Faces Of Foreclosure

Reading today’s news brings home the fact that few of us know much about the history of the world. Many of us are rightfully upset, but Robber Barons ARE the people who develop all countries while amassing fortunes at the expense of others under the guise of conquest, development, “you need this or that.” Think about all that you have in your home that you absolutely do NOT need at all for any reason. If you never saw this or that widget, it would not matter.

Think about all the foodstuffs that we consume that are actually harmful; food and drug industries are rife with Robber Barons . . . and with the help of government. Think about cigarettes; beyond a shadow of a doubt, they main and kill. Executives and shareholders of Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, etc., ARE robber barons. They are making fortunes while individuals die (or, perhaps worse, live and drain taxdollars to help them stay alive — while continuing to smoke).

Our friends, The Robber Barons (aka Super Thieves) have been with us since the dawn of time. As soon as someone decides they want something you have, and the second the desire outstrips their ethics, the game starts. During extensive historical research for a maritime site, I’ve repeatedly been appalled at the machinations of man as I read about who took over what nation and under what circumstances.

Don’t you find it appalling that the British, French, Spanish, Dutch, et. al. sat around divving up countries willy nilly in order to secure spices for England or gold for Queen Isabella of Spain or diamonds for Holland? These countries were already inhabited and some quite developed when Europeans arrived, claimed to have “discovered the land,” and proceeded to invade, rape, pillage, rob, burn . . . They want what they want and they take it.

It seems the only reason so many more of us are aware of international wheeling and dealing is because of the Internet and cellphones; the people have a voice like never before. Little can be hidden.

While government representatives, for example, insist there is no strife in their country, a student or tourist with a cellphone snaps that telling shot . . . the one that shows a different story; one that shows the truth to the world. (Left is a robbery of a jewelry store captured on someone’s cell phone — this was found on the internet!)

This, while I agree, I find this article from the Sovereign Society newsletter quite narrow in scope:

Lies and irresponsibility have become the hallmark of both Wall Street and now Washington are threatening the life savings of individuals.

Noted author and economic analyst John Pugsley was quoted as saying, “Hard working Americans, trying to do everything right, are now at the mercy of the fallout from these lies. And there are three in particular that pose devastating threats. But investors today can protect themselves if they quickly take the appropriate steps…”

For all of us to decide, perhaps, is how much is enough? How much is too much? Do we need all of these developments at the cost of everything else on earth?

In the event you have note wrestled with that one (or have without a satisfactory answer), you might want to see the movie “Avatar,” which addresses some of these issues.

The upside and downside of being out of work for most of 2009 has been I’ve had time to look at our system of government and banking in a depth never before done by me. It’s depressing. The “powers that be” have gotten away with so much because families have had their heads down working hard to make a living. We have paid scant attention to the corruption stemming from Wall Street and Washington, D.C.

America IS a great country. Why has it come to this levels of abandonment of principles?

This was just sent to me. It IS time to take back our country and level the playing field.

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had/have no idea that members of Congress can retire with the same pay after only one term, that they don’t pay into Social Security, that they specifically exempt themselves from many of the laws they pass (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws.

The latest attempt in Congress is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that is being considered . . . in all of its forms.

Somehow, that doesn’t seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. It does not matter if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop. This is a good way to do that. It is an idea whose time has come.

Ask each person on your eMail list to contact a minimum of twenty people on their address list, in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”

Dr. Seuss’ Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (Classic Seuss)
A favorite economics lesson is from Dr. Seuss’ “Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?”

Oh, the jobs people work at! Out west, near Hawtch-Hawtch, there’s a Hawtch-Hawtcher Bee-Watcher. His job is to watch . . . to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee. A bee that is watched will work harder, you see.

Well . . . he watched and he watched. But, in spite of his watch, that bee didn’t work any harder. Not mawtch.

So then somebody said, “Our old bee-watching man just isn’t bee-watching as hard as he can. He ought to be watched by another Hawtch-Hawtcher. The thing that we need is a Bee-Watcher-Watcher.”

WELL . . .The Bee-Watcher Watcher watched the Bee-Watcher. He didn’t watch well. So another Hawtch-Hawtcher had to come in as a Watch-Watcher-Watcher.

And today all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch are watching on Watch-Watcher-Watchering-Watch, Watch-Watching the Watcher who’s watching that bee. You’re not a Hawtch-Hawtcher. You’re lucky you see.

