Black Friday Eve

People travel long distances to be with their families on Thanksgiving. The really nice thing about the holiday has always been the focus on family and friends, giving thanks and sharing the bounty of food in a warm homey atmosphere. It's a pleasant contrast to the hubbub of Christmas morning and the focus on gift giving and all the stress of the preparation.

I don't like that stores are open all night. It is a shame. Some people may feel the need to sacrifice their family time to get a good buy with their limited budget, and I feel sorry that people have to make those choices, but other people may actually enjoy shopping for shopping sake. If they do, I hope they do it as a family.

I never go shopping on Black Friday, but I do go skiing. That too, can be disruptive to the Rockwell vision of Thanksgiving- getting up early, driving two hours, battling other ski fanatics on a few over crowded trails of machine made snow, but we all enjoy skiing and it's one of our traditions.

So whether you go shopping or not, take in a movie on Thanksgiving afternoon, or watch the Lions and Cowboys in between the turkey, I hope you do these things with your family, and give thanks for being able to pursue your happiness in a way that brings your family closer together.

Grass Roots Results from Occupy Wall St

  

The Federal Government has a loan modification program that is intended to allow people with upside down loans to modify their mortgage to terms they can live with. A recent case in California was only successful in obtaining a modified loan after the owner went public at an "Occupy Wall St" rally and protested the President of One West Bank at demonstration in front of his 26 million dollar home.

So there may lie the real power of the Occupy Wall St movement.  If every person faced with eviction because they couldn't get a modified loan becomes the site for protests against the banks, I wonder how long the banks will ignore everyone?  The dirty little secret has been that banks have been stonewalling all attempts by homeowners who seek a modified mortgage. Banks all over the country are supposed to be modifying loans, yet few people have been successful in actually obtaining these modified loans.

The subject of this attached story (below) was served an eviction notice from her home and she chose to fight it. She went public. She gained supporters. The banks instantly agreed to a modified mortgage and withdrew the eviction notice.

Now if everyone  all over the country could do the same thing, what an amazing impact that would have on reforming how banks operate. It's about time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44908122/ns/us_news-life/#.TpxL4t6XQgg

Homeowner taps 'Occupy' protest  to avoid foreclosure

California woman's case may show how movement can use its muscle against banks

Jim Seida  /  msnbc.com

Rose Gudiel, at her home in La Puente, Calif., on Oct. 10, waged a long-term battle to save her home from foreclosure. The situation turned around after protests galvanized around her cause.

 — Rose Gudiel and her family were squatters in their own home. They had lost a two-year battle against foreclosure, and the eviction date had arrived. They hunkered down in the house on Sept. 28, surrounded by dozens of homeowner advocates and friends, hoping to stave off forcible removal.

“(The bank) kept saying we can’t do anything. Your case is closed,” said Gudiel. “Our stand was, ‘No, we’re not leaving. This is our home. We worked hard for it and we’re just not going to leave.’”

But instead of the anticipated confrontation, there was a dramatic reversal of fortune. Fanny Mae canceled the eviction notice and offered the Gudiels a loan modification that could enable them keep their home.

Why? Fannie Mae and loan servicer OneWest won’t discuss the case. But nonprofit advocates say a series of bold protests — with reinforcements from the “Occupy Wall Street” movement — and a spate of media interest put Rose in the limelight and forced the banks to back down.

It was a small victory — and Gudiel still has to finalize her deal with the bank — but one that Southern California housing activists hope to repeat. It also provides an example of how the sprawling "Occupy" movement — often criticized for its lack of focus — can lend muscle to specific goals pursued by organizations and individuals.

Gudiel’s version of the foreclosure on the 1,200-square-foot home she has shared with her parents and a brother in this working-class suburb of Los Angeles since 2005 is starkly at odds with the limited information provided by the banks.

According to Gudiel, when she tried to make the $2,500-a-month mortgage payment two weeks late in November 2009, OneWest refused the payment and instructed her to pursue a loan modification, a long process that ultimately ended in rejection in January.

