![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/quotes_7a.gif)
Firearms • Mock DHS News Report Depicts Gun Owners as Terrorists
Mock DHS News Report Depicts Gun Owners as Terrorists
Paul Joseph Watson
May 1st, 2013
Infowars.com
A mock news report produced by the Department of Homeland Security depicts American gun owners as terrorists in another example of how the federal agency is trying to demonize the Second Amendment while itself stockpiling ammunition.
The report depicts the arrest of “an extremist group reportedly planning a series of terrorist attacks on U.S. cities.”
Dramatic footage shows police conducting a mock raid of a house and yelling at reporters to get back while the news reporter relates how the men were arrested on charges of “illegal possession of firearms.”
Similar to previous DHS characterizations of likely terrorists, the men are played by two Caucasians in their 40?s.
The video was grabbed from the DHS.gov website and appears in a file along with other documents from a HSEEP training program run in coordination with FEMA in the interests of “national preparedness.”
As we have previously documented, the federal agency’s insistence on portraying the vast majority of terrorists in its training videos as white middle class Americans has prompted charges that the DHS is attempting to demonize conservatives and big government adversaries.
However, the portrayal of gun owners as terrorists is sure to stoke even more rancor amongst those who are concerned that the DHS is being prepared to aid in overseeing the Obama administration’s gun control agenda while itself buying ammunition in huge quantities.
As we reported last month, the federal agency is testing a number of different drones at a scientific research facility in Oklahoma that have sensors capable of detecting whether a person is armed, stoking concerns that the federal agency is planning on using UAVs to harass gun owners.
The DHS is also collaborating with New York State government officials to confiscate guns belonging to people who are deemed, often erroneously, to have a mental condition.
The DHS’ commitment to buy around 2 billion rounds of ammunition has become a huge controversy in recent months, with the Government Accountability Office announcing this week that an investigation of the purchases is “just getting underway.”
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/m … s_05012013
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed May 01, 2013 12:30 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Proposals To Make Gun Owners Carry Liability Insurance
Walter Olson
As the New York Times reports:
Lawmakers in at least half a dozen states, including California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, have proposed legislation this year that would require gun owners to buy liability insurance — much as car owners are required to buy auto insurance. Doing so would give a financial incentive for safe behavior, they hope, as people with less dangerous weapons or safety locks could qualify for lower rates.
“Liability insurance” may be a misnomer in this discussion, however, since some of the proposals would require the purchase of bonds against intentional acts (which are commonly excluded from conventional liability coverage), and also against misadventures for which gun owners would not at present be held legally responsible (such as third party criminal use of a gun following a theft not occasioned by owner negligence.) More: Reuters, Nelson Lund/GMU, Jessica Chasmar/Washington Times, Taranto/WSJ, Josh Blackman.
Would a mandatory bonding or insurance scheme survive judicial scrutiny if it were motivated by a desire to burden the exercise of a constitutional right? David Rifkin and Andrew Grossman, writing in the WSJ, suspect not:
Insurance policies cover accidents, not intentional crimes, and criminals with illegal guns will just evade the requirement. The real purpose is to make guns less affordable for law-abiding citizens and thereby reduce private gun ownership. Identical constitutionally suspect logic explains proposals to tax the sale of bullets at excessive rates.
The courts, however, are no more likely to allow government to undermine the Second Amendment than to undermine the First. A state cannot circumvent the right to a free press by requiring that an unfriendly newspaper carry millions in libel insurance or pay a thousand-dollar tax on barrels of ink—the real motive, in either case, would be transparent and the regulation struck down. How could the result be any different for the right to keep and bear arms?
[cross-posted and slightly adapted from Overlawyered]
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
Firearms • Ted Nugent unloads: Gun owners the next Rosa Parks
Ted Nugent unloads:
Gun owners the next Rosa Parks
http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/ted-nugent-g … osa-parks/
Rocker warns ‘we will sit down on the front seat of the bus’
Published: 20 hours ago
By Michael Thompson
“There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.”
That was the response of Ted Nugent, rock legend and long-time defender of the Second Amendment, when asked what he would do should the government decide to go forward with any of the many firearms-confiscation plans now being developed.
In an exclusive interview with WND, Nugent, who said last year that if Barack Obama is re-elected he would “either be dead or in jail by this time next year,” unloaded on the recent news that Obama is considering an executive order to deal with guns.
The Weekly Standard reported Vice President Joe Biden revealed that President Obama might use an executive order to deal with guns.
