700 billion dollar presidential reward

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. (Thomas Jefferson, US President; 1743 - 1826)

Wow. Where to start. While over the summer we had economic problems plaguing the country, now we have disaster, or so we are told. By the White House, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Congress, the Network News, all very reputable sources who would never create a fake crisis in order to force a bill down our throats as quick as possible, while not allowing our elected representatives to read it, very similar to the patriot act after 9-11. Well that was my sarcasm, because actually they have and they are trying again.

700 billion dollar bailout. We need it now or face a complete meltdown. No oversight by congress, judicial system, or any future president ever. This is the Mantra you have heard if you have been watching corporate news. Run by and for the interests of powerful men in this country. Read the Internet and you get a different picture. You get to read opinions of economists, and many who saw this mess coming 5 years ago. And some who saw these trends coming as far back as carter, and some who see this mess through lens of globalization.

So lets go through this mantra one by one. 700 billion dollars is needed. Why? They admit they have not used any formula and have merely picked a large random number. They( treasury Secretary paulson and fed chairman Bernake) admit they wont have time to spend all that money anyway before the next president arives.

Who gets the 700 billion? Well Paulson and Bernake would like to hand it over to wall street banks who are in the mess. There argument is that because of all this bad debt( in the form of mortgages not being paid and investment in mortgages that were packaged as stocks that have declines sharply) on the books of these banks, that they are refusing to lend out any new money thus freezing the economy. So the 700 billion would by the bad debt, taking it off the banks books while giving them cash to begin lending and get the economy flowing again. That is the corporate media side of the story and we all know there are 3000 sides to every story.

Another side of this story is the homeowner. If they are given the money, in theory, it will solve the economic slowdown as well. They pay their mortgage, banks get paid off, banks begin to get of rid of the bad debt, stocks prices go up also as mortgages are paid and the bad investments look better, and the debacle is reversed.

Why has the corporate media reported so favorably for one story, lets give the money to the banks, while painting the homeowner as the wicked witch from the west who should have known better and should not have taken on a mortgage he could not afford. One solution i describes helps everyone, the latter. While the former solution saves the banks, actually rewarding some like JP Morgan Chase who was able to by Bear Sterns and Washington Mutual at bargain basement prices, and Bank of America who bought Meryl Lynch. But in the former solution the homeowner is left in the dust, as is the average investor who was tricked into buying bad stock.

How were they tricked? Well the mortgages of bad credit people were lumped together with mortgages of good credit people and made into a stock, this stock was falsely and illegally given a triple a rating by the two rating agencies who were paid mighty sums by the investment houses.

So for our fraud tally we have bankers 1, homeowner/stock owner 0

So why were these mortgages packaged as stocks anyway? Well as a Bank or a Mortgage firm you are limited with how many mortgages you can have on your books based on a few factors. One factor for a savings and loan bank like Bank of America is how much money in deposits they have on hand. So by bundling up mortgages as stocks and selling them banks and mortgage firms were able to remove the mortgages from their books, thus freeing up room for more mortgages, and more fees.

Fraud tally bankers 2, homeowner/stock owner 0

In an update on the fraud front, today (November 3rd 2008) it was released that operations at Wamu approved every single loan that came through the company. When underwriters refused to approve loans that looked fraudulent workers were reprimanded and put on probation. A few months ago Wamu closed up shop, as the biggest US bank to ever fall. It was later sold to JP Morgan for 1.9 billion dollars. The race to approve mortgages was promoted by executives by offering free vacations to whoever sold the most mortgages each month. One employee won a free month in Jamaica for approving 3.5 million in mortgage loans in one month.

In one particular case, one underwriter remembers denying a very fraudulent loan, getting reprimanded, and her boss approving the loan only for it to go into default 4 months later. Not one months payment was paid.

Fraud tally, Bankers 3, homeowners 0

What about all those people who qualified for prime mortgages, based on their good credit but were sold sub prime so the mortgage lendor could clean up in fees? I read one case in particular of a returning Iraq Vet who qualified of for the best rates yet he was fooled into signing up for the subprime, no interest, no money down loan, and boom he lost his house. How is an average person supposed to know what he qualifies for? Are we not supposed to trust the numbers that mortgage houses crunch?

Fraud tally, bankers 4, homeowner 0

The next part of the mantra we are hearing is this needs to be solved now, using our 700 billion dollar plan, or else you haven't seen nothing yet( in terms of crisis). Really? To me it seems like they are rushing into this, like they want this rushed through, with out review or oversight. Why else do it so close to a congressional recess? But Ian they didn't DO anything, the economy is its own beast and it just crashed. I am not buying that either, the bankers of this country have long history of creating crashes to benefit themselves.