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Gudiel said she fell behind when the family suffered a tragedy and two financial setbacks: Her brother, Michael, was killed in a drive-by shooting, meaning he was no longer contributing to the mortgage payment. At the same time, Gudiel was temporarily earning less in her job with the California Economic Development Department after being furloughed because of the state budget crisis.

Shortly thereafter, Rose Gudiel’s income returned to normal, and a second brother moved in to help with the mortgage.

Gudiel continued to work through the loan modification process but encountered obstacles at every turn, said Peter Kuhns, director of the Los Angeles branch of Association of Californians for Community Empowerment, a nonprofit that has been working on her case.

“Month after month, she supplied documentation to the bank for the modification,” he said. “At the same time, each month she saved the money she would have used to make the house payments so that she could make back payments (so) at any point OneWest could accept her money.”

An impenetrable process 
Gudiel and her advocates say the process was impenetrable. OneWest, the loan servicer, offered no explanation as to why she failed to qualify for loan modification programs. And they say it was impossible to find a contact to work with at Fannie Mae, the lender.

“It’s hard to even know whether they were trying to help her modify the loans,” said Kuhns. “Up until the point when she started to go public, the bank was saying she was not qualified.”

Fannie Mae and OneWest wouldn't divulge details of the case, citing privacy concerns, but indicated that much of the information that has been reported on the case by local media is inaccurate.

KNBC

Rose Marie Gudiel, 63, Rose's mother, pleads for lender Fannie Mae to modify the family's mortgage so they can stay in their home during a protest at the bank's Pasadena, Calif., branch on Oct. 5.

OneWest referred questions to the public relations firm Sard Verbinnen & Co., which said that Fannie Mae, which holds about one-third of the mortgages in the country, had not authorized them to modify the loan.

“OneWest is pleased that it has been able to work with Fannie Mae, the owner of the loan, to authorize it to offer the Gudiels a loan modification that would allow the family to stay in their home,” the firm said in a statement.

Amy Bonitatibus, a spokeswoman for Fannie Mae in Washington, D.C., said: “We have been working closely with all parties throughout the process to identify a solution — and have offered the borrower several solutions that she declined. We have approved another solution through the servicer that we hope the borrower will accept. Our goal is to resolve the issue in a responsible and appropriate way that the borrower can remain in her home.”

Tapping the power 
Before the bank's change of heart, with prospects for keeping the home looking increasingly bleak, the Gudiels decided to go public.

When the five-day notice for eviction notice was posted in September, the family announced they would not leave voluntarily. They rallied loyal neighbors and friends who set up an encampment in her yard. A steady stream of advocates and volunteers brought in supplies and food, and TV crews showed up.

PhotoBlog: Occupy LA

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On Oct. 1, just days after the eviction deadline, thousands of protesters started gathering outside Los Angeles City Hall to launch the “Occupy LA” protest — the local version of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest in New York City. Gudiel thought her story would play well with the protesters and made an appeal at one of the gatherings' first daily “general assembly” meetings.

Gudiel’s story resonated with the crowd, which generally holds the belief that corporate greed and influence have driven the country off the rails.

Hers is a familiar tale here. California is the state hardest hit by foreclosure, with 1.2 million — or one in five nationwide — since 2008, according to Realty Trac.

“At Occupy LA, foreclosure is not the main thing, but…  it really is the one thing that has truly pushed people to the limit,” said Sergio Ballesteros, an “Occupy LA” organizer who works on its education and workshops committee. “It is the one thing that is so tangible … kicking people out of their homes that some feel they were swindled into ... coupled with the fact that these banks that are foreclosing actually are making a lot of money. This is at the heart of the idea that we have to do something.”

After her talk, some protesters went to Gudiel’s home in the suburbs to join the vigil, and some stayed to camp.

On Oct. 4, “Occupy LA” protesters joined in a 200-strong protest with Gudiel in front of the $26 million Bel Air mansion of OneWest CEO Steve Mnuchin.

A day later, many joined her at a sit-in at the Pasadena branch of Fannie Mae, where television captured Rose Gudiel’s disabled mother giving an impassioned plea for her home. Rose, her mother, Rose Marie and seven other protesters — some of them from “Occupy LA” — were arrested, and taken away in a paddy wagon as TV cameras rolled. They were cited and quickly released.

