Author: southwerk

I am a 53 year old teacher. I have double major in Speech and Criminal Justice resulting in a Bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a law degree.

The Banking Industry Gives Obama the Squeeze

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice
President Barack Obama addresses reporters abo...

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Big banks have picked their candidate, and it’s Romney – from McClatchy

“We’ve seen a massive shift from Obama to the Republican candidates on the part of the financial industry,” said Carmen Balber of Consumer Watchdog, a California nonprofit that advocates for taxpayers and consumers. “Obviously, part of that has to do with a competitive primary. But we’ve definitely seen the financial services industry publicly chastise the president for going after financial reform.”

Big banks have picked their candidate, and it’s Romney | McClatchy

Isn’t this sweet? Barack Obama bails out the banks, protects them from prosecution for their crimes, installs banking industry figures in virtually every possible position in the government, pretended that the mortgage crisis wasn’t happening and was careful to give only the most measured criticism of the financial industry and the 1% – and his reward is massive contributions to this likely opponent.

For all of his compromise, for all of his favoritism, for all of his abandonment of the goals of justice and accountability, the President got less than nothing.

This was hardly unpredictable. The dramatic reactions of the wealthy investment to class to Obama’s mile criticism, the weak legislation of Dodd-Frank financial reform law, and the Occupy Wall Street movement demonstrated that Wall Street’s sense of entitlement and worthiness is fragile at the very least.

Only the most slavish devotion, only agreement on every point and only an acceptance of the financial industry as worthy, doing God’s Work, is adequate for the malefactors of great wealth.

The President should have realized this.

James Pilant

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Using Film in the Classroom, Air Crash Investigation: Cleared for Disaster

On By southwerkIn Teaching
English: Figure 3 of the NTSB report on the US...

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This particular episode is very interesting and, in particular, very useful for classroom discussion. We have an apparent case of air traffic controller incompetence leading to a runway collision. But is it as simple as that?

Once the program establishes that the controller made a mistake, it discusses understaffing, poor procedures, difficulty viewing the runway and a tempermental ground radar system that wasn’t working at the time.

This is a perfect film to show when discussing where does personal responsibility begin and end.

I recommend it for that purpose. I would be using it in business law but it is a good film to use when discussing ethics.

James Pilant

Here is an article about the crash. It’s a little technical but I recommend you go to the web site and read the whole thing. My thanks to AirDisaster.com!

AirDisaster.Com: Special Report: USAir Flight 1493

As the Skywest Metro awaited its takeoff clearance, USAir 1493 touched down near the threshold of runway 24L and shortly thereafter slammed into 5569. Both aircraft skidded down the runway, the Metro crushed beneath the 737’s fuselage. The wreckage came to rest on the far side of the taxiway against an empty building. All 12 in the Skywest aircraft were killed as were 21 people in the USAir 737, including the Captain.

AirDisaster.Com: Special Report: USAir Flight 1493

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President Claims to be Concerned with the Mortgage Crisis

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

The following article title and brief selection is by Zandar from the web site, Zandar Versus the Stupid.

I very much want you to visit the site and read the article in full. If at all possible explore the web site and look at other essays.

My commentary is below the article excerpt.

Turn On The Lights, Watch The Roaches Scatter Part 84

A White House official said Obama has taken the housing crisis seriously since the start of his term and will look to augment the effort in the months ahead.

“From day one the President has worked to stabilize the housing market and help responsible homeowners stay in their homes, including through refinancing efforts, foreclosure prevention programs and programs directed at the hardest hit states,” said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage.

“The President will continue to expand on these efforts and look at new ways to help homeowners, just as he has over the past few months with new programs to help underwater homeowners and expanding forbearance so more unemployed homeowners can stay in their homes,” she said.

I wish that were true. I wish the mortgage crisis had been an important concern for the White House but it has not been a concern and is unlikely to become one.

When the President was first elected he had large majorities in both the House and Senate. He could have made mortgage foreclosures a priority instead he created TARP, a plan which did not allow for mortgages to be reduced in line with reduced home values but only extended the time for payment. The banks used this program as a club to expedite foreclosure. They told clients to skip payments for three months to qualify for the program, then foreclosed on them telling them they had decided they were ineligible. The government didn’t even keep records of what the program was doing for the first year.

