Texas AG halts all foreclosures

[Winehole23]

Hernando de Soto, slightly reprised in BW:

The U.S. and other Western democracies have grown wealthy over the past three centuries for a simple reason: Their citizens have been able to establish clear le to land, buildings, and other property. So argues Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, in his influential 2000 book The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. While people in developed nations can borrow against their property and use the money to start businesses and ac ulate wealth, he wrote, squatters in countries like Peru have no such option. Property rights beget prosperity.



That's why the burgeoning foreclosure mess in the U.S. strikes at the nation's economic heart. Confusion is so rife that Bank of America (BAC), the biggest mortgage lender, suspended foreclosures in all 50 states to determine whether faulty do ents were used to confiscate homes. Americans took their le-recording system for granted, abused it during the housing boom, and let it deteriorate. "Somehow in the last 10 or 15 years, everything that was good record-keeping isn't telling the truth anymore," says de Soto, reached by phone while traveling in Copenhagen. "My feeling is this: Your recession is going to last. And it's going to last, and it's going to last, because essentially the trust has broken down."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...0009860564.htm

[Winehole23]

De Soto may be an alarmist, but he has correctly identified why the foreclosure mess is not a simple clerical problem. It's part of a broader breakdown in the financial world—the one that nearly caused a depression in 2008 when banks and other financial players couldn't tell whose balance sheets were stuffed with toxic subprime mortgage debt and whose weren't. Unable to trust one another, the big ins utions pulled back from every asset except Treasury debt. At the height of the crisis, even stalwarts like AT&T couldn't borrow in the commercial paper market for durations of more than a day—meaning they were only 24 hours removed from default.

ibid.

[boutons_deux]

...

[Winehole23]

Unregulated capitalism never existed in the USA. If you want to say regulating it somewhat less has turned out to be a disaster, fine.

[Winehole23]

Without the core of cons utionally guaranteed (and socially/ins utionally respectable) property rights capitalism never really gets off the ground, is roughly the point being made.

Property rights aren't just a propaganda smokescreen for trickeration and graft. A stable, reliable legal/political context is foundational for both the expectation and the hoped for reality of future prosperity, allegedly.

[Winehole23]

...

Really?

[boutons_deux]

Yes, really.

[Winehole23]

Got something to hide?

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Richard (RJ) Eskow: Foreclosures and Guilt: The "Home Loan Moral Hazard Scorecard"

Jamie Dimon and the other mega-bankers who derailed the economy have a new PR campaign to sell you. They're saying that families who can't pay their mortgages must bear the blame - all the blame - for the foreclosure crisis. That means the public should just ignore banks' widespread lawbreaking in the registering and transfer of property les. For the bankers who would appoint themselves the nation's moral arbiters, It's always somebody else's fault.

Not that we should be surprised. After all, the Mortgage Bankers Association, which calls itself "the voice of the real estate finance industry," did a short sale on its Washington DC headquarters which left CEO John Courson uncharacteristically speechless. It seems he didn't want to talk about how he walked away from the loans he took out to buy that building. But before the cat got his tongue, Courson managed to lecture homeowners on their "legal obligation" and the terrible "message they would send" by walking away from their mortgages.

Morality and law for thee, but none for me.

It's just "paperwork," they say. But any homeowner who filed false affidavits - a crime that's legally equivalent to perjury - would be looking at jail time. Remember: Law and morality for thee ...

"But if these people had paid their mortgages, there wouldn't been a problem." That's a pretty compelling argument (if you're willing to ignore the widespread lawbreaking by the banks)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-esk...tml?view=print

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And these Wall St criminals are giving MASSIVELY to the Repugs who voted against DISCLOSE, and who will NEVER do anything to impinge Wall St predations and crimes.

[Winehole23]

Big money favored Obama in 2008. C'est la guerre.

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Only because they knew dubya/ head and their disastrous Repug Reign of Error and Criminality was extremely unpopular as seen in 2004, 2006, so the simply put their money on the winner, McLiar and pitbull being losers out of the gate.

[Winehole23]

Their money will be on the winners this time too.

[boutons_deux]

"At a large Florida "foreclosure mill," a manager signed up to 1,000 do ents a day without reading them and employees were given gifts to speed up foreclosure paperwork, according to depositions released today by the Florida Attorney General's Office. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/1...tml?view=print