Economic Crsis: Let Judgement Begin With the House of God.

the 99% waking up


As I look at the Occupy Wall Street throngs, which amuse and delight me to no end, I can't help but think how inevitable this is and how totally avoidable it was if American society had just had a bit of actual valuing of the things to which it pays tribute with it's mouth. Who is really to blame. Any Rand contributed some by influencing the lust for greed and giving philosophical permission to ignore restraint and common sense. Yet we can't get too carried away blaming anyone group or philosopher. Before we start blaming the other party, the secular humanists, the republicans the democrats the atheists and vegans British petroleum and who have you, we need to think about ourselves. Follow my reasoning now becuase I think I can show that the whole thing could have been avoided if people in American business, especially real estate, were as much into seeking the Christian life as they are talking about it on Sunday.

So the first step in my argument is to show that the housing crisis was the lynch pin that started the dominoes falling. There's an excellent chart that traces the crisis through quotes of the major figures and show the pivotal nature of housing.

It's way to big to post here but if you follow it out it shows how pivotal housing was in the whole problem. That is found on the website of an insurance company (mint life) and summed by the this quote:

Almost overnight, the talking heads went from perpetuating the euphoria of investors to rushing to pronounce the economy dead. Last year, when lenders started dropping like flies as foreclosures rose and margins were called, the problems of Wall Street became more and more apparent, and lending guidelines were tightened to the point that many individuals were stuck in their time-bomb loans, and thus began a vicious cycle. But what led to this? Here is a visual guide to help you understand the events leading up to the bailout.

Another quote from a different source that sums up the pivotal nature of the housing problem.

The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was one of the first indicators of the ... Domino effect as housing prices declined .... Subprime lending was a major contributor to this increase in home ownership rates and in the overall demand for housing, ...... to be rescued in crises the way banks are, should be regulated like a bank. ...

Housing didn't cause the crisis but it helped bring it on and if the housing crsis had not happened the crisis might not have happened.

Many have blamed Ayn Rand. The Ayn Rand people are scrambling to argue that it's actually too much regulation that did it. We need of selfish economic gluttony and less punishment for the criminals who steal houses and have gotten away Scot free. That's about as intelligent as bleeding people with leaches; the patient hemorrhaging well bleed him some more let more bad blood out. Greenspan was a Rand enthusiast and the whole of wall Street did become engrossed in selfish economic gluttony and tried to just run everything with no government and whatever they could get away with they deserved to keep.


Back in the early part of the decade when I used to see 'get rich quick' scam ads featuring real estate as the golden goose I knew at that time we were in for a crisis some day. I would see ads and things talking about how easy breezy it is to "buy houses and flip them" one need never be poor again. I thought to myself "doesn't anyone ever buy houses to live in anymore?" I said then "it's going to go bust." Little did I know how right I was. The greed of America, we exist to make money. We live to get more stuff. It never has to stop, the market will always go up and up. Guess what, the bubble did burst. Who takes the fall? The poor average American, people who just want to live in a nice little house with their memories of helping their father. The bastards who grow richer every day by sucking the blood of such ordinary people don't have to pay because they are the ones the laws are designed to protect, not the struggling homeowner but the brigandage which exists to feed off the homes of Americans.

The predictable results:The Foreclosure crisis is now spread over 2 million homes.

PBS News Hour Extra. Oct 22, 2010

Since the economic crisis began in December 2007, millions of Americans have lost their homes to foreclosure, sending families scrambling to find a place to live -- sometimes moving into relatives' houses, settling in homeless shelters or on the streets.

Foreclosure, which is when a bank takes away a house because the owner cannot pay back a loan, is at the heart of the economic crisis. During the 1990s and up until 2007, banks and lenders encouraged people to buy expensive homes with loans far beyond their earnings. In some cases, lenders tricked homebuyers with payment schedules designed to start out low, but balloon after a few years.

More than 2.5 million Americans are currently at risk of losing their homes. In recent weeks there have been halts to foreclosures due to questions about paperwork and whether lenders and banks followed the rules when processing foreclosure paperwork. In Florida, activists such as Lisa Epstein have been investigating banks' fraudulent mortgage practices, including using ”robo-signers” to sign legal documents necessary to evict vulnerable homeowners.

