believes the bank is violating.
The letter is the latest salvo between the Utah Attorney General’s Office and the bank over thousands of home foreclosures being carried out in Utah by ReconTrust, a unit of the Charlotte, N.C.,-based, bank.
Under Utah law, only attorneys who are members of the Utah State Bar or title companies registered to do business in the state can legally carry out foreclosure proceedings.
But California-based ReconTrust has been foreclosing on thousands of Utah homes under its own name.
-Salt Lake Tribune

It is true that BofA is claiming that Federal law allows them to fraudclose on homes in any state, but apparently, Shurtleff ain’t feeling that. In his letter to BofA, he pointed out that federal law can not contravene state or local law. Fortunately, he isn’t alone in that sentiment.

The move to crack down on ReconTrust comes as federal officials and attorneys general in all 50 states are scrutinizing how the largest mortgage servicers, including Bank of America, handle home loans and conduct foreclosures. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating banks’ mortgage securitizations, and California Attorney General Kamala Harris has announced a mortgage fraud task force.
-Bloomberg

So even though Eric Holder and the DoJ are sitting on their hands with regards to corporate crime, at least his counterparts at the state level are up to the task. Even Kamala Harris out here in California has more balls than Holder and the entire Justice Dept.
While it is still true that this might all just be posturing by people with political aspirations, the fact is, fraudclosures are in the news. In a good way.

Things are spinning out of control. Trends are beyond the feeble grasp of central financial authorities. Power is based not just on controlling events in the real world but on the perception of having some control over the real world. Once the central banks' control over large-scale trends and systems is revealed as illusory, then the unraveling of the Status Quo's powers will gain momentum.
-Charles Hugh Smith

1, 2 , 3, 4, FIF!

Attorney General Eric Holder has managed to stay out of the news during his tenure, but given the current landscape, is that a good thing?

In November 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder vowed before television cameras to prosecute those responsible for the market collapse a year earlier, saying the U.S. would be “relentless” in pursuing corporate criminals.
In the 18 months since, no senior Wall Street executive has been criminally charged, and some lawmakers are questioning whether the U.S. Justice Department has been aggressive enough after declining to bring cases against officials at American International Group Inc. (AIG) and Countrywide Financial Corp.
Prosecutions of three categories of crime that could be linked to the causes of the crisis -- corporate, securities and bank fraud -- declined last fiscal year by 39 percent from 2003, the period after the accounting scandals at Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc., Justice Department records show.
-Bloomberg

Some of the biggest Wall Street gangs have benefitted from the crisis quite substantially. Goldman Sachs’ 2009 profits were a record for the firm and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s earnings have been at an all-time high as well. But that isn't stopping the Justice Dept. from acting as a lap dog for these and other corporate crooks.
Back in March, Holder’s DoJ was actually caught conspiring with Bank of America (whom DoJ should have been investigating for fraudulent foreclosure and debt collection practices) to try to silence Wikileaks.
Not only has the DoJ been helping silence whistleblowers, they’ve been trying to divert America’s attention away from the real problems. Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, at a May 3 Congressional hearing, pointed out that Federal prosecutors have been more focused on immigration offenses than the financial crisis.

“The department is spending its resources prosecuting nannies and busboys who are trying to get back to their families,” she said. “And yet we have not brought any prosecutions on the bandits on Wall Street who brought the nation and the world to the brink of financial disaster.”
-Bloomberg

The Justice Dept. claims that they are pursuing corporate fraud, but the reality is, they aren’t pursuing fraudulent corporations.

Using government data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research center, Bloomberg News identified cases coded as corporate fraud by the Justice Department last year. Most involve people accused of stealing from companies, not wrongdoing by firms themselves.
-Bloomberg

Once again, we see that the Justice Dept. is protecting corporate criminals, not prosecuting them.
The FBI claims that after 911, they had to reassign agents away from criminal cases in favor of “national security” cases. Ummm, the FBI doesn’t consider the fleecing of our government to be an issue of “national security?”
Apparently not. And apparently, putting black men in both the White House and the DoJ has done nothing to bring white collar criminals to justice.


I plea Da Fif