Monday, November 29, 2010

Making Money With Youtube


Who doesn’t love a good viral video on Youtube? It’s every brands dream to have a video that clocks up millions of views but rather than being something that is done off the cuff brands are increasingly having to spend big money on production, ad campaigns to support the videos and other props. The rewards can be massive though as the good videos spread all over sites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube in days with most clocking up millions of views and huge interaction. As you’ll see most of these videos are made by big brands and are clearly not the sort of videos that you just pull out a camera and film in a second! Here are the top 10 Youtube viral videos from brands in 2010…


T-Mobile Arrivals Video


This is the most recent in a string of stunning viral ads from T-Mobile in which people come together to dance in a variety of places. The latest one is set in Terminal 5 at Heathrow and you can’t help but have a huge smile on your face after watching this one.



Roger Federer Gillette


Is it real or is it fake? It’s the question that you’ll be asking after you watch this video in which Roger Federer shows incredible skill. I’m pretty much in the fake camp because he would have taken the guys head off if this was real!



The Old Spice Guy


Everybody is probably familiar with this campaign but although we all know the story line it simply has to be included in the list for it’s sheer originality. Not a single video but instead 100s of personalized videos from one of the biggest ad stars on the planet.



Samsung Video Camera


So how do you create a viral video that shows off the amazing quality of a new Samsung video camera? Well you get a crazy kid who can do pretty much anything with a business card. This simply blows my mind and the kid clearly has a lot of time on his hands!



Heineken – Men with Talent


This one is Dutch but you won’t have any trouble finding the formula that they are ripping the piss out of. More of a TV advert given the production values that a Youtube specific ad but it has been shared all over the world.



Coke – Happiness Machine


If there is one thing that Coke love doing it is making people feel good with their advertising and making them happy and this simple little idea certainly ticks those boxes. Every college should have a happiness machine!



Google Chrome – Speed Test


Even the company that owns Youtube feels they have to make videos for the platform which is what Google did with this stunning video to promote the speed of their Google Chrome browser.



BMW Table Trick


Love this little video because it really gets the message of the product across in a very short period of time and takes one of the oldest tricks in the book and puts a modern spin on it. Not a lot of views but a great concept!



The Coke Zero & Mentos Rocket Car


One of the oldest tricks in the books taken to a much bigger level. You’d expect this to go at the speed of light wouldn’t you? Maybe these 2 ingredients are actually better for eating?









TV is coming to the Web and there is nothing that can stop it. Just ask Avner Ronen, the CEO of Web TV startup Boxee. Later tonight, he will announce the general availability of his Boxee Box, a small device you hook up to your TV and the Internet so you can watch video from the Web on your TV. The videos come not only from YouTube, but also from ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com, Comedy Central, and many other video sites on the Web. I visited Ronen today at his New York City offices where he gave me a demo of the Boxee Box (more on that in a later post), but we also got into a very interesting discussion about how the major TV networks and media companies are reacting to seeing their Web videos increasingly turning up on large-screen TVs.


As he describes in the video below, Ronen argues that the media companies should be more consistent: either charge for videos on the Web or make it free, or go for the freemium model and offer premium video watching experiences on devices like Boxee and the iPad or an additional fee. He reveals that Boxee is working on a payments platform to support such subscription business models on the Boxee service. Furthermore, Hulu Plus will become available on Boxee as a paid option. Yup, the same Hulu that previously blocked Boxee


It is not a foregone conclusion that the media companies who control the most popular TV shows and movies will play along. Just last month, when Google launched its competing Google TV, it was almost immediately blocked by the major TV networks even though it was simply grabbing video freely available on the Web. Hulu also blocked Google TV. Effectively, the media industry is now discriminating based on device and what kind of browser you are using.


Why wouldn’t they do exactly the same thing to the Boxee Box? “I think that is a reasonable assumption to make,” admits Ronen. But he believes that eventually they will come around. “Our view is that ultimately it does not make sense for content owners to discriminate based on browsers and screen size. It is an endless battle. ”


I pointed out that what seems to be happening instead is that the TV networks and movie studios are trying to replicate the business model of cable TV on the Web, by granting access only to services which pay them hefty fees like Netflix does (to the tune of an estimated $2 billion next year).


Ronen is actually fine with making people pay for content, and in fact says that he will make one-click payments part of the Boxee service itself. Next year,” he reveals, “we will launch a payments platform on Boxee. With one click you will be able to subscribe. We think that will be part of the solution.” You can watch videos behind Web paywalls today on Boxee, but you have to enter a different username and password for each site. Boxee’s payment service would be single sign-on and manage all the subscriptions in one place.


What he suggests is a classic freemium model. If you want new shows and videos as soon as they come out in HD, you pay a few bucks a month to NBC or HBO and you can watch those shows on Boxee, your iPad, your computer or anywhere you want. Then a week or so later, it comes out free on the Web in standard definition with ads. The we-support-subscriptions argument is also one the Google TV folks are making.


The media companies are fine with Netflix streaming their movies and shows because Netflix pays them a bunch of money. But where their model breaks down is that often they offer the same TV shows on their own Websites for free. “While they are comfortable with the Netflix model, they are not comfortable with their own services online. I think it is better if they have an online business model that they believe in.”


Watch the shaky-cam video below for more of his thoughts on the matter.




http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


Fox <b>News</b> &#39;12 - Wilshire &amp; Washington on Variety.com

I expect this is just the start of an ever-more rocky relationship between the news networks, but it may be a boon to the candidates. If they don't have to spend money to get exposure, doesn't it make more sense for them to wait until ...

Kim Kardashian is &#39;dead&#39; in new ad « Entertainment

Kim Kardashian will die on Wednesday. At least that's what her new ad says. The reality.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: The Wachowskis Head Back to Sci-Fi With <b>...</b>

James Gunn's 'Super' is set for an April 1st, 2011 release in NY and LA, followed quickly by a VOD expansion. In honor of.


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html












Saturday, November 27, 2010

Being Right or Making Money




Progressives have suspected for years that working- and middle-class Americans vote for the GOP because they have a deeply unrealistic idea about their real chances of becoming wealthy. We've joked that working stiffs vote for tax cuts and other goodies for the rich because they seriously believe that they're going to be rich themselves someday, and want to make sure those advantages will be there for them, come the day.


To date, this has been just a guess on our part -- but a recent study now proves that this guess was right on the money. The Myth of the Self-Made American is being bolstered by a delusionally optimistic view of just how many people actually make it to the top 3% income level. It's a delusion that affects almost everyone, but particularly those who vote Republican.


Ryan Enos at yougov.com explains the results of a YouGov/Polimetrix poll conducted a few weeks before the recent election. As he explains their findings:


The hot button issue with the tax cuts is whether to renew the cuts for families earning more than $250,000 a year. The wrangling among politicians over this issue seems to mostly involve whether or not earning that amount of money qualifies somebody as wealthy.


What's amazing about the magic number of $250,000 is that, based on responses to a recent YouGov/Polimetrix poll, by and large, Americans have a very distorted view of how many people make that much money.


Any idea what proportion of American families make more than $250,000 a year? Or, to potentially make it easier, any idea what proportion of families in your state make more than $250,000 a year?


Don't feel bad if you don't know—most people don't. The actual number, nationwide is somewhere less than 3% of families earn more than $250,000 a year. What did the survey respondents say when asked this question? The average response was close to 17%!—meaning your typical survey respondent thinks that almost 1 in 5 families in America earn that kind of money, when the answer is closer to 1 in 50!


Enos goes on to point out that there are only a few states where the actual number of $250K earners even cracks 8% -- Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. But when the question was put to people in those states, they weren't even half right, because their answers tilted upward, to about 21%.


Furthermore: the more money you make, and the more education you have, the more accurate your guess becomes. People making over $150K guessed an average of about 11%; those making under $30K thought it was more like 21%. College graduates guessed 12%; people with graduate degrees were closer, but not by much.


And only 15% of the survey participants answered 3% or under --though one-third of those answered "zero," meaning they thought nobody in the country makes more than $250K a year. Deduct this disconnected 5%, and you're left with just 10% of Americans who have a realistic sense of just how rare a $250K income is in this country.


While Republicans and Democrats gave about the same answers, the study also found that the more distorted peoples' views were, the lower their opinion of President Obama was, and the more likely they were to vote Republican last November 2. The bottom line, says Enos is this: "A person that says 20% of people make $250,000 is more likely to vote Republican than a person that says 5% of people make $250,000."


The irony, writes Enos, is that "people making less money actually believe that there are more wealthy people out there than wealthy people do."


