Paul Kiel and Olga Pierce: The Obama administration has relied on a voluntary program with few sticks, that simply offers banks incentives to modify mortgages.
Bank Errors Cause Damage to Credit, Distress to Homeowners
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Marian Wang: Some consumers have been surprised to see damage to their credit score after requesting information from the banks.
Foreclosure Paperwork Scandal
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Marian Wang: Though foreclosures continue to speed through courts in some states, in recent months some judges have increasingly questioned banks bringing foreclosure cases in court, forcing them to prove their legal standing to foreclose.
Los Angeles Homeowners Take to the Streets to Protest Foreclosure Abuses
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Peter Dreier: In Los Angeles this Thursday, members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) — a statewide community organizing group — will sponsor a demonstration at a major bank that will include civil disobedience and probably arrests.
Wage Theft: Thou Shalt Not Steal From Your Workers
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David Love: Scrooge arrived just in time for the holidays, with Social Darwinism, bootstraps, slashing and cutting as a prescription for all our woes.
What Is a Wrongful Foreclosure?
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Marian Wang: The issue at the center of the foreclosure scandal isn’t the use of robo-signers and shortcuts in paperwork: It’s whether the banks’ mistakes and lack of due diligence caused people to face wrongful foreclosures.
Ahead of Congressional Hearings, Robo-Signer Scrutiny Spreads
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Marian Wang: Several recent reports about robo-signers have brought fresh attention to another angle of the foreclosure scandal: Robo-signing didn’t just occur in the foreclosure process. It also occurred in the processing of mortgage assignments.
Banks Face New Rules on Foreclosures from Skeptical State Judges
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Marian Wang: As banks resume foreclosures and claim to have added safeguards to their processes, it’s been left up to state court judges to decide whether they buy what the banks are saying. Many judges haven’t.
Mortgage Foreclosures, Housing, and the Current Economic Crisis
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So far, here in the U.S., over 4 million homes have been foreclosed on since mid-2006. Because consumer spending drops drastically whenever housing values decline, the entire U.S. economy has been in a tail-spin throughout this period. Over 10 million jobs have been totally eliminated due to a dramatic drop in consumer sales and the resultant decline in production.
An Inaugural Poem
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America is the greatest country in the world… Or at least that’s what they tell me. The greatest country? Now, exactly what yardstick were you using just now? Such a bold statement with such paltry evidence! Sounds like the words of someone who hasn’t been anywhere, Yet those who have lived, traveled and studied Beyond [...]
2009 as a Litmus Test for Change: Contact Sport or Spectator Sport
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The expectations of the New Year has us all expecting change on some level. Change in the nation’s political direction; change in the global situation; change in the economy; change in the job markets; change in the schools; change in our local communities; change in our personal lives. Funny thing about change? It’s much like [...]
Shall We Call It a Depression Now?
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by Robert Reich – Friday’s employment report, showing that employers cut 533,000 jobs in November, 320,000 in October, and 403,000 in September — for a total of over 1.2 million over the last three months — begs the question of whether the meltdown we’re experiencing should be called a Depression.
Mayor Villaraigosa, Please Help Our Neighbors
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In Los Angeles Zipcode 90042, there are 385 families that may be evicted before the holidays. Of these, 211 live in bank-owned properties, 59 have homes that up for auction, and 115 have homes in foreclosure. We encourage you to sign Motion 07-2438-69, which was proposed by City Council President Eric Garcetti, seconded by Councilmember [...]
We’ve Invested in Wall Street, Now It’s Time to Invest in the Rest of America
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The global economy has been put into the economic equivalent of a full nelson by a financial system threatening to collapse under the weight of a complicated pyramid scheme. The Bush administration sounded dire warnings and cobbled together a vaguely flushed-out rescue plan promising the injection of up to $700 billion of taxpayers’ dollars into [...]
A Warning to All Mortgage Lenders in California and the Nation
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By Ted W. Lieu — Just like unwary homeowners trapped in unsuitable loans and an ever-increasing mountain of debt, many of our nation’s lenders are facing significant difficulties remaining afloat.
The Housing Crisis: Why the Roof Fell In
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By now everyone with a roof over his head has heard about the subprime mortgage mess. Understanding why so many homeowners are defaulting on their mortgages or what mortgage foreclosures have to do with the collapse of the housing market, however, is another matter. To get a better grasp of the mortgage mess I called [...]
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