Confirmation on the number from real estate sources

Based on RealtyTrac data, since December 2007 (the official start of the recession) and through June 2010 there have been a total of 2.36 million U.S. properties repossessed by lenders through foreclosure (REO). In addition there have been 3.48 million default notices and 3.46 million scheduled foreclosure auctions.

Thanks to action by States Attorneys general there was a temporary moratorium on the illegal house stealing. but that's back on now. Their house stealing only slacked off for a few weeks. That's just a temporary lull. The temporary stop is due to action by attorneys general. It has been found that mortgage companies were illegally foreclosing, just rushing paperwork through without any actual regard to real documentation of the house. This is nothing more than thieving. They are literally house thieves.

PBS

Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank, had stopped foreclosures as it investigated its methods, but plans to restart its foreclosure offices as early as October 25.

Illegal Foreclosures? The State investigates Three Top South Florida Law Firms....
all Business a D&B company

By By KIMBERLY MILLER Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Publication: LexisNexis
Date: Wednesday, August 11 2010

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Three of Florida's largest foreclosure law firms are under investigation by the state attorney general following allegations they illegally rushed thousands of cases through the court system.

The firms, dubbed "foreclosure mills" because of the large volume they handle, are the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson in Fort Lauderdale; Shapiro & Fishman, which has offices in Boca Raton and Tampa; and the Plantation-based firm of David J. Stern. All three handle foreclosures in Palm Beach County.

Tuesday's announcement of the investigation by the Economic Crimes Division of the attorney general's office says "thousands of final judgments of foreclosure against Florida homeowners may have been the result of the allegedly improper actions of the law firms."

Several reports have surfaced in recent months of judges throwing out foreclosure cases in which key documents, such as assignments of mortgages and notes, appear to be doctored, backdated or filed by groups with no standing to foreclose on a property.

Also, attorneys defending homeowners against foreclosure have complained the amount owed a lender on a defaulted loan sometimes cannot be substantiated.

The convoluted boom-time financial practice of repeatedly buying, selling and bundling mortgages exacerbates the situation, making it difficult sometimes to determine who is truly owed the balance of a home loan.

"On numerous occasions, allegedly fabricated documents have been presented to the courts in foreclosure actions to obtain final judgments against homeowners," the statement from Attorney General Bill McCollum says.

Foreclosure mills cranking out the theft of houses. Not just in Florida. It's all 50 states:

Action Alert
Carl C. Asbury Save My Home Lawgroup

Action Alert – Foreclosure Fraud – Tell your Attorney General “Don’t Sit Down with the Banks! Stand up Against Fraud!”

Posted by Foreclosure Fraud on October 29, 2010 ·

A 50-state task force investigating U.S. foreclosure practices may meet with lenders as early as this week, less than a month after JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. suspended some home seizures.

“We’ve had several conference calls with major lenders,” Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said in an interview, declining to specify which ones. “The banks want to sit down with the attorneys general. These meetings are being set up,” said Suthers, whose office is a member of the executive committee of the task force.

All 50 states on Oct. 13 announced a coordinated inquiry into whether banks and loan servicers used false documents and signatures to justify hundreds of thousands of foreclosures. The probe came after JPMorgan and Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC mortgage unit said they would stop repossessions in 23 states where courts supervise home seizures and Bank of America froze foreclosures nationwide.

Not only have the mortgage companies been found to be actual thieves, as I thought way back when I was dealing with them, but even the people claim to have you, the knights in shining armor who are going to come to your rescue are merely vultures circling waiting end. The state of Indiana has taken action

Indiana Real estate Rama

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller urges Hoosiers to avoid foreclosure rescue scams

VINCENNES, IN - October 21, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) — Many homeowners facing foreclosure who are frustrated with their loan servicers turn to for-profit foreclosure consultants whose advertisements often promise any home can be saved from foreclosure and their services are 100% guaranteed. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller today announced the filing of 10 lawsuits against companies making such claims calling them false and illegal, including one complaint which was filed today in Knox County against Integrated Financial Solutions, headquartered in New Jersey. All of that going on like business as usual. These are not gangsters or drug dealers in crack housing stealing homes, these are ordinary Americans, by all demographics 80% Christians, chruch goers 50% nice people doing business as usual. It would American of them not to do it.

