MarcyWatch 2010 - Winograd for Congress June 8 - Foreclosures Break Records!

Marcy Winograd for Congress Countdown - Vote on Tuesday, June 8!


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One huge reason to kick Jane Harman to the curb is that she signed the vile, loathsome Bankruptcy Bill of 2005, the disgusting bill that closed off a last attempt to protect ourselves from the rapaciousness of the credit card companies - an industry-written bill that the credit card industry had been attempting to purchase from Congress for the previous 20 years. One of the components of the bill rescinded the ability of bankruptcy judges to order banks to modify home loans. And, as we have found, if asked instead of ordered, banks will refuse to do so.


Here's Marcy's take on the foreclosure crisis:

In light of record foreclosures, more than 7,000 in our district last year, Marcy supports a "First Right to Rent" rule for homeowners losing their homes. "If banks were required to rent to those facing foreclosure, we would have far fewer foreclosures," says Marcy, "because banks find it harder to sell a home with tenants in the house."

Foreclosures not only impact those losing their homes, but also neighborhoods that suffer vandalism and lower property values, as well as counties that lose their tax base, thus forcing cuts in social services that hurt the newly homeless. Marcy's opponent, Jane Harman, voted for the 2005 bankruptcy bill which makes it easier for banks to foreclose by prohibiting bankruptcy judges from ordering banks to modify home loans.

For more on the foreclosure crisis, read the Associated Press report below:

Mortgage Delinquencies, Foreclosures Break Records
by Alan Zibel

WASHINGTON - The number of homeowners who missed at least one mortgage payment surged to a record in the first quarter of the year, a sign that the foreclosure crisis is far from over.

More than 10 percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. That number was up from 9.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and 9.1 percent a year earlier.

Those figures are adjusted for seasonal factors. For example, heating bills and holiday expenses tend to push up mortgage delinquencies near the end of the year. Many of those borrowers become current on their loans again by spring.

Without adjusting for seasonal factors, the delinquency numbers dropped, as they normally do from the winter to spring.

More than 4.6 percent of homeowners were in foreclosure, also a record. But that number, which is not adjusted for seasonal factors, was up only slightly from the end of last year.

Stocks slid Wednesday as investors looked past a rising euro and focused on the U.S. economy, including the rising number of foreclosures. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 100 points in early trading.

Jay Brinkmann, the trade group's chief economist, said the foreclosure crisis appears to have stabilized. Seasonal adjustments may be exaggerating the change from the previous quarter, he added.

"I don't see signs now that it's getting worse, but it's going to take a while," he said. "A bad situation that's not getting worse is still bad."

Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are the main catalysts for foreclosures this year. Initially, lax lending standards were the culprit. But homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are now the fastest growing group of foreclosures.

Those borrowers made up nearly 37 percent of new foreclosures in the first quarter of the year, up from 29 percent a year earlier.

The risky subprime adjustable-rate loans that kicked off the foreclosure crisis are making up a smaller share of new foreclosures. They made up 14 percent of new foreclosures in the January-March period, down from 27 percent a year earlier.

MarcyWatch 2010 - Winograd For Congress June 8 - Interview Today at 3pm PST

It's the countdown to the election we've been working towards for the last four years. I will be posting daily updates on Marcy Winograd's Congressional race for CA-36.

The election is June 8!

Marcy is a true progressive, and we have never needed progressives in Congress like we do now. The results of conservative policies - predatory, unregulated crony capitalism - are visible each and every day; and with each new disaster - the BP oil leak, the spate of fatal mining accidents, the foreclosure crisis - we see how imperative it is that we find a way to stem the tide of corporate greed which is superseding the interests of the American people and our right to protect ourselves, our families, our jobs, our health, our environment. When corporations are allowed to call the shots, and their interests run counter to the public interest, people die. "We can regulate ourselves! We know our own industry best, after all!"

Really, BP? Really, Massey Energy? Really, Wall Street?

A Democratic President, obviously, isn't enough. And if there is to be any kind of pushback on behalf of the American people, it has to come through Congress. This is why we need real progressives - dare I say, liberals - in Congress instead of corporate-beholden 'moderates', and this is why we need Marcy Winograd - not just for California, but for the nation.

Today's Marcy update:

Marcy will be interviewed today at 3pm PST (6pm EST) on Nicole Sandler's radio show "Radio Or Not" - you are invited to call in at

800-795-1159

Find out more about Marcy at Winograd For Congress.com

How Much Ass Does D.C. Douglas Kick?

A lot!

Illegals, Watch Out - We're Taking Back Our Jobs!

(reposted from Sept. 09)

There's a new movement afoot in the American Right. Inspired by the rabidly anti-immigration, tirelessly pro-American-worker Lou Dobbs, it's springing up all across America. From the meatpacking plants of Iowa to the dairy farms of Arizona, from the kitchens of New York's finest restaurants to the Salad Bowl of California's Salinas Valley, in hotels, motels, and Holiday Inns all across this great nation of ours, the patriotic men and women who for years have stood by and watched illegal immigrants swarming across the border to brazenly steal their jobs have had enough.

Formerly known as the Minute-Man Movement (or 'Beer Guts Across America'), whose aim was to merely monitor the flow of illegal immigration across the border between the U.S. and Mexico, the troubled group disbanded amid infighting and accusations of internal corruption and financial misconduct in 2007. Yet, the dissatisfaction and frustration felt by these hard-working American patriots has only grown more intense, as they watch job after job after job go to those with no legal right to that job, while they themselves, deserving natural-born citizens, sit at home on their couches, with an ice-cold Coors, a family-sized bag of Chee-tos and a remote in their hands as they wait around for the job that never seems to materialize.

Well, the time for waiting is over.

The time for action has arrived.

Illegal criminals, take notice - Conservative Americans are taking back their jobs!

Yes, from the ashes of the failed Minute-Man Movement, the Gimme Back My Job, Dammit Coalition (GBMJ,DC) has risen, and it has spread like wildfire among conservatives sick and tired of illegals taking the jobs from deserving American citizens. No longer content to wait for the government to do it for them, these patriots have taken matters into their own hands. Now they're doing more than just protesting or watching from the sidelines - they're taking back their Constitutional, God-given right to a job. Suddenly, you see them everywhere - on the sidewalk with a leaf-blower strapped to their back, in the parking lot of your favorite restaurant with the keys to your car or inside, balancing a heavy-laden bus tray full of dirty dishes as they adroitly refill your iced tea glass on their way back to the kitchen. You may find them bent over in a lettuce field under a blistering sun with a rake in their hand, or endangering their limbs with casually-maintained but lethally sharp meat-cutting machinery for fourteen hours or more a day while earning somewhere around three dollars an hour, with no benefits, medical insurance, workman's compensation, or even bathroom breaks.

Most of them say they've never been happier.

"For the first time in my life, I feel needed," says Coalition member Chuck B. Liggett, 70, a former accountant who now works in a chicken-packing plant in Amarillo, Texas. "When the floor boss screams at me for slowing down, I feel a surge of pride because what I do actually matters. Now, I do an honest day's work for my pay, and by the time I collapse on my filthy mattress on the floor of my stinking room at the end of my fifteen-hour shift, I know I really earned that forty dollars!"

And it's not only men who are flocking to this bold new movement. Conservative women are finding satisfaction, fulfillment and a sense of what it feels like to be a real American as they embrace this exciting, energetic new way of life. Darlene Simmons, 47, works in a factory in downtown Los Angeles, sewing elastic bands into men's underwear seven days a week.

"It works out great, because working seven days means that I can save the expense of a car and an apartment - not that I could afford them on my salary," she explains. "I just fall asleep sitting at my sewing machine, and when I wake up, I'm right there ready for another day of rewarding, eye-straining, repetitive-stress-injury-inducing work!"


The jobs bonanza has been beneficial for Darlene's whole family as well.

"We're going back to the good old-fashioned American work ethic that made this country great!" says Darlene. "My kids used to be spoiled, lazy, smart-mouthed and never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we bought them, it was never enough. Now my kids work in the factory right along with me! Even my seven-year-old daughter can sew a button on a fly with those itty-bitty hands of hers - she's pretty handy, considering how she was always so busy texting her little friends! And you'd better believe there's no more complaining - you should see them cry with happiness for a little half-cup of water!"

Not even Darlene's aged, infirm 94-years-young grandmother has to miss out on the fun - when she was fired from the factory for sewing her hand to a pair of extra-large briefs, she soon found work again as a housemaid to the factory owner's wife. With tears in her eyes, choked up and unable to speak for gratitude, Grammaw merely trembled with joy, as Darlene quickly interjected, "They're so good to us here!"