A great great great documentary on this is called money master and can be seen on Google video for free. and One example they give is the farming industry around the 1800's, i forget the year. But the plan was to loan and loan and loan to farmer, (side note is that 95% of farming in this country used to be family owned farms), and than one day all these loans were called in and when most couldn't pay, which was expected, the banks took over huge areas of land. This was done for a few reasons. One was to end family farms and create the rise of corporate farming run by a few companies. And we have we seen from this current economic crisis merging of huge banks, becoming more and more concentrated.

Another result of the farming crisis of the 1800's was now that we have taking away a large portion of the nations jobs, farming. Most Americans have no jobs, and so they were ushered into factories and mines to work for someone else. This is one of the most fascinating times in America for me to study because i see it as the turning point of when Americans stopped sustaining themselves by working for themselves (farming) and were moved like cattle into factories to work for someone else, to rely on someone else for food, money, for life. This is when Americans lost a huge amount of power they had. Now they could be abused, being told "do this if you want to feed your family, do this if you want to pay your mortgage". I read something once that talked about the pride of an American before this farming crisis, and an American would not be caught dead working in a factory, why anyone would sweat all day with their labor for someone else to make a profit was looked upon as crazy, and i agree. But one day this all changed, and i would like to know why and how, and how we get back to that mindset.

So how is 700 billion dollars going to help? If an individual was in trouble with debt from one credit card would opening a new card to pay off the old one solve anything? No, So why try this on a Macro level? Why is only one plan being talked about on the news, and whats the rush? Where is a new deal type plan? Why are we throwing money at the wall street men who got us into this mess? Why is there no talk of jail time? Why was the bush justice department attacking state attorney generals who tried to arrest corrupt bankers? Why are small banks throughout America saying that they are benefiting from this wall street mess? And why wont the corporate media tell us this fact and other facts to paint the whole picture? Do people believe the Bush administration when they tell us this is a buy in and not a bailout, and one day we can sell this debt we are buying with the 700 billion dollars for a profit? Sound like a story I once heard about about a war in the middle east paying for itself and not costing us a billion dollars a month, in a country that rhymes with istack.

One part of the bailout bill that is hardly being discussed says that the 700 billion dollars can be invested in anything on wallstreet not simply banks that are in trouble. This is kind of odd, i thought the point of this is to save banks and mortgage firms that are in trouble? The treasury secratary also has the power to invest in foreign banks. This is the best line of them all. The US economy is in trouble and to save it we will use US taxpayer money to invest in foreign banks, hmmm? To take this further one economist on cnbc claimed that Paulson and the President would veto any bill that did not allow the 700 billion to be spent on foreign banks. This does not make sense to me, the only explanaition i heard is that foreign governments must be making large threats against the US Government to force this administration to act this way.

A solution proposed by Thom Hartmann, and others im sure, is to reinstate a tax on wall street for every trade. The argument goes that Wall Street's main purpose was to raise capitol and give investors a way to make money over a long period of time. But recently speculators have changed the way wall street operates by buying large amounts of stock to raise the price than to dump it all in a few days time. This is called speculative traiding and many blame this for the housing bubble now and before the 1929 collapse.

Historically, from the founding of our country until the last century, most people invested rather than speculated. When rules limiting speculation were cut during the first big Republican deregulation binge during theadministrations of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover(1921-1933), it created a speculative fever that led directly to the housingbubble of the early 20s (which started in Florida, where property values weregoing up as much as 70 percent per year, and then spread nationwide, only toburst nationally starting in 1927 as housing values began to collapse), thenthe falling housing market popped the stock market bubble and produced thegreat stock market crash of 1929. That speculation aggregated enormouswealth in a very few hands, crashed the housing and stock markets, and producedthe Republican Great Depression of 1930-1942. Franklin D. Roosevelt, as part of the New Deal, put into place a series ofrules to discourage speculation and promote investment, including maintaining –and doubling – the Securities Transaction Excise Tax. Other countriesfollowed our lead, and the UK, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Greece,Australia, France, China, Chile, Malaysia, India, Austria, and Belgium have allhad or have STETs.

This tax is not a completely new idea we used it in the United States from 1914 to 1966, and to fund the civil war and the spanish american war. Other countries right now are using this policy. If we were to instate a .25 percent STET (tax) on everystock, swap, derivative, or other trade today, it would produce – in its firstyear – around $150 billion in revenue.

The Republican Bush Administration is currently suggesting that we borrow$700 billion (or more) from China and Saudi Arabia and other countries and investors, add that to our national debt, and repay it with interest (makingthe actual cost over the next 20 years over $1.4 trillion). This is whatRepublican Herbert Hoover tried in 1931 when he first created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (later totally reinvented by FDR) to bail out the banks in1931. Hoover’s RFC bailed out the bankers, paid off huge salaries in the banking and investment world, bought him a few months (maybe that’s the realgoal of the Bush/McCain Republicans now – just hold things together until afterthe elections), but ultimately led to the failure within two years of virtually all the banks in the United States.

The bailout failed.

So lets make a list of all the groups that made huge sums of money in America during the Bush presidency during crisis that fucked the American public.