“The president is going to act,” Biden told reporters before a meeting with victims of gun violence. “There are executive orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”
Biden called it a moral issue and said “it’s critically important that we act.”
But Nugent believes the administration would have difficulty carrying out a plan to confiscate weapons.
“If it comes to the actual implementation of an actual confiscatory directive from our president, then I do believe that the heroes of the law enforcement will defy this order,” he said. “I do believe that there are enough soulless sheep within our government who would act on such an illegal order, but I believe the powers that be at the local, state and regional law enforcement would halt such an illegal, anti-American order.’
Nugent continued: “You are talking to a guy who talks to more gun owners in more heated and concerned conversations than anyone who lives. These are top notch heroes of law enforcement and military who understand this experiment in self-government and we will not let [gun confiscation] happen; we will do it peaceful.
“But there will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.”
Nugent is a long-time champion and outspoken defender of the Constitution and Second Amendment. He told WND the media narrative since the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn., has been shameful.
“The shock and dismay and heartbreak, then just the specific gun issue, but there is a subculture, dare I say subhuman culture, infesting our government and society that would zone in on hardware and inanimate objects instead of people’s conduct and the justice systems failure,” he said.
He hammered the Obama administration for going after the constitutional right to bear arms.
“The media and the government is hell-bent on convincing that water is dry and we should all reconsider our conclusions about the dampness of H20,” he said. “These people are out of their cotton-picking minds, and they scare Americans who are committed to logic, truth and common-sense, and real solutions instead of the insanity that I witness from our government and media.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/ted-nugent-g … uziJ16p.99
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:21 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Firearms • Gun Owners Mad As Hell And Will Not Take It!
This is about far more than guns and who has them. This is about slavery to the state. Pure and simple
Gun Owners Mad As Hell And Will Not Take It!
- J.D. Longstreet Tuesday, January 1, 2013
There is a purge of Congress in the offing. It will be historic in its magnitude.
Allow me to be as clear as I possibly can about this because the disconnect between the people of America and their government has become so complete, the distance between the citizen and the government has become so broad, that Washington is hearing only a faint whisper (If they hear anything at all!) coming from those of us outside the beltway.
So let me say this clearly, loudly, and in a declarative manner: Attention Senators and US Representatives: If you vote for the new Assault Weapons Ban your political career in the US Congress is OVER. That is O V E R! Complete, finished, ended, kaput!
For the past few days I have been going over and over Senator Diane Feinstein’s proposal for a new Assault Weapons Ban and it reads like some sort of “edict” handed down from the politburo in old Soviet Socialist Russia. (The politburo is the chief executive and political committee of the Communist Party.)
It IS as bad as I had suspected— but it is much, much, worse!
If you have not read the proposed bill, there is a “Summary” of the bill in PDF format you must read. You will find it here:
The full text of the proposed bill has been taken down from the Senator’s website and, instead, we find the summary.
I am including a copy of the text of that summary below which was taken from the Senator’s website:
Summary of 2013 legislation
Following is a summary of the 2013 legislation:
Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
120 specifically-named firearms;
Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one or more military characteristics; and
Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds.
Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test;
Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test; and
Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans.
Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.
Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment;
Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes; and
Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons.
Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
Background check of owner and any transferee;
Type and serial number of the firearm;
Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration.
A pdf of the bill summary is available here:
What we have here is a full-out, frontal assault on gun owners of America—not to mention a complete infringement of the rights of gun owners as spelled out, clearly, in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. It is as if the 2nd Amendment does not exist.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” … 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution
I keep wondering what part of “shall not be infringed” do they not understand??? The definition of “infringe” is:“to go against.” That, then, would mean, it seems to me, the entire proposed 2013 Assault Weapons Ban is unconstitutional from the git-go! It is clearly an “infringement” on the rights of US citizens as spelled out in the 2nd Amendment.
As we learn, by dribs and drabs, what’s in Feinstein’s bill it becomes even more disturbing.
In my family we have a long standing tradition of “handing-down” our guns to the next generation. I have been looking forward to the day I will hand-down my weapons to my grandson. Now I learn that should Feinstein’s bill pass into law, I will not be able to do that. Nor will you.