Why are those at the heads of the investment banking businesses worldwide trying to convince us that this entire sink hole began only a year or so ago, when in fact the sink hole has been being positioned by those very actors, for decades. How and when did America become the “sloppy society?” The way our country is run is quite inelegant.

The following is from a variety of sources: “Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Recovery Act,” “Sovereign Society,” and a gentleman self-described as a “Disgruntled Republication.”

Federal workers owe more than $3B in back taxes
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER (AP) – Dec 15, 2009

WASHINGTON — Federal workers owed the government more than $3 billion in back income taxes in 2008, just as federal tax revenues started to suffer from the recession.

More than 276,000 federal employees and retirees owed back income taxes as of Sept. 30, 2008, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service. The $3.04 billion owed was up from $2.7 billion owed by federal employees and retirees in 2007.

Among cabinet agencies, the Department of Housing and Urban Development had the highest delinquency rate, at just over 4 percent. The Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, had the lowest delinquency rate, at 0.98 percent.

Overall, the 9.7 million federal workers included in the data had a delinquency rate of about 2.9 percent.

“It’s not right for a few to shirk their obligations, and it’s especially offensive that these tax delinquencies come from federal employees and contractors,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

The IRS doesn’t provide a comparable delinquency rate for income taxes paid by the public. The nation’s overall compliance rate, which includes taxes paid by small businesses and corporations, has hovered around 85 percent for decades, according to IRS statistics.

Most residents who owe back income taxes file returns but cannot pay the full amount at tax time, said IRS spokesman Anthony Burke. Others have their tax bills increased through audits and cannot pay the higher bill.

The statistics on federal employees do not include those who are on payment plans. The IRS doesn’t publicize the data, but makes it available upon request. The data was first reported by Washington radio station WTOP.

The recession has put a big dent in federal tax receipts. Individual income tax receipts for the fiscal year that ended in September were down about 20 percent from the year before.

I recently discovered that the servicer of my mortgage made TWENTY-TWO mistakes (that I know of) during 2009 with regard to my mortgage! That, of course, pushed me into wondering what in the hell is going on? . . . the IRS has trouble even with routine tasks. According to another IG report, the agency has a staggering 70 percent error rate in its processing of taxpayer identification numbers for individual taxpayers:

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) today publicly released its review of the IRS’s processing of applications for Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs). TIGTA reviewed a sample of ITIN applications and found that almost 70% contained significant errors and/or raised concerns that should have prevented the issuance of an ITIN. The IRS estimates that it has issued more than 14 million ITINs as of December 2008. ITINs are intended to provide tax identification numbers to resident and nonresident alien individuals who may have U.S. tax reporting or filing obligations but do not qualify for Social Security Numbers, which generally are only issued to U.S. citizens and individuals legally admitted to the U.S. . . . ”The number of individual income tax returns filed using ITINs and reporting wage income has increased by 247 percent from 2001 to 2008,” commented J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. “If the IRS continues to issue ITINs without proper verification, the risk of fraudulently filed returns – along with fraudulently claimed refunds – will continue to rise,” added Inspector General George.

Everything by Dr. Seuss
Just think how much fun it will be when the IRS is in charge of determining those of us who should get fined or jailed for noncompliance with government-run healthcare! No wonder so many taxpayers put a flat tax or national sales tax on their Christmas lists.

Perhaps Dr. Seuss is our only hope . . . We’ve added a link to a collection of his books, including Dr. Geisel Goes Green (warnings against mindless progress), The Lorax, Mr. Brown Can Moo!, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish and others. The Economics of Dr. Seuss

For the past year of dealing with my lender for a loan modification on my home, too often I wake up with bizarre questions (and equally bizarre images in my mind). Today’s question: What falls under the FBI’s definition of organized crime. Of course I am thinking of the white collar criminals running free in America.

And here are the relevant definitions:

Criminal Enterprise: The FBI defines a criminal enterprise as a group of individuals with an identified hierarchy, or comparable structure, engaged in significant criminal activity. These organizations often engage in multiple criminal activities and have extensive supporting networks. The terms Organized Crime and Criminal Enterprise are similar and often used synonymously. However, various federal criminal statutes specifically define the elements of an enterprise that need to be proven in order to convict individuals or groups of individuals under those statutes.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, or Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1961(4), defines an enterprise as “any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.”

The Continuing Criminal Enterprise statute, or Title 21 of the United States Code, Section 848(c)(2), defines a criminal enterprise as any group of six or more people, where one of the six occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management with respect to the other five, and which generates substantial income or resources, and is engaged in a continuing series of violations of subchapters I and II of Chapter 13 of Title 21 of the United States Code.