1.Energy/Enron,

deregulation lead to ripping off of Californians,

lead to no change in laws.

2. Oil Men,

made record breaking profit margins each

quarter for the past few years while charging Americans the highest

price for gas ever, up to 4.50$ a gallon. And while supposedly it costs

around thirty dollars to extract, package, and ship a barrel of oil the world

market is selling it for 140$ plus a barrel. Yet they still get subsidies

from the US govt from a time when gas prices were very low that the oil

companies could not turn a profit.

3.Military Industrial Complex,

they got two wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq where two records were broken. More contracts

were given out to private firms than during any other war, and more no bid

contracts were given out. And remember this was war that was sold to

us on a lie, we should not even be there, but many Military contractors made

money hand over fist.

During the tenure of Paul Bremer in Iraq, billions and

billions of dollars went unaccounted for, much like when the defense department

was audited and Donald rumsfeild could not account for trillions of dollars.

4.Health care industry,

During bush's failed presidency congress passed a 700 billion dollar

health care bill making is more expensive for Americans to use the

health care system, and making the system more complex and confusing. This

bill was one of the saddest days on capitol hill for many elected representatives

because of the high level of arm pulling done to get this law to pass, many claimed to have seen members crying they were so upset by the bully tactics used. The time

allowed to vote on this bill ended breaking a record for the most ever

because they had to get the votes.

Many felt they were lied to because the president sold the bill

as a 300 billion dollar bill, than once it was passed it was realized it was closer to 700 billion.

5.Wall Street,

bankers and investment firms had a field day moving around and shifting

mortgages into many different things to make huge profits

on fees until one day it all came crashing down,

at first it was a 400 billion dollar infusion

next was 100 billion each to both Fannie Mae and Freddie mac,

than 85 billion to aig, than a 50 billion dollar loan to JP Morgan chase to buy bear sterns,

than 100 year old firms fell like dominoes, bear sterns,

Lehman brothers, Washington mutual, Meryl lynch.

And now the president is hoping congress pass a quick law with 700 billion dollars given to one man to fix it all, with no oversight, or review, for the eternity.

How do they use the same play from the same play book year after year? How do we fall for it year after year? How do they pass bailouts against the will of America year after year? How do these elected officials who fuck America year after year, continue to be reelected year after year? And does half of America not care, year after year.
If we don't change this here is my prediction, one day we will have One of everything, One bank, One credit card, One store to buy everything, One Media company, One news paper, One health care plan, One retirement plan, One stock to invest in, One utility to buy electricity and oil from, One place to get a mortgage from. A world without choices a world without competition means the shit with stay at the top by force.

So who will the next president reward?

CoLd WaR AgAiN?

If you began following the Battle in the cuacuses recently from america the first thing you would assume by following our news is that Russia attacked and invaded the nation of Georgia, and they must be hell bent on reestablishing the soviet union.

But for every action there is a reaction.

So what the action that lead to our current reaction.

Russia claims that the Nation of Georgia made the first move attacking two regions inside of Georgia. Two independent regions that operate outside of the Georgian government.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

To areas that have very strong russian ties, and that are ethnically russian. Russia says they are protecting an unprovoked attack on these two independent regions inside the nation of Georgia. And when i say unprovoked attack, i mean these two regions took a beating, with rockets and artillery that leveled almost every building in the region. Firing indescrimitely at people, killing UN peacekeepers (who happened to be russian) The leaders of these two regions are calling for the president of Georgia to be tried for genocide, and war crimes.

But who is right?

Sounds like Russia, who is protecting these innocent towns. But the Russians have also gone overboard but launching air strikes against the georgian capitol, rolling masive amounts of tanks into Georgia, not just the area of the two regions who need help but deep into Georgia. New reports are coming out of people fleeing the Russians. That the Russians are taking everything from the land they grab.

And Why wouldn't Russian like to expand their holdings.

Georgia is ripe with oil and oil pipelines. Oil is becoming more of a life commodity than air. Maybe the Russians are worrying after the USA's excipade into Iraq. We had Vietnam they tried with Afghanistan, than we cool out. Now we have Iraq and they want to play again too, so they have Georgia. A few years ago when we went back to Afghanistan they partied with the Chechen's.(see my previous posts from 05' on the Chechen issues)( I know what your thinking, hey i looked for your articles on the Chechen issue and i couldn't find it, that cause you looked online, i have not written them yet)

Is the West pushing to hard against Russian?

But than again we have the Georgian president, very pro west, receiving massive amounts of military hardware and training from the USA and Israel. You have massive amounts of evidence saying he came to power in a coup aided by the cia. You have Georgia attacking on the day the olympics start and somehow it gets massive news coverage in the USA that supports Georgia's predicament. Even though by all measure they began it. And How is this issue in the news so much so quick, when i see stories about darfur once a year? You also must factor in that Georgia is seeking nato membership, along with other nations. Nato is basically surounding Russia. We are also planning on placing missle launch sites in the poland and the ukraine. Guess who just signed up after this russian aggression, poland. So from the Russian perspective its easy to see how they might say they are being backed into a corner.