“According to the outline of Feinstein’s bill, it will grandfather in all legally owned weapons, but it will require they be registered and the owner fingerprinted. It will require a $200 per weapon tax be paid. The guns will not be transferable, meaning that upon the death of the owner the guns will become the property of the Federal government. It will allow the sale of 900 specifically named weapons, but none that can accept a detachable magazine that holds more than 10 rounds.” SOURCE:
All this is bad enough, but consider this: If the Congress refuses to pass Feinstein’s bill into law, isn’t it reasonable to expect that Obama will issue the necessary Executive Orders to do much the same thing by way of rules and regulations, which have the force of law, and those rules and regs will be executed by the alphabet agencies under his control such as BATFE and the DHS, and even the agency, or agencies, charged with the supervision of Obamacare.
ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES! Losing our freedom, our liberty, and our COUNTRY is a consequence of the November 6th election. But to be honest, we have to admit the problem began when the American people turned to socialism and a strong central government. THIS is the price we pay.
But what the heck! It’s only freedom. It’s just our liberty. It’s just our birthright! And finally—it is just the soul of our country.
This is about far more than guns and who has them. This is about slavery to the state. Pure and simple. It’s not hard. It’s not difficult. It is easily understood—if you’re not afraid of the truth.
In the not too distant future there will come a call—a clarion call. Whether America lives—or dies—will depend upon who among her people answers that call. The faint-hearted need not bother themselves. Their services will not be required. When the call comes you can be sure the “Land of the free” is in need of rescue by those Americans from the “Home of the BRAVE.”
Mark my words: The call WILL come. The rapid rate at which America is spiraling downward is matched by the rapid rate at which patriotism is spiraling upward among freedom loving Americans. The men and women who have always stepped forward from the masses to save America will step forward again for they are the sons and daughters of heroes. They know the cost—and the price —of freedom for their families have paid it many times before. THEY will do the RIGHT thing—because IT IS THE RIGHT THING.
“Through the travail of the ages
Midst the pomp and toil of war
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.
I have sinned and I have suffered
Played the hero and the knave
Fought for belly, shame or country
And for each have found a grave.
So as through a glass and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names – but always me.”
—- General George S Patton, Jr.
The poem above is from the pen of a man who, as a boy sat at the feet of, and rode with an aging Col. John Singleton Mosby, the “Gray Ghost” of Confederate Army fame. Gen. George Patton knew that the men and women I write of above are with us always and when called upon they unflinchingly step forward. And they will again. They only await the call.
Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”.
He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an “in the field” and “on-air” news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.
Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to “old Lutheranism” to express and exercise his faith.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/52104
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Jan 01, 2013 10:43 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Business • 55 percent of small business owners would not start company
55 percent of small business owners would not start company today, blame Obama
September 26, 2012 | 10:39 am
3Comments
Joel Gehrke
Commentary Writer
The Washington Examiner
Fifty-five percent of small business owners and manufacturers would not have started their businesses in today’s economy, according to a new poll that also reports 69 percent say President Obama’s regulatory policies have hurt their businesses.
“There is far too much uncertainty, too many burdensome regulations and too few policymakers willing to put aside their egos and fulfill their responsibilities to the American people,” said Jay Thomas, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, which commissioned the poll along with the National Federation of Independent Businesses. “To fix this problem, we need immediate action on pro-growth tax and regulatory policies that put manufacturers in the United States in a position to compete and succeed in an ever-more competitive global economy.”
The poll reports another ominous statistic for job creation: “67 percent say there is too much uncertainty in the market today to expand, grow or hire new workers.” Why? Because “President Obama’s Executive Branch and regulatory policies have hurt American small businesses and manufacturers,” according to 69 percent of the business owners surveyed.
Here are the key findings in the poll, as highlighted by NAM:
67 percent say there is too much uncertainty in the market today to expand, grow or hire new workers.
69 percent of small business owners and manufacturers say President Obama’s Executive Branch and regulatory policies have hurt American small businesses and manufacturers.
55 percent say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment.
54 percent say other countries like China and India are more supportive of their small businesses and manufacturers than the United States.
“Instead of smoothing the way, our government continues to erect more barriers to growth through burdensome regulations that increase costs for small businesses and all Americans,” NFIB president Dan Danner said.
Those statistics suggest that even Democratic and independent small business owners criticized Obama, because only 46 percent of poll participants identified as Republicans, per Roll Call.
