Dick: Stop Foreclosing. Linda: Stop ​“Posturing”

One question is Linda, Ed Patru puppet?? That she can not speak in an uncontrolled environment???
Thank You Dick! All these people lost there homes that may still be in them right now...that is just wrong!! And a bit evil. Bank just won't stop...the greed monster.

Well reported and thought out Paul, as usual.
George

While Dickie Blumenthal is running around the State and not paying attenntion to his office, the sleazy oil companies are quietly attempting to gouge consumers on the home heating oil front. Great going , Dick !!

How could McMahon or her spokesmodel object to this statement by AG Blumenthal: "I believe strongly that false and fraudulent documents should not be the basis for foreclosures"? McMahon's position must therefore be "I believe strongly that false and fraudulent documents SHOULD be the basis for foreclosures." Do they even listen to themselves?

People stand in judgment, assuming fault and guilt, and have no ability to even imagine such a thing happening to them, because their own personal purity will protect them. Well, wake up! Every day, innocent people JUST LIKE YOU are falsely accused, wrongly arrested, unfairly terminated from their jobs, denied life-saving medical care, evicted from their homes, deported, bullied and harassed because SOMEONE DID NOT FOLLOW THE RULES and no one noticed or cared. AG Blumenthal noticed, he cares and he did something about it.

I love this guy-----we need more people like you Dick--keep doing what you are doing---Tom

You got my vote and a bunch of my friends

How could McMahon or her spokesperson object to this statement by AG Blumenthal: "I believe strongly that false and fraudulent documents should not be the basis for foreclosures"? McMahon's position must therefore be "I believe strongly that false and fraudulent documents SHOULD be the basis for foreclosures." Do they even listen to themselves?

People stand in judgment, assuming fault and guilt, and have no ability to even imagine such a thing happening to them, because their own personal purity will protect them. Well, wake up! Every day, innocent people JUST LIKE YOU are falsely accused, wrongly arrested, unfairly terminated from their jobs, denied life-saving medical care, evicted from their homes, deported, bullied and harassed because SOMEONE DID NOT FOLLOW THE RULES and no one noticed or cared. AG Blumenthal noticed, he cares and he did something about it.

Bad move. The national government has no idea what it is doing to the economy by stopping foreclosures and subsequently taking ownership of the thousands of defaulted mortgage loans. Although it has a good intention, it is poorly thought out and executed. Par for the course for the Obama administration and the Congress. The Wall Street journal has it right, this is a crisis fabricated by the Democrats in order to bolster support before the elections. The reality is that the borrowers neglected to keep up with mortgage payments and defaulted. Who signed what document is merely a matter of procedure, it does not change the underlying basis of facts.
The housing market will never rebound if the government continues to intervene in this manner. The borrowers knew what they were getting into when they took out the loan, they should be responsible for the consequences if they cannot afford to pay it back. Just as the banks should not have received a bail out, neither should individual citizens.

There are two very lengthy voicemails from the McMahon campaign on my answering machines at home.

"This is Linda McMahon. You can listen in to what your neighbors think in a teleconference by pushing a button on your phone."

I was not home to pick up, so the message continued. It was an apparent teleconference with people I did not know asking questions of McMahon, who answered with some ridiculous verbiage. But I was so incensed at the phone call itself, I didn't bother to listen. It went on until my phone hung up. And then the robo-dialer called again and left the same message.

I find this extremely invasive into the privacy of my home. This candidate believes her voice is so important to the world that she has left its droppings in as many private spaces as possible.

Stupid PR. Cold calling like this? Blumenthal is invasive into public life and indirectly into private life. But McMahon is over the top. She and her marketing organization must be turned back, even at the cost of having Blumenthal in the seat.

How the Republicans (I am unaffilated with the major parties) picked this lunatic entertainment company executive to represent them for the valuable seat of Senator shows how far off they are. Insanity!

No Linda McMahon -- SMACKDOWN!

... TOWNIE IS RIGHT. People have short memories, franny mae and Freddie mac thanks to chris dodd and all the other democrats

Dear NHI

Your headline writer got it backwards Blumenthal is the one who is posturing Linda is right, it will slow down the recovery.

[Note: The headline was quoting McMahon saying Blumenthal should stop posturing.]

Something the voters should also consider is Blumenthal's use of taxpayers' money to fund an effort that is motivated mostly by his personal political ambitions.

Please, read the article, watch the video and think....

And, then forward it.

Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-katz/linda-mcmahon-smacks-down_b_760465.html

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vJRq3cQnEE&feature=player_embedded

There are almost too many insane allegations on here for me to respond to, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

Townie's comment alone probably takes the cake for most factual inaccuracies ever contained in one comment. Let's take them one by one.

"The national government has no idea what it is doing to the economy by stopping foreclosures and subsequently taking ownership of the thousands of defaulted mortgage loans."

This is a fundamental failure to understand what's going on. Currently, banks are blowing through foreclosure paperwork at an astounding rate, oftentimes foreclosing homes on the basis of fraudulent documentation. In Florida, a woman was INSIDE HER HOME that she had MADE ALL PAYMENTS ON when someone from her bank showed up and tried to change her locks.

What is being proposed, in light of these circumstances, is a MORATORIUM. The government isn't ISBNing "we're going to seize all of these mortgages from the banks," it's saying, "you've demonstrated a shocking inability to conduct foreclosure proceedings in good faith and in compliance with the law, so we're going to prevent you from further foreclosures until you get your act together."

"The Wall Street journal has it right, this is a crisis fabricated by the Democrats in order to bolster support before the elections."

