Even worse for some people here in The Sunshine State, folks who are simply a bit behind in payments but who are not in foreclosure have been treated to a surprise breaking and entering by representatives of one of those banks that love to advertise how they're on your side. Listen to the 911 call from one frightened woman and put yourself in her position and ask yourself what you would do if the man in black kicked in your door. I certainly know what I would do and what the law allows me to do to a possibly armed unannounced midnight caller. It would involve more than an angry letter to J.P. Morgan.
The hired thugs of our friendly banking industry have done worse than frightening people half to death in a way Pauly Walnuts could only envy. There are stories of home invasions at wrong addresses and one Jason Grodensky from nearby Ft. Lauderdale, Florida with the good fortune to have no mortgage at all had his house foreclosed on by Bank of America. What's in your wallet?
The publicity has been bad enough that major banks are curtailing foreclosure viking raids or freezing foreclosures entirely for the moment. Nancy Pelosi and some 30 Democrats in the house are calling for an investigation in their typically socialist way and Attorney General Eric Holder has announced he will be looking into it. Bloomberg News reports that some 7 states are investigating charges that false documents and signatures have been used to justify hundreds of thousands of possible fraudulent foreclosures and their attendant Viking raids against surprised and terrified homeowners.
So it's all going to be taken care of right? The Democrats are on the side of the people and against those huge, ugly hordes of corporate Visigoths and their paper battering rams, right? They control the Senate and the House and they'd never let the Republicans rubber stamp the right of Corporate Huns to lie, cheat and bypass every code of human decency since the Code of Hammurabi and the Proclamation of Telepinu -- right?
Don't be too sure, because a bill that may do just that now sits on President Obama's desk that somehow oozed through our lefty, anti-business, death-to-Capitalism Congress. Stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Robert Casey used some obscure procedure to take the bill away from the Senate Judiciary committee and the Senate then immediately passed it without debate and by unanimous consent. There was no one in the gallery to sing Whose side are you on.
Anybody really surprised that members of the 'financial industry' are now actually kicking down doors and strong arming their customers?
ReplyDeleteSince they already drove the economy in the ditch it must be a little tougher to make a buck what with people out of work and the housing bubble burst.
But the 'financial industry' is nothing if not...resilient. Rather than a bit of Peter Drucker the bright, bright MBAs responsible for the destruction of American industry and finance seem to have spent time watching The Sopranos and have begun 'executing' their strategies accordingly.
Well they needn't worry. Just as no one but a couple of lowly traders has in any way been held accountable for the debacle we continue to suffer through, so too will these new tactics likely escape any prosecution.
Is this a great country or what? Not only do corporations enjoy free speech they seem to have been issued a 'Get out of Jail Free' card.
This is more like Monopoly than we ever imagined.
I'm just waiting for Citicorp. to win the vote.
That'll just make things cleaner.
About the Senate bill, I read today (NPR on my iPhone) that President Obama will pocket veto the bill. If I were home right now, I could research the story and provide a link, but I am still traveling this moment.
ReplyDeleteYep, Obama "double vetoed it" so now Congress will have to start all over...
ReplyDeleteThe reality is no one knows who really owns what and now that the banks have a little wiggle room they are going after foreclosures to hide the fact that no one knows who owns what.
When this all plays out it will involve another bailout...
I ran a related piece a few days ago ("Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt")on those hired gaggles of foreclosure signers who failed to get the required affidavits. As Arthurstone says, the big banks really can't figure out who owns those mortgages anymore, since they've been re-re-repackaged by Wall St. What a goat rope! Can we possibly screw ourselves up worse? Yep...just watch us.
ReplyDeleteVote, people!
"I'm just waiting for Citicorp. to win the vote."
ReplyDeleteSome vote at the polling place, some vote by mail. The very powerful just write checks.