Iraq

It also does not help anyone that the US, who usually can step in and say cut it out, is in the middle of an occupation of a foreign nation. So how can one not sympathize with Russia if they also sympathize with the Removal of the tyrant saddam. Recently Russia tells how the US invaded, overthrew Saddam and Hung him because he was brutal to people living inside his own country, than they say well we are doing the same, the Georgian president is brutalizing his own people, inside his own country why cant we stop it.

WWII

A lesson that came out of wwii was that one nation cannot act militarily around the world on its own accord. Thats what Hitler did and he tried to conquer the world and did conquer europe minus GB. And Bush has started a bad president of invading foreign nations unilaterally, and now Russia has followed suit. Who knows where this will lead

So you decide who is right. Is Georgia right. Is russia right. Is it about oil. Is it about global hegemy. Was this a United States plan to set up and demonize Russia.

Listen to Putins words a few years ago and you tell me:

The unipolar world refers to a world in which there is one master, one sovereign---- one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making. At the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.… What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilization.”

“Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centers of tension. Judge for yourselves---wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. More are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more! Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper-use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

In international relations we increasingly see the desire to resolve a given question according to so-called issues of political expediency, based on the current political climate. And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this – no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race. I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security.”

And what does Mr. Bush and our politicians have to say about it?

That its all russians fault, they should stand down. Mccain actually said this is the 21st centuary and nations just dont go around invading other nations. Really

UPDATE

Us claims the missle defense system that nato is insalling in eastern europe is to keep on eye on rogue nations like Iran, yet last year the president of Russia, Vladimar Putin, offered bush use of a Russian missle sit in Azerbaijan, a nation of hte border of Iran and bush declined,

Mortgage Disaster

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. (Thomas Jefferson, US President; 1743 - 1826)

The Mortgage melt down this year is having a large effect on the economy of the U.S. I have been reading much about it and would like to break it down somewhat. First is a professional journalist breaking down the situation.

"The financial crisis comes from the collapse of an $8 trillion housing bubble.
Banks—and many homeowners—made a lot of bad bets on the
assumption that housing prices would always go up.
The shadow banking system—including the off-balance sheet
entities set up by the commercial banks—borrowed massively to make those bets. They invented exotic securities and over the counter, unregulated credit swaps and the like to add layers and layers to the house of cards. Now it’s collapsed. The real economy is in trouble. Consumers have lost trillions in home equity and are tightening their belts."

The best way i can understand it, is that, mortgage lenders looking for larger markets began selling mortgage more and more to people who could not afford them. The mortgage institutions made the mortgages seem within reach for many families who dreamed of buying a house, but who always thought the American dream was financially out of reach. So lawyers went to work, and packages fancy deals, pay low or no interest, with no down payment. With wording like this even i can afford a house, in theory. As long as the mortgage seller gets their fee who why should they care if the mortgage ever gets paid off.

Hidden deep within the fine print is the word variable, and initial. low interest initially, with steep rises very soon.



Some other shadiness included; firms that rent assets to people to help them fraudulently qualify for a mortgage - like loaning them money to keep in their bank account for a couple months so they can fool the lender with documented savings that evaporate the day after the mortgage is signed. Another popular ruse: The borrower pays an employer to pay him a lot of money in a fake job for a month or two so he can show a fat paycheck in his loan docs. Some real estate agents and mortgage brokers actually refer buyers to these services.

Should home buyers have know better yes, but the people peddling them knowingly broke laws, or treaded very close to the line.

Practices that allowed these tactics to operate under this present Bush administration were illegal under Clinton. Additionally when lines were crossed and local district attorney's pursued the case they were harassed by the Bush administration. Bush not only allowed these illegal practices to occur but he let them FLOURISH by attacking any state that tried to pursue criminal prosecutions against those that broke the law.

Bush's shady tactics can be seen most visibly with the fall of Elliot Spitzer, NY Governor, who was the strongest critique of bush, and was in the process of organizing the governors of all 50 states to file a suit in court against Bush's illegal tactics.

On to the ponzi scheme, low income people were sold a shady illegal bill of goods, i.e a mortgage they could afford temporarily, before rates increased.

The mortgages were sold to bigger mortgage outfits, and bigger, ones, and the initial seller of the mortgage closes his shop door and is long gone by now. One reason the mortgages were packaged and sold quick to other lenders or to investment houses as stock, was because of a federal law limiting how many mortgages a mortgage lender could hold, by moving them quick they could be involved in more sales and more money

Next the mortgages are packaged together and sold as stocks on the NY stock exchange. But who would buy a stock if it was not given a AAA rating by the top ratings firms in the U.S. The stocks were given fake AAA ratings, meaning they were perfectly sound investments. These ratings firms were being paid billions of dollars by U.S. investment banks like Goldman and Sachs, who also sold the bundled mortgage stocks.



