***UPDATE***Monday, November 9, 2009:

Oh snap! Just as I thought: Headlines in today’s Jacksonville Business Journal:
“Mortgage Fraud Defendant Gets 7 years”….. here is an excerpt from that story:

“According to court documents, during 2004 and 2005, Gonzalez contracted to purchase 55 properties. For each property, Gonzalez directed an appraiser to significantly inflate the property’s value and submitted the inflated price to a lender to support a mortgage loan based on that price.”

OK HOLD ON A MINUTE. HE “directed” the Appraiser to do this? WOW. What a farce! I have a question: HOW did he direct the Appraiser do this? HOW? Damn, I tried to “direct” an Appraiser 10 years ago to include the REAL value of the swimming pool I had just paid to install (I even presented the receipts and cancelled checks!) and he told me to go to hell! It wasn’t worth crap when it came to the value of the house.

So…what did Mr. Gonzalez do to get his better outcome? Threaten the guy? Pay him off? Is anyone but ME asking that?
Seriously.

This guy seems to have been riding the greed train, and I am not saying he doesn’t deserve his 7 years given the scope of the mortgages and properties – I mean, hell, I didn’t have the guts to take out ONE mortgage during this real estate frenzy because I was afraid — after living here 35 years I KNEW the bottom was going to fall out – and I didn’t want to go down the tubes with it!

Like I said, this guy got really REALLY greedy, so he needs to pay the piper – but still, no one is asking the hard questions here.
That is what is getting my ire up!

The rest of the story: Jacksonville Business Journal (via email newsletter today)

—November 5, 2009 – Original Post—–
Oh seriously! Florida is #2 in Mortgage Fraud. Florida is “ground zero”. .. NO!

More like NO KIDDING!

I would bet you, right now, that ZERO of those arrested are from Wall Street, bankers or mortgage brokers! If they are, I would be SHOCKED.

Let me tell you, in 2008 I had to quit going into my bank’s branch office in order to prevent myself from being accosted by the employees who wanted me to “sign and drive” a mortgage loan. No qualifying necessary! Just make it up!

My first instinct? RUN LIKE HELL.
Trust me, there is always a reprecussion! Here is a headline that proves it, not more than a year later.

Tell me WHY investors and regular people are the first to be arrested and not all the “professionals” who were involved in these transactions. Tell me!

I am livid. Back on a rant. It’s either health care or mortgage foreclosure or jobs that get me going. I was having a fairly nice spell of just focusing on health care. Not any more.

DOES ANY OF THIS IMPROVE WHAT THE REST OF US ARE GOING THROUGH?? NO!

I think if they broke the law, they should pay the price, but let me ask you something. Doesn’t this seem like the Feds are more interested in the “easy cases” than really going after the troublemakers….you know, the ones we bailed out – Wall Street, etc.

I really don’t know what this Country has come to stand for. Right now it clearly looks like greed and a lot of other negative things and I frankly am sick of it!

Source: Jacksonville Business Journal

Wonder why there are so many foreclosures? Wonder why there is such a health care crisis? Wonder why the economy is having trouble getting it’s feet back under it?

It’s always related to EMPLOYMENT. ALWAYS.

Research firm: U.S. lost 284,000 jobs in Oct., a modest improvement over the 358,000 jobs shed in September.

In a research note, TrimTabs added that wages and salaries are still declining sequentially. The firm estimates based on income tax deposits that wages and salaries fell 5.3 percent year over year in September and 4.6 percent year over year in October, steeper than declines earlier in the year.

Source: Trim Tabs Investment Research

What will happen if 60 million mortgages can no longer be foreclosed because the owner “entity” is an electronic system that is used to own and manage these mortgages that are now securities sold as investments?

The banks obviously are not able to take the place of this electronic entity.  They have already been paid off, and sold the mortgage to the portfolio.  There is no one owner to represent these mortgages – not one with a mortgage note in hand, anyway.

This could be a HUGE bomb waiting to blow the investment market to oblivion….

MAJOR legal news last week out of the State of Kansas (I love those midwesterners – they are so common sense), that MERS (the electronic ‘entity’ that represents mortgages that were bundled and sold as securities) has NO STANDING to foreclose those mortgages pursuant to a decision in the State Court.   That means, ALL of the mortgages that were managed this way (60 million of them) may now be exempt from foreclosure proceedings.

This will be a VERY interesting case to watch.  There are some things that have to be done before it becomes useful in other states, but it’s time for the pendulum to swing back in favor of the borrower.

It’s very disturbing to me to see borrowers getting hung for signing mortgages where they allegedly offered false information regarding earnings or financials.  These people may end up going to Federal Prison.  I grant you that some ‘seasoned’ individuals did know what they were doing.  But Tom and Betty up the street who had never owned a home before – or Fred and Mary who had owned their same home for 15 years, what did they know?  Too many regular people got caught up in the lust of the “gold rush” and getting all you could was the only way to go – according to all the advertising we were being bombarded by….I remember quite well, it was totally sickening,

Why should I care about those people?  I will tell you why!!!   First, there but for the grace of God would be many of you!  Second, I do NOT care who you talk to, back when these “free and easy” mortgages were available to ANYONE, and I do mean ANYONE.