This distortion explains a good deal about why middle- and working-class people vote for the GOP. A quarter of a million dollars sounds like an attainable income to most people -- they know at least a few people around town whom they imagine have already made it -- and they honestly think that with the right break or a little work, they might get there someday, too. It could happen.


Combine this with the common misunderstanding about how marginal tax rates work (hint: it's only the income over $250K that's taxed at the higher rate, not the whole year's take), and it's not hard to see why so many people making the average household income of $53K are incensed by the idea of increasing the marginal tax rate on the top 3% -- and why they think Obama is attacking them personally by suggesting such a horrible thing. They've bought into a myth about their chances of moving up the economic ladder that's at vast odds with the actual facts.


Some critics think Obama picked the wrong number, and that proposing at top tax rate that kicks in at $500K or a cool million would have avoided this problem. The average voter might have had a harder time imagining these numbers as being attainable. Maybe so. But maybe not: given how strong the myth of the self-made American is, and how many falsehoods you have to take on faith to believe it, we may be dealing with a level of delusion that's impervious to even really huge numbers, the kind that define only the top 0.5% of Americans.


We are living in a fact-free world now. Stories are all that matter. And in hard times, people tend to cling harder to their dreams -- especially the dream that no matter how bad things are now, someday they're going to rise above all this and triumph. Telling them the truth under these conditions is hard, and perhaps even cruel.


But one of the hallmarks of countries that are falling into chaos is that people come to believe more and more absurd things. Truth gives way to truthiness; facts aren't given the same weight as feelings. The huge disconnect between people's perceived prospects and their actual prospects shows just what a masterful job conservatives have done. They've convinced people to believe that their potential for mobility is as good or better than it ever was -- even as they've stolen the usual routes to a better life (education, home ownership, public investment, and so on) right out from under them.




Before the midterms, digby wrote this prophetic afterthought at the end of one of her posts:


But then these news outlets are all making huge profits from the right wing buy out of our democracy, so maybe it's just the price of doing business.


In this week's The Nation, there's a great article about the emergent money-media complex and the impact it has not only on our elections, but on how issues and politicians are presented by the corporate media who stand to gain much from the megabucks spent on elections.


To some extent, this is a story as old as the nation itself. Founding father John Jay thought "those who own the country ought to govern it." The battle to establish a credible system of "one person, one vote" instead of "one dollar, one vote" has been a running theme in American history. The stakes have always been the same: the less democratic our elections, the more corrupt our governance. But the current moment sees the country accelerating toward the edge of a cliff. "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both," observed Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. America is being put to the Brandeis test: democracy or plutocracy. The money-and-media election complex is creating a radically different electoral landscape than anything Americans have known since the Gilded Age. That landscape is characterized, pundits tell us, by an "enthusiasm gap." No kidding. Americans are not stupid. They knew their relatively paltry contributions, and even their votes, were unlikely to stop a $4 billion onslaught. To those bankrolling the system, voter cynicism and apathy are welcome. The more that the 2008 surge of youth participation in electoral politics dissipates, the better for them. Their interests are best served by narrowing the range of debate and participation, since that makes it easier to buy the government. As much as commentators like Jon Meacham might want to believe that "we are now living with a political class which has a financial and cultural interest in conflict rather than in governing," the hard truth is that we have a corporate class that funds electoral conflict for the purpose of forging a political class that will govern in its interest


.


Our skewed and cynical election process takes a toll on those most committed to those who fight hardest for ethical and open elections.


The emerging money-and-media election complex is perfectly designed to make participants conform or suffer the consequences. It should come as no surprise that some of the most troubling results of 2010 involved the defeats of independent players of both parties who had battled hardest for clean politics and ethical government—Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, the leading progressive Democratic reformer, was defeated, as was Representative Mike Castle, a moderate Republican beaten in Delaware's GOP Senate primary by Tea Party heroine Christine O'Donnell. Nor should it get better in 2012. "It's a bigger prize in 2012, and that's changing the White House," says Robert Duncan, chair of American Crossroads. "We've planted the flag for permanence, and we believe we will play a major role for 2012."


So this all explains how the money boys targeted key players, but it certainly doesn't give much credit to the media. From where I sit, the narrative of the midterms was as much about the constant drumbeat of the "depressed Democrat" and the Tea Party hype as it was anything else, and that came to us courtesy of every single mainstream media player out there. David Gregory does a stellar job of reinforcing right wing memes as though they're fact every week on Meet the Press. Cable news, with a few notable exceptions, does the same. And if you dare watch the 6 o'clock nightly news on one of the networks, the most you get is a 30-second sound bite with the most sensational presentation of every issue there is.


Without question, though, there would be no "Tea Party" and there would be no hype if they hadn't offered mainstream media two very important items: Sensational clips and a whole lot of money. They know a good thing when they see it.


But it's not just corporations and consultants who are setting the new agenda. The most important yet least-recognized piece of the money-and-media election complex is the commercial broadcasting industry, which just had its best money-making election season ever. Political advertising has become an enormous cash cow for it—roughly two-thirds of the campaign spending this year flowed into the coffers of TV stations; the final figure is likely to be well above $2 billion. Whereas in the 1990s the average commercial TV station received about 3 percent of its revenues from campaign ads, this year campaign money could account for as much as 20 percent. And station owners are not missing a beat; thirty-second spots that went for $2,000 in 2008 were jacked up to $5,000 this year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Much of this money will go to stations owned by a handful of Fortune 500 firms. No wonder station owners oppose campaign finance reform; their lobby role in Washington is similar to the NRA's in battling bans on assault weapons.


Here's where it cuts across journalism's turf:


The journalists who want to cut through the lies are having a harder time doing so. One of the truly unsettling developments of this election season was the decision by prominent candidates either to avoid the press, as Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle did, or to refuse opportunities to debate. Once upon a time challengers hungered to debate incumbents; in 2010 incumbents like Florida Representative Alan Grayson found themselves chasing after well-funded challengers. Feingold offered to debate his millionaire opponent in forums across the state, but Republican Ron Johnson, who had no record in public life and who even avoided interviews with newspaper editorial boards, refused.


There are solutions, ones that might not even need a recalcitrant Congress. As the authors point out, the FCC should be looking at the money spent and whose pockets it went to.


We have to stop thinking about the crisis of our politics merely in terms of reforming the campaign finance system (though of course it's important to fight for reforms). It's a media ownership and responsibility issue as well. It goes to the heart of why freedom of the press is enshrined in our Constitution. And regulatory agencies that are empowered to protect the public interest should be the first to intervene.


This really IS a crisis. We can't rely on the Supreme Court to fix what they tore asunder. The best, fastest route is via regulatory agencies, a tool the Obama administration has been using under the radar. (See this list of FTC actions for some examples).


In the words of Nancy Pelosi....


We will go through the gate," she said. "If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole-vault in.


We must.




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Progressives have suspected for years that working- and middle-class Americans vote for the GOP because they have a deeply unrealistic idea about their real chances of becoming wealthy. We've joked that working stiffs vote for tax cuts and other goodies for the rich because they seriously believe that they're going to be rich themselves someday, and want to make sure those advantages will be there for them, come the day.


To date, this has been just a guess on our part -- but a recent study now proves that this guess was right on the money. The Myth of the Self-Made American is being bolstered by a delusionally optimistic view of just how many people actually make it to the top 3% income level. It's a delusion that affects almost everyone, but particularly those who vote Republican.


Ryan Enos at yougov.com explains the results of a YouGov/Polimetrix poll conducted a few weeks before the recent election. As he explains their findings:


The hot button issue with the tax cuts is whether to renew the cuts for families earning more than $250,000 a year. The wrangling among politicians over this issue seems to mostly involve whether or not earning that amount of money qualifies somebody as wealthy.


What's amazing about the magic number of $250,000 is that, based on responses to a recent YouGov/Polimetrix poll, by and large, Americans have a very distorted view of how many people make that much money.


Any idea what proportion of American families make more than $250,000 a year? Or, to potentially make it easier, any idea what proportion of families in your state make more than $250,000 a year?


Don't feel bad if you don't know—most people don't. The actual number, nationwide is somewhere less than 3% of families earn more than $250,000 a year. What did the survey respondents say when asked this question? The average response was close to 17%!—meaning your typical survey respondent thinks that almost 1 in 5 families in America earn that kind of money, when the answer is closer to 1 in 50!


Enos goes on to point out that there are only a few states where the actual number of $250K earners even cracks 8% -- Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. But when the question was put to people in those states, they weren't even half right, because their answers tilted upward, to about 21%.


Furthermore: the more money you make, and the more education you have, the more accurate your guess becomes. People making over $150K guessed an average of about 11%; those making under $30K thought it was more like 21%. College graduates guessed 12%; people with graduate degrees were closer, but not by much.


