Added: 28. January 2011
Tags: AIG, Bailout, Bank of America, Banking, Barack Obama, Barclays, Ben Bernanke, Bush administration, Citigroup, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Foreclosures, George Bush, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Inflation, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Obama administration, Politics, Society, Timothy Geithner, U.S., Wall Street
‘Recovery’ is ‘The Greatest Depression’!
Take the foreclosure tour here:
- A Frightening Satellite Tour Of America’s Foreclosure Wastelands (The Business Insider)
RealtyTrac is out with the total foreclosure numbers for 2010. On the whole things are getting worse.
72 percent of major metro areas saw an increase in foreclosure volume. Although some of the worst hit areas in Nevada, California and Florida improved from 2009, the foreclosure rate in these areas remains shockingly high. If not for some foreclosure suspensions due to the robosigning scandal, these numbers would have been higher.
For a frightening way to visualize the foreclosure crisis, we’re borrowing a Google maps technique described by Barry Ritholtz.
Tags: Economy, Foreclosures, Global News
WASHINGTON Jan 13 (Reuters) – Banks seized more than a million U.S. homes in one year for the first time last year, despite a slowdown in the last few months as questions around foreclosure processing arose, a leading firm said on Thursday.
Banks foreclosed on 69,847 properties in December, bringing the year’s total to 1.05 million, topping the prior record of 918,000 homes seized in 2009, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said.
The number of foreclosure filings, which includes default notices, auctions and repossessions, was a record 2.9 million last year, including 257,747 filings in December.
“Total properties receiving foreclosure filings would have easily exceeded 3 million in 2010 had it not been for the fourth-quarter drop in foreclosure activity — triggered primarily by the continuing controversy surrounding foreclosure documentation and procedures that prompted many major lenders to temporarily halt some foreclosure proceedings,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.
“Even so, 2010 foreclosure activity still hit a record high for our report, and many of the foreclosure proceedings that were stopped in late 2010,-which we estimate may be as high as a quarter million, will likely be re-started and add to the numbers in early 2011,” Saccacio said.
Tags: Economy, Foreclosures, Global News, U.S.
There are always some that have a lot to celebrate:
And how about ‘main street’?
- US Census: Number of Poor People May Be Millions Higher
- US: Food Stamps Used by Record 43.2 Million in October, Up 15 Percent From A Year Ago
- US Consumer Bankruptcies Hit 5-year High in 2010
- Hiding The Greatest Depression: How The US Government Does It:
The real US unemployment rate is not 9.8% but between 25% and 30%. That is a depression level of job losses – so why doesn’t it look like a depression for many people? How can so large of a statistical discrepancy exist, and how is it that holiday shopping malls are so crowded in a depression?
This is the Greatest Depression.
The Great Depression
Most Americans have become so accustomed to the “new normal” of continual economic decline that they don’t even remember how good things were just a few short years ago. Back in 2007, unemployment was very low, good jobs were much easier to get, far fewer Americans were living in poverty or enrolled in welfare programs and government finances were in much better shape. Of course most of this prosperity was fueled by massive amounts of debt, but at least times were better. Unfortunately, things have really deteriorated over the last several years. Since 2007, unemployment has skyrocketed, foreclosures have set new all-time records, personal bankruptcies have soared and U.S. government debt has gotten completely and totally out of control. Poll after poll has shown that Americans are now far less optimistic about the future than they were in 2007. It is almost as if the past few years have literally sucked the hope out of millions upon millions of Americans.
Sadly, our economic situation is continually getting worse. Every month the United States loses more factories. Every month the United States loses more jobs. Every month the collective wealth of U.S. citizens continues to decline. Every month the federal government goes into even more debt. Every month state and local governments go into even more debt.
Unfortunately, things are going to get even worse in the years ahead. Right now we look back on 2005, 2006 and 2007 as “good times”, but in a few years we will look back on 2010 and 2011 as “good times”.
We are in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and the very bad economic choices that we have been making as a nation for decades are now starting to really catch up with us.
So as horrible as you may think that things are now, just keep in mind that things are going to continue to deteriorate in the years ahead.
But for the moment, let us remember how far we have fallen over the past few years. The following are 14 eye opening statistics which reveal just how dramatically the U.S. economy has collapsed since 2007….
#1 In November 2007, the official U.S. unemployment rate was just 4.7 percent. Today, the official U.S. unemployment rate is 9.4 percent.
#2 In November 2007, 18.8% of unemployed Americans had been out of work for 27 weeks or longer. Today that percentage is up to 41.9%.
