Mortgage Companies Get Public Money For Properties They Don’t Own?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, White Collar Crime

Mortgage companies enrolled in the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure-prevention initiative may be receiving taxpayer funds despite not having a legal right to the home or to the mortgage, a top Treasury Department official revealed Wednesday.

But despite faulty or missing paperwork, the Obama administration allows mortgage companies to boot homeowners from the program, sticking the borrowers with massive bills that often leave them worse off.

During an oversight hearing, Phyllis Caldwell, Treasury’s housing rescue chief, acknowledged during questioning that Treasury doesn’t know whether mortgage companies and the owners of mortgages are receiving public money under “false pretenses.” Treasury is investigating, she said.

The contradiction highlights what many critics of the past two administrations’ policies have claimed for some time: they exert overwhelming force when it comes to saving financial institutions, but merely modest assistance when it comes to distressed homeowners.

So, let me get this straight, the federal government in this case the Treasury Department, has been kicking hundreds of thousands of people out of their program (HAMP) to keep their homes but the mortgage companies have been getting the money whether or not they owned the homes?

Actual human beings have had to fill out tons of paperwork (my understanding is that the initial application is a seventy page document), provide endless reams of evidence of income, etc., get relatively little aid and more often than not get kicked out of the program.

On the other hand, the banks who have been receiving federal funds (HAMP funds), have not had to prove they owned the property to collect benefits?

At what point, did the phrase, double standard, become the Administration’s sole approach for mortgage foreclosures?

They can’t be troubled to find obvious bank problems but happily squish homeowners for the smallest application fault? Thanks a lot, White House, for lining up with the little guys!

James Pilant

How Arrogant Are Foreclosure Firms?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, White Collar Crime

This arrogant! – (from Money Talks News) –

How many people didn’t get an attorney and thought they were safe because they made all their payments?

James Pilant

Why False Affidavits Matter

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, White Collar Crime

I found this video today. It’s short and precise. I recommend you watch it. It explains (generally speaking) the affidavit’s importance in law.

Good Stuff!

Stay tuned. I spend hours a day reading about the foreclosure mess from major news sources, internet sites, legals sources and the foreign press.

I’ll keep you up to date.

James Pilant

Just For Fun – Aqua!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics

Aqua had a major hit some years ago with a novelty song called “Barbie Girl.” Less said the better.

Occasionally (okay, that’s a lie, regularly) I prowl the internet looking for music. One of my most favorite pieces of music is the Association’s intro music to the film, Goodbye Columbus. It’s almost impossible to find but I keep at it.

Anyway, I find Aqua’s novelty song and find a large number of other songs they have done. They are pretty good.

I think I’ve gotten so outraged over the many things that seem so unfair to me, that for a moment I’ve lost perspective. There are nice days. There are people trying to do the right thing. There is hope. But sometimes when confronted with walls and walls of information showing the pain of people in this country and the indifference of Washington and the sense of the entitlement of the financial elites, it’s hard to see the light.

Let’s listen to a little Aqua and relax for a minute (or in this case, 3:23).

or (3:32).

As always, I very much appreciate your kindness in reading my stuff.

James Alan Pilant

Charlie LeDuff On What An American Male Is Supposed To Be

On By southwerkIn ethics2 Comments

I often discuss the strange set of demands made upon the American male in this society. Take a look at this. I ran across this quote in my internet meanderings. It’s delicious.

The following to the end of the last quote is from wikipedia.

The preface of US Guys includes this quote on Leduff’s view of the American male:

The American man has been taught that while it is better to avoid a fight; that honor cannot always be defended with reason. He should never admit fear. He should always strive to put the blade in his adversary’s chest, not his back. An American man should know how to load and fire a gun. He should know how to ride a horse, bet on a horse, bet on the stock market, and bet on the cards. A good man should know a woman’s body and know how to please her. His woman, in turn, should never speak anything but well of him in public. An American man should have been raised in the church, rejected the church and eventually found virtue in the church.

The American man should be educated. He should work. He should honor his debts and live within his means. He should be able to recite poetry and have bits of true philosophy at his fingertips. He should be able to play an instrument and know how to help a rose grow. An American man should know how to dress and speak his language well. He should be handy and mechanically inclined and yet his nails must be clean. A man should have children, and at some point his children should reject him. And in the course of his life, a man’s children should return and find virtue in him.

This is what an American man should be. Of course, no such man has ever existed, and no man probably ever will.

Here’s Charlie LeDuff talking about “Greed.” (It’s a documentary.)

Givers and Takers (via noshtradamus)

On By southwerkIn ethics2 Comments

I’ve been writing extensively and intensively about the mortgage foreclosure crisis. I continually draw comparisons between the families losing their homes and the foreclosure industry in terms of their ethics. (I don’t believe that the foreclosure industry could recognize an ethical dilemma if it hit them across the nose with an aluminum baseball bat.)
So, I found this article by the blogger who goes by the alias of “Noshtradamus.”

I think a discussion of givers and takers is appropriate for my blog just now.

Good writing.

James Pilant

Givers and Takers In life there are two broad kind of people: Givers, and Takers. And you will come across them in both your personal and professional lives. While this is the obvious/visible definition/observation, you will find there are two subsets to these as well – kind of like wolves in sheep's clothing, and also sheep in wolves clothing. What? Yes, allow me to elaborate. First with the two main types: The Givers: People who do things for other people. Provi … Read More

via noshtradamus

Woman Fired For Having Bad Credit

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Philosophy of Business1 Comment

Four weeks after starting a temporary accounting position at Seattle Bank, Kristin Meaux, 36, says she received a call from the human resources director informing her that the bank had mistakenly forgotten to run a credit check on her before allowing her to work there. Meaux says she agreed to a new credit check, but explained to the bank that she had been laid off from her last full-time job in March 2008 and was still trying to pay off several medical bills from a few pregnancy complications that cropped up after she lost her health insurance.

