Mortgage Servicing Fraud Forum

Foreclosure Mediation in Florida

cmc — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:03:21 GMT

A couple of months ago I went to mediation with my friend. An agreement was reached with the servicer on the phone the attorney sitting in front of us as well as the Mediator.

The agreement was that they were to fill out the forms for the Home Affordable Modification Program and they are to fax the forms and the supporting documents to a certain person from the servicing company. It also stated that if they don't qualify than they will consider them for a Security Retention Agreement. But in the mean time neither party is suppose to take any action in reference to the forclosure.

They faxed all of the information to the person at the servicing company and did everything they had to do. They haven't heard anything as of yet. This was done about 30 days ago.

Today they called me and said that they received a Reply to the Affirmitive Defenses. It says that Plaintiff denies and avoids each and every affirmative defense presented by Defendants and demands strict proof thereof. They want the court to grant judgement in favor of Plaintiff.

They were not suppose to do this. Should we write the Judge a letter in reference to this?

They are doing this Pro Se with a little help from me.

Any suggestions or input would be greatly appreciated.

cmc

To Big To Fail To Big To Exist

h gosh — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:21:35 GMT

Issue November 06, 2009 - http://sanders.senate.gov

Too Big to Fail - Too Big to Exist

More than a year has gone by since Congress passed the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. The Federal Reserve has committed trillions of additional dollars in virtually zero-interest loans and other assistance to large financial institutions resulting in the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world. Today, most of the huge financial institutions still standing have become even bigger -- so big that the four largest banks in America (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup) now issue one out of every two mortgages; two out of three credit cards; and hold $4 out of every $10 in bank deposits in the entire country.

If any of these financial institutions were to get into major trouble again, taxpayers would be on the hook for another massive bailout. We cannot let that happen. That is why I introduced legislation that would give the secretary of the Treasury 90 days to identify every single financial institution and insurance company in this country that is too big to fail and to break them up within one year.

If its too big to fail, its too big to exist!

Please do not respond to this email, it is not a monitored email address. If you would like to send Senator Sanders a comment click here.

Ohio AG sues American Home Mortgage Servicing

Ed — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:45:55 GMT

http://www.courthousenews.com/2009/11/06/HomeMort.pdf

Now If You Face Foreclosure You Can Rent Your Home Back if You Qualify

topguncrdtadvsr — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:39:33 GMT

Here's the story from the NY Times-
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/business/economy/06fannie.html?_r=1&em

Now will they make sure before you sign your rights away in an attempt to do the right thing that you have an HONEST APPRAISAL of how much you've been defrauded?

I doubt it...Unless they target these attorneys and judges endorsing fraud upon the court and anyone who enters the courts. They should not be done!
Until adequate representation can be given to benefit the homeowner against criminal acts. Thats what this all amounts to ....Massive theft of homes...

I'm to the point that reading the same crap over and over again is very depreseing considering their the only ones mainly who get any relief. Man what are we going to do?

Foreclosure Defense: What You Need To Know

MSFraud Admin — Thur, 05 Nov 2009 16:36:10 GMT

Please take the time to watch these videos.

You need to know what happened to you and these videos will help you understand what happened, what is happening, and what you are up against.

"You have many rights that you are not aware of". Do not believe the many people who will tell you the game is over or you don't have any rights.

Promotional: (Also pay attention to Brad Keiser @ 5:46)

"The judicial branch is the only place that this is going to be resolved".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmNv46QcTc0&feature=related

The Workshop

1 of 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9L4eRaIxLQ&feature=related

2 of 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ6lPaiKmwg

Our many thanks go out to Neil, Brad and Cameron Baxter Films.

Countrywide ex-CEO Mozilo must face SEC fraud case

AgentOrange — Thur, 05 Nov 2009 03:23:44 GMT

Countrywide ex-CEO Mozilo must face SEC fraud case

NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A federal judge rejected a request by Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp, to dismiss a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing him of securities fraud and insider trading.

In a Tuesday court filing, U.S. District Judge John Walter in Los Angeles also rejected requests by David Sambol and Eric Sieracki, respectively Countrywide's former chief operating officer and former chief financial officer, to dismiss related SEC fraud charges.