When the robo-signing scandals began, the federal government did nothing. When the scandal expanded to impugn the record keeping and practices of several large banks, the federal government did nothing.

And now the federal government attempts to cut a sweetheart deal with the industry so that they can evade any legal responsibility for their acts while, in theory, bringing some minimal aid to homeowners.

This administration has always been far more a servant of the banks than a servant of the people. I want as many State Attorney Generals as possible to no longer cooperate with the administration and pursue their own negotiations with the financial industry. That will mean that justice at least has a chance of being served.

James Pilant

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Acting in China Offers Political Insights

On By southwerkIn International
English: Margaret Thatcher, former UK PM. Fran...

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Sometimes I find writing so striking and delightful that I want to share it with you.

This is from Salon’s web site and is written by Melissa Rayworth. She wants to convey the political insights she gained while acting in China.

Please, please go to the link at the bottom of the page and read the whole thing.

Sometimes, here in the U.S. we get that the impression that the Chinese want or are becoming like us. I don’t think so. Read and see what you think.

James Pilant

Playing Margaret Thatcher in China – The Iron Lady –  from Salon.com

Finally, they began to realize I wasn’t bluffing. Furious, the director summoned an assistant, who appeared with a bulging black leather case. Unzipping it, he pulled out thick wads of Chinese currency and counted out the cash. With my pay sitting in my backpack under those same ill-fitting shoes I wore tumbling down the steps at the Great Hall, I played my last scene as Margaret Thatcher.

Between takes, no one spoke. I’d proven them right about me – and about her. I had forced their director to negotiate with me, just like the Iron Lady had forced Deng. Face had been lost. My hope that playing this role might humanize Thatcher for Chinese audiences had failed. I had fallen down those steps for nothing.

Playing Margaret Thatcher in China – The Iron Lady – Salon.com

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Looking Back at One Media Story about the Foreclosure Crisis

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

You wake up in the morning hoping and praying that some justice will be meted out to the giant foreclosure industry for the crimes they have committed. In that hope is mixed the great sorrow for all the people who have suffered the loss of their homes in this foreclosure crisis.

Now, let’s go back a little in time and see how the crisis was treated by the public’s stalwart defenders in the press. Obviously, once the stories of owned foreclosed, shabby procedures and busted paperwork trail, the press was eager to fight for the public.

Not exactly, more of a yawn and a condemnation of the homeowners who owed too much.

In mid 2010, the beltway press knew it was all overblown. It “has become a bit overblown in some tellings.“ You see, “there’s little evidence that this has resulted in improper foreclosures..” You see, “Anectdotally, these things do seem to have happened…” At that time we had only heard the occasional, once in a while, sort of, story about some poor schmuck losing his property.

This is from the Atlantic Monthly, an article called – The Real Scandal of the Foreclosure Mess – October 8th, 2010 – by Megan McCardle –

The story on the foreclosure mess has become a bit overblown in some tellings. It’s clear that banks have been taking some shortcuts in preparing their foreclosure documents. The banks are obviously overwhelmed with the volume of foreclosures, and the (apparently) many instances in which sloppy securitization has resulted in lost paper trails, obscuring who, exactly has a right to foreclose. Rather than seeking legislative or judicial clarification, they’ve resorted to dubious practices that seem (to my non-legally-trained eye) illegal.

That is bad. But as Arnold Kling points out, there’s little evidence that this has resulted in improper foreclosures: evicting people who’ve paid, or who never had a mortgage with your company. Anectdotally, these things do seem to have happened, but there’s no evidence that they’re frequent, or that they are connected to the procedural irregularities that we’re now discovering with foreclosure documents.

Arnold says that the real scandal is our antiquated title system:

The real scandal is that the process of recording property title is so antiquated, and there are so many interest groups that resist modernizing it. The MERS mortgage database shows what a modern system could look like. But all of the counties that charge fees for title recording, the title “insurance” companies that shake down home buyers to buy “protection” from getting sued to prove that they own their property–these interest groups want to keep the title recording system as expensive and unreliable as possible.

. . . and that it’s taking so long to get people out of homes they can’t afford.

These are my comments on the Atlantic web site –

What!? You don’t see much but “anectdotal” evidence? What were you going to see? No one knew to look until now. You can’t have statistical evidence until you know there is a problem and can look at the numbers.
Anecdotal evidence is the beginning of discovery. Sometimes it turns out that the stories lead nowhere. This time they scored big. And now, and only now, can we find out how big the problem is.
“Only anecdotal evidence” Oh, PLEASE!