And only 15% of the survey participants answered 3% or under --though one-third of those answered "zero," meaning they thought nobody in the country makes more than $250K a year. Deduct this disconnected 5%, and you're left with just 10% of Americans who have a realistic sense of just how rare a $250K income is in this country.


While Republicans and Democrats gave about the same answers, the study also found that the more distorted peoples' views were, the lower their opinion of President Obama was, and the more likely they were to vote Republican last November 2. The bottom line, says Enos is this: "A person that says 20% of people make $250,000 is more likely to vote Republican than a person that says 5% of people make $250,000."


The irony, writes Enos, is that "people making less money actually believe that there are more wealthy people out there than wealthy people do."


This distortion explains a good deal about why middle- and working-class people vote for the GOP. A quarter of a million dollars sounds like an attainable income to most people -- they know at least a few people around town whom they imagine have already made it -- and they honestly think that with the right break or a little work, they might get there someday, too. It could happen.


Combine this with the common misunderstanding about how marginal tax rates work (hint: it's only the income over $250K that's taxed at the higher rate, not the whole year's take), and it's not hard to see why so many people making the average household income of $53K are incensed by the idea of increasing the marginal tax rate on the top 3% -- and why they think Obama is attacking them personally by suggesting such a horrible thing. They've bought into a myth about their chances of moving up the economic ladder that's at vast odds with the actual facts.


Some critics think Obama picked the wrong number, and that proposing at top tax rate that kicks in at $500K or a cool million would have avoided this problem. The average voter might have had a harder time imagining these numbers as being attainable. Maybe so. But maybe not: given how strong the myth of the self-made American is, and how many falsehoods you have to take on faith to believe it, we may be dealing with a level of delusion that's impervious to even really huge numbers, the kind that define only the top 0.5% of Americans.


We are living in a fact-free world now. Stories are all that matter. And in hard times, people tend to cling harder to their dreams -- especially the dream that no matter how bad things are now, someday they're going to rise above all this and triumph. Telling them the truth under these conditions is hard, and perhaps even cruel.


But one of the hallmarks of countries that are falling into chaos is that people come to believe more and more absurd things. Truth gives way to truthiness; facts aren't given the same weight as feelings. The huge disconnect between people's perceived prospects and their actual prospects shows just what a masterful job conservatives have done. They've convinced people to believe that their potential for mobility is as good or better than it ever was -- even as they've stolen the usual routes to a better life (education, home ownership, public investment, and so on) right out from under them.




Before the midterms, digby wrote this prophetic afterthought at the end of one of her posts:


But then these news outlets are all making huge profits from the right wing buy out of our democracy, so maybe it's just the price of doing business.


In this week's The Nation, there's a great article about the emergent money-media complex and the impact it has not only on our elections, but on how issues and politicians are presented by the corporate media who stand to gain much from the megabucks spent on elections.


To some extent, this is a story as old as the nation itself. Founding father John Jay thought "those who own the country ought to govern it." The battle to establish a credible system of "one person, one vote" instead of "one dollar, one vote" has been a running theme in American history. The stakes have always been the same: the less democratic our elections, the more corrupt our governance. But the current moment sees the country accelerating toward the edge of a cliff. "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both," observed Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. America is being put to the Brandeis test: democracy or plutocracy. The money-and-media election complex is creating a radically different electoral landscape than anything Americans have known since the Gilded Age. That landscape is characterized, pundits tell us, by an "enthusiasm gap." No kidding. Americans are not stupid. They knew their relatively paltry contributions, and even their votes, were unlikely to stop a $4 billion onslaught. To those bankrolling the system, voter cynicism and apathy are welcome. The more that the 2008 surge of youth participation in electoral politics dissipates, the better for them. Their interests are best served by narrowing the range of debate and participation, since that makes it easier to buy the government. As much as commentators like Jon Meacham might want to believe that "we are now living with a political class which has a financial and cultural interest in conflict rather than in governing," the hard truth is that we have a corporate class that funds electoral conflict for the purpose of forging a political class that will govern in its interest


.


Our skewed and cynical election process takes a toll on those most committed to those who fight hardest for ethical and open elections.


The emerging money-and-media election complex is perfectly designed to make participants conform or suffer the consequences. It should come as no surprise that some of the most troubling results of 2010 involved the defeats of independent players of both parties who had battled hardest for clean politics and ethical government—Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, the leading progressive Democratic reformer, was defeated, as was Representative Mike Castle, a moderate Republican beaten in Delaware's GOP Senate primary by Tea Party heroine Christine O'Donnell. Nor should it get better in 2012. "It's a bigger prize in 2012, and that's changing the White House," says Robert Duncan, chair of American Crossroads. "We've planted the flag for permanence, and we believe we will play a major role for 2012."


So this all explains how the money boys targeted key players, but it certainly doesn't give much credit to the media. From where I sit, the narrative of the midterms was as much about the constant drumbeat of the "depressed Democrat" and the Tea Party hype as it was anything else, and that came to us courtesy of every single mainstream media player out there. David Gregory does a stellar job of reinforcing right wing memes as though they're fact every week on Meet the Press. Cable news, with a few notable exceptions, does the same. And if you dare watch the 6 o'clock nightly news on one of the networks, the most you get is a 30-second sound bite with the most sensational presentation of every issue there is.


Without question, though, there would be no "Tea Party" and there would be no hype if they hadn't offered mainstream media two very important items: Sensational clips and a whole lot of money. They know a good thing when they see it.


But it's not just corporations and consultants who are setting the new agenda. The most important yet least-recognized piece of the money-and-media election complex is the commercial broadcasting industry, which just had its best money-making election season ever. Political advertising has become an enormous cash cow for it—roughly two-thirds of the campaign spending this year flowed into the coffers of TV stations; the final figure is likely to be well above $2 billion. Whereas in the 1990s the average commercial TV station received about 3 percent of its revenues from campaign ads, this year campaign money could account for as much as 20 percent. And station owners are not missing a beat; thirty-second spots that went for $2,000 in 2008 were jacked up to $5,000 this year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Much of this money will go to stations owned by a handful of Fortune 500 firms. No wonder station owners oppose campaign finance reform; their lobby role in Washington is similar to the NRA's in battling bans on assault weapons.


Here's where it cuts across journalism's turf:


The journalists who want to cut through the lies are having a harder time doing so. One of the truly unsettling developments of this election season was the decision by prominent candidates either to avoid the press, as Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle did, or to refuse opportunities to debate. Once upon a time challengers hungered to debate incumbents; in 2010 incumbents like Florida Representative Alan Grayson found themselves chasing after well-funded challengers. Feingold offered to debate his millionaire opponent in forums across the state, but Republican Ron Johnson, who had no record in public life and who even avoided interviews with newspaper editorial boards, refused.


There are solutions, ones that might not even need a recalcitrant Congress. As the authors point out, the FCC should be looking at the money spent and whose pockets it went to.


We have to stop thinking about the crisis of our politics merely in terms of reforming the campaign finance system (though of course it's important to fight for reforms). It's a media ownership and responsibility issue as well. It goes to the heart of why freedom of the press is enshrined in our Constitution. And regulatory agencies that are empowered to protect the public interest should be the first to intervene.


This really IS a crisis. We can't rely on the Supreme Court to fix what they tore asunder. The best, fastest route is via regulatory agencies, a tool the Obama administration has been using under the radar. (See this list of FTC actions for some examples).


In the words of Nancy Pelosi....


We will go through the gate," she said. "If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole-vault in.


We must.




bench craft company scam

Jade Raymond making Splinter Cell 6 <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Jade Raymond making Splinter Cell 6.

The <b>News</b> Diamond reinterpreted: “Let the crowd have the middle <b>...</b>

Jonathon Shuler has published a post exploring the News Diamond from my Model for a 21st Century Newsroom. As part of that he's added an extra layer to th...

<b>News</b> and Notes - Brazil

News and Notes. November 27th, 2010 | by: Duvel | Comments (0). Ganso Return Julio Cesar appears to be out until January with a torn thigh muscle. The Inter Milan keeper has not played for his club since an October 29th start against ...


bench craft company scam

Jade Raymond making Splinter Cell 6 <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Jade Raymond making Splinter Cell 6.

The <b>News</b> Diamond reinterpreted: “Let the crowd have the middle <b>...</b>

Jonathon Shuler has published a post exploring the News Diamond from my Model for a 21st Century Newsroom. As part of that he's added an extra layer to th...

<b>News</b> and Notes - Brazil

News and Notes. November 27th, 2010 | by: Duvel | Comments (0). Ganso Return Julio Cesar appears to be out until January with a torn thigh muscle. The Inter Milan keeper has not played for his club since an October 29th start against ...


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Friday, November 19, 2010

Business Making Money

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Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...


