Quote:

“For years, the trustee would always take the creditors’ side,” Mr. Rothbloom said. “My strong opinion is the U.S. trustee’s perspective is that they exist to stop borrowers from cheating banks. Perhaps they are coming to the realization that banks can also cheat borrowers.”

What is still lacking is the broad 'realization' that the Banks can also 'cheat' Investors in the MBS Securities; and that in some cases it is very likely that they have.

The banks have no answer. They really have no answer to this.

The banks have to increase the banking propaganda advertising.

Mish doesn't care about the note. He says my soul is misguided.

"Making matters even worse, a large and growing number of misguided souls think it is 'unjustifiable' to boot homeowners unless and until someone can 'produce the note'.

"Such thinking encourages still more defaults, weighs down the courts, and does nothing to produce an equitable solution, for anyone."

Oh well, I am a misguided soul (not in default) waiting for the chickens to come home to roost. Or (more realistically) waiting for the cows to come home!

Quote:

The banks have no answer. They really have no answer to this.

No answers that allow them to continue to skim cash off the real economy at ever higher rates.

There are answers; the Banksters just don't like them.

NO Bailouts under any circumstances: Private Profits means Private Losses. PERIOD.
Due Process.
Equal Application of the Laws.
Criminal Prosecutions of Fraud/Racketeering/Perjury/Money Laundering/Book Cooking/etc...
Stringent Prompt Corrective Action.
Glass-Steagall.
Claw Backs.
Public Derivatives Exchanges.
Mark to Market.
SIVs get brought onto the Balance Sheets.
MAXIMUM Leverage Ratio of 10 to 1.
Make it Illegal to Short Your Own Products.
Outlaw Synthetic Derivatives.

Need I go on?

**** the Banksters; this is their ******ned mess.

Yep Throxx like I said the banks have no answers. There are lots of answers though. You could start with lampposts being installed outside 200 West St.

As I wrote over in Mish,

There are only 4 corners to a contract, what's written on the paper that everyone signed, in this case at closing.

If your lender have already broken the contract by not living up to it's part, what are your obligations?

Do I continue with a contract that the other side has already broken?

Read Your Contract.

Mish is full of ****.

The first and most-necessary element of forcing someone to pay a debt is to prove you own the paper on the other side (that is, that you're the creditor.)

Your WORD that you are is not sufficient - you must produce EVIDENCE.

And since you want to be exempt from the possible bad acts of the originator of the loan, you need to do even more. You must satisfy the requirements of "Holder in Due Course" under the UCC - unless, of course, you're willing to be responsible (financially) for any fraud or misrepresentation in the original offering of the debt (e.g. TILA, RESPA, common-law fraud, etc.)

To the extent that anyone believes this is not THE issue, they're either insane or part of the problem.

Pick one.

Mish wrote..

Mish is full of ****.

He has been for a while, but he's way the **** off-base now. One wonders what his agenda is.....

Douche Shedlock wrote..

However, some who do not like the current system pretend to be worried about the .0004% or whatever preposterously low number of homeowners who might be kicked out of their homes allegedly in error.

Making matters even worse, a large and growing number of misguided souls think it is "unjustifiable" to boot homeowners unless and until someone can "produce the note".

Quote:

In his experience, Mr. Shaev said: “The attorneys who represent the banks invariably state that they will get the collateral file for us and prove that the banks had possession of the documents at the appropriate time. But then when we review the file it doesn’t show that at all.”

This has been my perpetual experience in mediations with banks, too, FYI. But you already knew that if you've been paying attention.

Did my shopping early at Daveco's, no waiting at counters, free wine tasting was appreciated, and sales people were very polite. Plenty of parking.

For those of interest this public service announcement during this depression is of no charge, but all donations will be forwarded to the firemen and women in Hiho's begging link.

http://www.davecoliquors.com/about.htm

Blah, Blah, Blah, sales tax receipts near the end of Jan. 2011 will NOT lie.

OOOPS ---- I'm posting under the wrong ticker discussion. Belch (opened the Christmas gift to early), just not seeing so clearly, but I'm of to the races to get on topic. Please do not ban me KD, as I will not remember it anyway.


Ya, Ya, Yay, you downright nasty Throxx!!!

Quote:

---There are answers; the Banksters just don't like them.

NO Bailouts under any circumstances: Private Profits means Private Losses. PERIOD.
Due Process.
Equal Application of the Laws.
Criminal Prosecutions of Fraud/Racketeering/Perjury/Money Laundering/Book Cooking/etc...
Stringent Prompt Corrective Action.
Glass-Steagall.
Claw Backs.
Public Derivatives Exchanges.
Mark to Market.
SIVs get brought onto the Balance Sheets.
MAXIMUM Leverage Ratio of 10 to 1.
Make it Illegal to Short Your Own Products.
Outlaw Synthetic Derivatives.