Countrywide had been the largest U.S. mortgage lender before liquidity dried up in summer of 2007, leading to its acquisition the following year by Bank of America Corp for $2.5 billion.

Mozilo's lawyer David Siegel called the court's order "disappointing" but added he was confident Mozilo "will be vindicated once the complete record is presented to the court..."

"Angelo Mozilo is an innocent man who helped millions of people find a home for more than 40 years," Siegel said in a statement. BAWAHAA !!!

Walter Brown, who represents Sambol, declined to comment. Nicolas Morgan, who represents Sieracki, also did not immediately return a call.

The SEC sued the defendants in June, accusing them of misleading investors about the quality of Countrywide's loans, including tens of billions of dollars of risky subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages.

"The specific allegations of the complaint relied on by the SEC describe in great detail the virtual abandonment of prudent underwriting guidelines and the resulting proliferation of poor quality loans, during the same period Countrywide was touting the superior quality of its underwriting guidelines and its loan portfolio," the judge wrote.

"Moreover, given that Countrywide's core business, i.e., selling mortgages into the secondary market, admittedly depended upon the quality of its loan production, it is certainly not difficult for the court to conclude that the poor quality of Countrywide's underwriting practices and loan portfolio would be material to investors," he added.

The insider trading charge concerned Mozilo's alleged exercise in 2006 and 2007 of more than 5.1 million stock options and sale of the resulting shares, leading to more than $139 million of profit.

According to the complaint, Mozilo set up the plan shortly after admitting in an email to colleagues that Countrywide was "flying blind" as to the quality of its loans.

Mozilo, 70, is perhaps the most prominent executive charged by U.S. regulators with wrongdoing in connection with the housing market collapse.

The case is SEC v. Mozilo, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 09-3994.

Motion to Dismiss denied - Improper Form

Manette — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:35:55 GMT

I filed a motion to dismiss a foreclosure based on fraud on behalf of Ocwen. The bank gave their answer which was strictly based on me not having the right to file the motion because am not the mortgage holder. (I bought the property and received title to it thru a drug forfeiture auction but it was subject to the mortgage lien). Anyway, I had previously gone to court to stop the sheriff sale and the sheriff sale was postponed for 2 months. At the hearing though, the judge told me to orally request a motion to intervene which he granted on the spot. I filed this motion to dismiss prior to the new sheriff sale date, but the bank went ahead and bought the property at the sheriff sale. I then filed a petition to vacate the sheriff sale which has not been decided yet.

I just received a denial of the motion to dismiss based on "improper form". I guess in looking at what I submitted and what the plantiff submitted as a proposed order, mine was procedurally incorrect.

What do I do now? Can I just resubmit the motion?

This is in Philadelphia court.

Mortgage Modification Fraud / Assignment Fraud

Gregory Montelaro — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:45:55 GMT

Mortgage Modification Fraud / Assignment Fraud

Unlike the loan modification problems facing home owners recently, this fraud scheme is targeted at home owners who entered into a loan modification agreement between 2002 and 2007. If you modified your loan between these years you might want to dig out your paperwork because you may be in for a big surprise.

This scheme to defraud begins when the loan is closed and initially involved the escrow account set up with the servicer of the loan for the payment of insurance, property taxes and mortgage protection insurance. Part of the closing costs buyers are required to bring to closing was the portion of the property taxes owed from the date of the purchase of the property through the end of the year. The seller was required to pay for the property taxes from the first of the year to the day they sold the property.

The closing agent should have collected the taxes from both the buyer and the seller and deposited them into the escrow account per the escrow instructions thus insuring that the funds were available in that account to pay property taxes at the end of the year. As you are aware, there is an additional amount added to loan payments every month which is deposited in an escrow account each month insuring that, year after year, the property taxes, property insurance and mortgage protection insurance are paid and kept current.