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Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...


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Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...


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Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...


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Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...


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Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...


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Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...


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Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...


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Photos Implant &#39;Memories&#39; of Fictional <b>News</b> Events | Smart <b>...</b>

Participants in a study were far more likely to “remember” a fictional news event when a headline was accompanied by a tangentially relevant photograph.

The Tools of Ignorance: Friday <b>News</b> - Pinstripe Alley

A big offer, the big man's snub, a little trade, and a call for a dose of sanity.

EA launching Facebook golf game PC <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our PC news of EA launching Facebook golf game.


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Fox <b>News</b> Commentators Caught On Camera Mocking Sarah Palin&#39;s Show <b>...</b>

WASHINGTON -- The Fox News channel has been something of a safe haven for Sarah Palin, the type of outlet that provided the former Alaska Governor not only with a friendly audience but similarly kind questions.

Taiwanese <b>News</b> Channel Animates Royal Engagement! | PerezHilton.com

Royal Wedding Fever has hit Taiwan! Check out their animated (because we wouldn´t want it any other way!) interpretation of Prince William´s engagement to Kate Middleton (above)! Sooo...

One and a Half Cheers for Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog <b>...</b>

Senator Jay Rockefeller made a splash Wednesday by suggesting that the Federal Communications Commission shut down the Fox News Channel and MSNBC. My guess is that he mentioned MSNBC because he wanted to sound equally oppressive of both ...


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EA launching Facebook golf game PC <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our PC news of EA launching Facebook golf game.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.


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Thursday, November 18, 2010

foreclosure statistics

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The Empire of Debt by Dee Hon by Renegade98


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Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/18 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning Chiefs fans! A somewhat shorter version of Arrowheadlines this morning. Not a lot out there. Enjoy your Kansas City Chiefs news. Oh, and don't forget about football tonight (Go Bones!).

Sen. Rockefeller: FCC should shut down Fox <b>News</b> and MSNBC « Hot Air

You see, Rockefeller says he hungers for quality news and believes that the FCC should play a part in facilitating that end. He believes that without the extremes of Fox News and MSNBC, the American people would have more faith in their ...


eric seiger

The Empire of Debt by Dee Hon by Renegade98


eric seiger

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/18 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning Chiefs fans! A somewhat shorter version of Arrowheadlines this morning. Not a lot out there. Enjoy your Kansas City Chiefs news. Oh, and don't forget about football tonight (Go Bones!).

Sen. Rockefeller: FCC should shut down Fox <b>News</b> and MSNBC « Hot Air

You see, Rockefeller says he hungers for quality news and believes that the FCC should play a part in facilitating that end. He believes that without the extremes of Fox News and MSNBC, the American people would have more faith in their ...


eric seiger

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/18 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning Chiefs fans! A somewhat shorter version of Arrowheadlines this morning. Not a lot out there. Enjoy your Kansas City Chiefs news. Oh, and don't forget about football tonight (Go Bones!).

Sen. Rockefeller: FCC should shut down Fox <b>News</b> and MSNBC « Hot Air

You see, Rockefeller says he hungers for quality news and believes that the FCC should play a part in facilitating that end. He believes that without the extremes of Fox News and MSNBC, the American people would have more faith in their ...


eric seiger

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/18 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning Chiefs fans! A somewhat shorter version of Arrowheadlines this morning. Not a lot out there. Enjoy your Kansas City Chiefs news. Oh, and don't forget about football tonight (Go Bones!).

Sen. Rockefeller: FCC should shut down Fox <b>News</b> and MSNBC « Hot Air

You see, Rockefeller says he hungers for quality news and believes that the FCC should play a part in facilitating that end. He believes that without the extremes of Fox News and MSNBC, the American people would have more faith in their ...


eric seiger
eric seiger

The Empire of Debt by Dee Hon by Renegade98


eric seiger
eric seiger

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/18 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning Chiefs fans! A somewhat shorter version of Arrowheadlines this morning. Not a lot out there. Enjoy your Kansas City Chiefs news. Oh, and don't forget about football tonight (Go Bones!).

Sen. Rockefeller: FCC should shut down Fox <b>News</b> and MSNBC « Hot Air

You see, Rockefeller says he hungers for quality news and believes that the FCC should play a part in facilitating that end. He believes that without the extremes of Fox News and MSNBC, the American people would have more faith in their ...


Wednesday, November 17, 2010

personal finance books





10 Riskiest Places to Give Your Social Security Number "Here's how to lower the chances of your number falling into the wrong hands -- and what to do if it does."

Holiday Non-Shopping: 7 Items Worth Waiting For [Money Watch] "Here are the top 7 items that you may want to put on your post-holiday shopping list."

How to Pick Your Next Computer [Smart Money] "Here is my annual fall computer buyers' guide, a simplified road map to the key decisions shoppers must make."

10 Things Recruiters Won't Tell You [Wall Street Journal] "#1. There are better ways to find a job."

20 Places to Find Free Books Online [Northern Cheapskate] "The following sites provide free books that can be enjoyed online, downloaded to your computer, or transferred to an e-reader or MP3 player."

— FREE MONEY FINANCE







As you probably know, Matt Taibbi has a new book out, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America. Within it, Taibbi moves from his established gig reporting on the weirdness that is modern American poltical campaigning…



... Being in the building with Palin that night [of her acceptance speech for the VP nomination] is a transformative and oddly unsettling experience. It’s a little like having live cave-level access for the ripping-the-heart-out-with-the-bare-hands scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. A scary-as-hell situation: thousands of pudgy Midwestern conservatives worshipping at the Altar of the Economic Producer, led by a charismatic arch-priestess letting loose a grade-A war cry. The clear subtext of Palin’s speechi is this: other politicians only talk about fighting these assholes. I actually will.



Palin is talking to voters whose country is despised internationally, no longer an industrial manufacturing power, fast becoming an economic vassal to the Chinese and the Saudis, and just a week away from an almost-total financial collapes. Nobody here is likely to genuinely believe a speech that promises better things.



But cultural civil war, you have that no matter how broke you are. And if you want that I, Sarah Palin, can give it to you. It’s a powerful, galvanizing speech, but the strange thing about it is its seeming lack of electoral calculation. It’s a transparent attempt to massmarket militancy and frustration, consolidate the group identity of an aggrieved demographic, and work that crowd up into a lather. This represents a further degrading of the already degraded electoral process. Now, not only are the long-term results of elections irrelevant, but for a new set of players like Palin, the outcome of the election itself is irrelevant. This speech wasn’t designed to win a general election, it was designed to introduce a new celebrity, a make-believe servant of the people so phony that later in her new career she will not even bother to hold an elective office.



The speech was a tremendous success.



... to a thorough, even obsessive, discussion of the new finance-based reality:



Our world isn’t about ideology anymore. It’s about complexity. We live in a complex bureaucratic state with complex laws and complex business practices, and the few organizations with the corporate willpower to master these complexities will inevitably own the political power.



Amazon’s currently advertising Griftopia for half off the cover price, and if you order through the link in the right-hand column, I understand you’ll be adding a couple pennies to Tunch’s personal catfood commission. If the Amazon teaser isn’t enough for you, Rolling Stone has an excerpt on “how our cash-strapped country is auctioning off its highways, ports and even parking meters at fire sale prices.”



The witty and foul-mouthed TBogg will be leading an online discussion of Griftopia at the FDL Book Salon on Saturday afternoon, November 27. If you are a faster typist than I, there should be some excellent back-and-forth shared there.












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Video: Is Cable <b>News</b> Actually <b>News</b>? - NYTimes.com

Video: Pondering the value and integrity of cable news.

<b>News</b> - Tixdaq

Foo Fighters have been confirmed to headline the final night at Isle Of Wight festival 2011.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: &#39;Paranormal Activity 3&#39; Gets a Release Date <b>...</b>

This 'Toy Story' Engagement Ring Box is just too adorable. - It shouldn't be much of a surprise, but Oren Peli has confirmed that 'Paranormal.



27/365 - So Money by Miss Cheska


Video: Is Cable <b>News</b> Actually <b>News</b>? - NYTimes.com

Video: Pondering the value and integrity of cable news.

<b>News</b> - Tixdaq

Foo Fighters have been confirmed to headline the final night at Isle Of Wight festival 2011.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: &#39;Paranormal Activity 3&#39; Gets a Release Date <b>...</b>

This 'Toy Story' Engagement Ring Box is just too adorable. - It shouldn't be much of a surprise, but Oren Peli has confirmed that 'Paranormal.


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Video: Is Cable <b>News</b> Actually <b>News</b>? - NYTimes.com

Video: Pondering the value and integrity of cable news.