Ethics for Executives In the event you are a top level executive with questionable ethics who stumbled across this site, here is a link to a selection of books that we highly recommend you read. Apparently ethics courses are not mandatory in today’s business colleges . . . that is apparent, don’t you think?

Organized Crime: The FBI defines organized crime as any group having some manner of a formalized structure and whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities. Such groups maintain their position through the use of actual or threatened violence, corrupt public officials, graft, or extortion, and generally have a significant impact on the people in their locales, region, or the country as a whole.

Once we get beyond giving free rides to those with advanced degrees, you will see many more white collar criminals in their proper place . . . which will be in jail right alongside Mr. Madoff. “Robbery” is included under state crimes. The illegal and/or lost paperwork locking you into your mortgage should come under “Robbery.”

Excerpted from The Sovereign Society2010: The Year of Institutionalized Theft

Balancing State & Local Budgets
With the Frightening Power of Civil Forfeiture
By Mark Nestmann

While the talking heads on television declare the recession over, state and local governments face record deficits and a shortage of viable solutions.

Arizona’s state budget, for example, represents more than 50% of anticipated 2010 revenues. And while Arizona faces perhaps the largest per-capita budget shortfall in the United States, many other states have a similar funding crisis.

Unfortunately, there are very few politically expedient ways to stem the flow of red ink. Raising taxes is not only politically unpopular, but threatens to further depress state and local economies. Cutting benefits is even less popular.

On the other hand, confiscating the “proceeds of crime” has a near-universal appeal. And using “civil forfeiture” statutes in effect in all 50 states, police have pursued this tactic aggressively.

Civil forfeiture is a legal procedure in which prosecutors can seize your property without accusing you – much less convicting you – of any crime.

Most federal civil forfeitures require the government to at least demonstrate probable cause that your property is somehow connected to a crime to confiscate it. But the federal rules don’t generally extend to state and local governments. In many states, the government can simply seize your property and wait months before allowing you to contest the forfeiture.

While The Soverign Society considers seizing your property as a bad thing, I can see cases where it might be a good thing and a means to get back that which has been stolen from taxpayers.

If you are a good and hardworking citizen, this is a nightmare and should not happen to you. However, if you are one of those questionable citizens who came to your wealth by cheating others . . . which is commonplace these days . . . well, one can only hope they seize everything you have just as you have done to others.

Getting Your Own Back on the “Pirate Equiteers”
From SovereignSociety.com

Busts happen much faster than booms. But that doesn’t have to mean bad news for you.

In fact, contrary to popular belief the fastest and fattest fortunes have actually been spun in the worst of economic times, not the best.

For example, Sir John Templeton, one of the world’s greatest investors said the easiest money he ever made was not going long on stocks, but actually going short. By going short, instead of betting on the long-term health of the company, you actually make a bet on its demise. In this way you can make money 2–21 times faster than you can with traditional “buy and hold” investing.

Sir John made $88 million in less than 2 months by shorting telecommunications stocks in 2000.

Again one of the most successful investors of the last three years was also a short-seller. No one had heard of him before 2007. But now he’s one of the richest men in the world. And he did it by shorting banks and sub-prime mortgages. His name is John Paulson.

He made an average of over $7.7 million for 731 days straight. And in 2 years clocked up $5.7 billion!

And one of the most famous fortunes ever spun, was by the legendary investor George Soros. By shorting the British pound in 1992, just before it crashed, Soros made almost a billion dollars in a day!

Excerpt from Sovereign Society’s April 2007 report entitled “Gluttons at the Gate” warning of the mess that was to come:

“Private Equity firms have borrowed trillions in the past several years to buy up over 19,000 companies worldwide. These companies affect millions of jobs. They reach far and wide into almost every nook and cranny of the global economy. But now most of these company’s balance sheets will be loaded up with junk debt. If the world goes into recession, the revenues of these companies will suffer, and it will become increasingly difficult for them to pay back their loans. They will default — en masse.

“The Private Equity debt bomb will have detonated, and the banks will have become ground zero. The markets may bear witness to the biggest wave of defaults ever known. Bondholders will be left clutching worthless pieces of paper. Stockholders will watch the value of even their bluest of blue chips collapse 50% or more. And homeowners will watch the value of their properties fall off the edge of a financial cliff…

“It will make the sub-prime mortgage meltdown look like a walk in the park.”