So let me get this straight, the foreclosure crisis was brought about by Democrats? So the Democrats were the ones who, in the early 2000s, suggested to the Wall Street banks that they decrease lending standards to rock bottom in order to pile a bunch of crappy loans into bonds, then cut up the bonds and package the pieces into collateralized debt obligations, then game the ratings system in order to get the CDOs that contained poorly rated loans classified as Triple-A (or virtually risk-free)? And then after doing THAT, the Democrats encouraged banks to begin foreclosing on homes using fraudulent paperwork?

I'd love to see a single shred of evidence to that effect.

"The reality is that the borrowers neglected to keep up with mortgage payments and defaulted."

If only it were that simple. First of all, many borrowers were convinced to sign loan documents that they had no realistic hope of ever repaying. In one instance, a migrant farmworker in California who made under $20,000 per year was given a $750,000 loan for a house. I'm sorry, but in a case like that, some fault has to lie with the lender--there is absolutely no way they should have ever originated that loan.

Moreover, in many cases, foreclosures are being executed on the basis of FRAUDULENT PAPERWORK. In those cases, it's not that homeowners didn't keep up with their mortgages, it's that BANKS ARE COMMITTING FRAUD.

"Who signed what document is merely a matter of procedure, it does not change the underlying basis of facts."

This is totally insane. If I show up at your house and say that I own the title so you need to get out immediately and produce a contract saying that you sold the house to me for $1 with a forgery of your signature on it, I'm pretty sure you'd think it matters "who signed what document."

And that's basically what's going on here. Banks are asserting claims to property based on fraudulent paperwork. And that's the underlying fact that matters.

"The housing market will never rebound if the government continues to intervene in this manner."

You know what will keep the housing market from recovering? Spending the next 15 years in court figuring out who actually owns what property because a bank couldn't be bothered to produce nonfraudulent paperwork and a homeowner didn't know his or her rights when the bank defrauded him or her. One of the most fundamental parts of property rights is being able to ascertain who owns what property.

To put it more concretely, if a potential homebuyer can't be fully certain that the entity from which he or she is buying a house actually owns the title to that house, that depresses housing values. And that's what we're in for if we don't make sure that foreclosures proceed in an ordered, nonfraudulent manner.

"The borrowers knew what they were getting into when they took out the loan, they should be responsible for the consequences if they cannot afford to pay it back. Just as the banks should not have received a bail out, neither should individual citizens."

I've already implied that certain borrowers actually had no idea what they were getting into. I encourage you to take a look at the PBS documentary on credit cards, in which Elizabeth Warren, a tenured professor at Harvard Law School, goes through the fine print in a credit card contract and shows how difficult it is for her, one of the most brilliant minds in the legal academy, to figure out just what in God's name is contained in the contract.

The same thing happened with these mortgage contracts. Borrowers were not made fully aware of the terms of their agreements. They were quoted 30 year amortization rates but put on 15 year amortization schedules. They were given the hard sell on low introductory interest rates, while the potential for interest rates to adjust upward was glossed over.

That's not a free contract between two parties, that's fraud or borderline fraud on the part of lenders.

However, that's really besides the point here. Nobody is saying that homeowners who are in default shouldn't be foreclosed upon. What people ARE saying is that in light of strong evidence that banks are engaging in fraudulent foreclosure practices, we ought to force banks to put on the brakes and get their houses in order before any more people fall victim to their fraudulent practices.

PaulF,

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were almost entirely privatized (in the sense that the government served only as a guarantor and wasn't really involved in day-to-day operations) when they collapsed. If anything, the people we have to blame for their collapse are the privatization fetishists in the corporatist wing of the Republican Party.

In response to the professor: The way I understand it, and the way it will most likely play out, is that the government has to seize ownership of the defaulted montages in order to effect any moratorium. Or they have to sue in federal court. Otherwise they do not have the power to simply stop the banks from going forward with foreclosures. The former option is what I was speaking to in my previous comments. The latter option, is not much preferable than the former, as it would cost millions to sue each bank and to complete litigation. Either option will only continue our economic decline and cause greater suffering for this nation's citizens.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69B3BH20101012?pageNumber=2

The issue is not that the banks are forging lenders signatures, that would be a clear violation. The issue is that certain functionaries signed documents that other functionaries were supposed to sign. Regardless of who signed what, the paperwork reflected the clear factual reality. Jon Doe has defaulted on his mortgage, therefore Jon Doe must be dispossessed. While the banks actions are irresponsible and, some might say, callous, they are not illegal.

Please read the WSJ editorial cited in the article.

The democrats may not have caused the crisis (all of us are to blame for this mess), but they are using the current "crisis" i.e. robosignatures, as a means to bolster popular support. See the above link. It is a simple populist message; The People vs. The Banks.

As for the issue of misleading borrowers. I cannot concede that a person can be "tricked" into signing a legally binding document, be it a credit card application or a mortgage. If one does not understand what they are reading why would they sign it? It seems like common sense. And that is what a lot of these borrowers lack. No one forced them to apply for, and agree to their mortgage. And no one forged their signatures. You point to a case of a migrant worker being approved for a loan that was too large for his income. I agree, the lender shouldn't have created the loan, but equal blame must lie with the man who thought he could afford the loan. He couldn't. And if he didn't understand the terms of said loan he shouldn't have signed it. But, he did and must bear the weight of the consequences.
In this nation it seems that the ethics of personal responsibility have deteriorated to such a state that an individual has no problem in claiming complete ignorance of reality. It seems we are always looking for someone else to blame. This current economic crisis is a result of this deterioration, and citizens who have lived responsibly and who have managed to exist and work humbly and modestly now stand to suffer as our government rewards irresponsibility and greed.