#3 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#4 Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, which is almost four times as many as were receiving it back in 2007.
#5 More than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers” since the “recession” began in December 2007.
#6 According to one analysis, the United States has lost a total of approximately 10.5 million jobs since 2007.
#7 As 2007 began, only 26 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, an all-time record of 43.2 million Americans are enrolled in the food stamp program.
#8 In 2007, the U.S. government held a total of $725 billion in mortgage debt. As of the middle of 2010, the U.S. government held a total of $5.148 trillion in mortgage debt.
#9 In the year prior to the “official” beginning of the most recent recession in 2007, the IRS filed just 684,000 tax liens against U.S. taxpayers. During 2010, the IRS filed over a million tax liens against U.S. taxpayers.
#10 From the year 2000 through the year 2007, there were 27 bank failures in the United States. From 2008 through 2010, there were 314 bank failures in the United States.
#11 According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of U.S. families with children living in homeless shelters increased from 131,000 to 170,000 between 2007 and 2009.
#12 In 2007, one poll found that 43 percent of Americans were living “paycheck to paycheck”. Sadly, according to a survey released very close to the end of 2010, approximately 55 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.
#13 In 2007, the “official” federal budget deficit was just 161 billion dollars. In 2010, the “official” federal budget deficit was approximately 1.3 trillion dollars.
#14 As 2007 began, the U.S. national debt was just under 8.7 trillion dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt has just surpassed 14 trillion dollars and it continues to soar into the stratosphere.
So is there any hope that we can turn all of this around?
Unfortunately, the massive amount of debt that we have piled up as a society over the last several decades has made that impossible.
If you add up all forms of debt (government debt, business debt, individual debt), it comes to approximately 360 percent of GDP. It is the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world.
If the federal government and our state governments stop borrowing and spending so much money, our economy would collapse. But if they keep borrowing and spending so much money they will continually make the eventual economic collapse even worse.
We are in the terminal stages of the most horrific debt spiral the world has ever seen, and when the debt spiral gets stopped the house of cards is going to finally come down for good.
So enjoy these times while you still have them. Yes, today is not nearly as prosperous as 2007 was, but today is most definitely a whole lot better than 2015 or 2020 is going to be.
Sadly, we could have avoided this financial disaster completely if only we had listened more carefully to those that founded this nation. Once upon a time, Thomas Jefferson said the following….
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.
January 10th, 2011
Source: Economic Collapse Blog
Tags: Bank Failure, Banking, Debt, Economy, Financial Crisis, Foreclosures, Global News, Government, Mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Politics, Society, U.S., Unemployment
Related information:
- Hiding The Greatest Depression: How The US Government Does It
A sign on a foreclosed home is seen in Los Angeles, California (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. home foreclosures jumped in the third quarter and banks’ efforts to keep borrowers in their homes dropped as the housing market continues to struggle, U.S. bank regulators said on Wednesday.
The regulators said one reason for the increase in foreclosures is that banks have “exhausted” options for keeping many delinquent borrowers in their homes through programs such as loan modifications.
Newly-initiated foreclosures increased to 382,000 in the third quarter, a 31.2 percent jump over the previous quarter and a 3.7 percent rise from the same quarter a year ago, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) said in a quarterly mortgage report.
The number of foreclosures in process increased to 1.2 million, a 4.5 percent increase from the second quarter and a 10.1 percent increase from a year ago, according to the regulators.
Tags: Economy, Foreclosures, U.S.
Peace is war and recovery is the Greatest Depression.
(Bloomberg) — U.S. home values are poised to drop by more than $1.7 trillion this year amid rising foreclosures and the expiration of homebuyer tax credits, said Zillow Inc., a closely held provider of home price data.
This year’s estimated decline, more than the $1.05 trillion drop in 2009, brings the loss since the June 2006 home-price peak to $9 trillion, the Seattle-based company said today in a statement.
“It’s definitely going to continue into 2011,” Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief economist, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television today. “The back half of 2010 looked horrible and 2011 should look like the mirror image of that.”
The drop in home values pushed more buyers underwater, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, Zillow said. The percentage of homeowners with mortgages with so-called negative equity reached 23.2 percent in the third quarter, up from 21.8 percent at the end of 2009.
Housing demand has slumped since the start of the year as the government tax credit expired and unemployment hovers near 10 percent. Sales of existing homes in October fell to an annual pace of 4.43 million, compared with 5.98 million a year earlier and an annual average of 5.81 million over the past decade, the National Association of Realtors said Nov. 23. The median price was $170,500, down from $172,000 a year earlier.