Conservatives are done with talking - now they're stepping up to the plate and claiming what's theirs. All those cushy jobs that the illegal immigrants have been stealing are now back in the rightful hands of natural citizens like Chuck and Darlene. Unemployment? These stalwarts don't know the meaning of the word.

As a wise American patriot once said, "How uniquely American."

Richard Zombeck of ShameTheBanks.org - Kicking Ass, Taking Names!

Wow!

Richard Zombeck, HuffPo mortgage blogger and the founder of ShameTheBanks.org, where I have been blogging about our mortgage hell, is kicking some serious ass.

He is getting ready to go to Washington today armed with thousands of personal stories from people like us who are being kicked out of our homes by the very entities who caused this economic debacle in the first place - the banking/financial sector.

Richard has just been profiled by Bob Sullivan of the Red Tape Chronicles at MSNBC,  and ShameTheBanks is bringing to light the fact that these foreclosures are not anomalies or the result of consumer irresponsibility, but a business model for the banks which will not change until or unless they are forced to.

I want to give a big shout-out and thank you to Richard, for helping me and helping others get their stories out there, and showing that each one of us can find a way to bring about change. It's daunting, given the enormity of the forces (and finances) arrayed against us, but it is not hopeless.

Roll on, Richard!

Update: Reprieve (for now!)

Well, friends - it ain't over till it's over. That's all I'm saying.

Last week, we were sure we were toast. We talked to St. June on Friday morning, and she said that she didn't think that we were going to be able to pull this off; that they wanted our house and that was it. She said to my husband, "Why don't you give them a call yourself and see what they have to say." When he called, to our surprise we found out that not only was there no new sale date (we had been told that the new sale date was the 26th of April) but we had been taken off the foreclosure list.

Apparently the bankruptcy filing had put the house on hold. The bank asked my husband to take the house off of the bankruptcy hold so that they could 'offer him a loan mod'. St. June said to do no such thing; what they wanted was to lift the restriction so that they could take the house. Remember, OneWest bought IndyMac at a fire-sale price; this means that they bought our loan for pennies on the dollar, which means that the profit margin on our house is enormous. They have no interest in letting us stay in our house unless we make it more difficult to foreclose than to work with us.

This does not mean that they won't ultimately take the house, but it does mean that they're not taking it right now, which is a vast improvement.

I'll take limbo. Limbo beats 'game over'.

On Greed

(cross-posted at ShameTheBanks.org)

Hello, my friends.

Today, I would like to talk to you about greed.

In the course of trying to save our house, it has become necessary to publish our personal business - something I was not excited about doing.

I realize that in reaching out for help in public, there are going to be people who are supportive, and also people who are critical. When you put your business in the street, that is part and parcel of the deal. It would be ridiculous to expect any different. If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. As a blogger, I know and accept those terms.

I have laid myself open to the finger-pointers, and I would like to respond.

My friend JP, who posted about my situation, wrote me today, saying,“People are already speculating that you guys are greedy and I had to tell them, No, they’re not.”

That is, if I may be so bold, high-larious.

If only.

This is how it always comes down for the individual.

In my post Entrepreneurship, Greed, 'Moral Hazard' and Music I tried to lay out some ideas that would explain what I’m talking about, but perhaps I can make it more clear here.

This is a microcosm of the kind of thinking that has brought our economy to its knees, and kicked the legs out from under the middle class.

Let me start by asking a question.

Is it ‘greed’ when a small business owner secures financing to pay for the first year’s operating expenses while the business gets going?

Would any sane person expect a business to start up with no capital, just saying, “Hey, if you can’t make enough profit to pay your bills as soon as you start, then you shouldn’t be in business”?

I would hope not.

But that seems to be what people expect of us.

As I wrote in the aforementioned earlier post, my husband and I are entrepreneurs. We are a small business - a two-person business. My husband is a session singer and songwriter. He has been in that house since 1983, including having to refinance to divide up the worth of the house during his divorce. He does not work for a company that pays his salary. His capital is his talent and experience. And that talent and experience have made it possible to live in a house in Los Angeles for over 25 years. We do whatever we can to get through the lean times so that we are able to produce our product. During one of those ‘lean times’ my husband wrote a TV theme song that paid our bills for five years. But if we had thrown in the towel instead of sticking with what we do as well as anyone in the world, that never would have come about, because we would not have been in the professional music environment where that kind of work opportunity exists.

Up until three years ago, we were able to weather the ups and downs of our unpredictable business, cutting back as our particular field got more and more difficult to make a living in. With careful management, we have been able to keep a home that our kids could grow up in. But when you have a business that is feast or famine, one thing that will not happen is that every bill will be paid on time. However, every bill does get paid. And we have had to understand that our credit score is going to reflect this, even though we live up to our obligations. 

Guess what? Not having a perfect credit score does not make one ‘irresponsible’. It means that the way our income comes in is different than people who are salaried or guaranteed a certain amount of money per week, month or year. And when we’re out of work, there is no unemployment insurance to cover us till we can find more work.

I am sick to death of being accused of being ‘greedy’ for doing what we need to do to stay in a modest home. I am tired of being constantly pressed to defend my choice of profession - especially when one of the main reasons people give for deregulation is that regulation ‘penalizes risk-taking and stifles entrepreneurship’. Yes, it’s really important not to have any limits on how much money people can make by whatever means they can - but only if it’s a certain kind of entrepreneur, I guess. It's vital to the American Way of Life™ to encourage risk-taking in pursuit of riches. You want to talk about ‘greed’ - let’s talk about the idea that allowing credit card companies to charge arbitrary and usurious interest rates is ‘competitive’ instead of predatory.

When people say “You shouldn’t own a home if you can’t afford it,” that is really not what they mean. They are making a knee-jerk moral judgment about you. Let me clue you - it would not be cheaper to live in an apartment or rent a house. And, guess what? You have to have some kind of decent credit score to rent the crappiest house or dinkiest apartment. They throw around this word ‘greedy’ without having the least idea of what that entails. I am not going to dignify these attacks with specific numbers - you don’t get to judge how my family lives our lives or spends our money because we have made public our situation with a predatory lender.

My issue is not with being broke - my issue is with being lied to, cheated and stolen from.

The reason that we took a predatory loan is that no other ones were open to us, and that we were told that taking a high-interest loan for a year would improve our credit score, and that at the end of that year we could get a better loan. When you do not have the luxury of knowing in advance how much or little money you will be making, you have to do the best you can with what is at your disposal.

We kept up our end of the bargain.

We made those outrageous payments on time for a year.

Had IndyMac kept up their end of the bargain, we would not be having this issue. But it took two more years of those usurious payments to break us.

Dear friends, our ‘greed’ is not the issue. We willingly forgo things that most of you would not consider doing without. Our priorities are not material things - new cars, clothes, vacations, furniture, restaurants; everything we have is second-hand, thrift-shop, broken, or old. We do not use credit cards, and have no credit card debt. Our only debt is our home. Our priorities are our kids, our time together, our music. But one thing we will fight for is a home that our children can feel secure in. 

We will not stand by and allow ourselves to be cheated and stolen from by a company whose greed was a major contributing factor to the collapse of our economy, simply because we don’t work for someone who pays us every two weeks and should be ashamed of ourselves because of it.

If we were in the same situation, and had a ‘regular’ job with steady pay, and were laid off, people would not be accusing us of being ‘greedy’ and irresponsible. But it's happening to those people too. The real ‘greedsters’ have raped the rest of the country - and been bailed out for doing it! No one is taking any money away from them; they’re simply given more - out of our pockets! 

I have had it up to here with living in Opposite World, where the biggest and greediest are admired for risk-taking, lying, and outright fraud in search of the biggest profits, and those of us who are trying to make our way in the world without starving or living under an overpass are condemned as ‘greedy’.

It is Big Greed, in fact, that has brought this country to the economic disaster we are now experiencing. It has taken somewhere around thirty years for it to happen but the policies of union-busting and deregulation have resulted in such an unequal balance of power between corporations and individuals that real wages have gone down steadily for thirty years for all but the one-tenth-of-one-percent, who have seen their income skyrocket 400%. Wages - money made from actual work - are taxed at 30%, and investment income - dividends from speculation (not used as a pejorative term; merely descriptive) - are taxed at 15%.

So let’s think about that. Since 1980, it has happened at an incremental level - not a giant crash, but in a imperceptible, ‘boiling frog’ kind of way, where it just gets a little harder each year to stay where you are, lifestyle-wise. So, people don’t realize that as a group the middle class - the American triumph of the twentieth century - has fallen farther and farther behind, until the inevitable happened - they could not spend any more.

