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 Saga Of The Students From India And Tri-valley University Continues

On By southwerkIn ethics4 Comments

Some of these students have had to wear ankle bracelets that electronically broadcast their location. I have a report that there were 18 students required to wear these and two of these have now been detained. Their appeal is unlikely to be heard until September. If you count the remainder of February, that is seven months wearing an ankle bracelet. What’s more it is long time to be in legal limbo, unable to attend another university or work.

This is from the Times of India –

The Indian students duped by a fake university in the US face an uncertain future as their appeal is not likely to be heard in a court there before September.

The 1,555 students, mostly from Andhra Pradesh, feel they are being subjected to inhuman treatment by the US authorities for no fault of theirs. They want the Indian government to immediately come to their rescue and help them transfer to other US universities.

The families of the students are worried as the US authorities have tied radio monitors to their ankles and may deport them for violation of visa rules.

The dreams of the students to pursue higher education in the US came crashing last week after the Tri-Valley University in California was raided for helping foreigners to illegally obtain student visas.

This is a program from an Indian law firm in the United States explaining the situation.

The government of India has expressed concern. This is from the DAILYBHASKAR.in.

Voicing concern over the welfare of Indian students affected by the closure of a California-based university, India on Friday asserted that students had valid visas and conveyed to the US that they should be given chance to clarify their position.

The students hold valid visas, a senior official said here on Friday, adding that India is hopeful they will be given adequate opportunity to clarify their position.

“Our immediate concern is the welfare of students. We are in touch with US federal agencies,” a senior official said. India’s consul general in San Fransisco also is in touch with students, the official said.

I am concerned too. I have a link to an online petition. I want you to understand clearly. This is not a petition that says there should be no investigation or that further inquiries should not be made. The petition asks for fairness. How many of you can disagree with that?

America is a very strange place for foreign students, not quite like the television view. Justice should not be denied but some kindness and a full consideration of their rights is not too much to ask for.

If you want to sign an online petition to ask the State Department to treat these students fairly, you can go here.

To my readers outside the United States, you do not need to be an American citizen to sign this petition!

So, come in and help.

James Pilant

P.S. I’m getting some indications that the investigation is focusing on a relatively small number of students. There is no direct announcement of this, but I am an attorney. The “feel” of the case is wrong. If they considered all of the students guilty, they could have moved all of them to a detention camp, since that number of students would have suggested an international conspiracy. In the United States, you file against everybody possible and then you narrow it down. I “think” (remember this is just my feel for what is going on) that the authorities are trying to sort through the cases and the fact that there are so many agencies involved is slowing the process.

Affidavits Not Enough to Prove Ownership of a Mortgage Note (via DANNLAW)

On By southwerkIn business ethics
A Bank?

For almost two years banks have been foreclosing on homes and many times the only evidence of ownership was a notarized piece of paper with the signature of a “robo-signer,” often a person with no legal training whatever, often people who had no concept of the effects of the documents to which they attached their names.

In Deutche Bank v. Triplett, the banks were told, “No.” This is part of a chain of decisions where the courts have said to the banks, “You cannot foreclose without actual documents showing ownership (my interpretation).”

In other words, signing a notarized statement that your bank owns the property is not enough to foreclose on property.

With the MERS system in use by many of the big mortgage firms (Countrywide for example), there is an absence of proper paperwork in at least hundreds of thousands of cases. MERS only has computer records, no paperwork. This computer program run by a private company saved banks from the hassle of going through the process of changing ownership without bothering with that time-consuming paperwork like filing documents at the county court-house or paying the state mandated fees for transferring ownership.

Some judges believe that evading state law and taxes is illegal.

If you want to understand MERS, go to my article here –MERS And Ownership or here – Congress Leaps In To Protect The Banking Industry?

Building on the landmark Wells Fargo v. Jordan Decision, Ohio’s 8th District Court of Appeals (Cuyahoga County) ruled this week that an affidavit alleging that a foreclosure plaintiff held the note prior to filing of a complaint for foreclosure is not sufficient evidence to support a foreclosure judgment. In Deutche Bank v. Triplett, the court of appeals held: “… Deutsche  Bank’s affidavit of ownership, sworn out more than a year after the fore … Read More

via DANNLAW

California AG to Use $6.5M Settlement to Help Foreclosed Homeowners (via Loaning4Less.com™)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

There was fraud in many home mortgages. We should see more of these cases but California is one of the few states where there have been prosecutions.

It is difficult to convince me that with Countrywide’s vast portfolio that this practice was uncommon. One of the best ways to defraud a homeowner is to sell him on the idea of cheap credit, lowering his monthly payments, knowing all along the loan will revert to a floating rate. That new interest rate produces a devastating increase in monthly payments forcing foreclosure. This is fraud. Conning people into home loans is what the great lecturers on personal responsibility claim was a rare event.