The next day, Rose Gudiel announced to a cheering crowd that she had received a letter from the bank inviting her to discuss a loan modification proposal.

‘Bank terrorist’ 
The Gudiels are not the first to win back their home through protest — and not the first to do so after foreclosure, said Bruce Marks, founder of the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, a nonprofit based in Boston. Marks, a longtime mortgage broker, is well known for using protests to win concessions from banks for distressed homeowners.

“It’s very exciting, and we think it’s very effective for “Occupy Wall Street” and “Occupy LA” to do,” Marks said.

Marks has led hundreds of protesters armed with bullhorns and signs to the homes of financial industry titans, including Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, Greenwich Financial Services CEO William Frey and Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein, in some cases winning mortgage modifications for distressed homeowners within hours.

Marks’ approach is controversial, earning him a reputation as a “bank terrorist” — which he wears as a badge of honor, though he adds that he is a “non-violent bank terrorist.” But he sees the strategy as gaining steam and believes each demonstration benefits many people.

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“It has a tremendous impact,” Marks said. “Now at OneWest you are going to see a lot more solutions. … The people getting (benefit from the protest) won’t even know that those two hundred people put themselves on the line.”

 Video: Employed but on the brink of foreclosure

Individuals also are contemplating the "go public" option more often.

Rob Somerton and his wife, Ana, are considering making a public stand, if necessary, to save their 1,300-square-foot home in the Northern California town of Cobb.

They said their effort to modify a mortgage with Bank of America has led nowhere, as they have documented on a Facebook page, which now has more than 1,400 followers, many of whom are reporting their own struggles with banks. They recently received a 90-day notice for a foreclosure sale.

Somerton’s advice to others is: “Stay in your home. Do not leave. Stick it out no matter what. As this thing Occupy Wall Street grows and builds, I’ve seen a lot more people coming around to that. Do not cooperate. Do not fall for the ploys. Stay in your home until the sheriff arrives.”

If it comes to it, he said he plans to tap into the movement for help: “I’ve got a friend involved in Occupy San Francisco," he said. "… He’s telling me if it comes down to the wire, and I need support, he can mobilize one or two hundred people to come and occupy the property. It would be streamed live.”

Ultimately, nonprofits like the Association of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) — and dozens of others united as the Refund California coalition — are pursuing policy changes that would reform the mortgage system and implement tax changes, including adding a foreclosure tax to raise money that could be used to rebuild neighborhoods blighted by vacant homes.

'CEOs need to see homowners faces' 
Another proposed reform is for California to set up a mandatory foreclosure mediation program, which would require the homeowner and banker to make their case before a judge. States where these programs are in place have seen a sharp decline in foreclosure rates, said Kuhns of the ACCE.

“No, it shouldn’t happen this way,” he said of the protest surrounding Gudiel. “Isn’t it ridiculous that Rose has had to go to having people camp out at her house and getting arrested with her elderly mother to get what they were already qualified for?”

But Kuhns said policy changes remain a long way off, so he and other housing activists are considering using bank protests on a wider scale: “It’s a campaign called ‘Let a thousand Roses bloom,’” he said.

Marks, the Boston activist, said that from his experience, that approach would be effective.

“It personalizes what is going on and gets back to a fundamental tenet of America, called personal responsibility,” he said. “This is what the CEOs of these huge institutions forget. They need to see the homeowners’ faces to understand the consequences. They need to meet the parents, meet the children.”

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Let the Class Warfare Games Begin!

I find it so amusing that GOP politicians are raising the “class warfare” card because President Obama dares to suggest that millionaires should pay their share of taxes. And FOX news talking heads distort the argument by suggesting that small businesses are the victims of this proposal. That’s bull! Any small business owner that nets a taxable profit of more than million dollars isn’t that small! 

Maybe it is class warfare, but it’s been going on for over 80 years.  The GOP has been relentless in their opposition to Social Security and unions the entire time. The GOP just wants to shelter the rich from taxes and Democrats want to protect everybody else. So when the GOP lines up on their side of this battle, they’ll have a half a million to a million people behind them. When the Democrats line up on their side, they’ll have 349 million people behind them.  No contest!