And then, about five minutes later, when I got even more angry –

The saddest thing about this article is that in two years after this disaster, this legal catastrophe, when the facts and the numbers are available, no one is going to pull this article out of their Windows’ recycle bin, and wonder what in the hell possessed the author to write it.

According to the article, the “real” scandal of the mortgage crisis is 1) our antiquated title system and 2) “. . . and that it’s taking so long to get people out of homes they can’t afford.” Now, Ms. McArdle is all in agreement with Arnold Kling on the the title system being the real scandal but on the second statement (getting the people out of homes…) she disagrees. I give her full credit for disagreeing with the second statement and therefore my scorn for her writing is only for the first statement.

What?!, the antiquated title system is the real scandal? I cannot generate enough invective for this statement. The world is too short of obscenities for me to throw at it. Let’s just go to the next one.

“… and that it’s taking so long to get people out of homes they can’t afford.”

Let me tell you a story… About ten years ago, housing prices began to go up but strangely the ease of buying them multiplied. Banks began to demand less and less evidence of credit history and salary down to the point where they eventually just filled in the blanks. This lack of oversight was because the great financial institutions of this nation were packaging mortgages as securities and using them as chips in the great game of casino capitalism. It was a strange time, in which the Internet was utterly blanketed by ads calling upon you to refinance your credit card debts – mortgage your home or to refinance your home for a lower rate. By about 2005, that something was terribly wrong was becoming clear. But the the regulatory agencies, the Congress, the Presidency, the financial press or the “Fed” did nothing about it. The selling if anything became more frenzied. Banks hired celebrities to participate in sales meetings in the black communities. Phone banks and mailings to those who rented and those who owned their own homes or even to those who were about to finish paying their mortgages proliferated. The messages was always the same, re-mortgage for lower rates, re-mortgage to pay off debts and the best one, buying a home is cheaper than rent. Many of the ads were carefully aimed at first time home buyers counting on their lack of financial sophistication to smooth the process. In 2006, the boom was pretty much exhausted, but the great financial institutions nursed it along for the next year by trading securities based on mortgages to the foolish as good investments and to each other simply to keep the market going. And then it all fell down.

“… and that it’s taking so long to get people out of homes they can’t afford.”

Simple statement. Factually correct.

They signed the contract, didn’t they? They’re adults. They got in too deep. They have to pay the price.

That is what it looks like if you live in a skycastle. “Skycastles,” that’s where people live so high and so far above the common herd, that they and only they can see what’s real, where the air is clear and the thoughts razor sharp.

From there they watch the little people like bacteria on a petri dish and wonder why God made so many, unless their cold hard intellects have freed them from religious delusions.

I’m down here with the other inconsequential. I say that these people were victimized and deserve mercy. These people did what the government, the media, and the financial industry told them was the intelligent, the correct and the best decision. These people were generally misled, lied to directly and were often the victims of fraud.

But I don’t live in a skycastle.

James Pilant

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Obama Administration Continues to Protect Banks, Ignores Consumers

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

It seems that I can never get free of this subject. Obama never met  banker he didn’t like and whose interest he didn’t place ahead of everyone else. One of the things that average Americans resent is the lack of prosecution of these rogue banks. Just what did the banks do that makes me so angry? They lied directly in court claiming ownership of properties they did not own. The filed false affidavits lying about their ownership. They defrauded many customers by lying about the terms of the mortgage agreement. The lured investors into securities backed my mortgages that they knew would fail as investments and then bid against those investments with derivatives to make ever more money. To add one further insult, these heartless financial wizards foreclosed on serving veterans’ homes contrary to federal law.

Now get this. These arrogant people created their own system of ownership. Under the law of each State enshrined in American law, ownership of real property is proven by a careful record’s trail kept in most states in each county court house. To evade fees and speed the process, the mortgage machine created a computer system called MERS. They would make a single transaction using the county system then they traded the properties much like the homes in the monopoly board game. Instead of careful record keeping, we have a system where in many cases, no one knows who owns the property. In case you missed it, by using their own private system of property ownership, they never paid a dime of taxes on the transfers defrauding the states out of millions of dollars of taxes.