Rather than wagging a disapproving finger at people who use more and more credit, we should be asking, “Why are people being put in a position where they need credit just to stay in the same place?” Why should you have to go into debt just to sustain a normal, middle-class lifestyle? Why should you have to owe the cost of a small house just to go to college? It was not that way when our parents went to school. We are simultaneously required to spend money to keep the economy afloat, and blamed for it at the same time.

We have been systematically stolen from for 30 years and the bill has finally come due. There is nothing left to steal.

So, please, keep your sanctimonious remarks about ‘greed’ to yourself.  Go insult someone else. You have no idea what you are talking about.

The Up Side Of Hard Times - A Little Help From My Friends

When hard times are upon you, it's good to know you have people in your corner. I have gotten so much support from friends old and new - some are complete strangers, some are dear friends that I have known for years; some I've met and some I have never met in person.

One reason I have put the time and energy into blogging that I have is because of the blogging community. I have met some wondeful people who have become like family even though we have not seen each other face to face. Bloggers take care of our own.

I'd like to take a minute to say 'thanks' to my bro JurassicPork from Welcome Back to Pottersville. One of the coolest projects I've ever taken on as a blogger was a Photoshop extravaganza of "It's A Wonderful Life" recast with some of our favorite political and social characters from the Bush years. JP wrote the copy and designed the pictures; I did the Photoshop. I have to say I thought it was brilliant. I laughed my ass off while doing it.

JP has been kind enough to throw a blast my way re: our mortgage debacle.

It's this kind of thing that gives me motivation to keep on keeping on. Thanks, bro!

Obama - For the Supreme Court, Let Limbaugh Be Your Guide!

Dear President Obama,

You have been warned by your Republican friends that if you dare to pick a Supreme Court nominee who is anything less than radically right-wing, that a filibuster will be the result.

But, never fear! Your good buddy Rush Limbaugh has some words of advice for you! Sure, they may be a couple of years old, but I'm sure he means them just as much today as he did in 2005.

Rush said to tell them to shut the hell up:

"I'm tired of these Democrats acting like they won the election. Somebody needs to stand up and say, "When you win the election, you pick the nominees. Until then, shut up! Just shut up! Just go away! Bury yourselves in your rat holes and don't come out until you win an election. When you win an election, you can put all these socialist wackos, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, all over the court, but until then, SHUT UP! You are really irritating me."

So, come on, Obama! What are you waiting for? It doesn't matter who you pick - the Republicans are going to act like you nominated William Ayers. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, right? Go for a big fat socialist wacko! The biggest, fattest, socialest wacko you can dig up! Rushbo's got your back - what more do you need?

Sincerely, Alicia Morgan

(wow - thanks to a heads-up via fellow blogger Steve J at RADAMISTO , I find that Bartcop linked to my cross-post on The Smirking Chimp! Cool beans!)

Obama's Next Supreme Court Nominee?

Anita Hill.

Hey There, Tom Hoenig - Do You Like Big Blondes?

My new financial crush? Kansas City Fed President Thomas M. Hoenig, who makes me all swoony when he advocates for breaking up the megabanks, criticizes 'too big to fail' and says oh-so-seductive things like "I don't think we have any business guaranteeing Wall Street when we're unable to guarantee Main Street."

The U.S. should bust up its megabanks and impose strict laws curbing the size and complexity of financial institutions, a top Federal Reserve official told the Huffington Post.
In a 45-minute interview this week, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas M. Hoenig, who's emerged as one of the few influential voices calling for a fundamental redesign of a broken U.S. financial system:

• Lambasted the tilted playing field that benefits Wall Street banks over Main Street banks;
• Called the idea that the U.S. needs megabanks to compete globally a "fantasy";
• Said Congress should mandate simple, easily understood and enforceable rules -- rather than guidelines -- so regulators can restrain financial firms and rein in the financial system;
• Prodded the Senate to get tougher on permanently ending Too Big To Fail by enacting laws that would take away much of the discretion currently held by policymakers (who bailed out financial firms when confronted with these decisions in late 2008);
• And criticized the Federal Reserve's ongoing policy to keep the main interest rate near zero because it "guarantee[s] a spread to Wall Street", enabling unearned profits and "encourag[ing] speculation."

Hoenig's criticisms echo those made by reformers pushing to remake a financial system that melted down in 2008 after years of excessive risk-taking and loose regulation finally took its toll, causing the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and costing the nation more than 8 million jobs.

Talk dirty to me!

Deadbeats Debtors vs. Doing Business? Double Standard? Depends.

What's wrong with this picture?

A homeowner who walks away from an impossible mortgage which is double what his property is worth is a deadbeat who will suffer for years, credit-wise, for his decision.

But for the big boys? Not so much.

The rules are different, though, for the walkaway of all walkaways.

That title is reserved for what happened to one of New York's trophy properties, the 56-building Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complex. Spanning 80 acres on Manhattan's east side, it's the largest single-owned residential area in the city. Its red brick buildings, built by Metropolitan Life in the 1940s for World War II veterans, are still a haven for the city's middle class.

Commercial real-estate firm Tishman and its partner, investment firm BlackRock, paid $5.4 billion to buy the property from MetLife in late 2006 -- right at the market's peak. They hoped to make money by converting rent-regulated apartments into luxury condos and raising rents.

Then the housing crash hit. The value now: $1.8 billion.

And you thought you overpaid for your house.

Tishman said last week that it was turning the property back over to creditors to avoid filing for bankruptcy protection. In recent weeks, Tishman failed to restructure $4.4 billion in debt, and couldn't find another buyer, according to a statement from the company.

Tishman exits the deal with a ding to its reputation, but it will be fine. It still has Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler Center in New York, and dozens of properties in cities worldwide. The company has about $33 billion in assets.

Helping homeowners stay in their homes is rewarding irresponsible and reckless behavior. After all, no one 'deserves' to own a home. Just because for 60 or 70 years the mantra of home ownership has been touted as the American Dream, and the tax structure ridiculously favors owning over renting, and just because people were told that buying a home is the best investment you can make, and that there was no better time than now to buy - in fact, not to buy would be the height of stupidity - doesn't mean you shouldn't have known better. Even though every financial pundit and economic expert was shouting it to the rooftops, somehow Joe and Jane Worker, with their in-depth knowledge of the intricacies of speculation, derivatives and credit swaps, should have known more than all of the Wall Street Masters of the Universes put together.


Yes, and they must be punished.

Do you have cable TV? Do you have a cell phone? Do you buy name-brands at the grocery store? Why, you irreponsible, greedy lout! Do you have a gym membership? Do you ever go to the movies instead of watching (non-cable) TV? Do you ever go out to lunch instead of brown-bagging it? Do you ever buy a latte at Starbucks? Why, you profligate spendthrift, you! No wonder you're in trouble, the way you just throw money around. That's the problem with you people. You just want everything, without ever thinking about whether or not you can afford it.

It's called moral hazard, and you deadbeats will continue to take advantage of those of us who are industrious and thrifty if you are allowed to get away with it.

Unless, of course, you are the CEO of the banks or investment firms who got rich off of stealing from homeowners. Then, the idea of being penalized in any way - by not getting your multi-million-dollar bonuses, by a salary cut, by getting your ass booted out into the street (or into jail) - is not to be considered. Why should you be punished, just because you caused the collapse of the American economy? You were just being a savvy businessman. That's the beauty of the Free Market™! We can't go around stifling initiative and discouraging entrepreneurship, can we? What are we, Russia?

Moral hazard? Don't be ridiculous. That's only for the little people.

So, how to make it better? Vilify the victims, pamper the perpetrators.

Carrot-and-stick? Sure! Here's how that works: beat the homeowners to a bloody pulp with the stick, and offer the golden carrot to the banks. If you have the temerity to offer any criticisms to the banksters whatsoever, be very sure that they are covered in 'pretty pleases' and are the mildest of suggestions only, which the banks are free to disregard - in fact, just forget anything was said, and please accept the abject apologies for implying that their behavior was anything less than honorable.

Putting the blame on homeowners for taking the advice of the experts, who are paid handsomely for their expertise, is like blaming the patient for following the advice of their doctors - not just one doctor, but the entire AMA - for prescribing an expensive medication that makes them sick. Maybe the doctors didn't know - or care - how dangerous the drug was, but they sure as hell all made a fortune from the pharmaceutical companies who gave them huge amounts of money to prescribe it, so it's no skin off their back.

And, let me tell you, this makes me sick.

Double standard? Depends.

Yes, I'm wearing them. I'm that pissed off.

Money, Mortgages and Marriage

Here is another area where the reprehensibly criminal behavior of the banking and finance industries has done immeasurable damage - the area of family life.