It appears that originators like Memorial Park Mortgage in Houston, Texas were under-funding some loans by the exact amount that the seller owed for their portion of the property taxes. This was fraudulently concealed buyers at the time by a cleaver accounting entry that transferred a credit from the sellers side of the ledger to the buyers side of the ledger. Originators like Memorial Park Mortgage then instruct the closing agent to only fund the escrow account with the buyers portion of the property taxes. The effect of this is that the seller fulfilled their obligations in paying their portion of the property taxes. The buyer received a credit from the seller thereby transferring the tax obligation to the buyer which should have caused a closing surplus in the buyers favor. However, because Memorial Park Mortgage under-funded the amount they sent to the closing agent by the exact amount of the sellers tax obligation, it appeared as if all the closing transactions balanced.

In effect, Memorial Park Mortgage stole an amount equal to the property taxes owed by the seller at closing. Further, buyers have been repaying a loan greater than the amount that you actually received.

Immediately after the loan closed the originator would sell the loan to Freddie Mac.

Sometime after January of the following year, buyers are contacted by the loan servicer and told that although the property taxes were paid from the escrow account, this payment caused a shortage in escrow. The shortage was the amount of taxes that Memorial Park Mortgage cleverly transferred as a credit from the seller to you at closing and then instructed the closing agent not to deposit to the escrow account. Many home owners who were victims of this fraud contacted their closing agent and were told that they had received a credit from the seller at closing and therefore the taxes had been their obligation. What they were not told is that, had Memorial Park Mortgage funded the full amount of the loan, the credit from the seller would have resulted in a surplus that should have been deposited in their escrow accounts.

The loan servicer would not have required an escrow account to be set up and then allowed it to be under funded. Because of this they assumed that the shortage must necessarily have been caused by some other condition such as in increase in the property value. Accordingly, your servicer required buyers to not only cover the shortfall in the escrow account but this shortfall amount was doubled to insure that the shortfall did not reoccur the following year. This amount must be paid out over 12 months thus the loan payment increased by nearly thirty (30%) percent.

Mortgage originators like Memorial Park Mortgage are in a unique position to know exactly how much buyers can afford to pay each month as well as what would likely occur if the monthly note each month increased by the shortfall they created in your escrow account at closing. After several months of paying the increased payment, many home owners fell behind on the note and began receiving foreclosure notices from Barrett Burke Wilson Castle Daffin & Frappier, LLP (Barrett Burke) claiming default.

At the same time home owners were contacted by Loan Servicing, a company in Dallas, Texas working with their client, Freddie Mac, in order to help you stay in your home, the result of which was an agreement to enter into a modification of the original promissory note signed at closing. Once approved for the modification, paperwork would be forwarded to Barrett Burke for buyers signature and buyers are required to pay the closing costs including title insurance.

If you originally worked with Loan Servicing from Dallas, Texas to modify your loan, a quick check of your loan modification agreement may show that the owner of the loan is listed as someone other than Freddie Mac. If it does, Barrett Burke may have worked in conspiracy with your mortgage originator and induced you to sign a Loan Modification Agreement with some other investor by fraudulently concealing the true owner of your note. This is actually a new loan.

As you can see from this copy of a Loan Modification Agreement (http://dc131.4shared.com/download/134185990/abbf7f33/LoanMod.pdf), Principal Residential Mortgage is noted as the lender. This corresponds with the Assignment of Deed of Trust in the county records filed by Memorial Park Mortgage a short time after the Loan Modification Agreement was signed. This action by Memorial Park Mortgage is an essential part of the fraud as it, along with the Loan Modification Agreement, serves to illegally attempt to change the ownership of your loan to someone other than Freddie Mac.

Note on this copy (http://dc131.4shared.com/download/134186025/2545c616/ExmpLoanMod1.pdf) as well as this copy (http://dc131.4shared.com/download/134186032/a23a62f4/ExmpLoanMod2.pdf) of Modification Agreements that the Loan Servicing information from Dallas printed on the copy has been covered over by information from First American Title Company on the copy filed with the county. Note that AmeriStar Title also played a part in the scheme. AmeriStar Title is owned by Barrett Burke and we can explain to your attorney how they and First American Title participated.

Many of the victims we have spoken to were unable to keep up their payments after their monthly payments increased and they were eventually foreclosed on by Principal Residential Mortgage fraudulently acting as the owner of their note.