Ethics for Executives In the event you are a top level executive with questionable ethics who stumbled across this site, here is a link to a selection of books that we highly recommend you read. Apparently ethics courses are not mandatory in today’s business colleges . . . that is apparent, don’t you think?

According to Sovereign Society, The 7 Best Post-Crisis Companies to Bet On”

In this special investment alert we’ll introduce you to a number of our favorite deeply undervalued cash-rich corporate kings. These are the kind of Buffet-like companies that you should be happy owning even if the stock market closed down for 10 years. They include our #1 picks in many depression-proof sectors like food, drugs, gold, plus a number of our greatest post-crisis boom stocks as well, including:

• The Depression-Proof Drug Stock. It’s the biggest producer of generic drugs in the world. And one thing that never lags in a recession is demand for drugs…and when times are tough people will choose a generic over a brand name. Plus with so many big-name drugs coming off patent, generics will fly. And with so many baby boomers retiring in America and the rest of the world, generic drug producers should do very well. And these guys are hands down the global leaders! They’re an Israeli pharmaceutical giant, and one of the few stocks whose profits and revenues went up in the last few years when almost everything else went down.
• The Turn-Around Story of the Decade . . . and a compelling play on the Food Boom. Food is another recession-proof investment. Food companies have been hands down the best-performing stocks of the last 2 years. This company is undergoing a dramatic transformation, and is now well on its way to becoming the largest diversified food company in the world. It’s employed one of the finest CEOs in the business to turn it around, and the job she’s doing is so spectacular that three of the world’s biggest billionaires (and greatest value investors) have rushed to gain a huge stake in it.
• The Chinese Government-Granted Monopoly that is fuelling an industry that has only one way to go — up!
• One of the America’s Last Great AAA-rated companies.
• The World’s #1 Gold Producer . . . no matter what happens to the global economy!
• One of the World’s Greenest Companies. It just got voted as one of the Globe’s 100 Most Sustainable Companies, it has topped Newsweek’s Green Lists and has also made it to the prestigious DOW Jones Sustainability Index. It’s a play on the Energy Efficiency Boom. With a cash-and-commodity strapped world we believe there will be a rising movement toward Energy Efficiency. And as conservation becomes the new name of the game this company will be one of its greatest beneficiaries.

America has Super Man, Super Woman, Super Bowl . . . and we have Super Thieves. Actually, the world has always had Super Thieves from pre-Crusades to Bernie Madoff and Hank Paulson (reportedly Paulson managed to heist $700 billion for his Wall Street cronies).

From a blog: If our country ever collapses from all these politicians ripping us off, it will be like in the French Revolution, these people will be hunted down and executed by the angry mobs. Remember that lawyer several years ago who ripped his client off, hiding behind the tree and dodging bullets his client was trying to pump into him and caught on camera? Picture Paulson, Dodd or Reid or all the other thieves in our government in that scenario.

and from another blog post:

There are VERY few losers in this scheme. You know, most of the investors are in on the game. They will be leaving the country in a year or so and going to the middle east where they will build hotels, casinos and shopping malls with stores that make Harrod’s of London look like Walmart. They have stolen the gold and now they are taking off to steal from the Arabs. Little do they know that gold will not be the new form of money in United States. They will not be able to buy from us, so they will have to eat the gold that they stole from the American people.

I don’t have time for this yet, but I reserved SuperThieves.com a in late 2009 as I am fascinated with these men and women who think they can get away with absolutely anything and who don’t care who gets harmed in the process. I like making money as much as the next person, but it is absolutely mandatory to screw everyone around you to do so?

These pages are devoted to the Super Thieves . . . with quite a bit of fascination. Who do they think they are? Why do they think what they are doing is acceptable? Why/how do they get away with it? Do they sleep well after destroying a life for the sake of improving their bottom line?

Years ago, during a long argument with a friend, he insisted that the Crusades were for religious purposes, whereas I took the stand that all “crusades” (then and now) are for acquisition of land, money, people, livestock, etc. Astrocities were committed by knights throughout the Middle Ages in foreign lands. The later middle ages saw a new kind of knight who was a professional adventurer, motivated by nothing higher than gain – a mercenary in fact. By the mid-fourteenth century there were large numbers of these men in Europe, with no place in society other than as soldiers of fortune.