Financial problems are one of the major stressors on a marriage.  The issues that money represents are deeper than the actual dollars and cents; money represents power, control, independence, self-worth, security - issues that cut to the core of a relationship. But what is sad is that, at the very time when partners need each other's support the most - during hard times - is often the time when the pressures of financial trouble cause them to lash out at the closest person to them - their spouse. And even the best marriages have their weak spots, which under pressure can turn into ruptures.


That is the cruelest blow of all. It's one thing to lose a structure. As much as we value our house, in the end it's just a 'thing'. But our spouse, our family - that is what really matters, and unfortunately that can also become a casualty in the war being waged against the middle class and poor.

My husband and I are determined that, no matter what, our money problems are not going to cost us our treasure, which is our marriage and kids. These thieves cannot take that away from us. So we have talked about it and made a pact that we are going to pull closer together instead of being driven apart by the pressures of foreclosure and bankruptcy.

When we get irritated, frustrated, fearful or anxious - as we will and we do - we are going to stop and think before we snap at each other. And if one of us does 'snap', the other will not take it to the next level, but understand that we are both under enormous pressure and let it go. And the one who snaps knows that it's important to apologize.

We are not going to blame each other for the situation we're in. We know whose fault it is that we - and millions of other Americans - are in this mess, and that we both have done the best we can. Instead, we are going to work together to try to get out of it. If I 'win' and you 'lose', I lose too. Who wins? The banks.

We are not going to isolate ourselves from each other. Not that we both don't need some alone time, but to disconnect emotionally from each other is the death knell for a relationship.

We are going to make the extra effort to 'woo' each other, and be conscious of why we fell in love in the first place. We remember that of all the people in the world, our spouse and kids are the ones in our corner, and the ones it is most important to treat with kindness and respect.

We are going to appreciate and be grateful for what we do have, and not take it for granted or focus on what we don't have. We know so many people who have every material thing you could want and more, and very few of those people have happy family lives - acquiring and keeping all that stuff tends to require a kind of single-mindedness that can take precendence over a spouse and kids.

The banksters may be able to take away our house, but they can't take away our home unless we let them. If I let them take my home, where my heart is, then they really do win. And that is a price I will not pay.

Our Mortgage Journey - What's Next?

Since we are right smack in the middle of working on a loan modification, and since I have decided to share our story in the interests of giving information to others who may be in the same boat and shining a light on the process, I am inviting you, my friends, to come along with us as we navigate the shark-infested waters.

I have absolutely no idea how this is going to end up. My best hope is that OneWest decides to give us a loan mod with a decent interest rate, maybe a principal reduction, so that we can afford to stay in the house. Whether this will happen or not, I can't begin to tell you. We may lose the house to foreclosure; we may do a short sale - who knows? All I know is that we are going to fight hard to keep this house.

Our house was scheduled to be sold at auction on March 15th, but my husband went down to the courthouse that day with our bankruptcy paperwork to make sure they did not sell it. Our new sale date is sometime around the end of April.

On March 2nd, we requested RESPA documents by registered mail. We got a signed receipt by return mail, but we have not received the documents as of yet.

Tomorrow, we will be meeting with our mortgage broker, who has been working tirelessly to help us keep our house. I call her St. June. We will talk with her to determine what our next step will be.

I'll fill you in tomorrow. Wish us luck!

A New Resource For Mortgage Issues - ShameTheBanks.org!

I am very pleased to announce that I will be writing for a great new blog dedicated to exposing the shameful truth about what is happening in the banking and finance industries, written by people who are dealing with the reality of the loan modification process that was intended to help people stay in their homes, but instead has given the banks more incentive to foreclose. It's called ShameTheBanks.org, run by Huffington Post mortgage blogger Richard Zombeck, and will make its official debut tomorrow.

While blogging over the last few days about my own mortgage woes, I came across his excellent post "I Refuse to be Ripped Off". You know me - a post with that title is sure to catch my eye, so I read it and followed the link to his own site, where I commented on another of his articles, "Loan Modifications: a $4 Billion Con Game". He contacted me and invited me to join the Shame the Banks team, and now I will be hooked up with all the most pertinent information, as well as contributing to a blog that I feel should be required reading for anyone with any connection at all to the home loan situation.

About Shame the Banks:

This site has been created for me, for you, and for millions of other Americans fighting the banking system to save the roof over their heads.  This site is not just about shaming the banks however; it’s about shaming each and every person that any of us have reached out to for assistance only to be denied, pushed aside and lied to.

It has become abundantly clear that Congress, Wall Street and the Banks are not concerned about the American Family.  Daily we  turn on the TV and watch the endless Dog and Pony shows that are created to distract Americans from the real issues facing us and our families.

We are done being lied to and done being treated as second hand citizens. It is time that the truth is told and we, who have been - and still are being - dragged thru the dirty cogs of the Banking Industry, are going to tell it.  It is time that each and every member of Congress is held accountable for their actions or inactions that has led this great Nation to what it has become today.

At Shame the Banks, there are articles covering the latest developments in foreclosure and mortgage issues, as well as upcoming focus on credit card and student loan issues, blogs, and also personal stories from the people who are going through the process of attempting to keep their houses after being lied to, scammed and cheated by the banksters.

If you have a story or are involved in or considering a loan mod, I urge you to go over to Shame the Banks and share it. The more people stand up and speak out on this, the more the public will learn the reality of what's going on in the mortgage crisis, not the media spin.

Plus, I'll be there with you!

Shame the Banks

I am excited to announce that I will be writing for a brand new blog that will be making its debut tomorrow.

Please, Bite the Fattest, Whitest Part of My Ass, John Boehner

 (Warning: the following post contains subject matter and language that some readers may find objectionable. Including me.)

Now, it's personal.

I thought I was pissed off before.

Motherfuck.

Is there no end to the gall, the hubris, the entitlement, the greed, the stunning hypocrisy of these disgusting sons of bitches?

I was kick-started into blogging for real in early 2005, with the advent of the Bankruptcy Bill, one of the foulest and most vile pieces of legislation to be excreted from the alimentary tract of Congress. Elizabeth Warren was writing about it at the time, which was when I began following her work. It's five years later, and I am now one of the people who has been sucker-punched by the end result of the long-term thievery by these white-collar criminals who have re-distributed the nation's wealth topward with the blessing of the system.

Class warfare? Damn skippy. The same kind of warfare that was waged against Iraq - a weakened, destitute and war-ravaged country, with no military to speak of, yet possessed of resources that Bushco and the neocons were determined to make their own, by hook or by crook.

And now House Minority Leader John Boehner (yeah, sure, it's pronounced 'Bay-ner'. Uh huh. Right.) is standing proudly in solidarity with the poor beleaguered banksters against the might of those little punk staffers all-powerful regulators who are determined to crush these fragile blossoms beneath the heel of their regulatory jackboots, so of course this will only mean that banks will have no alternative but to... deny credit and raise fees. See, it was those darn oppressive regulations that caused the financial industry to collapse in the first place. If only there were less regulation, everything would have been just fine! If it wasn't for those rich and powerful homeowners, having the nerve to complain about being used as ATMs for the financial sector, and not just handing over their homes at gunpoint, this whole unpleasantness could have been avoided.

See what they made us do?

It's gotten to the point where the oligarchs don't even try to pretend to care abut what they've done to the rest of America. When the House Minority Leader can openly proclaim his disdain for the people who are trying, however ineffectively, to find a way to prevent more of the uncontrolled speculation and thievery that has plunged us into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and shamelessly suck up to the perpetrators of this disaster, we know that they are secure in the knowledge that the game continues to be rigged in Wall Street's favor, and that the noise from Main Street is nothing more than the irritating buzzing of mosquitos.

And the idea that people have a right to be protected from the excesses of banking financial speculation? Ask Boehner:

Boehner said he urged bankers not to be shy when meeting with the lawmaker staff members and to send a message that new regulations and taxes translates to into banks having less available for lending.

"Don't let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves," Boehner said. "All of us are hearing from our friends and constituents on lack of credit, you can't get a loan, the more your government takes and taxes, the more regulations you have to comply with the more cost you have there and less amount you are going to have available to loan to customers."

And what is the solution?

The banking committee is concerned about the bill's intention to create an independent consumer financial protection division, with a presidentially appointed chairperson, within the Federal Reserve. They argue that bank regulators should continue to be responsible for protecting consumers as well as making sure financial institutions have sufficient capital. The proposed consumer unit would write rules for mortgages and credit card products. (emphasis mine)

There you have it, friends.

Just let the banks regulate themselves.

After all, it's worked marvelously so far.

And we certainly can't have the poor widdle banks being taken advantage of, now, can we, John? They should no longer continue to cower and cringe meekly in a corner while the thuggish regulators run rough-shod all over them, am I right?