So who were the suckers that bought the stocks, normal investors, foreign investors, foreign banks and governments, cities and towns in the USA, pension funds.


And one day when the invisible ink of those mortgage contracts became visible, and interest rates and monthly payments went through the roof. This along with house prices falling in 2006 for the first time in forever, lead to many, many people, not able to pay their mortgages. And that's all it took for the entire house of cards to fall.



Soon enough the AAA rated stocks began to drop and drop and drop. And for all those companies who invested hefty sums in these AAA stocks big trouble was on the way, for some. And if your mortgage firm invested a large amount in these volatile mortgage's than you are also in trouble. And god for bid your state invested your pension in these funds, like Florida teachers.

Bear sterns crashed, their stock was went from over a hundred to ten dollars overnight. If you owned Bear Stern stock you lost. But if you owned JP Morgan stock you won.

When Bear sterns collapsed, they could not really allowed to collapse because a company that size falling could tear down the whole American economy, right? Or so we are told.



So usually the govt via the federal reserve bank (The bank lends the govt money so the govt can give it away to the bank, and the taxpayer pays the bill) will hand over money to the failing banks as kind of an economic I.V. In total close to 400 billion dollars was handed out since Summer 2007 to ensure large banks would not collapse.

Yet Bear Sterns was not given a bail out like many other banks, and like Freddie mac, and Fannie Mae will get this week. Instead JP Morgan was given a bailout in order to buy the dead Bear Sterns. Why not just give the loan to Bear? Well it just so happens that the federal reserve bank of new york, the organization who saved the day with the bail out money is run by a board, who sits at the chairmanship of the board, the CEO of JP Morgan bank. Sweet. and i know what your thinking, who else sits on the board, the CEO of Lehman brothers.

Now if you follow the situation, family cant pay mortgage, bank does not get paid, stock prices fall, banks in trouble, banks restrict loans, housing prices fall, more people in trouble.



The governments solution? Banks get bailed out with 400 billion dollars and counting, And for the people losing homes,they get bail a 2 billion dollar bailout. Why wouldn't the people losing their homes get the bailout? Wont everyone win like that? People pay mortgage, banks get their money and operate normal, stocks go up, investment firms have no problems, no one loses a home.

Yet the government, an institution set up by and for the people, once again chose to help corporations over people. This has been the choice time after time. Will it ever change?



Another theory for the govt backed bailout of large investment houses is, layed out by attorney Sean Olender, is, "The sole goal of the freeze is to prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them to buy back worthless mortgage securities at face value – right now almost 10 times their market worth. The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process. "



Another issue is that home prices are depreciating so rapidly that many find it financially beneficial to simply default on there mortgage payment and lose the downpayment which was nothing. It makes sense, why pay your mortgage for a house you pay a total of 500,000 dollars for if its now worth 300,000 dollars a few months later? And California law, where home depreciation reached a staggering 40%, has laws that allow banks to keep only the deposit on defaulted mortgages.



Well the good news is that many states and towns who invested in these shady stocks are suing investment banks. For example, meryl lynch is being sued for for fraud and misrepresentation, of stocks sold to the city of Springfield Massachusetts.



The city of Baltimore sued Wells Fargo Bank for damages from the subprime debacle, alleging that Wells Fargo had intentionally discriminated in selling high-interest mortgages more frequently to blacks than to whites, in violation of federal law.



Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has filed suit against 21 major investment banks, for enabling the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis in his city



June 2008, California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued Countrywide Financial Corporation, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, for causing thousands of foreclosures by deceptively marketing risky loans to borrowers. Among other things, the 46-page complaint alleged that:
"‘Defendants viewed borrowers as nothing more than the means for producing more loans, originating loans with little or no regard to borrowers’ long-term ability to afford them and to sustain homeownership’ . . .

"The company routinely . . . ‘turned a blind eye’ to deceptive practices by brokers and its own loan agents despite ‘numerous complaints from borrowers claiming that they did not understand their loan terms.’". . .

Underwriters who confirmed information on mortgage applications were ‘under intense pressure . . . to process 60 to 70 loans per day, making careful consideration of borrowers’ financial circumstances and the suitability of the loan product for them nearly impossible.’
"‘Countrywide’s high-pressure sales environment and compensation system encouraged serial refinancing of Countrywide loans.’"7



In a 2007 ruling in Wisconsin that is now on appeal, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman held that Chevy Chase Bank had violated the Truth in Lending Act by hiding the terms of an adjustable rate loan, and that thousands of other Chevy Chase borrowers could join the plaintiffs in a class action on that ground.




AdDiToNal fAcTs
-So far 6 lenders have failed this year

-90 banks are considered to be in trouble

-the current secretary of the treasury is henry paulson, who's last job was ceo of goldman and sachs, the only investment house not hurt by this housing bubble

-PerU-

Recently back from Peru, it was the first time i have left the country. My friends don't travel too much, Atlantic city a few times a year. My parents don't travel too often, they go down south to see my uncles a few times a year. I had many expectations and many worries, and i had some of my ideas about the world change, how could they not. For the first time things i have only read about and watched on TV i was able to see for myself.