One of the greatest scandals resulted from the recruitment of such men in the “Crusade” against the city of Alexandria in 1365. The mercenaries sacked the city, slaughtered thousands of its inhabitants (including many Christians although they were purportedly rousting the “infidels”) stole as much loot as they could carry and then went home, with the result that the city fell back into the hands of “the Infidel” within days of its conquest.

A successful knight could make an immense fortune, as can be seen from the example of William the Marshall and others,

Veterans of various wars around the world do not sleep well. How do people who rob American citizens of everything in the name of commerce fare . . . can they sleep?

This is beyond the current focus of America’s lenders; it will include the head of large corporations who poison us: i.e. Coca-Cola, cigarette manufacturers, unnecessary food dyes that are harmful . . .

Obviously others have the idea. The following is from one of those sites and we will be adding to the list shortly . . .

Editor’s Note: We are working on a project to identify where Goldman Sachs’ executives have gone after leaving the nest. We want to track where they have landed and what influence they have had on financial and political issues. When our research is complete, we will publish a FREE Internet version of our research.

Here is just a taste:

Robert Rubin – Former United States Treasury Secretary, ex-Chairman of Citigroup

Henry Paulson – Former United States Treasury Secretary

Edward Lampert- Brought K-Mart out of Bankruptcy in 2003

Joshua Bolten – former White House Chief of Staff

Erin Burnett – CNBC Host

Jon Corzine – Governor of the State of New Jersey

Michael Cohrs – Head of Global Banking at Deutsche Bank

Jim “The Mouth” Cramer – In Cramer We Trust – Mad Money on CNBC – Ultimate Jackass

Abby Joseph Cohen – Perma-bull market forecaster formerly of Drexel Burnham Lambert

George Herbert Walker IV – member of the Bush family and current managing director at Neuberger Berman

Robert Zoellick – United States Trade Representative (2001-2005), Deputy Secretary of State (2005-2006), World Bank President

Mark Carney – Current Governor of the Bank of Canada

Michael D. Fascitelli- President & Trustee of Vornado Realty Trust

Neel Kashkari – Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability

Malcolm Turnbull – Australian politician, currently the federal leader of the Liberal Party of Australia

John Thain – former Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch, and former chairman of the NYSE

Robert Steel – Chairman and President, Wachovia – Now with the boys and girls at Wells Fargo

Romano Prodi, Prime Minister of Italy twice (1996-1998 and 2006-2008) and President of the European Commission (1999-2004)

Mario Draghi, governor of the Bank of Italy (2006- )

Massimo Tononi, Italian deputy treasury chief (2006-2008)

Add your favorites to this list, if you please . . . from any time in the world’s history, but specifically now so we can expose these pathetic people for what they are.

Above and Below: Triple Investment Offices 2300 Bridgeway, Sausalito, California Photographer, D.A. Levy November 2009

We’re curious about a firm named Triple Investments, 2300 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965. Triple Investments was mentioned in conjunction with a Marin County foreclosure in the Marin Independent Journal on November 7, 2009 and they seem to have a couple of others on the books.

Principals are purportedly Scott Dixon, John Lundy and Joe Giraudo (with Georgina Giraudo listed to receive services) and Peter Kerman.

The only person licensed as a broker or realtor as of 11/12/2009, per State of California DRE, is Joseph John Giraudo who was doing business as Charter Properties active from 11/15/1971 to 07/01/1985 (noted as cancelled); no current DBAs, no current branches, no current affiliated corporations, one salesperson. The company has no website and no short sale listings (per the woman who answered the phone).

As of October 29, 2009, Joe Giraudo is listed as a member of the San Francisco Association of Realtors at Giraudo Realty, 2300 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965. 415.339.2222, along with Mark Jason Giraudo (as a salesperson out of Tiburon, License 01182248 expired 12/29/07); both are noted as part of Giraudo Realty in Sausalito. We did not find any indication of Giraudo Realty with the California Department of Real Estate.

If you have worked with them . . . or if they purchased/sold your house through foreclosure, please leave a message here and if you would like to remain confidential, please indicate so; messages are not automatically posted. They need to be approved and will not be posted if you want to remain behind the scenes.

We are merely curious. I’m fascinated by the paths of foreclosures and am following a few to see who said what to whom and, of course, to see who actually holds the note, does that really make a difference (and one hopes that it does), AND to see “who wins.”

What seems to be happening in general is that some banks are suggesting that a client intentionally defaults before they will consider modification. Once that happens, they refuse to negotiate and sell the house out from under the client they instructed to default in the first place.