These so-called ‘foreclosure consultants’ are taking advantage of Hoosiers who are facing desperate financial hardships and scamming them out of thousands of dollars. They are operating illegally and this will not be tolerated in Indiana,” Zoeller said. “Working to protect Hoosier consumers includes bringing actions against those who violate our state laws and also warning people to protect themselves, their family and their neighbors - don’t let a loved one fall victim to these scams, no matter how convinced they may be of their legitimacy.”

The lawsuits were filed in nine different Indiana counties by Zoeller and his team of deputy attorneys general serving in the Homeowner Protection Unit. The coordinated filing was done in an effort to raise awareness of the pitfalls of hiring for-profit foreclosure rescue companies.

So even the 'good guys' are the bad guys. The only good guys in it are the victims who lose their houses. No one is there to help them and even the laws are against them. The mortgage company, which is just a better organized gang of thieves, those are the one's the laws protect. The media is complicit too. look at the huge discrepancy when they talk about causes. Everyone is afraid to call it like it is. PBS attributes the crisis to lowering prices.


PBS source above

Part of the financial crisis, however, is that the value of homes has dropped sharply. Therefore, many homeowners who pay their mortgage on time still owe more than their home is worth. For example, if you bought a house for $300,000 in 2007, your house might be worth $150,000 today. Owing more than the house is worth is called being "under water."

why are home prices low? The falling prices didn't start until 2007 when the crisis was well underway. There were forsale signs all over the place before I even lost my house in 2006. Why were the prices falling? Because suddenly all the get rich quickers knew the bubble had burst. The golden goose was dead and they wanted out of the housing market. The only people still in the housing market were people who actually wanted to live in the houses. By that time the prices were falling. Mortgage companies blame scape goat lends of subprogram loans, and of cousre the evil victims willing to take the loans.

Now all of that is pivotal to the rest of the crisis. Without the housing crisis the banks and the rest of it probalby would either not happened or been forestalled for some time. The same kind of economic gluttony and selfish lack of restraint is also at work in all other areas, especially the banking industry. Remember Enron?

Before we resort to the kind of hysterics the insurance companies engininered the summer of o9 with the death panels and fights at town meetings and tear the country apart over abstrous economic theorie most of us don't understand anyway, and ideologies most of us are not well read in, let's go back to the basics. If people had unselfish, people had not followed an ethic that greed is good and unrestrained greed is even better, a sharp cookie deserves to keep whatever he can get his hands on, followed the rules they way they were meant to be would this hapepned? We would have had no core housing crisis to set off the banking crisis and no excuse/reason/need for the bail outs. Without chaning any laws at all we could have avoided the whole thing if people had used some guts and some ethics and not accepted predatory lending.

I'm not saying we can just increase our chruch going and we don't need economic reform. Of cousre we do, it's all very complex so we need more education to understand the reforms so we know who to vote for. We need structural change in the system and I am still a Socialist (within democratic limits--including small businesses). Without messin with any of that the whole thin probalby would not have happened if people lived up the Gospel they claim to believe. How many of those predatory lenders were going to chruch on Sunday and singing about Jesus and praying to God and being told "God wants you to make money, name it claim it?" If those people had followed their consciences and if their consciences had been guided by the Holy Spirit and the conviction of the Lord the whole thing would have no happened.

the first thing we have to do is start with our own hearts. We need to ask ourselves hard questions about "do I really believe in God or believe in money wearing the Mask of God?" Then we need to follow Jesus and stick to what he says. Put that firs ahead of the money making bit.

The lesson is it matters what we do. I matters that we do the right thing or that we don't do it.

Ruins of Faith:Letter From Long Time Christian Giving UP The Faith

This is from the blog Debunking Christianity

 Our efforts here at DC are Having an Effect

By John W. Loftus at 6/10/2010

"Here's an email I received from a man named Robert:"

John,

Thank you for the time and effort you have put into your writing. I am a Christian of nearly 30 years; devout, church going, prayerful. I first found infidels.org about 2 years ago and it opened me up to the possibility that the Bible is false.

 I always beware when I see one of these "long time Christian realized faith is buss shit." It really makes me angry and sick because whatever he says, no matter how banal or silly, he claims he's a Christian so he has to be one. This is one of the basic tenets of the New atheist faith, that there is no such thing as a false members of a group, any and all members of groups regardless of their experiences automatically represent that group it it's fullest and most articulate epitome. Otherwise, if anyone claims "we wasn't really a good Chieftain" they will say "that's no true Scotsman fallacy." Or they will say "how can you tell what a real christian is? I can't tell so therefore, no one can tell."