In these examples Principal Residential never owned these notes and was only servicing it for Freddie Mac. Memorial Park Mortgage sold the original note to Freddie Mac, the ownership of which was transferred to Freddie Mac under an irrevocable power of attorney (http://dc131.4shared.com/download/134185966/c544c6c9/PowerAsmtFreddie.pdf) executed prior to closing that forever transferred the rights to sell the loan from Memorial Park Mortgage.

The original shortfall in the escrow was caused by Memorial Park Mortgages theft from the funds they owed to you due at closing. In addition to being caused to pay back the money that Memorial Park Mortgage stole, these home owners have been paying notes based on a loan amount that they never received because of Memorial Park Mortgage under-funding the loan at closing.

If your loan modification agreement exhibits these same elements, you should contact an attorney.

Forgery

steve — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:17:36 GMT

A few years ago we had our mortgage servicer to fax us a copy of the mortgage and note when we were forced by them to file chapter 13 bankruptcy.Only the mortgage can be found at the clerk of courts recordings.Thanks to information on this website and the conversations with Mr Gary Wait got me and my wife to really combing and compairing our statements and mortgage papers very carefully.

Last night me and my wife made a discovery.The original mortgage was signed by the lenders title agent, with a squiggle mark and by the original notary.We discovered that the lenders faxed copy, of the mortgage note saying this is a true copy of the original but the title agent squiggle mark signature is completely different from the original filed in the courts recordings.

Also on the lenders, faxed copy of the note to us compared to the original notary signature has been forged and is not the notaries signature.

Tomorrow we will go and see this notary and get her to sign a statement and notarized by her, saying it is not her signature as she signed on the original mortgage note and come Friday we will show this to our bankruptcy attorney.

Any thoughts of the possible outcome?

We should be released from our bankruptcy now debt free and the servicer shut down and everyone at the evil empire sent to prison since these are forged doctored mortgage documents that have been faxed so many times you can hardly read them.

Thanks for your input and this wonderful weaponry here @ Msfraud.

Steve.

OT Our Dear Friend Congresswoman Mikulski coins a new phrase

h gosh — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:50:25 GMT

I absolutely adore this woman, and all of us from the old Fairbanks days hold her dearly in our hearts. I love the new phrase she has coined: "Wall St. Tarp Twerps".

http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=390312396&mode=cnc&tag=3.8218%3Ficx_id%3DNewsfeed103388618

All of us known this for years

Tommy D — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:37:57 GMT

Do Mortgage Lenders Make More Money When a Loan Goes into Foreclosure?

Have you fallen on hard times? Do you need your mortgage loan modified?

Just flip on the television or radio, or surf the Internet, and you will find countless ads placed by companies offering to help you get a loan modification.

The only problem is, it's tough to know if they truly will be able to help you. Why? A new study reveals that servicers actually make more money when a loan goes into foreclosure than if it is modified.

In fact, mortgage servicers -- companies that collect monthly mortgage payments and distribute them to investors -- have found it's cheaper to foreclose on homeowners than to offer loan modifications that would benefit homeowners and investors, according to "Why Servicers Foreclose, When They Should Modify, and Other Puzzles of Servicer Behavior," a new report from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC).

As every good investor knows, net profit isn't just about the rate of return. It's also about how well you hold down the expenses associated with that investment.

Most homeowners assume that foreclosure is a money-losing proposition for lenders and investors. There's a lot of talk that with a short sale, a lender might only lose 10 to 20 percent of an investment. But with foreclosures, lenders might settle for 20 to 30 cents on the dollar.

These numbers would seem to point mortgage lenders and investors toward doing more loan modifications.

But the way the system has been set up, lenders, investors and mortgage servicers may have different priorities, and they are certainly compensated in different ways.

As the recent RealtyTrac foreclosures number showed, the third quarter of 2009 had the highest number of foreclosures on record.

"The country is in the midst of a foreclosure crisis of unprecedented proportions. Millions of families have lost their homes, and millions more are expected to lose their homes in the next few years," noted Diane E. Thompson, an attorney with NCLC and author of the study.

Thompson argues that reduced home values and high unemployment are pushing homeowners to the edge financially.

"With home values plummeting and layoffs common, homeowners are crumbling under the weight of mortgages that were at best only marginally affordable when made," she explained.