<b>News</b> - Tixdaq

Foo Fighters have been confirmed to headline the final night at Isle Of Wight festival 2011.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: &#39;Paranormal Activity 3&#39; Gets a Release Date <b>...</b>

This 'Toy Story' Engagement Ring Box is just too adorable. - It shouldn't be much of a surprise, but Oren Peli has confirmed that 'Paranormal.


foreclosure listings

The nation’s top banks are worried that a possible sea-change in the make-up of state attorneys general after tonight’s mid-term elections could delay a settlement of the state AG’s wide-ranging investigation into so called “robo signing” of mortgage foreclosure documentation, FOX Business Network has learned.

Though the state probe spearheaded by Iowa AG Tom Miller is still in its initial phases, executives at the top banks say progress has recently been made in crafting a global settlement of charges that the banks denied mortgage holders who defaulted on their loans due process by hiring robo signers. The robo signers basically rubber stamped foreclosures without proper documentation.

But a volatile electorate, that may force many incumbents out of office tonight, has executives at the big banks worried that a deal will be delayed as a new crop of AGs comes into office. There are 35 state attorney general races being contested tonight, including key races in California, New York and Michigan where there are no clear front runners.

While Democrats hold a 30-20 edge among the state AGs, the composition is likely to change given recent polls showing Republicans looking to gain ground in state elections such as governorships. The Republicans gaining ground aren’t necessarily those who favor the big banks thanks to the Tea Party movement, which has supported candidates who don’t favor bank bailouts and special perks to the big financial firms.

One thing is sure: the new batch of AG will not immediately bend over to Wall Street's whims, knowing full well they will have signed their own career death sentence off the bat should they pursue that course, especially with every blog exposing their actions to the broader population for all to see.




The Foreclosure Mess-a Follow-up

October 18, 2010

David Kotok


>


Wow, there were many, many emails in response to the recent piece entitled “Foreclosure Mess.” Here are some of those observations.


Some folks missed the opening disclaimer and attributed the piece to me; that was their error. I did not write it [BR: The original was from Gonzalo Lira's blog]. I only edited out the expletives. I do not believe that F this and F that add anything. MK wrote back: “The article’s issues needed the expletives. In this particular case they would have been in context and not extraneous. Next time leave them in. &%$)@%%$.” Readers who get to the end of today’s follow-up will be able to judge for themselves.


The piece had many technical and legal errors, although most professionals agreed with this overall theme. Barry Ritholtz summarized the legal side with a “lawyer’s hat” on: “The flaw in this piece is that courts have long been authorized to apply principles of equity, as opposed to law, to cases brought before it. This means that we do not want to create unjust enrichment for either wrongdoers or other bad outcomes. We have two bad actors here: The homeowner who is in default, and the banks/securitizes who failed to do the document creation and title management correctly. Most judges do not want to see, in civil cases, an absurd outcome. Rewarding the homeowner (free house!) or the lenders (No penalty for massive screw-ups!), a total victory would offend those principles. An example of a possible outcome in a full-blown litigation might be for the court to order the mortgage modified to the current equity value of the home, so that it punishes the lenders who failed to do their proper legal work on the documents, but does not give a home to a defaulted homeowner free. Courts of “equity” (meaning fairness, not ownership) apply these principles to avoid ridiculous outcomes.”


A senior bank executive with extensive mortgage experience also responded. WP wrote: “There are technical errors made by the writer, but much of it is accurate.”


JR replied: “David, how are you, my mother fwd this to me as I am in the business. Is it safe to assume that the bank foreclosures will be taken off the market, which would then decrease the amount of homes that are listed dramatically (over 70%) in some markets. The market has been saturated with foreclosure listings. Over the past 2 years, it has been very easy to get a foreclosure sale, where individuals were able to buy a home for 76 cents on the dollar, in essence bringing the values down on sales-cost comparisons (appraisals). What impact will we see to the market? I’m thinking that with the foreclosures no longer as easy to get as a McDonalds happy meal, the remaining properties that are listed will now sell at or above market value, because the “value foreclosure meal” will be no longer available to the buyer. What will this do to the short sale market, being that short sales were the bank alternative to foreclosure?”


Another lawyer weighed in. Mr. B wrote: “In this case, I must quibble. I believe that the mortgagor cannot go scot-free. While enforcing the mortgage is by far the more convenient route, the claimant standing in the shoes of the mortgagee/note owner could claim against the home “owner” for unjust enrichment outside the mortgage enforcement procedure. Evidence of the existence of the claim can be adduced from related documentation. The “home owner” could be required to prove the source of funds for buying the house…, which of course he could not. All very inconvenient, time consuming and expensive. But look on the bright side. It’s employment for lawyers.”


And another lawyer. Jay wrote: “Despite what your friend says, just because the chain of ownership of the note is broken does NOT mean a borrower is relieved of his debt. Observers have speculated for a long time about what would happen if a judge demanded that only the right owner could foreclose, and that particular chicken has come home to roost. It may take awhile, but sooner or later the banks will find the original note and the proper successor in interest will be found and the defaulting borrower will have to make a deal or be foreclosed out. Meanwhile, all the shenanigans are true and they will result in big delays and huge costs as lenders have to go back and do things right. Some homeowners who were improperly evicted will have claims and they will get some relief but they won’t get their houses back. This is indeed a mess and the lenders deserve everything they are getting – particularly Bank of America, which bought one of the worst offenders, Countrywide.


In addition, another lawyer named Howard said: “While it is true that some may take advantage of the mortgage mess, the process will always win. You do not make good law for the bad cases. You cannot have people lying and fraudulently fixing chain of title due to the inconvenience. I once had a mortgage foreclosure that XXXXXX handled. It took years, and at the end he had made a theoretical mistake and was forced to start over or seek judicial help in fixing the error. While the client was furious, the process was righteous.


Michael G. added to the debate: “We’re talking about estimates of $20bn or more in losses (from put-backs, etc.). I agree that you do not make good law from bad cases. And I know that shortcuts were taken when loans were securitized. I was not suggesting a solution, only the gravity of the problem. The halting of foreclosures is one more factor that will prevent the housing market from finding equilibrium and weigh on the health of American banks. Stagnant economic growth, a financial system under heavy stress, and plenty of landmines to side-step… but hey, at least NBER says that the recession ended!”


Kathy is a skilled observer of our system. She wrote “Suggesting the dissolution of civil society is fear mongering/hyperbole. I believe the US is in for a long uncertain meandering period as housing unravels, but I don’t think we’re going back to keeping cash and guns under the mattress.”


A senior partner in a major accounting firm liked the original piece. JB replied: “Whoever wrote it explained this situation as clearly as the Big Short explained the base mess. Please pass on my thanks for a job well done.”


CG chimed in from Hawaii: “The whole purpose of MBSs was for Wall Street to “Madoff the World.”


MS is a skilled lawyer and former judge. He wrote: “First paragraph starts off wrong. The note does not permit foreclosure. Suing on the note gives plaintiff a judgment. It is the mortgage which makes the property security for the note. No mortgage, no foreclosure. So I stopped reading.”


Highly tech-savvy businessperson GC wrote: “While it is popular to try and pin all the blame on Fannie and Freddie (and they certainly deserve as much opprobrium as we have energy left to give), in fact the ownership of MERS is a good indictment of all the players in the game. See this link: http://www.mersinc.org/about/shareholders.aspx . ”


Lastly, Elliot S. wrote and linked websites. He did this in response to John Mauldin who ran the original piece in his newsletter. “They are wrong with regards to the Note and chain of title. Actually, they couldn’t more wrong. The Note is just the IOU and gives the lender the right to collect any money lost. MERS has nothing to do with Notes only with mortgages. The mortgage is the controlling document that is used for the foreclosure and the ONLY document. The mortgage gets assigned from one lender to another and often the assignments didn’t get recorded and the last lender, who actually owned the mortgage, didn’t have the right to foreclosure. Therefore, they created MERS, which is a registration of the mortgage but not to a bank, but to MERS. MERS is the mortgage holder and the loans are assigned via registration number. Therefore, if XYZ sells a mortgage to ABC, MERS is notified that the lender’s MERS ID is changed from XYZ to ABC and there is no need for a recorded assignment and that alleviated a huge problem for unrecorded or lost assignment. The foreclosure is actually performed in the name of MERS. So I am not sure what the heck this guy is talking about. The issue with GMAC and other lenders has NOTHING to do with this. The issue is what they are calling “Robo-signers” which are individuals who signed affidavits stating that they had “personal knowledge” of the facts in a foreclosure case, when in fact they did not. http://www.forextv.com/forex-news-story/forex-why-did-the-mortgage-servicers-use-robo-signers Read this actual and in the paragraph that starts with Second, they will provide the support for my claims. Here are additional articles I searched for on the web. http://www.fiercefinance.com/story/robo-signer-wells-fargo-no-foreclosure-halt-yet/2010-10-14 and http://www.housingwire.com/2010/10/15/robo-signers-are-a-drop-in-the-bucket-to-mortgage-industrys-problems I hate people that have no idea what they are talking about and mislead people. They don’t even know what a Note and Mortgage are or what they are used for, holy cows. And MERS doesn’t slice or dice mortgages they are just a repository. Must of the slicing and dicing is done in CDOs, which if needed I will explain why. CDO unlike MBS or RBMS continually slice and dice the junior pieces or Mezz into new CDO whereby they take the more riskier debt make them look like AAA.”