For more than 200 years, owning property has been the goal of Americans. To be a landowner was a mark of prestige, of achievement and security. But keeping property lines straight, land fraud and busted titles have bedeviled citizens. To curb these abuses laws were established to make as certain as possible land ownership, to protect the right to property. The right to own property is not sacred but it is as close to sacred as laws can make it.

These men, these arrogant men created their own separate legal system ignoring the laws of the government and the rights of citizens. They then used it to evade taxes and speculate like Riverboat gamblers playing with chips.

The law provides penalties so that justice may be served. Those who fail to obey the law are punished. Those are hardly radical thoughts. They are the basis of a system that treat both the small and the great equally. The administration is pushing an agreement which will free the mortgage banks from responsibility for their crimes.

What kind of nation do we live in where a petty shoplifter faces jail time and fines and bankers are freely given immunity without any assurance that I find credible that they will behave better in the future. I mean after engaging in a crime spree that makes organized crime look like a child stealing candy, they walk free. Doesn’t that give then the impression that they are above the law. It gives me that impression.

Can’t we have justice? What did I do? What did my fellow citizens do? Are we some of lesser creation that we must watch in awe and envy while those who evade over and over not just the law but evade their responsibilities of citizens to pay taxes and to act for the common good?

What kind of country are we becoming?

James Pilant

The Obama Administration’s ‘New’ Bank Fraud Deal: Still Unfair, Still Unjust, Still Unbalanced

The Obama White House continues to push for a settlement that would let bankers avoid being punished – or even investigated – for a wave of mortgage-related crimes that includes perjury, tax evasion, and several types of fraud.

Despite the President’s new-found populism – rhetorically, anyway – officials in his Administration continue to push an unfair deal designed to conceal the financial Crime of the Century.

The Financial Times reported on new details of the proposed settlement, whose stated purpose is to punish banks and reduce the amount of money owed by underwater homeowners. But it’s increasingly clear that the deal wouldn’t help homeowners very much and wouldn’t punish bankers at all.

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The 1% Hit Back

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

The knives are out. The corporations, the wealthy and their well paid minions (think of a crowd of Igors in an old Frankenstein movies) are going to portray the Occupy movement as anarchists and Marxists. An even casual reading of the news stories shows that as a lie. Can you find anarchists and Marxist in the movement? Of course you can; the same as you can find Klansmen and Christian Reconstructionists in the Tea Party and the Republican Party.

The question isn’t whether there are unpopular political beliefs in some participants of the movement but do they run it or is their influence the deciding factor in decisions. Neither of those things are true. I have no doubt that the primary motivations of Occupy Wall Street movement is the predominant influence the financial sector has in the government. There are also concerns for the decline of the middle class and the lack of penalties for those on Wall Street who did so much harm to the world economy.

Those are legitimate complaints held by millions of American. Take a look at this poll, this poll or this poll.

Does this new documentary wish to identify millions and millions of Americans as closet Marxists?

The hit job on the movement is expected. All criticism of the 1% is answered immediately, often borderline slander and almost always lies. The crude right wing message machine will say anything to keep Americans divided and powerless.

We can do better.

James Pilant

Right-wing documentary targets Occupy

Citizens United, which specializes in making documentaries with strong right-wing messages, is currently in production for a film about the Occupy movement, a spokesman for the group confirms to Salon.

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Rick Perry Discovers Populism?

On By southwerkIn Politics

This is startling. Okay, maybe shocking is a better word. I prefer my candidates to be consistent. It makes writing about them simple. The things I said yesterday are accurate today. Columns just write themselves.

But look at this. He sorta, kinda joins my side of the argument. I thought that in all of thinking down the most casual, simple basic thoughts that we had nothing in common. My world is shaken.

Now I have faith that he will never utter such things again. But what if I’m wrong and he’s actually changing? That’ll rattle me good. Is that even possible?

Well, let’s see how the vultures and the Republican stalwarts react.

I bet they’re more surprised than me.

James Pilant

Perry Says Romney and Bain Capital are Vultures

Rick Perry (from the Governors Web Site)

During a town hall event in Fort Mill, S.C, the Texas governor amplified an attack on Romney that’s being made by a super PAC which supports former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The Super PAC’s film “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” accuses the Republican frontrunner of “looting” companies during his time as the head of Bain Capital.