I was there for a week but it felt like a month. I saw the rich areas, the poor areas, and the third world poor areas. But no homeless people, maybe one. I feel lucky because I saw the country with a friend who was born and raised there. I was able to see the Peru from a perspective that many have not. But I wish I learned Spanish first.

Being in a foreign country and not speaking the language, and being with one friend who spoke Spanish 95 % of the time makes you listen more than usual. It was funny to hear my friend get mixed up sometimes and talk to me in Spanish, and his local family in English.

Rich Peru-is what i saw first, right from the airport, we went to family close to Lima, the capitol. There house looked just like middle class here, nice furniture, nice TV, nice bathroom, crystal figurines, etc. In Lima we went to a major mall which was just like Roosevelt field, except more busy, much more busy, and outside they had people selling homemade items from all areas of Peruvian culture. A little outside of Lima we saw this new, really fancy beach tourist attraction. It was a mall, with restaurants, on a wooden boardwalk, a few hundred feet above the ocean. Gorgeous, and the best part was this is where i heard the most English being spoken. When you are in a Spanish speaking country and you speak with one person in English, and all of a sudden you run into many English speakers, they feel like family.

The first thing that caught my eye was every house, store, or building, was surrounded by a tall wall or a tall metal fence. Every window had bars on it.

Poor Peru-This is where i stayed with my friend. at the end of a dirt road, a top a hill, which sucked climbing at the end of each day. What an Oder his house had. Even though we were in a poor area, chosica, some houses had nice marble tiles on the front wall of their house. At the end of his street was a dirt stair case that lead to houses that were built on a mountain. No TV, an electrically heated shower, which gave me an electric shock the first time bc i forgot to shut the electricity off before i shut the water off, note to self, try not to get shocked while in shower and wet.
The market is really cool and old school. For short trips you take a little motor scooter that is rigged with two seats in the back and covered for protection from the elements. At night some of the kids have neon lights, and spider web designs that light up, and techno music. To travel further you can take a normal taxi or a bus. For the taxi don't expect to be the only pick up, they as well as the bus stop for every person on the street to see if they need a ride. one trip into the highlands we took a bus for two hours and a car for half and hour, and we stuffed two people in the wagons trunk.

Another thing that you notice is the mountains, everywhere, most of where i was was in the middle of a valley. it was pretty gorgeous to wake up and seeing that every morning. And i was laughed at when i asked, "are those the Andes", no i was told, they are too small.

Third world poor- to get here, a town called chicklay, you take a two to 3 hour bus and taxi ride up a winding mountain pass into the highlands. One lane in each direction. Often our bus/taxi found itself behind a really slow 18 wheeler, so we inch into the oncoming traffic lane, to see if any cars are coming, and if we have enough time to go for it before there is a bend ahead that we cannot see around. Do i have to tell you we had a few close calls.

Our trip ends at 3700 meters, which by my numbers is about 11 thousand feet and it took me about two hours to stop feeling like crap from being up so high. The houses up here were not protected with high walls or metal bars. The walls and the ceiling of the house was sheets of steel, the toilet was a whole in the floor, with two bricks to use to squat, and a bucket of water outside to splash inside when done, also know as the third world flush. Dogs roamed the streets free, most of the time, stopping at home than running back out again. And the starts at night, wow, i have never seen anything like it.

The first trip up there we spend all night there, making homemade alcohol called chicha, talked, ate, drank coffee, and stronger stuff, and sat really really close to the fire bc it was feekin cold.
The second time we came up the highlands of chicklay, we hiked a mountain, and goddamn its hard to hike when you are already having a hard time just sitting at 11 thousand feet. The hike started out ok, than progressively became steeper , and the path grew narrower and closer to the edge. When we finally made it to the top i thought i would die. I never felt so shitty in all my life, yet i am so glad i finished the climb. I had two cups of coca tea, which greatly help my shitty feeling and we climbed down a few hours later. On the way up all i said to myself was i cannot wait to climb down, its gonna be easy, NOT. i have never been so focused and full of attention in all my life, well at least after the first time i slipped on the dry moving rocks, on to my ass, about three feet from the edge. I gave myself a 50-50 chance of falling right off, my legs so tight, gripping every step. I was so happy to finish, and could not wait to fall asleep that night.

The next day and one of the last days of my journey we went to Lima, off the beaten path, just think of Brooklyn to Manhattan , was to where we were to Lima. Where my friends cousins, from Lima, asked me if i wanted to try to walk through this bad area, where there was a high probability of getting robbed, cool, lets do it i say. Lucky us the town was street cleaning that day and they sent the military to help.