I will stop and add just add a few personal observations. No writer mentioned the role of real estate taxes so we discussed this with NE, a highly skilled, community development real estate professional. He described how a well-informed tax-sale certificate buyer could jump ahead of the other lien holders and get a house on the cheap. In addition, an occupant could keep the tax payments current, delay the mortgage payment while the mess is in the courts, and remain in the house for quite a while. He noted how many mortgage servicers do not collect the real estate taxes and are therefore exposed.


Also, state law prevails on mortgages. That means 50 jurisdictions with 50 different sets of rules. The securities are mostly through NY trusts, noted Josh Rosner. The trust will determine how the securitizations are unwound, not the rules under which the foreclosures will occur. Many of our diverse legal opinions are coming to us because the lawyers involved are citing their own local jurisdictions.


We thank the many, many readers for their thoughtful comments. We do not normally pass on a piece and keep the writer anonymous. Had he written without rudeness and expletives the outcome might have been different. It is too bad he had to resort to abusive language. The original text, despite the technical errors, was provocative and captured the gist of the mess.


Many have asked about the identity of the original writer, LG sent this email: “David Kotok: A simple Google search would have revealed to you who wrote the following. I doubt he is need of you providing him 15 minutes of fame, but who knows…http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/10/second-leg-down-of-americas-death.html .” Thank you, LG.


BTW, there is an investment implication in our view. We believe the banking system will weather this mess and the weakness in the sector will evolve into a buying opportunity as a result. The new Fed policy of additional QE implies more liquidity to offset the economic weakness of the foreclosure mess and more subsidies for banks.



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Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Fox <b>News</b> Contributors Mock <b>...</b>

On the video, Miller, Trotter, Scott, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican and Fox News contributor James Pinkerton are seen preparing to go on the air when Miller says, "Oh, I do have something to say about Palin. I even prepared it. ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.


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The nation’s top banks are worried that a possible sea-change in the make-up of state attorneys general after tonight’s mid-term elections could delay a settlement of the state AG’s wide-ranging investigation into so called “robo signing” of mortgage foreclosure documentation, FOX Business Network has learned.

Though the state probe spearheaded by Iowa AG Tom Miller is still in its initial phases, executives at the top banks say progress has recently been made in crafting a global settlement of charges that the banks denied mortgage holders who defaulted on their loans due process by hiring robo signers. The robo signers basically rubber stamped foreclosures without proper documentation.

But a volatile electorate, that may force many incumbents out of office tonight, has executives at the big banks worried that a deal will be delayed as a new crop of AGs comes into office. There are 35 state attorney general races being contested tonight, including key races in California, New York and Michigan where there are no clear front runners.

While Democrats hold a 30-20 edge among the state AGs, the composition is likely to change given recent polls showing Republicans looking to gain ground in state elections such as governorships. The Republicans gaining ground aren’t necessarily those who favor the big banks thanks to the Tea Party movement, which has supported candidates who don’t favor bank bailouts and special perks to the big financial firms.

One thing is sure: the new batch of AG will not immediately bend over to Wall Street's whims, knowing full well they will have signed their own career death sentence off the bat should they pursue that course, especially with every blog exposing their actions to the broader population for all to see.




The Foreclosure Mess-a Follow-up

October 18, 2010

David Kotok


>


Wow, there were many, many emails in response to the recent piece entitled “Foreclosure Mess.” Here are some of those observations.


Some folks missed the opening disclaimer and attributed the piece to me; that was their error. I did not write it [BR: The original was from Gonzalo Lira's blog]. I only edited out the expletives. I do not believe that F this and F that add anything. MK wrote back: “The article’s issues needed the expletives. In this particular case they would have been in context and not extraneous. Next time leave them in. &%$)@%%$.” Readers who get to the end of today’s follow-up will be able to judge for themselves.


The piece had many technical and legal errors, although most professionals agreed with this overall theme. Barry Ritholtz summarized the legal side with a “lawyer’s hat” on: “The flaw in this piece is that courts have long been authorized to apply principles of equity, as opposed to law, to cases brought before it. This means that we do not want to create unjust enrichment for either wrongdoers or other bad outcomes. We have two bad actors here: The homeowner who is in default, and the banks/securitizes who failed to do the document creation and title management correctly. Most judges do not want to see, in civil cases, an absurd outcome. Rewarding the homeowner (free house!) or the lenders (No penalty for massive screw-ups!), a total victory would offend those principles. An example of a possible outcome in a full-blown litigation might be for the court to order the mortgage modified to the current equity value of the home, so that it punishes the lenders who failed to do their proper legal work on the documents, but does not give a home to a defaulted homeowner free. Courts of “equity” (meaning fairness, not ownership) apply these principles to avoid ridiculous outcomes.”


A senior bank executive with extensive mortgage experience also responded. WP wrote: “There are technical errors made by the writer, but much of it is accurate.”


JR replied: “David, how are you, my mother fwd this to me as I am in the business. Is it safe to assume that the bank foreclosures will be taken off the market, which would then decrease the amount of homes that are listed dramatically (over 70%) in some markets. The market has been saturated with foreclosure listings. Over the past 2 years, it has been very easy to get a foreclosure sale, where individuals were able to buy a home for 76 cents on the dollar, in essence bringing the values down on sales-cost comparisons (appraisals). What impact will we see to the market? I’m thinking that with the foreclosures no longer as easy to get as a McDonalds happy meal, the remaining properties that are listed will now sell at or above market value, because the “value foreclosure meal” will be no longer available to the buyer. What will this do to the short sale market, being that short sales were the bank alternative to foreclosure?”


Another lawyer weighed in. Mr. B wrote: “In this case, I must quibble. I believe that the mortgagor cannot go scot-free. While enforcing the mortgage is by far the more convenient route, the claimant standing in the shoes of the mortgagee/note owner could claim against the home “owner” for unjust enrichment outside the mortgage enforcement procedure. Evidence of the existence of the claim can be adduced from related documentation. The “home owner” could be required to prove the source of funds for buying the house…, which of course he could not. All very inconvenient, time consuming and expensive. But look on the bright side. It’s employment for lawyers.”


And another lawyer. Jay wrote: “Despite what your friend says, just because the chain of ownership of the note is broken does NOT mean a borrower is relieved of his debt. Observers have speculated for a long time about what would happen if a judge demanded that only the right owner could foreclose, and that particular chicken has come home to roost. It may take awhile, but sooner or later the banks will find the original note and the proper successor in interest will be found and the defaulting borrower will have to make a deal or be foreclosed out. Meanwhile, all the shenanigans are true and they will result in big delays and huge costs as lenders have to go back and do things right. Some homeowners who were improperly evicted will have claims and they will get some relief but they won’t get their houses back. This is indeed a mess and the lenders deserve everything they are getting – particularly Bank of America, which bought one of the worst offenders, Countrywide.


In addition, another lawyer named Howard said: “While it is true that some may take advantage of the mortgage mess, the process will always win. You do not make good law for the bad cases. You cannot have people lying and fraudulently fixing chain of title due to the inconvenience. I once had a mortgage foreclosure that XXXXXX handled. It took years, and at the end he had made a theoretical mistake and was forced to start over or seek judicial help in fixing the error. While the client was furious, the process was righteous.


Michael G. added to the debate: “We’re talking about estimates of $20bn or more in losses (from put-backs, etc.). I agree that you do not make good law from bad cases. And I know that shortcuts were taken when loans were securitized. I was not suggesting a solution, only the gravity of the problem. The halting of foreclosures is one more factor that will prevent the housing market from finding equilibrium and weigh on the health of American banks. Stagnant economic growth, a financial system under heavy stress, and plenty of landmines to side-step… but hey, at least NBER says that the recession ended!”


Kathy is a skilled observer of our system. She wrote “Suggesting the dissolution of civil society is fear mongering/hyperbole. I believe the US is in for a long uncertain meandering period as housing unravels, but I don’t think we’re going back to keeping cash and guns under the mattress.”