“It’s clear that small business owners and manufacturers are becoming increasingly more frustrated by the federal government’s inability to solve America’s economic problems,” Bill McInturff, whose Public Opinion Strategies conducted the poll. “Manufacturers place most of the blame squarely on policies coming out of Washington.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/55-percen … GMmYo1mSh9
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed Sep 26, 2012 10:00 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Business • 52% of American small business owners can’t put food on the
Accidental entrepreneurs a side effect of a weak economy
The number of accidental entrepreneurs, who started businesses after finding themselves unemployed and unable to find work, has doubled over the rate found before the recession began (from 9 percent to 18 percent). And a good chunk of those are struggling to make end’s meet.
By Dr. Jeffrey R. Cornwall, Guest blogger / June 22, 2012
Cash is in short supply for many small business owners, and the number of workers forced by the poor job market to become entrepreneurs has increased.
Top 5 myths about starting a business.Two surveys released yesterday offer some disturbing results. Wave Accounting, a cloud based accounting software company for micro and SMB’s, released a survey of their 250,000 micro and SMB customers, and Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management joined with Dun & Bradstreet Credibility in a survey released yesterday of 6,000 small business owners.
The Wave survey reinforced what a lot of us suspected. The number of accidental entrepreneurs, those who started businesses after finding themselves unemployed and unable to find work, has doubled over the rate found before the recession began (from 9% to 18%).
And the role that government incentives played in their decision to launch their business? Only 2% of respondents in the Wave survey said government incentives fed the decision to go into business for themselves. And in the Pepperdine survey, only 1% said the highly publicized crowdfunding JOBS Act would have any impact on their ability to raise needed funding. So don’t let politicians fool you into believing that their attempts to steer and guide the economy have an impact!
And speaking of financing, only 41% of the businesses looking to raise capital were successful.
A shocking figure from the Wave survey relates to how well the business owners were able to meet their basic needs through their business. An incredible 52% of American small business owners can’t put food on the table through the earnings from their business over the past twelve months.
Even though many said they can’t make ends, it is not due to a lack of effort. Two thirds (66%) of business owners in the Wave survey reported struggling with time management and work/life balance with 43% of respondents having to work after normal business hours to take care of administrative tasks like accounting and bookkeeping.
All of these results shed light on why business owners remain gloomy about the outlooks of the economy. Last week the NFIB small business optimism survey continued to show weak results.
“In the last year, small-business optimism has limped along, and today the sector is no better off than it was just over a year ago,” said NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg. “The lack of progress is discouraging, producing no signs that economic activity will pick up this year at all. The calculus of spending decisions requires an estimate of future sales, tax rates, interest rates and credit availability, labor costs, health-care costs, regulatory compliance costs, all of which are very uncertain. Most of this uncertainty is the result of what is happening—and not happening—in Washington.”
A survey released earlier this month by Citibank suggests that entrepreneurs are not giving up in spite of all of the challenges they now face. 53% of respondents of this survey say they have reinvented their business models “to stay afloat or competitive.” This strategy is reinforced in the current competitive climate that 38% of respondents describe as “extremely intense.”
As I have pointed out in the past, we need to keep in mind that all of these results come from surveys of business owners who have survived the recession. Imagine what all of those who are casualties of the Great Recession
http://www.financialarmageddon.com/
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-E … ak-economy
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:28 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
American • High-end loan owners strategically defaulting in large numbe
Loan owners with big incomes believed house prices were going up forever. They bought houses they could barely afford because they believed the additional cost of ownership over renting would provide them with a return on their investment. Buying a house was part utility through providing shelter and part investment through capturing rapid appreciation. Of course, the actions of buyers willingly overpaying for houses drove prices higher in a self-fulfilling prophesy. Like all Ponzi schemes, it went on until the supply of greater fools was exhausted and lenders stopped enabling the insanity.
Now that high-end loan owners are accepting the fact that their brilliant investment was folly, many of them are choosing to dump their investments. When the investment no longer provides the return they are looking for, loan owners quite rationally decide to exit their positions. In the stock market when bulls turn bearish, they sell their shares, prices crash, and life goes on. Unfortunately when it comes to single-family homes, it’s not quite so simple. The loan owner must give up the property, an emotional hardship for many who become attached to their cash cows. For lenders the loan owner exodus means widespread strategic default on a home mortgages and millions of foreclosures.
Most of the news coverage of the crash of the housing bubble has focused on the role of subprime borrowers. They were decried as deadbeats who couldn’t make their payments. For some this was certainly the case, but for many, they were given loans they should never have been given, and their implosion was a foregone conclusion. In any case, subprime borrowers defaulted first, and their properties were pushed through the system. Wherever subprime was concentrated had a devastating market crash.