I don’t think so.

Here is one of my articles on this subject – Bank of America Sued Over Countrywide Mortgage Related Investments

James Pilant

California AG to Use $6.5M Settlement to Help Foreclosed Homeowners California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced Friday that the $6.5 million settlement from two former Countrywide Financial Corp. executives will be used to establish a fund to help foreclosed homeowners. The settlement comes from a litigation that began more than two years ago against Angelo Mozilo and David Sambol. According to the lawsuit, Countrywide lured buyers with low teaser rates, sometimes as low as 1 percent, and failed to inform … Read More

via Loaning4Less.com™

BOA: BAD BANK, BAD BANK, WORSE BANK (via Livinglies’s Weblog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

Right!

This is how I feel as well. It’s a good read. Be warned, he’s really upset. But so am I when I’m dealing with this issue.

Here is my writing on the same subject. You can see that I get passionate about foreclosures too.

Robo-Signing Foreclosure Freeze Update (via Foreclosureblues)

Lots of Links on the Foreclosure Fraud Crisis (via Rortybomb)

“We Can Either Have a Rational Resolution to the Foreclosure Crisis or We Can Preserve the Capital Structure of the Banks. We Can’t Do Both” (via Foreclosureblues)

Sheldon Whitehouse Weighs In On The Foreclosure Crisis

Third Way Comments on Foreclosure Fraud Policy in the Post-Ibanez Landscape (via Rortybomb)

Foreclosure Speed Made Loan Modifications Impossible

The Vast Majority Of Foreclosures Were Done Correctly?

In total, I have 46 posts about the mortgage crisis.

James Pilant

BOA: BAD BANK, BAD BANK, WORSE BANK COMBO Title and Securitization Search, Report, Documents, Analysis & Commentary Bank of America to Create Troubled Loans Unit BANK STILL ATTEMPTING TO KEEP FORECLOSURES A POLITICAL ISSUE AS LEGAL OPTIONS RUN OUT EDITOR’S NOTE: As for what this means for homeowners, it is obvious that BOA is trying to come up with some formula that will be politically acceptable the final result of which will still be that they will get hundreds of thousands o … Read More

via Livinglies’s Weblog

Net Neutrality alert: Verizon to throttle data speeds for heaviest users (via Between The Lines)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

Is net neutrality important to you personally? How much data speed do you use? If you are like me and my family, you can only suspect that you might be a heavy user. That’s not good predictive power. If this policy is applied to you, it is probably going to be a surprise when your data speed is too slow for Netflix.

They are looking for their Internet Service.

Read the opening of the post –

The Net Neutrality whistles are blowing and flags are flying this morning over buzz that Verizon Wireless will be throttling data speeds for its heaviest data users. The change, effective immediately, is believed to be part of Verizon’s efforts to ensure that its network is ready for the flood of iPhone users who will start powering up those devices next week.

In a nutshell, if you’re a heavy user – and you really have no way of knowing if that’s you or not – then Verizon Wireless “may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand.”

I don’t think we should let private industry decide these policies. The FCC regulated television and radio for decades bringing order out of chaos. Why shouldn’t we have standard policies across the nation? We are at the mercy of a handful of suppliers due to consolidation allowed by the very same government that people believe shouldn’t be regulating this at all. If we received our Internet services whether wired or wireless from hundreds of sources, all this would have been solved by competition. But a limited number of suppliers have no reason to cut prices to compete when they simply own the lines alone.

More from the web site –

That’s like watching ESPN 24 hours a day and then having the programming cut in half for the last week of the month because other customers don’t watch it as much as I do. How is that right?

I think so too. Why should I be charged for something I can’t measure? And what can I do to fix it if I need that bandwidth? I teach online. This is not an academic exercise. This is my work, and I’m not the only one that uses their home computer for something besides World of Warcraft.

In a monopolistic system of suppliers, I have no say at all. At least with the FCC, I’ve got a chip on the table.

James Pilant

P.S. The web site, Between the Lines, was my source and I would like you to visit if this subject interesting.

The Skuggi Report: Net Neutrality Made Simple (via Skuggi_Net)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This author has done a great job of breaking down a difficult subject into a straightforward narrative.

He wrote this little masterpiece of summary and I provide it to you.

Please visit his web site and thank him for his effort.