The GOP Solution to Unemployment-Forget About It!

The hard truth is we're addicted to cheap products from China. And that’s where all our jobs went. Decades of productivity improvements also made it possible for companies to produce more goods using less labor.  Big business and government have been relentless in killing off organized labor. Multinational corporations continue to optimize their profits through worldwide labor exploitation, regardless of how people’s lives are affected.

So we’re stuck with too many people. I believe we’re in for a long ride of high unemployment until those people retrain or emigrate to another country for employment opportunity. Unfortunately, most prosperous countries won’t take immigrants- even from the US.

Also, the economy is stalled because people are not buying on credit, much to the chagrin of the banking industry. If we continue to retrench down to an economy based on less debt, unemployment will persist while we wean ourselves off of the greatest ponzzi scheme of all times- artificial growth based on over consumption through debt spending encouraged by the Federal Government, Wall St and the megabanks.

But wait, the GOP has the solution (uh, the final solution?). The GOP would have us return to the good old days. Daylight savings time is coming to an end- so turn your clocks back a hundred years! They would eliminate all taxes, all regulations, and have government just get out of the way. Forget the very sick, the very poor, and the very old people. They will just have to hurry up and die, because the GOP sees them as acceptable collateral damage in exchange for liberty. This was exemplified by the shouts from the Tea Party crowd at the Republican debate last Monday when candidates were asked what to do about a 30 year old sick man without insurance- They shouted, “Let him die!” That’s not a solution. That’s disgusting.

We’re Heading for Armadebton!

We’re heading for Armadebton.  One way out of this mess is to go into default, declare bankruptcy, and then get China to forgive our debt. Just wipe the slate clean and start over. After all, this isn’t real money anyway. It’s only a perceived value. The stock market could crash back to where it belongs… say… around 5000.  Half of the banks would dry up. Middleclass America wouldn’t miss them anyway. 

We could also cut spending drastically by 20 to 30 percent.  But unemployment will push up to 25 to 30 percent. And don’t expect any unemployment checks. You’ll just have to sit on the porch and whittle souvenirs for the rich Chinese tourists. Or people will leave America and seek a new life where opportunities abound in the Old World- or in China, India, Brazil- the new frontiers of economic exploitation.

The only other way out this debt is through massive inflation. If we could just make inflation get bigger- say up to 10 or 15 % annually, then our outstanding debt would shrink like my old mortgage. This is actually a nice by-product of default because our interest rates will skyrocket like a sailor’s payday loan when our bond rating tanks.

There. That was easy.

President Obama Flinches Once Again

The newly created Consumer Protection Bureau was the brainchild of Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren. She is a woman of unequaled credentials to head up the new bureau and she would put teeth in the fight to protect consumers from shady and often confusing banking practices. Ms Warren has been a tireless advocate and spokesperson for consumer rights for many years. 

This bureau came out of the financial reforms in the Dodd-Frank Bill. It’s intended to put safeguards in place to prevent a recurrence of the financial meltdown that occurred in 2008. Among other things, it removes “too big to fail” protections for banks, and is intended to make banks operate at a lower risk level with other people’s money.  The banks don’t want any restrictions and they don’t want the bureau to exist. They’ve vehemently opposed the bill, with unanimous support from their congressional lackeys, the GOP.  The GOP wants to water down the authority of the Bureau and make it something the banks can go along with. Frankly, the best test of the power of the new bureau would be just how much the banks hate it. After all, it’s the banks that are being policed by the new bureau.  If they were happy with it, then we’d know it was useless.

President Obama has obviously had his arm twisted by the banking lobby on Wall St., and smelling a threat of campaign donations, he’s caved into the bank cartel and not appointed Ms Warren to the position she most richly deserves. The GOP has stated unequivocally that they will not approve any person to lead the Consumer Protection Bureau, and they are fighting to modify and water down the role it will play in financial regulation. Given that all appointees will be rejected, why hasn’t the President taken the high ground on this issue? Furthermore, why didn’t he make a recess appointment while Congress was in recess?