Lenders learned from the collapse of prices in subprime dominated markets, so when the more affluent borrowers faced the same problems of insolvency from excessive debt, lenders allowed them to squat in their homes rather than see catastrophic price crashes in every market. The policy of amend-extend-pretend was put in place, and lenders accumulated a huge number of delinquent mortgage squatters in shadow inventory. The buildup of shadow inventory helped sustain bubble-era pricing in many neighborhoods, but it did nothing to solve the underlying problems with valuation. Prices were simply too high. Withholding supply has caused sales volumes to plummet, and prices have been inching downward for the last five years.
Many high wage earning loan owners came to believe their neighborhoods were special. Prices didn’t fall where they lived because the properties were so desirable. In reality, prices didn’t fall because lenders withheld the inventory through both holding REO off the market and allowing delinquent mortgage squatters to stay in place. Although this policy has kept the declines to a minimum in high-end neighborhoods, it hasn’t caused prices to go up. It never could. Prices were too high and needed to fall based on affordability alone.
Since prices stopped going up for five full years, and since high-end loan owners realize prices won’t be going up in their neighborhoods for a very long time, the borrowers who overborrowed to capture appreciation have given up hope. When denial turns to fear and finally acceptance, loan owners want to get out. Many try to sell, but those who don’t or can’t simply stop paying the mortgage — they strategically default.
‘Strategic Defaults’ by the Rich
By TIM REID, Reuters
February 16, 2012
… A sprawling, Spanish-style estate, fringed by majestic pine trees and located near the boutiques of Santa Monica Boulevard, its former owners were served with a default notice in 2010; they were $205,000 behind in their payments on mortgages totaling $6.9 million.Welcome to foreclosure Beverly Hills-style.
First, I would like to point out that rich people do not get $6.9M loans. Rich people pay cash. Posers and Ponzis take out $6.9M loans.
Second, loans that large are not being underwritten today. Banks aren’t that stupid anymore. Since such large loans are so scarce, the air that inflated house prices has been removed. Only the low sales volumes has keep prices at such artificial levels.
Third, the HELOC abuse and excessive debt is a huge problem in these supposedly rich neighborhoods. Remember, HELOC abuse Hollywood Style? Or perhaps HELOC abuse Newport Coast Style? Or HELOC abuse Laguna Beach Style? The behavior of the loan owners in those posts was not that of rich people. It was the behavior of entitled fools who deserve to lose their houses.
Some 180 houses in Beverly Hills, the storied Los Angeles enclave rich with Hollywood stars and music moguls, have been foreclosed on by lenders, scheduled for auction, or served with a default notice, the highest level since the 2008 financial crash, according to a Reuters analysis of figures compiled by RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosures nationwide.
As in the default-ravaged suburban subdivisions of Phoenix, Arizona, and Tampa, Florida, plunging real estate prices are the root of the problem in Beverly Hills.
But the dynamics of the residential real estate collapse are very different in elite neighborhoods such as this. The majority of delinquent homeowners here owe more than $1 million. Many are walking away not because they can’t pay, but because they judge it would be foolish to keep doing so.
They view their house as an investment, and when the returns aren’t there, they dump them.
“It’s a business decision, not an emotional one which it is for normal people,” said Deborah Bremner, owner of the Bremner Group at Coldwell Banker, which specializes in high-end properties in the Los Angeles area. “I go to cocktail parties and all people are talking about is whether it is time to walk away, although they will never be quoted in the real world.”
Remember the cocktail parties in 2004-2006 when every conversation revolved around how much their house was worth and what they were spending the money on? I do. ~~ giggles to self ~~
She said she had seen in Beverly Hills a big increase in “strategic defaults,” in which owners who can still afford to make their monthly mortgage payment choose not to because the property is now worth so much less than the giant loan used to buy it during the housing bubble.
Strategic default is an especially appealing option in California, one of only a handful of U.S. states where primary mortgages made by banks are “non-recourse” loans. That means the loan is secured solely by the property, and banks cannot go after a delinquent owner’s wages or other assets if they default.
Bremner said she helped a client buy a Beverly Hills mansion last year that the prior owner had bought for over $4 million. He decided to stop paying his $3 million mortgage – even though he could easily afford it – when the value of the property had dropped to $2.5 million.
“They were able to comfortably cover the loan,” Bremner said. “They were just no longer willing to see the value of the property drop.”