James Pilant

Net Neutrality is seen in two views of recent the first being a savior of the internet and the other it’s doom and to be honest depending on its implication it can be both.   The theory behind Net Neutrality is that it will keep the internet unrestricted, you pay for X level of service and you get that service with no services being blocked.   If one person on one ISP (Comcast, Adelphia, Verizon etc.) can get access to a type of content at the sp … Read More

via Skuggi_Net

Andrew Comments On My Post: “Could science prove that vanilla is better than chocolate? (via No Right to Believe)”

On By southwerkIn ethics

Andrew has some comment concerning my blog post: “Could science prove that vanilla is better than chocolate? (via No Right to Believe)”

Here are Andrew’s thoughts –

I disagree with Mr. Harris. Science was designed to be descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, science is meant to describe how things are or how they appear to be. Not how things ought to be.

The scientific method could be used to examine how and why different cultures end up with their specific philosophical values systems. It is not equipped, however, to determine which system is “better” and which ought to be followed.

Sam Harris and the other founders of the New Atheist Movement (NAM) have been trying, for the past few years, to make science into more than what it is. They’ve put it up on a pedestal and seem to be almost worshiping the idea of science as this perfect process for the attainment of knowledge and reason. They’ve run into a few roadblocks, however, when trying to reconcile the notion of morality and “what we OUGHT to do” with the scientific method that they worship. The funny part is, by doing this they fall into the very same philosophical traps that they accuse the followers of religious philosophies and doctrines of doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m an atheist as well (not as militant as the NAM though), and I am very familiar with a few areas of science (mainly physics and mechanics) so I know how good of a tool science can be at helping us further our understanding of the universe we live in. Having said that, however, let me emphasis that it does have its limits.

A good example of this is in the topic of nuclear weapons. Science helped us understand how to build the atom bomb. The ethics behind building and using such a weapon, however, is a completely different ball game. As such, we can see that there is more to being human than what science can help us see.

Whether or not science has moral answers I will leave to my readers’ discretion. I am still struggling with the history and basic tenets of moral philosophy. Isn’t John Wayne supposed to have said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” I try to not in over may head although I’m sure I do at times.

James Pilant

Espresso, WiFi, & Confidentiality with a Twist of Lemon (via Bow Tie Law’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Does an attorney violate client confidentiality by using public broadband? It appears so. There are clear implications for any profession in which confidentiality is a responsibility. Is this the first shot in a dispute about using public Internet access for professionals or all of us?

Maybe we should all be more aware of the risks to our own data?

Read this fascinating article on using the web and an attorney’s fiduciary duty.

James Pilant

Espresso, WiFi, & Confidentiality with a Twist of Lemon Many attorneys, as with a large contingent of the general public, do not possess much, if any, technological savvy. Although the Committee does not believe that attorneys must develop a mastery of the security features and deficiencies of each technology available, the duties of confidentiality and competence that attorneys owe to their clients do require a basic understanding of the electronic protections afforded by the technology they use in t … Read More

via Bow Tie Law’s Blog

Another New Theme!

On By southwerkIn Uncategorized1 Comment
Wordpress Theme, Enterprise

One of my readers very kindly pointed out to me that the new theme was nice but the font was difficult to read. I looked at it and decided that she was right. So, I have a new theme with a larger font. It’s easier to read and while it is not quite as elegant as the old one, readability is more important. If you can’t read it, pretty don’t count.

James Pilant

Andrew Comments On “Law Prohibiting Price Gouging In Oklahoma (via 40/29 tv.com)”

On By southwerkIn business ethics

On my regular commentators, Andrew, would like to add his thought to my previous post, “Law Prohibiting Price Gouging In Oklahoma (via 40/29 tv.com).”

I like the spirit of this law. It prevents unethical businesses from profiting from the misfortune of others.

Here’s a hypothetical situation. If Company “A” and Company “B” are both hardware stores in the same town when an emergency hits. Company “A” is owned by an unethical man who ratchets up his prices to make a buck off of the emergency. Company “B” is owned by an ethical man who keeps his prices steady (perhaps out of a sense of duty to his community, who knows). Now say I am a resident of this town. In the aftermath of this emergency, if I hear that Company B’s prices are lower than Company A’s, then I will prefer to do business with Company B. Thus, ideally, ethics will win out over greed.

This hypothetical only applies to situations where healthy competition is established in each market. If you live in a small town where there is only one hardware store or one grocery store, then the residents are at the mercy of the store owner.

So it seems that this law will definitely help out the small town folks, and I see nothing wrong with it at all.

Andrew is good commentator and I appreciate his thoughts. I have urged him to write his own blog or to write full articles for mine but he prefers his current role.

If you write some interesting content, I am likely to post it. I get to choose when and my editorial decisions may not make much sense to you but I will try to do my best to be fair.

James Pilant