Banks? Taken advantage of by Congressional staffers? Are you motherfucking kidding me?

Well, John Boehner,  you and your bankster butt-buddies can kiss my whole entire ass. And go fuck yourselves crosswise while you're at it.

Go Visit My Friend's New Blog - "Metamemes and Hyper-Hypocrisy"

My friend zenguitarguy is a very talented, smart and thoughtful person - we've played together on and off for many years, and in fact did a gig in Bali together a while back. He has a new blog worth checking out called Metamemes and Hyper-Hypocrisy. Go there - you'll be intrigued, I promise you.

An Interesting Article On IndyMac/OneWest

Here's an interesting article on the banks that are trying to kick us out of our home.

And an interesting video...

Nineteen months after the catastrophic failure of one of Sacramento's top lenders, Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank, a flurry of local lawsuits alleges that the bank's successor – OneWest Bank – is systematically working to push home loan borrowers into foreclosure.

The allegations filed in the Eastern District of U.S. Bankruptcy Court claim that OneWest can make more money by foreclosing than by keeping borrowers in their homes. That's due to its so-called "shared-loss" agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., at least 10 local lawsuits allege.

A video made in Fairfield and circulating widely on the Internet also alleges that OneWest stands to earn millions from taxpayers by foreclosing on borrowers as a result of its shared-loss agreement with the FDIC.

The FDIC declined to comment on the lawsuits, but it recently denounced the video's "blatantly false claims." The agency told The Bee that its agreement with OneWest contains provisions to make sure the lender is taking adequate steps to modify loans.

OneWest declined to comment on either the lawsuits or the video.

The FDIC, which seized IndyMac in July 2008, sold the failed institution to Pasadena-based OneWest in March 2009.

As part of the deal, the FDIC agreed to absorb some losses from the troubled loan portfolio. That's after OneWest absorbs the first $2.5 billion in losses, the FDIC said.

But Sacramento bankruptcy lawyer Peter Macaluso claims the shared-loss agreement will reward OneWest for foreclosing on homes. Here's how, he said: The company bought IndyMac's troubled portfolio at a 30 percent discount. It can count on the FDIC eventually reimbursing 80 percent or more of its losses – and also can keep proceeds from the foreclosure sales.

"They're deliberately blowing people out in a systematic pattern," said Macaluso.
He has filed eight lawsuits in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on behalf of area IndyMac borrowers who have filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/02/21/2552932/onewest-bank-accused-of-pushing.html#ixzz0iNYPMyKc

Safe For At Least Six Weeks!

Update -  the next sale date is in six weeks; a lot can happen in that time.

Thanks to all for the encouragement!

It's Her Fault, Your Honor - She Was Asking For It!

“You should have never taken that loan, you should have just moved out of your house; you don’t know anything about money, budgeting, etc., etc. It’s all your own fault so why should you be able to stay in a house you can’t afford?” And then someone will inquire as to whether you eat out in restaurants for lunch when you should be brown-bagging it.

Well, I can tell you that, in spite of the ups and downs of our finances, we would have been able to afford the house if we had not been charged a usurious interest rate after the year that we agreed to suck it up for. When all the ‘best’ financial advice at the time was to refinance, that was what we did. We sucked it up and did whatever it took to make those crazy payments on time for a year. But for the next 2 years we had been paying that same crazy money, and that was what broke us.

If I hear one more know-it-all lecture us on ‘budgeting’, I think I will scream. When you NEVER know exactly how much money you will be making from month to month, you can’t make up a budget. A budget consists of income as well as outgo, and that is something we never can figure. But until this particular debacle, we have managed to do well enough - not rich or even well-off, but able to stretch the ‘up’ times enough to cover the ‘down’ times. There were  plenty of times that we made large chunks of money that were enough to pay our bills through the lean times. My husband once wrote a TV theme song (in half an hour) that beat out hundreds of other submissions and that one song paid our bills for 5 years. You work every single day - some of it pays off and some does not. As a session singer/songwriter, that is the way the work goes - you just throw everything you have against the wall, and some of it sticks.

My point in writing about entrepreneurship and risk is to point out that - yes, the nature of our business involves risk. Nobody pays us a salary to do music. And there is no other work that we are qualified to do that will pay us more than what we make in the music business.

So does the fact that we have a high-risk business mean that we can be screwed with impunity? We can be cheated, stolen from and lied to, and dealt with in bad faith, and we have no right to complain? And when the companies that cheated us and lied to us go under, they can get bailed out and we can’t even get, not a bailout, but restitution? The banks took risks in order to make more profit than they could if they were obeying the law. We took risks to keep our family in our home.

It really reminds me of a rape case, where the rapist attacks the victim’s character as a defense - “It’s her fault, Your Honor - she was asking for it! Did you see that short skirt she had on? She was a total slut! What was she doing in a nightclub if she didn’t want it?”

Entrepreneurship, Risk, ‘Moral Hazard' and Music

My husband and I are on the verge of losing the house he bought in 1983. We are musicians by profession, with all the financial ups and downs that go with our job, but until a few years ago, we were able to make the 'up' times last us through the 'down' times. Due to a particularly long
'down time' we refinanced our home, and ended up with a predatory loan. We were told that if we accepted a very high rate for a year and paid on time, at the end of that year we would be able to get a more affordable loan. Of course, this did not happen. Now we are fighting an uphill battle to keep the house. There are many people that say we deserve what we get for taking the predatory loan. I can see their point, but I would also like to present my views on this subject.

It’s easy to sit back smugly, point one’s finger and say, “You should never have taken out that loan. You don’t deserve to own a home.” But I think this is part of a bigger question, and this question involves the role of entrepreneurship and risk, and how these are viewed in our society, both socially and legally.

What is the ultimate rationale for allowing unlimited profits to businesses? What is the reason we lower taxes on the wealthiest? What is the philosophical underpinning of American capitalism itself? Ask any self-styled ‘free-market capitalist’ and he will say “To reward risk.” To do away with that precept is nothing but the foulest, vilest, nanny-statest socialism. What he means by that is that to limit the amount of profit that a person or a business can make is to make that person or business unwilling to take the risks that need to be taken in order to be successful.

Regulation in business, likewise, is frowned upon by those who would promote the prevailing view of ‘free-market capitalism.’ They argue that this is what makes America great - to start with nothing but your own two hands and by investing one’s capital, be it only one’s physical labor, to gain returns from that investment. Now, to ‘invest’ is different than to be ‘employed’. Employment is a contract between employer and employee where the employee is guaranteed payment in exchange for labor. Investment, on the other hand, is guaranteed no such thing. An investment can fail. But when an investment pays off, the payoff for the investor will be larger than what would have been earned through simple employment, thus ‘creating wealth.’ This is the very core of the American Dream, and supposedly what sets us above and apart from all other nations (American exceptionalism).

Those who engender great profits from investing - risk-taking - are lauded in our society, regardless of the means used to reap these gains. And great care is taken legally to ensure that investors and entrepreneurs are richly rewarded for their willingness to risk their capital. The idea is to reward initiative and risk, and to put caps on what can be earned through initiative and risk is to thwart the incentive to take those risks.

This, by the way, is the same rationale used to justify multi-million-dollar bonuses to the CEOs of the biggest banks and investment firms. In this instance, their ‘capital’ is their experience with being CEOs of banks and investment firms. Heaven forbid, if they are not paid gazillions of dollars, they might be reluctant to take the helms of these corporations, and do the magnificent jobs that they have been doing so far.

So I think it is fair to say that our current system is set up to reward risk in order to ‘create wealth.’ And those who take risks and become wealthy are held up and touted as an example of what America is all about. But there is risk, and there is risk.

In the world of big business, most risk is taken with OPM - other people’s money. There are very few entrepreneurs at the upper levels of business who actually ‘risk’ their own ability to buy food and have a roof over their head, or medical care should they become sick. And if they fail in their risk-taking, it is the people at the bottom of the chain who pay the price; who lose their pensions, lose their jobs, lose their homes. When a big company is failing, the first thing to be done is to lay off employees - who have not signed up for risk-taking, but have done their jobs in the expectation that they would be paid for their work, and that the money set aside from their paychecks to fund their retirement would be intact.

Even when these ‘big cheeses’ fail (like Donald Trump), over and over, they are admired for their willingness to take risks. And I would  bet that Donald Trump has never had a day where he could not buy groceries for his kids, or had to sleep in his car, no matter how many millions or billions of dollars he loses in investments, and is given the credit to do it all over again.

Now, let’s talk about capital. Every person possesses capital - whether it be tangible or intangible. It could be financial, or it could be a physical or mental skill-set. It could be education, appearance, or connections. And that capital can either be exchanged or invested.