The report examined foreclosures made from 1995 through 2009 and found that loan servicers make more money by offering forbearance (where the homeowner is given a specific period of time to not make payments in an effort to regroup financially) or payment plans than by cutting principal or offering reduced interest rate payments.

According to the report, "Loan modifications inevitably cost the servicer something. A servicer deciding between a foreclosure and a loan modification faces the prospect of near certain loss if the loan is modified, and no penalty, but potential profit, if the home is foreclosed."

Moreover, the report found that financial incentives offered to mortgage servicers by the government to help homeowners avoid foreclosure do not equal the profits servicers make through foreclosure. The lack of "third-party oversight allows servicers to pursue foreclosure instead of effective loan modifications that would benefit homeowners as well as investors." Credit rating agencies and bond insurers do monitor servicers, NCLC found, but they, too, generally push for foreclosure instead of loan modifications.

"The people who could change the way servicers are doing business -- Congress, the administration, and the Securities and Exchange Commission -- and the market participants who set the terms of engagement -- credit rating agencies and bond insurers -- have failed to provide servicers with the necessary incentives to reduce foreclosures and increase loan modifications," Thompson said.

The report suggests the following changes in order to encourage more loan modifications: regulate loan originations; mandate loan modifications before foreclosure; fund quality loan mediation programs; provide for principal reductions on existing loans through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) program and through bankruptcy reform; increase automated and standardized loan modifications for borrowers in default and provide a safety net for borrowers who do not qualify for a standardized modification; ease accounting rules for loan modifications to facilitate standardization and encourage long-term loan modifications; require loan servicers to be more transparent and uniform in how loan modifications are reported; and limit fees charged to borrowers.

You can download the full report at ConsumerLaw.org.

(Ilyce R. Glink's latest eBooks are "Save Your House From Foreclosure" and "Divorce and Your Finances," which can be purchased at http://www.thinkglink.com. If you have questions, you can call her radio show toll-free (800-972-8255) any Sunday, from 11a-1p EST or contact her through her Web site, http://www.thinkglink.com.)
http://www.dailypress.com/classified/realestate/sns-200910231552tmsrealestmctnig-a20091030oct30,0,6040410.story

Take Action: by Michael Moore

peanut — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:56:05 GMT

Friends,

It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so NOW what can I DO?!"

You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system.

Here they are:

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is H.R. 3200 -- but this bill is worthless without the amendment from Rep. Anthony Weiner that will bring us closer to the real bill that should be passed: H.R. 676. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand that they support this amendment, no compromises allowed.

3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!

FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:

1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email. And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send them a snail mail letter!

2. Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you had with all those friends and neighbors working together to get Barack Obama elected? YOU DID THE IMPOSSIBLE. It's time to re-up! Get everyone back together and go to the monthly meeting of your town or county Democratic Party -- and become the majority that runs it! There will not be many in attendance and they will either be happy or in shock that you and the Obama Revolution have entered the room looking like you mean business. President Obama's agenda will never happen without mass grass roots action -- and he won't feel encouraged to do the right thing if no one has his back, whether it's to stand with him, or push him in the right direction. When you all become the local Democratic Party, send me a photo of the group and I'll post it on my website.

3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office yourself! You don't have to settle for the incumbent who always expects to win. You can be our next representative! Don't believe it can happen? Check out these examples of regular citizens who got elected: State Senator Deb Simpson, California State Assemblyman Isadore Hall, Tempe, Arizona City Councilman Corey Woods, Wisconsin State Assemblyman Chris Danou, and Washington State Representative Larry Seaquist. The list goes on and on -- and you should be on it!

4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money. Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us than there are of them!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on the local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure. (You can download them from my website.)

5. Start your own media. You. Just you (or you and a couple friends). The mainstream media is owned by corporate America and, with few exceptions, it will never tell the whole truth -- so you have to do it! Start a blog! Start a website of real local news (here's an example: The Michigan Messenger). Tweet your friends and use Facebook to let them know what they need to do politically. The daily papers are dying. If you don't fill that void, who will?

FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS:

1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union.

2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one -- the kind where you have to pay up at the end of the month or you lose your card.

3. Do not invest in the stock market. If you have any extra cash, put it away in a savings account or, if you can, pay down on your mortgage so you can own your home as soon as possible. You can also buy very safe government savings bonds or T-bills. Or just buy your mother some flowers.