“I will suggest they’re just vultures,” Perry told supporters, according to Politico. “They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for a company to get sick. And then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton.”

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Is there Hope for the 99%, Can Individuals Still Make a Difference in a Nation Dominated by the 1%?

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

I had the pleasure of reading the article quoted below. It’s written by Erica K. in Open Salon. It’s entitled –

Requiem for the Jerry Springer Nation

(An excerpt from the article) –

Then came the Occupy movement, people from all walks of life banding together for a common cause, with good intentions, fighting for the least of their brothers and sisters, not the wealthiest and slimiest. It filled me and many with hope, and others with disdain, but it was something. A something that spread from Wall Street across the nation and into other parts of the world. Something is better than nothing.

I, too, have wondered if change was possible. Sometimes, the Obama’s servitude to the great economic interests particularly financial institutions, has driven me to rage. The Democratic and Republican seem interested in the 99% only the most unusual circumstance. Generally speaking, either party can be counted on to be obedient to corporate money.

So, the current political situation is hopeless. It is virtually impossible in most states to find a candidate who has any degree of fidelity to the middle class, the people that actually make America work.

I am a member of the 99%, and I know what to do. It’s been done many times before.

We take over a political party. I don’t care which one.

History shows successful takeovers by Progressives at the turn of the Twentieth century and the liberals in the 1930’s.

Please understand, you don’t influence politicians by editorials and tough words in meetings, you beat them in elections. They have to be humiliated, vilified, driven from electoral politics.

No prisoners.

When some Democratic says the phrase, “What I’m doing is tough for you, but think what the Republicans would do.” That person is an enemy. You dry up his money. You pound him with criticism and ridicule at every turn, and then you beat him at the polls. You knock him down so that he never enters politics again. Every time, a candidate who believes wholeheartedly in defending and restoring the middle class wins, you win. Every time a compromising, corporate dependent candidate with some generally sympathetic views wins, you have suffered a humiliating defeat. If you compromise, you will be sold. Corporate contributions demand that result and they get that result.

For more than three decades, Liberals, Progressives and Unions have voted for the more liberal of the candidates in lock step. The result is that those candidates can ignore their interests moving to the right year by year to pander to corporate interests. Time after time, I hear the phrases, “We have to settle for what we can get, we have to face reality, we can only do what’s possible.” These are the words of compromise and slow, agonizing defeat. And for thirty years, the nation has moved to the right.

The left got what it deserved for its compromised: millions of jobs shifted overseas, workers rights stomped into insignificance, financial interest freed to speculate with public money, tax breaks and subsidies for countless industries, and, last but certainly not least, well organized, well financed attacks on Social Security.  This has been the result of compromising, of settling for what was “possible.”

The Republicans openly declare their fealty to the one percent and the Democrats are so toothless, weak and doctrineless that voting is almost pointless.

Occupy Wall Street has brought me hope. Maybe there is chance that this country can be run by its citizens, not as an oligarchy but as a democracy.

James Pilant

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Super PACs Worry Even Republicans

On By southwerkIn Politics
The United States Supreme Court.

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Super PAC Disclosure Requirements Hot Topic Of Conversation Among GOP Candidates

“What is happening now is what I predicted,” McCain told CBS. “The United States Supreme Court — in what I think is one of the worst decisions in history — struck down the restrictions in the so-called McCain-Feingold Law, and a lot of people don’t agree with that, but I predicted when the United States Supreme Court, with their absolute ignorance of what happens in politics, struck down that law, that there would be a flood of money into campaigns, not transparent, unaccounted for, and this is exactly what is happening.”

Super PAC Disclosure Requirements Hot Topic Of Conversation Among GOP Candidates

There is probably an advantage for many Republicans in the lack of limits of corporate campaign contribution. However, with the destruction of Newt Gringrich in the Iowa caucuses after a pummeling by a Super PAC sympathetic to Romney, there is some concern in the ranks of the party, as you can see from the article linked to above.

That we should at least know who is funding these Monster Super PACs would seem to be simple intelligence. Otherwise, we have licensed the wealthy to do advertising hit jobs on any candidate they wish with no accountability whatever. Of course, our Supreme Court composed of members whose connection with the 99% is tenuous at best, may find political hit jobs to be a legitimate form of political speech since that is one way in which corporations and the rich like to communicate.

James Pilant

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