The investment didn’t pan out. They are wise to dump the property because prices aren’t going up in those neighborhoods any time soon.
A huge “shadow inventory” is building of elite homes that are in default but have not been put on the market. Of the 180 distressed properties in Beverly Hills, only 12 are up for sale.
And the longer lenders wait to clear out this inventory, the worse their losses will be.
The backlog reflects the pent-up flood of foreclosed properties of all price ranges that are expected to hit the U.S. market this year, especially after five major banks reached a $25 billion settlement last week with the U.S. over fraudulent foreclosure practices.
It isn’t clear that these houses will all hit the MLS. Lenders will sell many as parts of bulk portfolio deals. Since these high end properties make no sense as cashflow properties, the discounts on those will be enormous.
Defaults on ‘Jumbo Loans’ Soaring
Across the United States, the largest increase in foreclosures and delinquencies, compared with 2008 levels, is with “jumbo” mortgages – loans too large to be insured by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government controlled mortgage finance providers. Foreclosures on jumbo loans are up 579 percent since 2008, greater than any other form of loan, according to a report last month by Lender Processing Services, Inc.
High end loan owners have long denied they would get their comeuppance. They were wrong.
Strategic defaults are now more likely among jumbo loan-holders than any other type of borrower, according to a report issued late last year by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Nearly 40 percent of delinquencies among non-governmental mortgages, which are mostly jumbo loans, are strategic defaults, the report said.
“Now that these homeowners with jumbo loans are finding out you can do this, more and more are doing strategic foreclosures,” said Jon Maddux the CEO of YouWalkAway.com, which advises homeowners who are “underwater,” the term for those whose loans exceed the value of their home.
The gentleman profiled below has an amazing case of cognitive dissonance.
Nathaniel J. Friedman, a Beverly Hills lawyer, insists he is not a strategic defaulter – that he never missed a mortgage payment in his life. But he stopped making payments on his five-bedroom, six-bathroom Beverly Hills house on Schuyler Road three years ago.
Friedman, who had mortgages totaling $3 million with the now-defunct Countrywide Home Loans, returned home one evening in January 2009 to find a letter from Countrywide freezing his $150,000 line of credit, which was linked to his second $900,000 loan. His primary loan was $2.1 million. The property is worth about $2 million today.
Friedman says he decided to stop paying out of a sense of vengeance from the moment he received that letter. He has been in negotiations for months with Bank of America, which took over Countrywide after its collapse, to modify the loan.
“I thought to hell with it,” he told Reuters. “Why should I keep feeding a dead horse if the bank has no confidence in me?”
“I was able to maneuver things my way because of the inertia of the banking sector,” Friedman said. He believes the bank will blink first, and eventually modify his loan.
For as much as I enjoy seeing the banks get reamed, I hope they boot this delinquent mortgage squatter.
Although, he isn’t the worst offender….
http://ochousingnews.com/news/high-end- … atrick.net
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:22 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Business • 7-11 Store Owners: Online Lottery Sales Could Mean Massive
CHICAGO (CBS) — Owners of 7-Eleven stores are warning of massive layoffs to come, unless the Illinois Lottery protects them from competition from the online sales that are expected to start this year.
As WBBM Newsradio’s John Cody reports, the franchise owners say they online lottery sales could force them to lay off 7,000 employees statewide.
Joe Rossi, the head of the Chicago franchise owners’ association, estimates lottery sales bring in 30 percent of the business at 7-Elevens, because lottery buyers buy an average of $5 in goods on top of their tickets.
Rossi says he is not trying to block internet lottery sales, just suggesting the lottery find a way to protect 7-Eleven lottery business and jobs.
Rossi is recommending that the state Lottery require players to fill up a Lottery credit card at 7-Elevens – leaving the store owners with their present 5 percent cut of the business – rather than allowing players to gamble without limit on their credit cards on line at home.
The move to online Lottery play is set to begin in April. The U.S. Department of Justice in December issued a legal opinion on the matter that paved the way for online sales to begin.
Lottery officials estimate the state will take in $150 million more annually once sales go online, and will attract hundreds of thousands of new players.
Officials have promised that the site for online sales will be secure and limited to Illinois adults.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/02/17/ … e-layoffs/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:42 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Firearms • Re: U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms
The aim of the United Nutbars is to ban all guns except for the enforcement stooges and armed forces.
Statistics: Posted by edward kennedy — Sun Jan 15, 2012 4:06 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com