4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say in how your business is run. Here's how to do it (more info here). Nothing is more American than democracy, and democracy shouldn't be checked at the door when you enter your workplace. Another way to Americanize your workplace is to turn your business into a worker-owned cooperative. You are not a wage slave. You are a free person, and you giving up eight hours of your life every day to someone else is to be properly compensated and respected.

5. Take care of yourself and your family. Sorry to go all Oprah on you, but she's right: Find a place of peace in your life and make the choice to be around people who are not full of negativity and cynicism. Look for those who nurture and love. Turn off the TV and the Blackberry and go for a 30-minute walk every day. Eat fruits and vegetables and cut down on anything that has sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour or too much sodium (salt) in it (and, as Michael Pollan says, "Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants"). Get seven hours of sleep each night and take the time to read a book a month. I know this sounds like I've turned into your grandma, but, dammit, take a good hard look at Granny -- she's fit, she's rested and she knows the names of both of her U.S. Senators without having to Google them. We might do well to listen to her. If we don't put our own "oxygen mask" on first (as they say on the airplane), we will be of no use to the rest of the nation in enacting any of this action plan!

I'm sure there are many other ideas you can come up with on how we can build this movement. Get creative. Think outside the politics-as-usual box. BE SUBVERSIVE! Think of that local action no one else has tried. Behave as if your life depended on it. Be bold! Try doing something with reckless abandon. It may just liberate you and your community and your nation.

And when you act, send me your stories, your photos and your video -- and be sure to post your ideas in the comments beneath this letter on my site so they can be shared with millions.

C'mon people -- we can do this! I expect nothing less of all of you, my true and trusted fellow travelers!

Yours,

Michael Moore

AG want Banks & Servicers to detail plans to stem foreclosures

GoodLuckOnThis! — Thur, 29 Oct 2009 20:21:17 GMT

Attorney General wants banks to detail plans to stem foreclosures

SACRAMENTO
October 29, 2009 12:21pm

Says a new wave of foreclosures is building

Ticking time bombs that the lending industry has the power to defuse

Concerned about a "new wave" of foreclosures, California Attorney General Edmund Brown Jr. on Thursday called on ten major banks and loan servicers to detail their plans to assist homeowners facing dramatic monthly payment increases on pay option adjustable rate mortgages.

"Homeowners with pay option ARMs are sitting on ticking time bombs that the lending industry has the power to defuse," says Mr. Brown. "Unless these banks and loan servicers act quickly, hundreds of thousands of mortgages will reset across the state, creating a new wave of foreclosures." ?

While the economy is beginning to improve, homeowners desperate to save their homes have seen little relief, Mr. Brown says.

In the third quarter of 2009, California accounted for more than 25 percent of the nation's foreclosure activity, with 250,000 homes receiving foreclosure filings statewide. Four of the nations highest foreclosure rates were in the Central Valley Merced, Bakersfield, Modesto and Stockton according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine-based mortgage information company.

California homeowners hold almost 60 percent of the nation's exotic pay option ARMs originated between 2004 and 2008. Approximately one million of these mortgages will reset nationwide in the next four years, resulting in higher payments and a dramatic increase in foreclosures, Mr. Brown says.

The attorney generals request was made in a letter sent to: Bank of America Home Loans & Insurance; Wells Fargo & Company; JP Morgan Chase & Co.; Litton Loan Servicing; ResCap LLC; Ocwen Financial Corporation; OneWest Bank; American Home Mortgage Servicing; Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc.; and Select Portfolio Servicing.

The banks and loan servicers are asked to respond by Nov. 23.

http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=13468

OT-Humor-The Angry Mob Platinum Credit Card

arkygirl — Thur, 29 Oct 2009 19:06:39 GMT

Sometimes we just need a break from the real world...sign me up for this credit card! I want points to watch public floggings, too.

(Why is it that The Daily Show can nail it while CNN and the rest fumble around way behind?)

Wall Street Reform

Seattle Times reviews WaMu, hometown predator

DrivebyPosting — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:55:31 GMT

Seattle Times reviews WaMu, hometown predator

An excellent postmortem details a corrupted culture