A senior partner in a major accounting firm liked the original piece. JB replied: “Whoever wrote it explained this situation as clearly as the Big Short explained the base mess. Please pass on my thanks for a job well done.”


CG chimed in from Hawaii: “The whole purpose of MBSs was for Wall Street to “Madoff the World.”


MS is a skilled lawyer and former judge. He wrote: “First paragraph starts off wrong. The note does not permit foreclosure. Suing on the note gives plaintiff a judgment. It is the mortgage which makes the property security for the note. No mortgage, no foreclosure. So I stopped reading.”


Highly tech-savvy businessperson GC wrote: “While it is popular to try and pin all the blame on Fannie and Freddie (and they certainly deserve as much opprobrium as we have energy left to give), in fact the ownership of MERS is a good indictment of all the players in the game. See this link: http://www.mersinc.org/about/shareholders.aspx . ”


Lastly, Elliot S. wrote and linked websites. He did this in response to John Mauldin who ran the original piece in his newsletter. “They are wrong with regards to the Note and chain of title. Actually, they couldn’t more wrong. The Note is just the IOU and gives the lender the right to collect any money lost. MERS has nothing to do with Notes only with mortgages. The mortgage is the controlling document that is used for the foreclosure and the ONLY document. The mortgage gets assigned from one lender to another and often the assignments didn’t get recorded and the last lender, who actually owned the mortgage, didn’t have the right to foreclosure. Therefore, they created MERS, which is a registration of the mortgage but not to a bank, but to MERS. MERS is the mortgage holder and the loans are assigned via registration number. Therefore, if XYZ sells a mortgage to ABC, MERS is notified that the lender’s MERS ID is changed from XYZ to ABC and there is no need for a recorded assignment and that alleviated a huge problem for unrecorded or lost assignment. The foreclosure is actually performed in the name of MERS. So I am not sure what the heck this guy is talking about. The issue with GMAC and other lenders has NOTHING to do with this. The issue is what they are calling “Robo-signers” which are individuals who signed affidavits stating that they had “personal knowledge” of the facts in a foreclosure case, when in fact they did not. http://www.forextv.com/forex-news-story/forex-why-did-the-mortgage-servicers-use-robo-signers Read this actual and in the paragraph that starts with Second, they will provide the support for my claims. Here are additional articles I searched for on the web. http://www.fiercefinance.com/story/robo-signer-wells-fargo-no-foreclosure-halt-yet/2010-10-14 and http://www.housingwire.com/2010/10/15/robo-signers-are-a-drop-in-the-bucket-to-mortgage-industrys-problems I hate people that have no idea what they are talking about and mislead people. They don’t even know what a Note and Mortgage are or what they are used for, holy cows. And MERS doesn’t slice or dice mortgages they are just a repository. Must of the slicing and dicing is done in CDOs, which if needed I will explain why. CDO unlike MBS or RBMS continually slice and dice the junior pieces or Mezz into new CDO whereby they take the more riskier debt make them look like AAA.”


I will stop and add just add a few personal observations. No writer mentioned the role of real estate taxes so we discussed this with NE, a highly skilled, community development real estate professional. He described how a well-informed tax-sale certificate buyer could jump ahead of the other lien holders and get a house on the cheap. In addition, an occupant could keep the tax payments current, delay the mortgage payment while the mess is in the courts, and remain in the house for quite a while. He noted how many mortgage servicers do not collect the real estate taxes and are therefore exposed.


Also, state law prevails on mortgages. That means 50 jurisdictions with 50 different sets of rules. The securities are mostly through NY trusts, noted Josh Rosner. The trust will determine how the securitizations are unwound, not the rules under which the foreclosures will occur. Many of our diverse legal opinions are coming to us because the lawyers involved are citing their own local jurisdictions.


We thank the many, many readers for their thoughtful comments. We do not normally pass on a piece and keep the writer anonymous. Had he written without rudeness and expletives the outcome might have been different. It is too bad he had to resort to abusive language. The original text, despite the technical errors, was provocative and captured the gist of the mess.


Many have asked about the identity of the original writer, LG sent this email: “David Kotok: A simple Google search would have revealed to you who wrote the following. I doubt he is need of you providing him 15 minutes of fame, but who knows…http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/10/second-leg-down-of-americas-death.html .” Thank you, LG.


BTW, there is an investment implication in our view. We believe the banking system will weather this mess and the weakness in the sector will evolve into a buying opportunity as a result. The new Fed policy of additional QE implies more liquidity to offset the economic weakness of the foreclosure mess and more subsidies for banks.



benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Fox <b>News</b> Contributors Mock <b>...</b>

On the video, Miller, Trotter, Scott, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican and Fox News contributor James Pinkerton are seen preparing to go on the air when Miller says, "Oh, I do have something to say about Palin. I even prepared it. ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.


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benchcraft company scam

Charlotte Foreclosures North Carolina, 3Bd, 2Ba, $ 262,500.00 : ForeclosureDataBank.com by ForeclosureDataBank


benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Fox <b>News</b> Contributors Mock <b>...</b>

On the video, Miller, Trotter, Scott, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican and Fox News contributor James Pinkerton are seen preparing to go on the air when Miller says, "Oh, I do have something to say about Palin. I even prepared it. ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.


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The nation’s top banks are worried that a possible sea-change in the make-up of state attorneys general after tonight’s mid-term elections could delay a settlement of the state AG’s wide-ranging investigation into so called “robo signing” of mortgage foreclosure documentation, FOX Business Network has learned.

Though the state probe spearheaded by Iowa AG Tom Miller is still in its initial phases, executives at the top banks say progress has recently been made in crafting a global settlement of charges that the banks denied mortgage holders who defaulted on their loans due process by hiring robo signers. The robo signers basically rubber stamped foreclosures without proper documentation.

But a volatile electorate, that may force many incumbents out of office tonight, has executives at the big banks worried that a deal will be delayed as a new crop of AGs comes into office. There are 35 state attorney general races being contested tonight, including key races in California, New York and Michigan where there are no clear front runners.

While Democrats hold a 30-20 edge among the state AGs, the composition is likely to change given recent polls showing Republicans looking to gain ground in state elections such as governorships. The Republicans gaining ground aren’t necessarily those who favor the big banks thanks to the Tea Party movement, which has supported candidates who don’t favor bank bailouts and special perks to the big financial firms.

One thing is sure: the new batch of AG will not immediately bend over to Wall Street's whims, knowing full well they will have signed their own career death sentence off the bat should they pursue that course, especially with every blog exposing their actions to the broader population for all to see.




The Foreclosure Mess-a Follow-up

October 18, 2010

David Kotok


>


Wow, there were many, many emails in response to the recent piece entitled “Foreclosure Mess.” Here are some of those observations.


Some folks missed the opening disclaimer and attributed the piece to me; that was their error. I did not write it [BR: The original was from Gonzalo Lira's blog]. I only edited out the expletives. I do not believe that F this and F that add anything. MK wrote back: “The article’s issues needed the expletives. In this particular case they would have been in context and not extraneous. Next time leave them in. &%$)@%%$.” Readers who get to the end of today’s follow-up will be able to judge for themselves.


The piece had many technical and legal errors, although most professionals agreed with this overall theme. Barry Ritholtz summarized the legal side with a “lawyer’s hat” on: “The flaw in this piece is that courts have long been authorized to apply principles of equity, as opposed to law, to cases brought before it. This means that we do not want to create unjust enrichment for either wrongdoers or other bad outcomes. We have two bad actors here: The homeowner who is in default, and the banks/securitizes who failed to do the document creation and title management correctly. Most judges do not want to see, in civil cases, an absurd outcome. Rewarding the homeowner (free house!) or the lenders (No penalty for massive screw-ups!), a total victory would offend those principles. An example of a possible outcome in a full-blown litigation might be for the court to order the mortgage modified to the current equity value of the home, so that it punishes the lenders who failed to do their proper legal work on the documents, but does not give a home to a defaulted homeowner free. Courts of “equity” (meaning fairness, not ownership) apply these principles to avoid ridiculous outcomes.”


A senior bank executive with extensive mortgage experience also responded. WP wrote: “There are technical errors made by the writer, but much of it is accurate.”


JR replied: “David, how are you, my mother fwd this to me as I am in the business. Is it safe to assume that the bank foreclosures will be taken off the market, which would then decrease the amount of homes that are listed dramatically (over 70%) in some markets. The market has been saturated with foreclosure listings. Over the past 2 years, it has been very easy to get a foreclosure sale, where individuals were able to buy a home for 76 cents on the dollar, in essence bringing the values down on sales-cost comparisons (appraisals). What impact will we see to the market? I’m thinking that with the foreclosures no longer as easy to get as a McDonalds happy meal, the remaining properties that are listed will now sell at or above market value, because the “value foreclosure meal” will be no longer available to the buyer. What will this do to the short sale market, being that short sales were the bank alternative to foreclosure?”