Need I go on?---

Yes. But I will help you. Stop the looting (and stealing, you know that Biblical thing), and start the prosecuting, and then when I see several thousand top dogs in orange jump suits and cuffs go to the big house, I will know that the ship has changed course. UNTIL THEN THE NEEDLE BARELY BUDGES PASS THE ZERO MARKER ON SAID METER for this Ticker Fan

PS. The banks can always find the FEE FILE. Any disagreements? Any unfortunate reader of this post please be aware that there are no cogent thoughts provided.

Hey Tally that's great.

Quote:

---thinking is difficult---

No kidding. Try it to often (thinking) and you turn to drinking. The heat is on, no drinking and no thinking.

Quote:

“For years, the trustee would always take the creditors’ side,” Mr. Rothbloom said. “My strong opinion is the U.S. trustee’s perspective is that they exist to stop borrowers from cheating banks. Perhaps they are coming to the realization that banks can also cheat borrowers.”

This is a little misleading. Trustees don't take sides. I worked for two U.S. Bankruptcy Trustees for several years, and I found them to be partial to debtors, if anything, and completely above board in following the law. Creditors have to file a proof of claim, and those proofs of claim are scrutinized and verified. Any creditor that files a Motion to Lift Automatic Stay with the bankruptcy court better have a damn good reason (i.e., the debtor has attempted to hide assets, hasn't waited enough days between bk filings, etc.) Most of the time the trustee will object to such motions, because the entire reason for bankruptcy is to protect the debtor (from immediate foreclosure, for example).

I only bring this up because it occurred to me that we could use the bankruptcy system already in place with this mortgage mess. In a few of my posts I have said that we need a court-controlled mechanism through which every homeowner can find out where his note is, and whether the holder of that note has standing to foreclose. Every homeowner needs a way to do this, not just those that are behind in payments.

I propose that the bankruptcy system could meet this need. The courts are in place, and the trustees already know how to verify proofs of claim. Each state has its own BK court(s) and trustee(s). That keeps it somewhat local, although they are federal rather than state courts (I haven't figured out how to reconcile that.) It's better than the government doing it. I'm not suggesting that homeowners file BK, just that this system (or an identical temporary system) be used to determine where the notes are. Of course, we know where they aren't (with the banks), so this whole thing would probably lead to the big banks' own bankruptcy. At least they'd be in the right place.

This is the second time Mish has flirted his opinion recently that the only thing that matters is whether or not that the home buyer paid the loan, and to hell with due process.

Astoundedly, he is being two faced when he suggests that Irish bond holders should lose the last penny. Somehow banks are different when they make uncreditworthy loans and are impeded through the legal process.

Karl should bitch slap Mish on this one.

Hawaii,
I think what was meant by the trustees "taking the creditors' side", and perhaps I got this from elsewhere in the article, was that when the bank said the debtor owed them money, the trustees took them more or less at their word. They didn't ask for more than superficial evidence of proof of that debt.

Although I like your idea about checking ALL the notes, I don't think those who hold positions of power are interested in digging too deeply into this mess. They would prefer it all went away. And btw, even homeowners in foreclosure aren't always successful in finding out who owns their note. Attorneys for the banks do their best to block them. I've read a couple decisions where judges ruled the information was unnecessary and the banks were allowed to proceed, and those were cases where mortgagors were represented by what appeared to be competent attorneys.

And c'mon Karl, the bankers said that the problem was a trivial issue and that 90% of the time the right lender foreclosed on the right borrower. Don't you think expecting a bank to foreclose on the right homeowner is being a bit nitpicky?

My gripe is, since when does the "investor", who came in after the fact, get standing over the homeowner when it comes to re-fi'ing a home mortgage? Even if securitizations were "legalized", that does not give the investor standing over a home owner who never agreed to have their mortgage note sold to another entity.

So it's no longer about who owns the note, in my opinion the only valid agreement is the original agreement between the home buyer and the original bank where they signed the mortgage papers. After that, all the slicing and dicing is all hippy dippy nonsense that the banksters pulled on the investors and those two can duke it out amongst themselves.

The moment a home buyers ability to refi their home was compromised IN ANY WAY because of a Jhonny come lately investor's influence, the home buyer was being screwed over and is due restitution. http://swarmthebanks.blogspot.com/2010/1....

http://parallelforeclosure.blogspot.com/....

I can't find the little satanic laughter icon...consider this the text version thereof. !:-o>

Quote:

Some in the industry believe that questions about this issue — known as “legal standing” — are trivial.