Tags: Economy, Foreclosures, Global News, U.S.
… and WTC 7 was brought down by a controlled demolition, says Max Keiser.
29. November 2010
Tags: Banking, Economy, Foreclosures, Global News, Mortgage crisis, Mortgages, U.S.
See also:
- Wells Fargo Admits to Thousands of Foreclosure Mistakes (Daily Finance)
South Florida homeowners have filed suit against three major banks and are demanding more than compensation for what they say were illegal foreclosures.
They want their property back, according to a complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in Miami.
Legal experts, however, say it’s highly unlikely the courts would force out new owners of these homes if they had bought them in good faith, as they would have protection under the law, said Nina Simon, director of litigation for the Center for Responsible Lending. That probably is particularly true in states like Florida, she said, where judges must approve foreclosure actions.
But if the lender or an affiliate still has the property? “Who knows?” Simon said. “A lot of stuff still is in inventory.”
Attorneys who filed the suit have requested it be certified as a class action lawsuit.
The suit, filed on behalf of three Miami-Dade County homeowners, names three major lenders: BAC Home Loans Servicing, a subsidiary of Bank of America; Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, and US Bank National Association. The action alleges that court documents used in the homeowners’ foreclosures were improperly notarized and false, because the agents testifying to the paperwork’s accuracy never personally reviewed it.
Spokesmen for Deutsche Bank and US Bank said their companies acted as trustees for the trusts holding the mortgage securities. So it was not them but the loan servicers, and the foreclosure law firms they employed, that handled the foreclosure procedures referenced in the lawsuit, they said.
Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton said the lender, one of the largest in Florida and the nation, had not yet seen the suit. But in regards to other suits filed against the company, “we believe we have valid defenses against them and intend to vigorously defend against them,” she said.
Tags: Banking, Economy, Foreclosures, U.S.
Complete administrations should have been fired a long time ago:
- Elite Puppet President Obama Exposed
Even firing complete administrations would not solve the problem, because they are all only puppets of the elitists that OWN governments (all big parties), the Federal Reserve, other central banks, the big corporations and the mass media worldwide.
Added: 25. October 2010
The fraudulent CEOs looted with impunity, were left in power, and were granted their fondest wish when Congress, at the behest of the Chamber of Commerce, Chairman Bernanke, and the bankers’ trade associations, successfully extorted the professional Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to turn the accounting rules into a farce.
The FASB’s new rules allowed the banks (and the Fed, which has taken over a trillion dollars in toxic mortgages as wholly inadequate collateral) to refuse to recognize hundreds of billions of dollars of losses. This accounting scam produces enormous fictional “income” and “capital” at the banks.
The fictional income produces real bonuses to the CEOs that make them even wealthier. The fictional bank capital allows the regulators to evade their statutory duties under the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) law to close the insolvent and failing banks.
See also:
- Prof. William Black: Timothy Geithner ‘Burned Billions,’ Shafted Taxpayers on CIT Loan
Tags: AIG, Bank of America, Banking, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Congress, Derivatives, Derivatives market, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Foreclosures, Global News, Mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Obama administration, Politics, Timothy Geithner, U.S., William Black
October 14, 2010
Robert S. Mueller III
Director Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20535Robert O’Neill
US Attorney
Central District of Florida
400 North Tampa Street, Suite 3200
Tampa, FL 33602Dear US Attorney Robert O’Neill and Director Mueller,
When it comes to foreclosures, there is mounting evidence of a state of rampant lawlessness in Central Florida. There are increasing signs that big banks routinely evade laws meant to protect homeowners, in many well-documented cases of ‘foreclosure fraud’. Despite the demonstrated existence, for instance, of ‘robosigners’ signing affidavits attesting to documents that they have never seen, the parties engaging in such misconduct are not being brought to justice. Big banks are mischaracterizing this as mere “technical problems,” and apologizing only where there is clear and very public evidence of harm.
It is not enough for big banks only to apologize for fraud, perjury, and even breaking and entering – when they are caught. It is time for handcuffs. Fraud does not become legal just because a big bank does it.
On September 20, 2010, after my office found evidence of systemic foreclosure fraud perpetrated by big banks and foreclosure mills, I called for a halt to illegal foreclosures.
Since then, big banks such as Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, GMAC, PNC and others have suspended foreclosures or foreclosure sales. These banks are still claiming that the massive fraud they have perpetrated amounts to nothing more than a series of technical mistakes. This is absurd. This is deliberate, systemic fraud, and it is a crime.
Tags: Alan Grayson, Banking, Economy, Foreclosures, Fraud, Government, Politics, U.S.
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