***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

Healthcare Survey:

If you could get a quality preventative health care plan for about $15 per week, would you sign up?

I would like to hear comments on this.  It WILL be done, with great doctors, and total privacy.

Please comment.  I have been hired to do the market research for this intiative.  If you are uninsured, you need to sign up!   There will be provisions for people who are impoverished.  After all, you REALLY need to stay healthy in that situation!

You are NOT alone.  Your information will remain confidential.  If enough people sign up, then we can prove there is a demand for this service and it will be launched.

The first locations will open where there is enough interest.  This is a U.S. non-profit initiative.

The website is lauching within 10 days.  I will report more about the launch as it gets closer.

NATIONAL SHOUT OUT DAY:

MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2009 at 8:00PM!

You are either part of the solution, or you are part of the problem.  Either way on Shout Out Day you will be “known”.

It is reported this morning that the NATIONAL unemployment rate is now at 9.8%, which is 15.1 million people.

This does NOT include “discouraged” workers or “marginally attached” workers who add another 2.2 Million people to that total…..these people are not counted in the “national unemployment rate (conveniently).  Nor are others who have just given up – who want to work, but don’t even look for a job anymore for countless valid reasons.

There are now 17.3 MILLION PEOPLE out of work in the U.S.A.  Click this link to read the GOVERNMENT report.

**UPDATE**: Ron Paul, on the Jon Stuart show Sept 29th.  While talking about his newly released book “End The Fed”,  Ron Paul states that if the TRUE unemployment count was released, where all persons of any “category” who were looking for a job were counted, the true rate of that unemployment would actually be around 20%! To view this clip, CLICK HERE (unemployment statement made at minute marker 4:01-4:04).  He also talks about the counterfieting machine used to print money for temporary fixes to the economy – just as I stated in a previous post about Foreclosures (http://sharonodell.com/2009/09/12/how-the-great-recession-started/).

Everytime I think of where we are today, I instantly remember a movie that is perfectly suited  for these times  (Network, 1976, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/quotes), RENT IT, WATCH IT!!!  This isn’t a new problem!  This is a freaking repeat!!!

I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!

You’ve got to get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it!!!

Source:  IMDB (Network, 1976, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/quotes)

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!