Another lawyer weighed in. Mr. B wrote: “In this case, I must quibble. I believe that the mortgagor cannot go scot-free. While enforcing the mortgage is by far the more convenient route, the claimant standing in the shoes of the mortgagee/note owner could claim against the home “owner” for unjust enrichment outside the mortgage enforcement procedure. Evidence of the existence of the claim can be adduced from related documentation. The “home owner” could be required to prove the source of funds for buying the house…, which of course he could not. All very inconvenient, time consuming and expensive. But look on the bright side. It’s employment for lawyers.”


And another lawyer. Jay wrote: “Despite what your friend says, just because the chain of ownership of the note is broken does NOT mean a borrower is relieved of his debt. Observers have speculated for a long time about what would happen if a judge demanded that only the right owner could foreclose, and that particular chicken has come home to roost. It may take awhile, but sooner or later the banks will find the original note and the proper successor in interest will be found and the defaulting borrower will have to make a deal or be foreclosed out. Meanwhile, all the shenanigans are true and they will result in big delays and huge costs as lenders have to go back and do things right. Some homeowners who were improperly evicted will have claims and they will get some relief but they won’t get their houses back. This is indeed a mess and the lenders deserve everything they are getting – particularly Bank of America, which bought one of the worst offenders, Countrywide.


In addition, another lawyer named Howard said: “While it is true that some may take advantage of the mortgage mess, the process will always win. You do not make good law for the bad cases. You cannot have people lying and fraudulently fixing chain of title due to the inconvenience. I once had a mortgage foreclosure that XXXXXX handled. It took years, and at the end he had made a theoretical mistake and was forced to start over or seek judicial help in fixing the error. While the client was furious, the process was righteous.


Michael G. added to the debate: “We’re talking about estimates of $20bn or more in losses (from put-backs, etc.). I agree that you do not make good law from bad cases. And I know that shortcuts were taken when loans were securitized. I was not suggesting a solution, only the gravity of the problem. The halting of foreclosures is one more factor that will prevent the housing market from finding equilibrium and weigh on the health of American banks. Stagnant economic growth, a financial system under heavy stress, and plenty of landmines to side-step… but hey, at least NBER says that the recession ended!”


Kathy is a skilled observer of our system. She wrote “Suggesting the dissolution of civil society is fear mongering/hyperbole. I believe the US is in for a long uncertain meandering period as housing unravels, but I don’t think we’re going back to keeping cash and guns under the mattress.”


A senior partner in a major accounting firm liked the original piece. JB replied: “Whoever wrote it explained this situation as clearly as the Big Short explained the base mess. Please pass on my thanks for a job well done.”


CG chimed in from Hawaii: “The whole purpose of MBSs was for Wall Street to “Madoff the World.”


MS is a skilled lawyer and former judge. He wrote: “First paragraph starts off wrong. The note does not permit foreclosure. Suing on the note gives plaintiff a judgment. It is the mortgage which makes the property security for the note. No mortgage, no foreclosure. So I stopped reading.”


Highly tech-savvy businessperson GC wrote: “While it is popular to try and pin all the blame on Fannie and Freddie (and they certainly deserve as much opprobrium as we have energy left to give), in fact the ownership of MERS is a good indictment of all the players in the game. See this link: http://www.mersinc.org/about/shareholders.aspx . ”


Lastly, Elliot S. wrote and linked websites. He did this in response to John Mauldin who ran the original piece in his newsletter. “They are wrong with regards to the Note and chain of title. Actually, they couldn’t more wrong. The Note is just the IOU and gives the lender the right to collect any money lost. MERS has nothing to do with Notes only with mortgages. The mortgage is the controlling document that is used for the foreclosure and the ONLY document. The mortgage gets assigned from one lender to another and often the assignments didn’t get recorded and the last lender, who actually owned the mortgage, didn’t have the right to foreclosure. Therefore, they created MERS, which is a registration of the mortgage but not to a bank, but to MERS. MERS is the mortgage holder and the loans are assigned via registration number. Therefore, if XYZ sells a mortgage to ABC, MERS is notified that the lender’s MERS ID is changed from XYZ to ABC and there is no need for a recorded assignment and that alleviated a huge problem for unrecorded or lost assignment. The foreclosure is actually performed in the name of MERS. So I am not sure what the heck this guy is talking about. The issue with GMAC and other lenders has NOTHING to do with this. The issue is what they are calling “Robo-signers” which are individuals who signed affidavits stating that they had “personal knowledge” of the facts in a foreclosure case, when in fact they did not. http://www.forextv.com/forex-news-story/forex-why-did-the-mortgage-servicers-use-robo-signers Read this actual and in the paragraph that starts with Second, they will provide the support for my claims. Here are additional articles I searched for on the web. http://www.fiercefinance.com/story/robo-signer-wells-fargo-no-foreclosure-halt-yet/2010-10-14 and http://www.housingwire.com/2010/10/15/robo-signers-are-a-drop-in-the-bucket-to-mortgage-industrys-problems I hate people that have no idea what they are talking about and mislead people. They don’t even know what a Note and Mortgage are or what they are used for, holy cows. And MERS doesn’t slice or dice mortgages they are just a repository. Must of the slicing and dicing is done in CDOs, which if needed I will explain why. CDO unlike MBS or RBMS continually slice and dice the junior pieces or Mezz into new CDO whereby they take the more riskier debt make them look like AAA.”


I will stop and add just add a few personal observations. No writer mentioned the role of real estate taxes so we discussed this with NE, a highly skilled, community development real estate professional. He described how a well-informed tax-sale certificate buyer could jump ahead of the other lien holders and get a house on the cheap. In addition, an occupant could keep the tax payments current, delay the mortgage payment while the mess is in the courts, and remain in the house for quite a while. He noted how many mortgage servicers do not collect the real estate taxes and are therefore exposed.


Also, state law prevails on mortgages. That means 50 jurisdictions with 50 different sets of rules. The securities are mostly through NY trusts, noted Josh Rosner. The trust will determine how the securitizations are unwound, not the rules under which the foreclosures will occur. Many of our diverse legal opinions are coming to us because the lawyers involved are citing their own local jurisdictions.


We thank the many, many readers for their thoughtful comments. We do not normally pass on a piece and keep the writer anonymous. Had he written without rudeness and expletives the outcome might have been different. It is too bad he had to resort to abusive language. The original text, despite the technical errors, was provocative and captured the gist of the mess.


Many have asked about the identity of the original writer, LG sent this email: “David Kotok: A simple Google search would have revealed to you who wrote the following. I doubt he is need of you providing him 15 minutes of fame, but who knows…http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/10/second-leg-down-of-americas-death.html .” Thank you, LG.


BTW, there is an investment implication in our view. We believe the banking system will weather this mess and the weakness in the sector will evolve into a buying opportunity as a result. The new Fed policy of additional QE implies more liquidity to offset the economic weakness of the foreclosure mess and more subsidies for banks.



benchcraft company scam

Charlotte Foreclosures North Carolina, 3Bd, 2Ba, $ 262,500.00 : ForeclosureDataBank.com by ForeclosureDataBank


benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Fox <b>News</b> Contributors Mock <b>...</b>

On the video, Miller, Trotter, Scott, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican and Fox News contributor James Pinkerton are seen preparing to go on the air when Miller says, "Oh, I do have something to say about Palin. I even prepared it. ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.


benchcraft company scam

Charlotte Foreclosures North Carolina, 3Bd, 2Ba, $ 262,500.00 : ForeclosureDataBank.com by ForeclosureDataBank


bench craft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Fox <b>News</b> Contributors Mock <b>...</b>

On the video, Miller, Trotter, Scott, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican and Fox News contributor James Pinkerton are seen preparing to go on the air when Miller says, "Oh, I do have something to say about Palin. I even prepared it. ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.


benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Fox <b>News</b> Contributors Mock <b>...</b>

On the video, Miller, Trotter, Scott, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican and Fox News contributor James Pinkerton are seen preparing to go on the air when Miller says, "Oh, I do have something to say about Palin. I even prepared it. ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.


benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Fox <b>News</b> Contributors Mock <b>...</b>

On the video, Miller, Trotter, Scott, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican and Fox News contributor James Pinkerton are seen preparing to go on the air when Miller says, "Oh, I do have something to say about Palin. I even prepared it. ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.


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bench craft company scam

Charlotte Foreclosures North Carolina, 3Bd, 2Ba, $ 262,500.00 : ForeclosureDataBank.com by ForeclosureDataBank


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