We got to see Lima's china town, and they do have damn good Chinese food, we went on two church tours, into the catacombs, and one church, St. Francis i think, had the oldest library in south America, from the 1500's, with gorgeous would work, and tile. We saw the presidents house, congress, the supreme court.

Going to Peru, here are some notes, the money is soles, 1dollar USA=2.70 soles, foods= anticuchos(grilled sliced cow hearts), ceviche, beef stir fry with french fries, boiled potato with cheese sauce, fresh cheese sandwich, inca cola soda, rotisserie chicken,
my most used word, was benitto, beautifull, taxi and bus don't ask how much , if you do they know your not from the area and they will charge extra, if your not sure, give em 5 soles, if its more they tell you if not you get change, local taxi's 2 soles, an hour an a half bus ride was 8 soles for two, and and hour and a half bus ride in a fancy bus was 17, ride to the airport, one hour, 75 soles,
when going to or from airport, do not use people on the street call a company in the phone book, this ensure legitimacy and better chance of safety and trust.

pictures on the way

HENRY ROLLINS ;Spoken worD

I saw Henry Rollins spoken word show last night at club Warsaw, home of polish food, in Brooklyn. Doors open at 7 , show started at 8 and we missed the exit at 7pm, and got stock in ridiculous traffic for 45 minutes going one exit just so we could turn around. You have no idea how mad i was. I cant explain it, maybe i thought i was going to be late or even worse miss the whole show, but i was fuming, the profanity swirling around in my head. I usually don't show my anger, and if i am really quite for awhile, and don't respond to people, good chance is I'm mad.



So in the end it payed off getting their late, sorta. We parked at 7:50, one block away, we found two lonesome seats ( me and my sister), in the front row, and waited 4 minutes before Henry came out. So the Universe made it happen in our favor.



A few months ago me and the sister and brother went to see Michael showalter at the music hall of williamsburg, and we got there 6:45 for a 7 pm doors opening thing, and than we sat for over and hour waiting for the show, but that show had people standing all around the edges, while Rollins was not even sold out. sidebar, sorta, michael showalter is so f--in funny. So natural. No planned segments, no jokes, just stuff i did this week and what i thought and what i thought they thought.



He does a funny segment ( OK so i lied about the segments), where he plays a song and acts out a scene from a movie. Not a real movie, a made up one, his thinking is if this song were to be in a movie what type of scene would it be made for. The first one was hysterical, he starts the scene

" i don't want to be like you dad, i have my water colors, I'm not jimmy, i will never be, we all miss jimmy". So first, you can I'm sure, assume, that the next three scenes were almost exactly the same but to different music, they all started, " i don't want to be like you dad i have my ______ blank, just to different songs. So now me and my sister are forever playing a game of filling in a sillier and silly er (not sure which one is right) blank. I suggest u try, its fun, i don't want to be like you dad , i have my lanyards, i have my matchbox cars, i have my chia pets.



The other item we adopted in our everyday life from the michael showalter show, is showing off while brushing it off as no big deal, for us at least. Let me explain. Another segment showalter did was to start off a story with, "so i was wearing my ray bands", and then goes on to tell us how expensive they were, and how many he has, but its no big deal for him. Now some brag in arrogant way and its annoying i know, Not showalter, his face, and body expressions are amazing, the way he sells the joke. Its priceless. so i suggest you try to find a clip of this on you tube because if you don't pull off the "its no big deal " body language , its gonna suck.



So Henry Rollins show was great, basically critiques life and talks about the experiences he has and his philosophy on life. Great story teller, funny, and he has had some awesome experiences. Just in Case you don't know his full bio he is the front man for two famous bands in the punk world, black flag, and the Rollins band, he writes poetry, has acted in 36 movies\TV episodes (according to imdb) including heat, he has his own interview show on ifc, which i love because so many interviewers suck today and are always cutting off their interviewee, but Henry has yet to interrupt or cut anyone of them off, which is very respectfull. and he currently tours the world doing spoken word events.



His work philosophy is to work 365 days a year, so he never falls into the habit of laying around and watching TV. He doesnt like war and is horrified at the current bush administration. He thinks the reason bush is able to do what he does is because Americans dont know the world, and the people of the world, so we should get out more and meet the world and its people. So he just gets on a plane and travels because he can, to Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Africa. As soon as he arrives at the hotel he drops his stuff off, grabs a water bottle and goes for a walk. To meet people he simply walks up to them and says hello , i am Henry , lets be friends.

He also talked about the time he met Iggy pop, diamond David lee Roth, and when he played with the rants for their last show ever. I highly recommend his show to people of all ages and people with all political affiliations.

InTeReStInG wEbSiTeS

At work i spend a lot of time searching the web for all kinds of crap, i love to learn about everything so i will post some interesting and cool sites i have found along my way.