My husband and I are entrepreneurs, and our ‘capital’ is our music. This capital has been gained through great risk. Every artist who develops their art to a degree which makes it competitive in the market has done so with absolutely no guarantee that it will ever pay off financially. To a certain extent you can say that about anyone who invests in their education, but most skill-sets that one gains through a college education has a specific application that can be counted on to bring in a certain amount of money through the exchange of employment.

An artist has no such guarantee. Yet, everyone listens to music; buys CDs (or mp3s), goes to the movies, goes to concerts, watches television, reads books, has paintings or photographs on their walls. They go to the ballet, to the opera; they go to baseball games, football games, basketball games, monster-truck pulls, NASCAR races. Entertainers are often dismissed as frivolous and unneccesary, but can you, for one minute, imagine your life without any form of entertainment?

I am serious as a heart attack. Do it right now.

Just picture your day. No music of any kind, no TV to watch, no art to look at, no books to read, no movie to see, no game to go to. To the people who belittle my choice of career, or my right to live like other working people because I have chosen to be an artist, I want to say to them, “Where do you live? I’m coming to your house and I am going to take away all your CDs. I’m taking the pictures off of your walls. I’m taking the TV. I’m taking the books off of your shelves. These are not things that you have put any value upon, so you don’t need them.”

Every artist, no matter how successful right now, began their career with no guarantee that they would ever make a dime from their art. But to truly develop their art to a level which is, as I said before, ‘competitive in the market’, it takes a commitment that consumes 100% of your time and passion. (And please don’t bother giving me examples of people who just ‘happened to make it’  accidentally, or without much effort on their part, or who became famous while just doing their thing on weekends, or whatever - the ‘American Idol’ phenomenon. These examples, while high-profile, are anomalies.) Everyone is eager to embrace the art and the artist once they are ‘successful’ but don’t give much thought to what it took to get there. Do they just think all this art that they profess to love so much, and that they depend on for emotional sustenance (and don’t say you don’t, unless you don’t ever listen to music, watch TV, read, go to movies or concerts or sporting events) just dropped out of the sky? The people who make art have sacrificed much of the security that most other people take for granted - that if you work, you will get money in return.

I believe that being a musician is one of the most noble callings on this earth, and I take the responsibility of this gift we have been given very seriously. Every single CD you listen to, each and every book you read, every picture you look at, was created by someone who was consumed by the love of their art, and the dedication to give it everything they have. And, no - it’s not an ‘easy’ life. Nothing worth doing is ‘easy’. But the rest of the public gets to enjoy it without having to go through what these artists (famous or unknown) went through to get where they are. So it’s easy to be smug about what an irresponsible job choice it is. Irresponsible? We are a conduit for the emotions, the love, the hurt, the passion of the world; we connect hearts; we are translators of the soul. I think that is a very serious responsibility indeed.

As a nation, we have gradually devalued the importance of art, and of art education. When Reagan came into office, one of the first things he did (besides union-busting) was to slash art from the budget. Yet there is still a market and a deep need for art in our lives - I would posit more than ever, given the economic circumstances we face right now. During the Great Depression, people flocked to entertainment to give them some solace and distraction from the dire straits they were in. And to say that artists should be able to create great art as a side hobby is ridiculously unrealistic and shows complete ignorance of what Art really entails.

Am I saying that artists do not need to be responsible for themselves and their expenses? Absolutely not. And most artists have chosen to live as small as possible, foregoing many of the comforts that most people expect out of their lives, in order to devote themselves to their art. But the life of an artist is a series of ups and downs - much like Big Business.

This brings us back to entrepreneurship.

In the world of Big Business, great care is taken to ensure that risk-takers are rewarded. Although lip-service is paid to the ‘free market’, in reality, these big businesses are able to take these huge investment risks because they know they have a safety net - the American taxpayer. And, as we have seen, the results of these policies is to ‘privatize the profits and socialize the losses’. Otherwise, there would be no ‘wealth creation’! These businesses need the incentive of limitless wealth in order to take the risks to create it. And even when they do fail so spectacularly, you will not find these people who actually created the collapse without food, without a roof over their heads. They will just move on to the next company they can ransack, all while living a suitably lavish lifestyle - perhaps they’ll have to sell a plane, but they won’t be going without food, shelter or medical care.

The theory is that this sort of incentive is necessary to promote entrepreneurship, and without it there will be no innovation - that entrepreneurs will say “Why should I bother busting my ass to create a business or develop a product if my rewards are going to be limited?” This theory is flawed.

The truth is, you and I know that the entrepreneurial personality will take risks and gamble no matter what - it’s built into their DNA. If they’re in prison they’ll wheel and deal for cigarettes. A true entrepreneur innovates for the sheer challenge of it and will do it regardless of the circumstances, just like an artist creates art from that same deep need.

When regular people take financial risks, expecting to be bailed out if they fail, this is called ‘moral hazard’. Notice the word ‘moral’. There is a metaphor that many people carry around in their subconscious that says “wealth=morality”. This is ‘what’s the matter with Kansas’. This is why poor grandmas on welfare will donate their Social Security money to wealthy televangelists, and why they don’t resent the trappings of success that these TV preachers have - in fact, it is just the opposite. When they see the planes, the mansions, the lavish church buildings, they feel that these people must be being rewarded by God for being morally superior. And even people who are non-religious still see the wealthiest among us as being morally superior - harder-working,  smarter, more virtuous - even if the reality is that they have engendered this wealth through no effort of their own or by less-than-honorable means. This is not a conscious revelation - if asked, very few people will say, “Yes, they’re better people than I am because they’re rich” but subconsciously this is a powerful metaphor. And the corollary to this, of course, is “poverty=immorality”. This translates into “The reason you’re poor is because you are lazy, dishonest, irresponsible and greedy.”

My husband and I did not get into the music business to get rich. We are musicians because we have the ‘have-to’ that drives creative people, and we have worked hard all our lives to develop our talents and skills. There have been times in our careers that we have been extremely well-rewarded financially, and there are times that we have not. We are aware that the ‘up’ times do not make us more worthy, and the ‘down’ times do not make us less worthy.We know that great art often goes unnoticed and unrewarded, and that mediocre art is often rewarded lavishly, and that financial success or failure is not an indication of its intrinsic worth. And we are willing to take the vicissitudes of our business as they come. But we are not willing to lay down and accept being cheated. If I am dealt with in bad faith, it is not being ‘moral’ and ‘responsible’ to let them take my home without a fight. If I am stolen from, it is not immoral to ask for help in taking back what’s been taken from me. And I will not accept the label of ‘moral hazard’ until it applies across the board.

When it comes right down to it, it’s not just people like my husband and me who are the risk-takers. Every single person lives their life with a certain amount of risk. When you have a regular job with a regular paycheck, you are betting that your paycheck will arrive next Friday, that you will still have a job next week. The risk is much less than mine, but the risk is there nevertheless. Ask the people who worked for Enron. People like my husband and me are the canaries in the coal mine. Because of the nature of what we do, we will be the first to suffer losses during times of economic crisis. But this is not just happening to us - it’s happening to people with steady jobs, steady paychecks, who have never been late on a payment. When you’re laid off, how can you be blamed when you can’t meet your financial obligations? Are you suddenly morally deficient? Should you be living in a cardboard box because of the chance that someday you may not be able to afford your home?

And it is the very people who have caused these circumstances through their excessive and illegal risk-taking who have brought this situation about - and they have been bailed out. They have been bailed out by the people who did not take those risks, who did not reap the incredible wealth that came from high-risk investments, and who are now losing the very food from their mouths and roofs over their heads. And I will not accept insult on top of injury from those who feel they are in a position to judge who is ‘responsible’ and who is not.

Maybe we will lose our house. I hope not, but I will not let it go without a fight because The Powers That Be tell me I should be a good little peon. Do I think I’m ‘entitled’ to keep it? No, but was Wall Street ‘entitled’ to a bailout? When these standards are held consistently across the board, then we can talk. But we as a society need to think about what ‘risk’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ really mean, and not only have a safety net for those who are ‘too big to fail’.

The Bank Is Stealing My House THIS Monday

(Update - to all of you who have taken the time to stop by with your support and advice - thank you! I really appreciate it.)

After writing to my friend Blue Gal, and getting my situation on paper, so to speak, I've decided to put it on my blog. This is the one of the hardest things I've ever done as a blogger. The last thing I want to do is have a pity-party for myself. I am really blessed in spite of what's happening now; I have my family, my health, my friends and my faith, and I know that I am luckier than most people in the world. Nevertheless, these criminals have to be brought into the light, and maybe the more people who speak out about how these banking institutions who have brought us to this place are using the bailout money that we taxpayers have given them, the more pressure will be put on Congress to change things.