Of course it's always impolitic to try and claim that this guy I don't know is not a good Christian or isn't' one at all just becuase he fell away, that would be like saying "no one can disagree with me, the very act of doing so is proof enough that he's wrong." Mot atheists will admit that it doesn't prove anything that this guy fell away. He would have sat in the cry room for 30 years and done nothing, just went through the motions and did not spiritual growth at all so it is not proof of anything that he fell away. I've been a Christian almost 40 years, why isn't my faith proof that it's true? But that never goes over because just the act of objecting marks one as a fuss budget who can't truck disagreement.

On the other hand, it is common place to find many Christians who have been in the faith for years and are no strong, just go thorough the motions and don't bother to grow, not cultivated their relationships with God. Sleeping in a garage doesn't make you a car, sleeping in Church does not make you a Christian, nor does it bestow the full richness of Christian experience. But To be fair say he was a growth oriented one time strong Christian. There's something more important than being a Christian in terms of testimony of the truth. That something is experience of God in your life. One  must keep growth coming. I don't subscribe to the concept that a "true Christian" can't fall away because I don't believe in eternal secularist or pre destination because I'm not a Calvinist. I do believe that if you want to be kept Christ will keep you. I don't believe that Hebrews six is about nothing. It must, therefore, be possible for even a born again person to fall away. The falling away of such a person does not prove anything in relation to the truth claims of Christianity.

Btw I also believe that atheists are misusing the No true Scotsman thing, see my essay on that.

 The prodigal Christian continues:

I then started listening to you and Ken Pulliam, Luke Muehlhauser and a few others. I've read The Christian Delusion and talked with some of the most scholarly Christians I know about how they would respond to what skeptics are saying.

 Here's his second mistake. It's just as plain as day. He began listening to Loftus! How in the hell can he expect not to be confused? I'm teasing. John is a friend of mine and he is very bright and learned. Seriously, he begins having doubts, why does he go to the people who specialize in widening the cracks and deepening doubt? Did he try to close the cracks by listening to Christians who specialize in plugging them up? He I don't remember him on my website. So one thing we do know is he did not consult the best apologists, right? We do know that, right? Well anyway (I heard that). One clue perhaps is that he said he went along for 28 years and then one day because he stumbles onto the secular web he begins to think maybe it's not true. It just seems likely to me that anyone who spend 28 years going to chruch saying he's a Christian and just begins after that to think it might be true is not much of a thinker. Perhaps such a person hasn't wrestled with faith and thus this would imply that his faith is to deep. Faith is deep when we go through the fire. Faith gets deep when we are tested and doubt. It's a dialectic, faith is an answer to doubt. No doubt means no faith.

 CP (Christian Prodigal)

I think about these issues every day:

 Why? After 28 years, why think about them everyday now? Because he hasn't before. Of couse his thinking now is not being fed by people who have gone through he struggle before and found strength and answers, it's fed by people who have a vested interest in denuding his faith. Don't see answers for the living among the dead. If you are wounded by attackers, do you turn to those attackers to bet help? He was wounded by the secular web, people who are designing to destroy faith and he turns to those very people to learn more. Are those guys going to give him both sides? will they have Christian answers that promote faith and really do the job of answering? In a pigs eye! He spent 28 years not cultivating a deep faith then when he needs one he goes right over to the enemy and starts cultivating the death of what little faith he had. What sense does that make? He never really gave his faith a chance.

 It's also pretty instructive what he finds as "serious questions:"

-- Why does the Bible condone sex-slavery and genocide?

Yea that's a good one. Gee, that verse that says "thou shalt have a sex slave and destroy whole races." which commandment? that's the 134th commandment I think. Its' in the third book of Sapient. Of cousre there is no such passage. There is no passage that says to have sex slaves or kill people. Why would this guy, brave mature Christian in the faith 28 years think that this is a fair and valid way to reflect the truth of the Bible? He wouldn't unless he's pretty deeply into falling away already.  Did he even try to read Glen Miller's stuff on Slavery in the Bible? Does even know the history of the abolition movement? Not to mention my stuff on OT and Social oppression.