Funny. On the other side, homeowner's believe actions, like "making payments" on a worthless mortgage, are trivial too.

I don't know that Yahoo news can be considered mainstream but I was still surprised to see this article. The link was titled "Bernanke's True Intentions Revealed" and I thought it would be some kind of fluff to make him sound good but noooo:

Quote:

Bernanke's True Intentions Revealed

<snip>

Bernanke carried on the torch of fearless Keynesian Fed Presidents and made it on the cover of Time magazine within his first term. Much ink has been spilled about the effects and side effects of quantitative easing in general and QE2 in particular (click here if you care to read my two cents worth).

Actions speak louder than words, and the initial reaction by stocks and commodities has been net-positive (at least when going back to the initial announcement), which is exactly what the financial alchemists in Washington wanted to see; but, what about the economy or the unemployed? Obviously, that's only a secondary concern.

According to Bernanke (quoted in the Washington Post), inflating stock prices is the golden grail of today's monetary policy: 'Higher stock prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can also spur spending. Increased spending will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion.'

QE2 - Unfair for Many Reasons

Perhaps it's been lost to Mr. Bernanke that the Fed actively inflating asset prices has a number of unfair side effects.

1) Wall Street banksters' get to profit from their mistakes that led to the sub-prime debacle.

2) Retail investors have been withdrawing money from mutual funds for two years. The effect of higher stock prices is lost to many.

3) Artificially depressing interest rates takes away wealth from savers and distributes it to borrowers. Who are today's savers? Retirees and near-retirees. In fact, this group accounts for more individuals (and lost spending power) than ever before.

What effect has the Federal Reserve's monetary policy had on jobless Americans? Let's examine the facts:

August 2007: Fed lowered discount rate, unemployment rate at 4.7%

December 2008: Fed reduced rates to just north of zero, unemployment rate at 7.4%.

March 2009: Fed launches QE1, unemployment rate at 8.6%.

November 2010: Fed launches QE2, unemployment rate at 9.6%.

Making the Rich Richer and the Poor Poorer

While large cap (NYSEArca: IVV - News), mid cap (NYSEArca: MDY - News), small cap (NYSEArca: IWM - News), international (NYSEArca: EFA - News), emerging market stocks (NYSEArca: EEM - News) and commodities are brewing their own Fed sponsored bubble, the jobless are left in the dust. Would there have been anyway to help them?

Our infrastructure (streets and bridges) is literally rotting away beneath our tires. $600 billion (as in $600 billion QE2) would have been enough money to employ 4 million construction workers at $75,000/year for two years.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bernankes-....

It goes on to talk about Japan, what goes up must, come down and more. I was pleasantly surprised.

The whole point of a mortgage-backed security is that the bank isn't selling the mortgage. It's a way to roll up a "security" from many mortgages from "many" banks. The MBS isn't a stack of deeds, it's a stack of promissory notes based on the assets of the banks. The banks may or may not have those mortgages as collateral on their loans, but probably not. Regardless, untangling who owns the actual note for a mortgage is trivial compared to tracking down the liabilities in an MBS. They cut & folded & cut & kneaded the whole package so many times that Moody's, S&P, and Fitch declared the "pot" sufficiently stirred that it was all "AAA" rated. Which meant they felt that it was tangled enough to not get back to them. Guess they were right.

The real criminals are the 401K & pension fund managers who bought the "tranches" without looking under the lid. Anyone who invests in a coversheet is looking to get fleeced. Anyone who does it with someone else's money is ripping off their clients (and is probably in collusion with the banks selling the toxic vapor.)

Fijiaaron, The bank may not be selling the mortgage, but the bank then hides behind the "investor" as the excuse used to deny HAMP loans. And if banks are denying HAMP loans because of an "investor", they could very well be denying that same homeowner a regular loan modification as well so that the Investor can....

keep their profit margin right where it is since the original loan stays the same,
or foreclose and
gain the 20% mortgage insurance coverage,
keep the home, (where the heck did the original down payment go?),
add accruing penalties, fees and interest rates onto the foreclosed upon homeowner,
who will also get their credit dinged badly and then become indentured for the next decade, and then gain a new down payment,
when a new home buyer is put into that home.

The trustee IS taking the creditor's side. The fundamental problem is the creditor is the one that has the document saying he is the creditor. The trustee cannot take the side of an interloper without any claim to the estate.

Nor would it be easy to represent 1000 people of a trust who each own 1/1000th of the note.

Mortgages were secure not because of FICO scores, but because when banks actually held all the parts and serviced the mortgage, they were in a position to both help the borrower if it was possible, or to cleanly foreclose if not. One entity, paperwork in a box in an known place, etc.