Here's my letter:

-----------------------------

Hi Blue Gal -

You may not have heard much from me lately; I haven't been blogging, or writing, or doing anything politically. This is because I have been spending every ounce of physical, mental and emotional energy I possess trying to keep our family afloat and save our house. We were the victims of a predatory loan from one of the most egregiously criminal offenders, IndyMac Bank. I have not wanted to go public with our situation; partly out of pride, partly out of the hope that we would be able to get the bank to work with us. But it looks like this is not going to happen, and I am out of options. We filed for emergency bankruptcy yesterday, to get 15 days' respite to make one more last-ditch effort, but the way that the bank bailout was set up, IndyMac has no incentive to work with us - they get money from the government immediately when they foreclose. They stand to gain nothing, short-term (which is all the balance sheets deal with), by keeping us in our house. So my only hope at this point is to try to make as big a stink as possible in the hopes that negative publicity would give them a reason to do the right thing. And if they want to take our house, by God they are going to have to break a sweat. We are not just going to roll over.

Here's the letter I wrote to explain our situation:

Dear -------

My husband and I are, at least for the next few days, California homeowners. Despite our best efforts, IndyMac Bank is preparing to sell the house that my husband purchased in 1983 on Monday, March 15.

This chain of events began when we refinanced our house in 2006. We are musicians by profession, and the unpredictability of our income has made it difficult to preserve a pristine credit score - although we are not always able to pay our bills exactly on time, we do pay them; nevertheless this negatively affects our credit score. Because of this, the loan we ended up with was a terrible one. We were told that if we made the payments on time on this overpriced loan for a year, at the end of that year we would be eligible for a more reasonable loan. This looked like a way to be able to improve our credit score and get the loan we wanted, so we agreed to it; even though a payment of $3500 a month (for our 2+1 house) was unsustainable and unaffordable, we figured it would be worth it if after a year we would get something we could afford.

Of course, the year goes by, we make every payment on time, and we are declined for another loan. Now we are struggling with a payment that we cannot possibly afford, and it makes all of our other bills more and more difficult to pay. Since 2006 we have been spiraling downward financially. When the Administration began its bank bailouts and loan modification programs, we hoped we would be eligible for this. About six months ago, our mortgage broker sent 65 pages of documents to IndyMac to begin negotiations, and never heard back from them. Then a couple of weeks ago we got a notice on the door that our house would be up for sale on Monday, March 15. They had simply ignored our broker and begun foreclosure proceedings.

Our broker sent them a RESPA request, and in speaking with IndyMac, they suggested 'a loan modification' to her. But they do not seem ready to work with us in good faith, and rather than trust to their honesty in negotiation, we have filed emergency bankruptcy proceedings to give us a couple of weeks to try to keep the house from being sold out from under us while they pretend to be negotiating. It does not seem to be in their interest to help us stay in the house; from my understanding they get money from the government when they do a foreclosure, and there is nothing to motivate them to work with us.

We are at the end of our rope. My husband is 62, I am 50 and our 3 kids at home are 11, 13, and 18. The idea of being out on the street at this point in our lives - and our kids lives - and losing the house that my husband has owned since 1983 is just shattering. We are not spendthrifts - we don't have credit-card debt; we don't have car payments; our debt (other than the house) is mainly stemming from our youngest child's eye surgery in 2008.

I don't know if there is anything that can be done or any place to turn, but if there is, we would greatly appreciate any assistance or advice.

Sincerely, Alicia Morgan

Anyway, I wish that I were not in this situation, and could be doing what I want to do - working to elect progressive candidates and writing about progressive values - but this, of course, is the result of these things that progressives have been fighting against, and that predatory capitalism and the unfettered implementation of Republican ideals - 'free' markets, deregulation, limited government oversight, 'what's good for Big Business is good for America' - have brought us to. But what's good for Big Business, while being very good indeed for Big Business, has proven disastrous for the rest of America.

(Update - how long has it been since I blogged? Long enough that the first iteration of this post did not contain the link to Blue Gal's blog! Love ya, Gal! Fixt.)

Happy New Year - My Resolution

This is my New Year's resolution - to fight on and not let the magnitude of the task before us discourage me from working for what I know is right.

The End of the Decade

Oh, my dear Lord, let's hope the next one is better.

The farther down this corporatist, military/industrialist, fundamentalist, predatory-capitalist right-wing path we go, the worse it gets.

It has gotten harder and harder for me to write over the last year or so, as my complete emotional and intellectual attention has been taken up by trying to stave off foreclosure and keep things together amid the collapse of our economy. And it's not just me and my family; so many people I know are going through the same thing. As independent musicians, who even in the best of times don't have a guaranteed income, we tend to be on the front lines of any kind of national financial setbacks - we're canaries in the coal mines. But it's not just people like us; it's the people who used to tell us to "get a real job" so as to have security who are going through the same thing. "Job security" means nothing any more, and people who have staked their emotional well-being on the fact that they have a steady job are in the same boat as we are.

And the worst of it is that so many people are feeling as if it's their fault - feeling ashamed and guilty for not having a job - when the fact is that we have been robbed. And we will continue to be stolen from as long as this predatory capitalism is allowed to go unchecked.

My fervent wish for the New Year, and the new decade, is a change of direction. 

Much love and best wishes to you all, my blog friends.

On Thanksgiving - Thoughts on Charity

It's Thanksgiving today. I am grateful that I have my health, my darling husband, my beloved kids, my wonderful friends who are like family to me. I am grateful that I will be eating a meal today with our big, fine family, and that there will be more than enough food for everyone. I am grateful that I have a roof over my head; a warm, safe place to sleep. I have a job; I have clean clothes. And it doesn't matter to 'whom' I am grateful - or if indeed it is 'anyone' at all; I am just grateful - counting my blessings makes me appreciate what I do have and keeps me from being unsatisfied because of what I don't have. It's an exercise in mental health for me.

Many of us are doing 'charitable' things on this day; gratitude for me - and for many others - involves giving to those who do not have these things that I include in my gratitude list. There are people that believe that government should not be in the business of helping those in need; that it should be taken care of through private charitable giving. Many of these same people, however, simultaneously feel that 'charity' should only go to people who meet their own specific criteria as to whether they are 'deserving' or not, and that the 'haves' ought to get to decide whether or not to help the 'have-nots'.

If you think deeper on this you will see that these particular 'haves' are acting as though they believe that the 'have-nots' are that way by choice. If this were indeed the case, then the 'haves' should have the right to choose whether or not they should offer their help. They pay lip service to the idea that the poor are deserving of help, but the reality is that they believe that 'laziness and poor choices' are the primary determining factors for poverty, and to help them is to reinforce and reward those factors by 'confiscating' from those who are not lazy and do not make poor choices. Those in need should be judged and punished by those who have more, or they will continue on their immoral path.

Yes, there are a small percentage of people who 'take advantage of the system', and even for those - is that such an enviable way of life, to receive the relatively small amount of assistance that public support entails? The ones to criticize are the ones who steal big; those people who really 'game the system' live in mansions and are lauded for their entrepreneurship.  But most people (and more than ever in these difficult times) are in need due to no fault of their own, and it is our responsibility as a society to provide a safety net that includes help for a way out of poverty with dignity, not a punitive, finger-pointing, judgmental sort of 'charity' which is not charity at all but arrogance.

The difference is in the assumption that poverty is a choice. If indeed I choose not to work, not to take care of myself and my family, and you choose to work and are therefore successful, then you are indeed within your rights to decide whether or not to help me with your own resources, and to use your judgment to decide whether I am deserving of your charity. However, that is not very often the case  - it is the exception, not the rule. You don't 'have' everything you have simply due to your own awesomeness, and as a society, we are better off as a whole if we help those who fall through the cracks. We help ourselves by helping the 'least of these', as the Prince of Peace knew very well.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

In Which I Finally Meet My First Reviewer, David Swanson!

Last night, I attended a local event for David Swanson, who is currently touring with his new book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, sponsored by Winograd for Congress 2010, Progressive Democrats of America, Code Pink, Westside Progressives & Ilene Proctor's Great Mind Series. Lila Garrett from KPFK's "Connect the Dots" and Marcy Winograd moderated, and it was a very illuminating and interesting evening. Swanson is one of the most informed, informative, thoughtful and active progressives I know, and his book reflects his years of work both inside and outside the Beltway, giving him a unique and valuable perspective.