What we are witnessing is the hidden power of the banking industry. The President can’t afford the political liability of turning the banking industry against him. So we are witnessing a quiet and scary exercise of Wall St power over the most powerful man in the world, albeit not the most powerful entity in the world.

Osama Bin Laden

I was drifting off to sleep when I heard NPR announce Bin Laden’s demise Sunday night.  I was disturbed that a world would celebrate the taking of a life, yet I understand the reservoir of pent up grief that was released- a huge balloon pricked and no longer able to hold back the tension.  I cried for the victim's friends and relatives, and felt a huge release of tension vicariously as they stood near Ground Zero holding little flags with welt up tears dripping from their cheeks. 

Is justice served?  Are we free to pick and choose when trials are not needed, and when capital punishment can be ordered from the power of a President?  Like all values in life, there are exceptions. Maybe this is one of those exceptions. Hitler was an exception.  Their lives were the trial- witnessed by the world. The punishment was implicitly accepted by the world.

Do I like that we executed an evil man without do process, even though his guilt was self proclaimed? No. Yet it seems appropriate. Are we a morally strong enough to restrict actions like this to only the rarest of evil doers who defy all morality  and inflict death upon  thousands of innocent people? I hope so. 

Day of Rage in Madison Wisconsin

Americans are coming out in unprecedented numbers to protest Governor Walker's  attempt kill the Teacher's Union.  Conservatives want to punish teachers for a recession that was created by Wall St gluttony and insane unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Teachers remain among the lowest paid college educated profession, possibly second only to preachers.

Conservatives are quick to blame union rules for shoddy student performance, yet the facts don't support that claim. CNN reported:  “… conservative governors and mayors want to abolish teachers' right to due process, their seniority, and -- in some states -- their collective bargaining rights. Right-to-work states do not have higher scores than states with strong unions. Actually, the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members”.

America’s teachers are fed up with being under paid and we could be on the verge of a new revolution- a nation wide teacher strike for fair wages- just the opposite effect the anti-unionists are seeking.

If we do get rid of the “bad” teachers, and continue to under pay the good teachers, what can we expect? If the wages for teachers stays low, or even reduced, and benefits are reduced, many people who will end up being hired to replace the “bad” teachers are just more “bad” teachers.  Threatening teachers with the loss of their job based on student performance will not motivate teachers to do their job better. That’s a draconian stick without a carrot.  If the students' performance improves, do the teachers get a bonus or salary increase? No. They just get to keep their job and work with the anxiety of being fired next year.

We seem to lose the perspective of why teachers are given pensions and healthcare in the first place.  Teachers are all under paid. Pensions, health care and job security were benefits provided to teachers for being under paid. Healthcare may have been an affordable alternative to higher pay in the past, but soaring healthcare costs and the large baby boomer bubble of aging teachers is now beginning to break the budgets.  Also, pensions were instituted to offset the lower wages and give teachers a security cushion that governments viewed as a convenient deferred expense- that too, is now coming home to roost.

I’m all for doing away with unions, but only when teachers are paid their true worth- maybe twice their current salary. If a college grad could earn a salary comparable to engineers and other industry professionals, then talented people might be drawn into the teaching profession. Instead of just firing the “bad” teachers, we should be hiring “good” teachers by being competitive with the free market of college grads. Until this happens, the beatings will continue until performance improves, or America’s teachers may have their own national “day of rage”.

President Reagan Would be 100

While the conservatives seem to be canonizing Ronald Reagan on the 100^th year of his birth, all the Reagan worshipers seem to have ignored one of the great statements of Reaganism, including George Bush Junior.

"The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression -- to preserve freedom and peace.” - Ronald Reagan, 1983’

Blogging Through the Gas Mask

Egyptian authorities quickly and neatly shut down all communications in an attempt to disrupt grass roots coordination of demonstrations and protests against President Mubarack.  What the government seems to miss is that frustration and anger with the government has gone way beyond posting one-liners on Facebook. The communication has gone super-personal… face to face… and texting for the moment anyway, is not relevant while you’re throwing rocks at policemen, ducking bullets and running from tear gas clouds.