My biggest hobbie is political news, i am a junkie, so here are my favorite liberal blogs-blog is another word for news that corporate media wont tell you for 6-9 months-

crooksandliars.com=a lot of video clips from news, c-span, daily show, colbert

juancole.com=amazing site for middle east news, especially iraq, views you cannot find anywhere else.

talkingpointsmemo.com=this site goes a little more in depth about national politics and corruption in our nations capitol.

I am also a movie junkie, but i am still not sure if i go for the movie or the popcorn and fake butter;

imdb.com- lists movies, you can find every movie your favorite actor is in,

tvlinko.com=free movies on the net you can watch, no download needed, and they have movies on their that are still in theatres, just be prepared to deal with popups,

spirituality and evolution;

opencenter.org=The Open Center is an educational and cultural center offering programs intended to heal the body, nourish the soul and awaken the spirit.

health; a major idea in my life is evolution and efficiency, i dont always act on these ideas, but there is something powerfull about having this human body that we are given, work as efficiently as possible.

http://www.mercola.com/index.htm=one of best websites i have found for holistic healing of the body, info, they claim a newsletter list of over 1 million, the biggest on the web, and they have been around ten years. they recieve hundreds of health articles a day and choose a few to post in a weekly news letter, amazing amazing stuff, i cant say enough .

http://www.chekinstitute.com/= one of the top fitness trainers in the nation, amazing amazing idea, also cannot say enough, he rags on gyms, weight machines, gyms belts, and talks about things you might not think of when training, like sleep, food, balance, tansverse abdominal wall, has some amazing articles

http://http//coreperformance.com/ = another top fitness trainer in this nation, he works with the best in every sport, his website offers articles, and free video of exorcises of the day, another functional trianer who will blow your mind with some of his cool exorcises.

http://http//www.gymjones.com/index.php this is the real personal trainers that built the bodies you saw and loved in the movie 300, and they have some pretty inspiring articles

art;

http://http//www.juilliard.edu/asp/calendar/calendar.php = this is the famous julliard school in manhatten and they have free recitals all year around, this is something i have been meaning to go to ,

http://www.tottentileworks.com/ = this is a seattle tile company that does amazing work, check out their custom bathroom and waterfalls, they do amazing work.\

http://lingnamsiulum.com/ = an amazing kung fu academy in eastmeadow

http://http//www.iliqchuan.org/ = an amazing kung fu style

more to come...

A cLaSs DiViDeD

I just saw this thought provoking documentary on pbs frontline, a class divided. What a great show it was. I believe it took place in the 60's. The Scene is Iowa. All white town. A third grade teacher. The event she must deal with , with her class, is the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The problem is how to teach ideas of segregation to third graders. The solution she chose was to try an experiment that was wonderfully done, and something that stuck with these children into adulthood.
The teacher, Jane Elliott, impliments a 3 day experiment with amazing results. She did not consult the principal or the school board, and after the successful trial run the experiment became part of her class curriculum for some time. And get this, no one complained.
So what did she do? On day one of the experiment she splits the class along eye color, blue and brown. Day one she preaches all day about how smart blue eye kids are, they are never late, never get in trouble, while brown eye kids are slower, untrust worthy etc.
The results spoke for themeselves. Brown eye kids scored lower on exams. Blue eye kids began to pick on brown eye kids and the brown eye kids got into a lot of fights. In the words of the teacher, these beautifull children did things she would have never thought possible.
Day two she reversed the roles. She tells the class that she was lying about blue eyes being better, that the truth was brown eye kids are better. You should have seen the kids faces. The blue eye kids going from the elite on day one to the bottom rung on day two freaked, some put there heads down on the desk and cried, some got mad and pounded there desk. And just as with day one, the blue eye kids scores dropped, while the brown eye kids scores rose, dramatically.

On day three she told them about her experiment and they were relieved. But the point the teacher was trying to make was made, brilliantly. The point, was that we have a whole section of our culture, who we are told are criminals, miscriants, drug dealers and addicts, they dont work and take checks from the government, they are the ones always going to jail. Now the easiest answer to this would be to say this group must be trouble makers by nature, by genetics. How could this not be the logical conclusion. Why would a hole section of the population be taken advantage of. Well because it is part of human nature. It was the blacks, and the women, and the irish and german and italian immigrants, the jews, the indians, today its the arabs. As the comedian Carlos Mancia says, 9-11 was a freeing day for the blacks of america.

Why? Because now there was a new group of troublemakers to focus on, to segregate. Carlos says its just part of America, and once the Arabs do their time, we will select a new group and the arabs will be off the hook.

The lesson in Iowa, in this third grade class, jumps at us all. It is very easy for us, as humans to be frightened. We all want to belong to the elite groups, but to have elites we must have the bad group. And the Expirment helped to show that it is easy for us to give up when the world is against us. When humans are constantly told they are lazy, they begin to play the role, when they are told they are criminals they begin to act like criminals. And its hard to understand anothers situation unless you are put in there shoes.

Jane Elliot made sure each one of her third graders walked in the shoes of success and failure, during there stay with her, and they will never forget that. So go now and find this documentary.