When the results of the credit report came in several days later, Meaux says she was promptly fired and escorted off the premises.

The last few days have seen a number of articles written about the effects of credit checks on employment. When unemployment last a few weeks, the financial drain can seriously damage a credit rating. When the kind of unemployment we have now is the norm, people are often unemployed for months or years. That is devastating to a credit rating.

So, allowing businesses to use credit ratings as a screening technique rules out the unemployed as potential hires.

Wasn’t that a great idea! What don’t we look at their DNA and see if they might have long term problems? Why don’t we go look at their kids grades? Isn’t that a sign of how good a person is? What about relatives? political beliefs? voting habits?

Why do we as a people allow credit ratings (run by three major companies) to determine so much about our lives?

Tell me something. Is it worse to have a criminal record or a bad credit rating?

You can get a criminal record expunged.

It’s time to stop the practice of background credit checks for employment.

(And for that matter, allowing employers to require you provide your medical records, is another thing that should disappear.)

James Pilant

Sheldon Whitehouse Weighs In On The Foreclosure Crisis

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business2 Comments

There is deep concern in Washington over the damage the foreclosure crisis might do to banks and the “recovery” in the marbled halls of our elected representatives, their expensive lobbyists and the beltway media.

They worry about the banks. I don’t waste a moment on them. The poor banks. God, I’d hate to get up in the morning and be as friendless, attorneyless and helpless as a major financial institution.

Here what I would like to hear more of. From the Huffington Post –

I have heard from constituents being ignored and abused in the foreclosure process: documents repeatedly lost, inconsistent advice, hours trapped on the phone, and common sense turned on its head to reject fair modifications in favor of foreclosure. I have heard from mayors about the terrible collateral cost to communities from foreclosure. I have watched the big loan servicers drag their feet in the Obama Administration’s well-intentioned mortgage modification program. And most recently, we have all learned that these companies have been playing fast and loose in their foreclosure process, carrying out foreclosures in the cheapest manner possible, often outsourcing the process to a “foreclosure mill” document processing company.

Trapped in administrative purgatory, real families suffer when the big banks and their servicers force foreclosures. Children pack up their rooms; parents struggle to find a temporary roof. We owe these families a fair chance to stay in their homes, and a humane, logical and orderly foreclosure process if all else fails.

That’s what I want to hear.

James Alan Pilant

Due Process

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business

When someone takes your house, you have a right to be heard. Okay, not really. You’re just supposed to.

The courts have held to a presumption that the banks acted responsibly when they sought a foreclosure. This is because for decades the banks had acted as reliable, responsible members of the community. Only 23 states require a judicial proceeding to take someone’s home.

Unfortunately in those states, the hearing was the merest formality, because once again, there was a presumption in favor on the banks. The banks did not have to produce the documents and prove their case, they only had to provide an affidavit that they had looked at the documents and the facts were as stated.

The banks are no longer stable, reliable members of the community. I’m sure some still are. Nevertheless, piracy is more a correct synonym for modern financial practices than the word, banking.

No one who has watched the financial casino betting of the last decade can have the kind of trust in banks that used to be the norm.

It’s time to change the rules.

If you steal a car or shoplift a $4.95 toy from a store, you are entitled to due process. You have to be arraigned and told what the charges are. The state is required to produce evidence to convict in open court. The defendant is able to produce evidence of his own and call his own witnesses.

But a bank can take a half million dollar home based on the affidavit of former supermarket checker with no knowledge of the mortgage process at all (who didn’t look at the documents anyway). The bank does not have to provide supporting documents, and many judges are uninterested in hearing the problems of “dead beat” homeowner.

Now I recognize the difference between a criminal and a civil matter. However, that a criminal has far more rights than a law abiding homeowner should be a matter of concern.

It is time for banks to bring the documents to court. It is time for a full hearing of the homeowners claims.

No more “sworn” affidavits. Since the foreclosure industry has lied in these affidavits hundreds of thousands of times, I find them valueless.

Now, you might say, “James, just because these people lied on their affidavits doesn’t mean that we should change the system. After all most people who swear out an affidavit are telling the truth.”

I would say, “Okay, if you want to keep affidavits, you have to make them believable.”

You would respond, “How would we do that?”

“You jail or fine those who have filed false affidavits. Only then will the system have the necessary integrity.”

That’s what I want. Penalties for those that deliberate lie to the court for the financial gain of their employer and I want penalties for the banks that engaged in these practices.

Can you tell me that these companies had hundreds of thousands of these affidavits signed over two years and didn’t notice it? What definition of the word, affidavit, is a mystery to the attorneys of the banking industry?

As ridiculous as it may sound, I want justice.

James Pilant

Foreclosure Freeze (via Lesslie Giacobbi’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Government Failure

Few writers have mentioned the dangers of the title insurers deciding to sit this dispute out. She does. I’d pay attention if I were you, particularly if you are thinking of buying a house.

James Pilant

What’s going to happen with the foreclosure freeze and should I wait to buy? Gary P. Hi Gary, There are several things to consider, and here are just a few. Right now, with the freeze, there may be a little less inventory to choose from. Some experts have even thought that we’ll have a little upward blip in pricing because there will be fewer houses to choose from and fewer distress sales on the market. Most people think that if this fiasco takes … Read More

via Lesslie Giacobbi's Blog