The very neat and clean shut down of 21^st century communications is just another example of why the people have gone to the streets, and if nothing else, reinforces their resolve for democracy and fuels their anger to seek reforms in the face of real and personal danger to their lives.

We’re witnessing a modern day storming of the Bastille. Our Government is caught mumbling for restraint, calm, and talks with both sides because we’re “all-in” with Mubarack and have been for decades. Egypt receives the second largest amount of foreign aid from the US. And while we like the notion of democracy, we still prefer a dictator who will take our money and do our bidding in the interest of “stability”, rather than allow the people to choose a government that may not be a puppet of our economic empire.

Authoritarian dictators supported by the US rule most of the Arab countries. If they lose control, we lose control. When the chips are down, we’ll choose preserving our economic empire over human rights and liberties of any people. This is only the beginning of what may be a long and ugly moral dilemma for our Government in the Middle East as we struggle to maintain control of the regions oil resources.

Flash- Crazy Man Goes Crazy

I’m as appalled as everyone by the senseless shooting in Tucson, but as much as I’d like to blame it all on Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, that’s a putt too far for me.  Civility has long since left the political lexicon. And yes, we need a return to more civility and more respect for people with opposing views- even radical views, but that's a different issue.  Jared Loughner has a history of untreated mental illness.  He’s a sick person. Sick people do crazy things. How he managed to go through life undetected and untreated is yet another issue for discussion in this tragedy.

But let's be frank. There are a lot of crazy people in the world. Politicians and radio talking heads could be blamed for firing them up, but hey, these people are already pretty fired up and ready to commit atrocities. Like all crimes, they need means, motive and opportunity. Their illness is their motive. It's up to the public to deny them the means (guns, bombs, etc) and opportunity ( such as public gatherings). Blaming the shootings on Sarah Palin is a joke. We should cut the Momma Grizzly a little slack. Her target metaphors are no worse than when President Obama said, “… if you want to win a knife fight, bring a gun…” 

What we really need is an adult conversation about gun control and how we can establish limits on what can be purchased.  The second amendment was written when all rifles were single shot muskets. We don't allow fully automatic rifles. Why can't we have protection  to prevent people from purchasing high capacity 30 bullet magazines for pistols? That’s what’s crazy about this tragedy.  Why should any civilian need to kill something 31 times in self-defense? It's time we limited all large capacity ammo  to law enforcement and the military, period.  


When crazy people do crazy things, they’re not in control of their actions, they're just the delivery agent. The gun is the murderer.  The NRA should stop looking at the world through its rectum and start promoting safer gun laws rather fighting every attempt by Congress to improve gun safety. We can’t eliminate crazy people, but we can make the world a little safer by eliminating crazy guns.

What happens when China starts to behave like America?

Think about it. Everything we do in the international community is done because our interests are at stake. Or we perceive they are. Or we convince the world it’s the right thing to do. Or if we don’t take action, then nobody will.

We were the world's leading power of the 20^th century. Now China is well on its way to replacing us in this century.  Since 2009 China is the largest energy consumer, so what might we expect them to do? Follow in our footsteps?  We could view this push to the backseat as a threat to our world dominance, or we could breath a great big sigh of relief and let China become the world’s whipping post.  We might need to suck up our pride to in order to sit comfortably as number 2, but life could become so much simpler. We could live in the shadow of China, and be more like, you know—Canada, UK and Australia.  We might have to change our national bird to the Turkey- something more conciliatory than a predator. This would make Ben Franklin very happy. And of course China could become the majority financier of the UN and have the privilege of hosting the UN in their country. 

I can’t wait until the next world crisis comes along and Chinese President Hu Jintao says, “Bring it on”. Can’t you just see him landing on an aircraft carrier with a huge banner (electronic no doubt) that says, “Mission Accomplished”?  Then maybe we can go off quietly and fund domestic things like health care, infrastructure and education. Someday we might even be manufacturing goods that are exported to China and sold at the Beijing Walmarts.  Yep, that would be the life.