Posts tagged “financial terrorism”

Quotable: Neil Garfield

Neil Garfield on the Kansas Supreme Court Decision that blocks many foreclosures in the state of Kansas and sets precedent for the rest of the country:

This is one state, but it is likely to serve as the basis for most appellate opinions rendered on securitized loans. The tide has turned. The moral of the story is that those encumbrances (mortgages) don’t exist in most cases, the foreclosures were all fatally flawed, the people who have been chased out of their homes, still own those homes, and the parties seeking to enforce the note can do so only as unsecured creditors and only if they prove that they lent the money that funded the loan and only if they are willing to be subject to counterclaims, cross claims, affirmative defenses and defenses of the borrower relating to predatory lending, appraisal fraud, securities fraud, rescission under all available theories of law, damages, treble damages, punitive damages, exemplary damages and consequential economic damages.Neil Garfield
Attorney and Homeowner Advocate

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The lost armada of consumerism

The ghost fleet lingers off the coast of Singapore

Image: Richard Jones/Sinopix

Thousands of ships float off the coast of Singapore and Malaysia. Never before photographed, this armada exceeds the U.S. and British navies combined.


You are looking at the largest and most secretive gathering of ships since humans returned to the seas. Well, that is the impression of the Daily Mail’s Simon Parry in his fascinating article and I’m hard-pressed to argue. They are parked off the coast of Singapore and Malaysia, crewed by solitary Indian sailors, rusting away while the world economy languishes. This is the hidden reality politicians and economists don’t like to share: things are not getting better. If they were, these ships would be underway.

First we find out about the trash continent, now we have this lost armada of consumerism. What else is just languishing out in the ocean, hidden in plain sight?

Thanks, Jill!

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Factoid: S&L Retribution vs. Bailout Retribution

…between 1990 and 1995 no less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted, and 1,072 placed behind bars. Another 2,558 bankers were also jailed, often for offenses which were S&L-linked too.Gillian Tett
Assistant Editor, Financial Times

This, according to a Department of Justice report. How many jail sentences have you seen meted out to bankers during the last couple years? I can only think of one, Bernie Madoff. I am willing to admit some escaped the radar, but this is hardly justice. The S&L crisis cost taxpayers roughly $124 billion and netted thousands of incarcerations. My how our society has changed.

Via Jon Taplin’s blog

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