His talk, while it touched on the major themes of his book, was not really about the book itself, but about what the book was written to address: namely, the necessity of finding a way to make the voice of the people more powerful through a re-examination and reorganization of our current broken system of government representation. The supposed 'three branches of government' which are meant to be a system of checks and balances, where each branch is held in check by the other two and no one branch is more powerful than the others, are badly askew. The executive branch, which was intended not to make law, but to execute law made by Congress, has morphed into a law unto itself, having taken for itself the right to write law through 'signing statements' changing laws written by Congress, or by simply making up its own laws by issuing 'executive orders'. We saw this happen most egregiously under the Bush Administration, but the larger problem that many of us saw coming has come to pass also - that this 'unitary executive' power would extend to subsequent Presidents, who would have no incentive to let go of that power. We are already seeing evidence of this in the Obama Administration.

Along with the enhanced power of the executive, we also have a Congress which is unable to really represent the people, due to the way that the House and the Senate are currently set up. The allotment of members of the House of Representatives for each state has not been changed in many years, even though the population of these states has ballooned far beyond any one House member's ability to truly represent the people of their district. For example, CA-36 currently has about 700,000 constituents with one person to represent them. It is unrealistic, given the increase in population from when the districts were drawn up and Representatives allotted, to expect one Congressperson to be able to properly advocate for that many citizens. Swanson suggests increasing the House and doing away with the Senate altogether, and perhaps having a large citizen-based advocacy group in each state. I don't know enough about the mechanics of that to argue for or against that idea, but Swanson, with his hands-on experience and knowledge of the inner workings of our government, has taken on the big solutions, and I applaud him for that.

It was a remarkable evening, and I was so glad to get to meet David Swanson in person at last, as well as seeing Marcy Winograd - who is forging ahead with a strong progressive campaign to unseat Jane Harman in 2010 - my hero Vincent Bugliosi, and my friend Bree Walker, who will soon be back on the airwaves with her powerful progressive voice.

"We the People" need to speak out more than ever. Our work is only starting, and David Swanson made the point that I have been talking about for a while now - that we may not see the change we want in our own lifetimes, but most important social change is like that. The abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights movement, womens' suffrage, workers' rights and the union movement, and American independence itself, came about through several generations of work with no guarantee of success, and we must work as hard as that for our progressive values.

A Lovely Tea Party

Mad As Hell

Will fight health care with every fiber of his being, and the last gasp of his oxygen tank...

In Which I Travel To Our Nation's Capital and Attend a Lovely Tea-Party

The timing could not have been more fortuitous.

I am, once again, here in Washington, DC with Americans United for Separation of Church and State - along with many of my favorite bloggers -  for their annual conference. The West Coasters got in a day early, and I managed to do 3 live music broadcasts yesterday and got a good night's sleep in preparation for the festivities tonight.

Little did I know what riches would be in store for me today!

As I strolled along this morning, sightseeing around Capitol Hill, I spied a colorfully-clad man reading a speech to an interested gaggle of three or four people. His young son held up a yellow "Don't Tread On Me" flag. He informed us that they were voting on the health-care bill today and to be sure to come back at one o'clock for the big rally.

I had heard that the teabaggers were planning another rally to stop government takeover of health care, but I didn't know that they would be having it while I was here. It was almost as if they had planned it especially for me!

So, after enjoying a visit to the Folger Shakespeare Museum, we ambled on over back to the Capitol, where the promised party was in full swing! I could hear the dulcet tones of the one and only Michele Bachmann braying across the lawn, where around 250 millions of outraged Americans were raising their voices in opposition to the stealing of their freedoms.

Naturally, I was agog. Being a total fangirl of the amazing Bachmann, I was simply beside myself with joy at seeing her in person. But - my thrills were about to be compounded, because who did La Bachmann introduce but the legendary firebrand, über-patriot Jean Schmidt!!!

Yes, you read that right. What a bonanza! Double the pleasure, double the fun!

Stay tuned for more teabaggery later - I'm on my way to meet up with my fellow bloggers down at the hotel lounge!

Marcy Winograd on Big Pharma and Patent Medicine

Marcy Winograd has an excellent diary up at Daily Kos (please read/recommend if you're so inclined!) regarding the pharmaceutical industry's stranglehold on patents for "biologics" - cutting-edge, life-saving drugs. The new health care bill includes an amendment by Representatives Anna Eshoo and Joe Barton which will grant 12 years of patent protection for these biologics. Marcy writes:

While it’s clear, as Rep. Eshoo points out in her counter-blog, that the Eshoo amendment, limits for the first time patent protection for exorbitant cancer and HIV drugs, it’s also true that a minimum 12-year monopoly that allows Roche-Genentech to charge cancer patients with breast or brain tumors $185,000 per year for Avastin  or Abbot Labs to suddenly increase its prices five-fold for Norvir, a key ingredient in the AIDS-HIV cocktail, constitutes an excessive stranglehold on access to medicine desperately needed, not only here but worldwide where AIDS leaves a trail of tears throughout Africa.

CALPERS, California’s 1.4 million employee pension plan, and AARP, the senior insurance group, both opposed the 12-year protection as unsustainable.
Congressman Waxman (D-Santa Monica), Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee wanted a five-year patent; President Obama supported a seven-year compromise exclusivity on biologics.

"Many members are looking for so-called game changers that would bring more competition and lower costs" in the health-care sector, said Mr. Waxman. "But if we do what the drug companies want and add on long periods of monopoly protection...we will not only lose that opportunity, but guarantee higher drug prices for the foreseeable future."

 Jane Hamsher notes that:

because of an "evergreening" clause that grants drug companies a continued monopoly if they make slight changes to the drug (like creating a once-a-day dose where the original product was three times per day), they will never become generics. Instead of the Waxman-Deal amendment that granted much more reasonable terms to biologic patent holders, Speaker Pelosi chose to include the Eshoo-Barton amendment. And we could all be paying for that choice for the rest of our lives.

 When you couple this with the fact that most insurance companies will not pay for name brands, only for generics, you see what a Catch-22 this is for the average patient, who is in desperate need of these drugs but cannot afford the cost of the name brand, which can be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Marcy writes:

The real question on biologics, however, reflects deeper issues also mirrored in the single-payer debate.  Just as single-payer advocates object to for-profit insurance companies whose first responsibility is a fiduciary one, to make money for shareholders, health care activists who challenge Big Pharma question whether for-profit corporations, often reliant on partnership money from the taxpayer-supported National Institute of Health,  should be allowed to own the rights to life-saving medicine now out of reach to some 90-million Americans who are uninsured or under-insured, millions more whose insurance companies refuse to cover the costs, as well as much of the Third World living in poverty.  

Selling medicine is not like selling cars or dish washers.  If you can’t buy a car, you can take a bus.  If you can’t buy a dishwasher, you can pick up a rag.  If you can’t buy Norvir, you can suffer with night sweats until you waste away.

No one should own the right to someone else’s life.

I think it's really, really important to, as Marcy says, shine a spotlight on what's happening with Big Pharma, and especially the patent issue.

Yes, they spend money on research. But the building blocks that they use to develop their drugs have been mostly put into place via public funding - NIH and university research. They don't 'invent' drugs out of thin air, from scratch - they use existing research to work from.

I think Marcy is spot on on this issue. It's not a matter of holding up a bill because it's not perfect - it's a matter of raising awareness about how the pharmaceutical industries work, and which politicians are benefiting from their largesse. When insurance companies will not pay for a life-saving name-brand drug but only a generic, it is imperative to find a way to make these drugs available and affordable to those who need them to survive and cannot afford literally millions of dollars in drug costs. Unless these companies developed these drugs completely from scratch, using no one's research or money but their own - and they don't; they certainly benefit from taxpayer money, both past and present - I think that entails a certain obligation to these taxpayers.

That is why I believe that in matters of life and death - which is what health care is - that the purely 'for-profit' corporate model, which is solely responsible to its shareholders and not to the public, is not appropriate. As Marcy pointed out, it's not like selling cars or dishwashers. We need to realize that there is a difference between health care and dishwashers, and treat them differently in the public sphere, as do other industrialized nations.



Marcy Winograd is challenging Blue Dog corporate Democrat Jane Harman in the June 8, 2010 Democratic Party primary.  In 2006, when Winograd jumped into the race just three months before the primary, she mobilized almost 38% of the vote.
 
To donate to Marcy's progressive challenge, visit Winograd4Congress.com.

A 'Must-Read' Synopsis of the Impact of Predatory Capitalism

I seldom just link to articles, but this one by William K. Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One puts it so clearly and succinctly that there's nothing for me to add.

From the excellent website New Deal 2.0:

Roosevelt Institute Braintruster William K. Black explains how the finance economy preys on the real economy instead of serving it. He shows how both have become dysfunctional and warns that we must not neglect the real economy — the source of our jobs, our incomes, and the creator of goods and services — as we focus on financial reform.

Read, please.