The bank you were banking at would all but shove it down your throat to get you to sign on the dotted line – they would state to your face that they would not be checking anything you provided, just make it work.  How do I know?  I was one of those people accosted almost weekly when I went in to my bank to transact deposits.  It was ridiculous!  I was being told I could qualify to buy a 1.2 million dollar Condo that I was renting at the time.  I was self employed with next to no net income, and my regular income was a Social Security Disability Check that never made it all the way through the entire month.

I never fell for it, I KNEW that if I couldn’t pay in the future, the alleged meaningless documents would come back to bite me.  I feel bad for the people who had trust in their bankers, their mortgage brokers and their real estate “friends” that led them down this rosy path to hell!

This new case law is not a long shot, folks.  This is very real and could suddenly turn the tables on a LOT of people [for the better].

I have such a hard time living with the idea that it was our very own government that got us here under the “old regime”.  Those guys were definitely not worried about the best interest of the U.S., nor were they representing the people.  It was all about their own best interests, what was easy and made them look good, and who in big business (their buddies) could prosper and benefit.  Let me translate:  Screw the American People!  Yeah, that is how it was.  Welcome to our nightmare.

I have had to attach the article as a PDF for you to read because this article is getting so much traffic on the Internet that the database serving it up to readers seems to be crashing on a regular basis.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE – CLICK HERE!

Well, it’s Friday.  No better time than for me to have a bit of a rant.  Besides, I’m past due!  Once I get it out of my system, the weekend should be a good one.

What am I ranting about now?  The  Spin Doctors in D.C. and how I keep reading in CNN and various other spin outlets that “things are looking up in the Economy”.  I would LOVE to see the source list for these stories!

I am not Debbie Downer….in fact, I have been repeatedly accused by my fellow students and probably many others who simply mumble under their breath, that I am an eternal optomist.  I think the term really is more explicit than that…but hey, all I have to say to that is GUILTY AS CHARGED!

That aside, I can’t even put an optimistic view on some things….like for instance, the unemployment numbers for July in Florida.  Specifically in my west central part of Florida!

I remember when the ‘De-cession” really got moving at the end of last year, and we were told, “well it won’t be a depression unless unemployment hits 10%”.  Oh yeah?  Well spin these numbers for me then:

In the Tampa Bay area, the July 2009 unemployment rate

in Hillsborough County was 11.1 percent.

In Pinellas County it was 11 percent.

In Pasco County it was 12.2 percent,

Polk 12.3 percent, Manatee 12.2 percent, Sarasota 11.5 percent and Hernando 13.2 percent.

(source:  Tampa Bay Business Journal )

I thought about taking out my white flag and waving it hard to see if it would get noticed, but I knew better.  I do have some thoughts that have turned into questions though……

Does ANYONE  know who the Cash for Clunkers program benefitted?  No new jobs were created.  No one who was out of work  qualified to get a new car under the program.  No one who had to buy a clunker because they lost their job and had their newer vehicle repossessed could get one either.

To me,  it was like taking out a long term car loan from the government which is to be paid back by the taxpayers.  I never agreed to pay a $4500 loan so someone could get a new car.  Hell, I didn’t get to even get a new car under that program.  I suspect there are a LOT of others just like me who didn’t either.  I love that we are mortgaging our children’s future in order to provide new cars to people who could afford them and still had a job.  The part that makes me even angrier is that the “clunkers” had to be destroyed.  They SHOULD have been donated to non profits (like Wheels of Success, right here in Tampa) that could put those cars into good working order and help out families who can’t afford transportation.  What a total waste!

Be quiet! I KNOW it was supporting the “green” movement to get the guzzlers off the street.  Really!  Is NOW the exact time that has to happen? Seriously!  Even in consideration of that greening investment, what if the said families who NEEDED those cars (Desperately I might add) were only allowed to keep them on the road for 24 months and then they had to be destroyed?  That would have worked too, and guess what!  It would also have given those who needed it a hand up, and the auto dealers a new customer in 24 months when that person had to relinquish the car and would likely be in a position to buy a new car.  Don’t EVEN go trying to tell me it would be too complicated.  Don’t even start!

Then, there is the question of Health Care.  I dont’ even have the energy to go into that one right now.

I voted for Obama for Change.  I want his administration to quit whitewashing this ordeal and throwing money at it in places where lobbyists have paved the path.  I want the PEOPLE to come first and I want to see some REAL change.  On that note, I will keep my eye peeled and keep moving ahead – one foot in front of the other – for as long as it takes.  Just understand, it doesn’t mean I have to absorb all the B.S. they are trying to feed us.

PLEASE NOTE:  This rant in no way evidences that I think we are in a negative situation.  In fact (here we go, I will be accused of being overly optimistic again) that we are in a rare time when we can actually make significant and good changes.  Our businesses can flourish and we can find new ways to do things.  Those who get stuck will perish.  Those who don’t will flourish.  It’s the law of the land:  survival of the fittest.