-- Why would a super-intelligent God seem unable to communicate his will without confusing millions of devout followers?

Of course here one has a huge range of ideas and answers to choose from, from the  vast range of liberal theology to notions of Biblical inspiration and what it means, to the answers brought by conservative evangelicals. In his 28 years of spiritual ferment it never occurred to him to think about the nature of God. Why chuck out the whole concept at once when some other concept of the same idea might not be closer to the truth? For example why give up the idea that there is a God based upon the strident nature of the OT when the idea of process theology God would explain why God's will isnt' obvious? For that matter mystical theology explains. For that matter so does my soeteriolgoical drama.

-- Why are the gospel accounts of Jesus death and resurrection in disagreement about what actually happened?

In 28 years it never dawned on him to read a harmony? They easy to come by. The answers are not difficult. Read my thing above on the nature of Biblical inspiration and then read my Resurrection Harmony.

-- Why did Jesus tell people he would come again "in this generation" if it would be thousands of years later?

He didn't. Do some research. There many possible answers. To understand you need to read the link on Biblical inspiration first. Basically it's a gloss on answers to two different questions, they got them switched becuase the redactors assumed they were the same event. the two questions are

(1) When will the temple be destroyed

(2) When will you come back (assumes he's going away, they don't ask about that)

the answer 1: "in this generation"

the answer 2: "when you see the angels coming in the  clouds.

but becuase they assumed these are the same event, an assumptino necessary for them since they could not imagine Judaism without the temple they reduce the two questions to one then mix up the answers so that the answer to question 1 becomes the answer to Q 2 and vice versa.

But this guy's question about the issue imply that he was in fundie churches. He's one who thinks Bible must be literal and perfect and every single thing is literally truth. This is why i'm not a fundie because the only thing that view is good for is letting people down. Why does he not examine liberal theology before the gives up faith completely? Because he's been brain washed to think liberal = evil!

When I am honest - when I stop making stupid excuses for what the Bible says (and not what I want it to say) - the answers are obvious.

But at this point doesn't he want an excuse to leave the faith? Hasn't it become tiresome and hard to manage he's too lazy to look for answers? He give no indication that he ever did look for answers. What he sees as "obvious" to me seems not great insurmountable problems that Christianity can't answer. No I see simple ho-hum here we go again, easy bull shit that I answer in my sleep.

I might have never known that my Christian beliefs were wrong without people like you. Thank you. I don't know how I'm going to tell most of my friends and family about this, but even if they think I am delusional, I am happy to be free from the laws and mindset of ancient, superstitious people.

Sincerely, Robert

"A man only sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest." He sleeps n his faith for 30 years until he decides it's no longer convent, maybe he's not in need of business contacts anymore, and finds shallow excuses to give it up. This does not mean that I think all people who have changes and move out of their faith are like this. I don't really know that this guy is like this. But I do know there's another kind of person who gives up faith, that's some one who realizes the world view he sees is no longer small enough but has enlarged and the framework for the world faith, religious faith, is no longer big enough to contain the world view. Perhaps this guy is like that, although he doesn't give any evidence of it, but that may be the case. This is what happened to me when I became an atheist and I've seen it in others many times. The thing is this is not outgrowing the truth of God. They need to be enlarging the framework of their faith. Then have been brain washed into thinking that it's evil to do that, the liberals are evil and only the fundies are true Christians. Thus when the framework is no longer able to contain the new understanding, they have to just smash it and give up on God.

This is discussed by Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus talks about putting new wine in old wine skins(Gospel of Matthew 9:17, Gospel of Mark 2:22 and Gospel of Luke 5:37-39. ). He's referring to the Holy Spirit and the Baptism thereof, but it also applies a larger world view as well. You need to oil the wine skins so they don't burst and you do with the oil of the Spirit, that is with spiritual growth which comes through experience of God's presence. If you are in a position where you feel yourself outgrowing your faith, this is not a sing that your faith is not real or true, it's a sign that you need to grow in it more. This is a call to revive your relationship with God and grow into a deeper understanding not to give up and above all not seek help among the enemies of God!???

why would anyone go to the atheist camp to look for answers to their problems of faith? That in itself says "I want out of the faith." that's like going to the people who beat you up and robbed you for medical help.