First of all, this has absolutely nothing to do with the idiot tea bagger movement, so get over it. Second of all, this is not a bi-partisan issue, this is an issue that all Americans are experiencing across the board, so let's pay attention to the issue at hand. Thank you.
The reason that I have been following the great site for a long time: 4closure Fraud.com is that they are deeply in the trenches of what is going on for the Middle Class and poor of this nation, and the epic fraud that simply continues unabated by either party.
This site is neither partisan or supporting either of the Status quo Neo-Liberal and Neo-Con elites, or Rethugs who simply keep suppressing any demands by our own government to face the entire and fully crashed housing market. More below the jump.
The time is now! We can be the proud Americans we should be by rising up in spirit by making a stand and taking action. The Action we propose would be to default on your mortgage payments to show these degenerate bankers that they are here to serve the public interest – not to fleece the nation and line their own pockets with gold. While we struggle for bread and milk. In doing so, you should know that you are not alone: there are millions who have questions unanswered, and mouths that go unfed.
How many children go hungry in America every night? How many children go without health care and medicine because you are forced to pay a mortgage so they have a home to starve in?
These tyrannical practices can not continue. We must unite and take our money and power back from those that systematically and routinely run us into the gutter. We are reaching out to you in hopes that your own lives have not been tread upon to the point where you no longer have the will to fight for what is good, wholesome, and right. Please consider not paying your mortgage to show the banks that they do not own us. We do not need banks, they need us. Thank You People of The United States of America for your time and consideration. Be well and happy! Operation Empire State Rebellion. Join this National Mortgage Default Action here.
http://4closurefraud.org/...
And yes, god forbid I have been calling on my own President and my own party for stepping away from the failure of what is now going on for the status quo, that keeps us is nothing but complete gridlock.
Worse than that, we must stop pretending how American's are indeed being held hostage by both parties. Because they are: why keep denying that President Obama did not set up the Cat Food Commission (that has failed), the now destroyed Gang of 6 (down to 5) that has failed, and the failed Rethugs who are being raked over the coals of their own constituents by trying to gut the final safety nets of Medicare and Social Security?
The question here is very clear to me: The Rethugs are all on 'total crazy mode' and no one is paying any attention to them. Day in and day out they keep imploding, but the real question here is where is our own Party and leadership?
I wanted to remind you of a diary, I did a few months ago, that needs to be re-read on this same subject: Until the Housing Crisis is addressed, and we return to some sane form of accountability in our government, then: OMG, you will get more of the same:
Mr. Smith was kind enough to give me permission to include this entire article on DailyKos and I will be happy to send to any of the administrators on this site, the email Mr. Smith sent to me, should they ask for it.
You can reach Charles Hughes Smith on his blog and website at:
http://www.oftwominds.com/....
The Housing Bubble Broke the Middle Class (April 27, 2011)
The bursting of the housing bubble wiped out half of the net worth of the Mortgaged Middle Class.
On the face of it, American households were not that affected by the bursting of the housing bubble. If we look at the Fed Flow of Funds report, the Balance Sheet of Households and Nonprofit Organizations, we find that net worth only declined by about 11% ($7.3 trillion) from 2007 to 2010: a $2.9 trillion decline in financial assets and a $4.9 trillion decline in tangible assets, i.e. real estate and consumer durable goods.
Here are the basic numbers, rounded, in trillions:
total assets:
2007 $78.5 trillion
2010 $70.7
Liabilities:
2007: $14.4
2010: $13.9
Net worth:
2007: $64.2
2010: $56.8
Financial assets:
2007: $50.5
2010: $47.6
Tangible assets:
2007: $28.0
2010: $23.1
Most of the decline in assets results from the popping of the real estate bubble: $6.3 trillion of the $7.3 trillion decline is housing:
Real estate:
2006: $22.7
2010: $16.4
Despite massive write-offs from millions of foreclosures, mortgage debt barely budged:
Mortgages:
2007: $10.5
2010: $10.0
Ditto consumer credit, essentially flat: no deleveraging here:
Consumer credit:
2007: $2.55
2010: $2.43
This is a better reflection of the true devastation left by the bubble: I will explain why below:
Owners equity as percentage of real estate:
2006: 56.5%
2010: 38.5%
Despite the 100% rally off the March 2009 low, stocks and mutual fund assets are still down by a trillion dollars:
Corporate equities and mutual fund shares:
2007: $14.2
2010: $13.2
Households pulled money out of stocks and put it into Treasury bonds. Yeah, the public really bought the stock rally....
Treasury securities:
2007: $255 billion
2010: $1.0 trillion
Cash clicked up a bit:
Savings and money market funds:
2007: $7.2
2010: $7.5
On the surface, this rise in income looks good, too bad the increase is mostly Federal transfers of borrowed money:
Disposable personal income (SAAR):
2007: $10.4
2010: $11.5
If we look beneath the surface at the distribution of wealth, the picture isn't so benign. Over the years I have often posted the basic facts of wealth distribution and housing in the U.S., for example Will Delinquencies Trigger a New American Revolution? (April 7, 2008).
The numbers have changed from 2008, of course, but the basic outlines and percentages have not.
Beneath the surface, most of the income and wealth is held by the top 10% of households. Over a quarter of households are at or below the poverty line; they have no appreciable assets and depend heavily on government transfers.
Almost half of the total income (47%) goes to the top 10%, and 21% flows to the top 1%.
Over 18% of personal income is transfers from the Federal government, most of which is borrowed, of course: Reliance on Uncle Sam hits a record :
A record 18.3% of the nation's total personal income was a payment from the government for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits and other programs in 2010. Wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51.0% — since the government began keeping track in 1929.
From 1980 to 2000, government aid was roughly constant at 12.5%
If we extrapolate the additional 6% increase in transfers, that comes to $700 billion. So roughly 70% of the increase in personal income was simply money borrowed by the Federal government (recall the $1.6 trillion annual Federal deficit) and distributed to the citizenry. In other words, people aren't making more money--the Central State is simply borrowing more and it's being counted as "income" when it's distributed.
There are about 105 million households in the U.S. and about 72 million owner-occupied dwellings. Roughly 25 million are owned free and clear, and 48 million have a mortgage.
Let's look at homeowner's equity, which stands at 38.5%. Equity is what's left if you sell your house and pay off the mortgage.
About 27% of all homeowners (13 million) are underwater, i.e. their house is worth less than their mortgage. This is called negative equity, but in practicality it means zero equity.
Since a third of all homes are owned free and clear, then their equity is 100%. Assuming a broadly even distribution of these homes owned without mortgages (most likely, the majority are owned by elderly people who paid off their mortgages), then we can conclude that 33% of total owner's equity resides in these homes owned free and clear.
That leaves 5.5% of total equity spread among the 35 million mortgaged homes which are not underwater.
Calculated another way: household real estate is worth $16.4 trillion, and there is $10 trillion in outstanding mortgage debt, so total equity is $6.4 trillion. One-third of homes are owned free and clear, so one-third of $16.4 trillion is $5.4 trillion. $6.4 trillion - $5.4 trillion = $1 trillion in equity spread over 35 million homes.
That's not much--roughly 1.8% of all household net worth.
The family house was the traditional foundation of household wealth. As for all those trillions in financial wealth--as we all know, 83% is owned by the top 10%.
So here's the reality: over one-fourth of all households are at or below the poverty line: 28 million.
The top 10%--10.5 million households--own the vast majority of the financial assets ($45 trillion)(the total owned by non-profits is not broken out).
The next 10% own 10% of this wealth, or about $4 trillion. So the top 21 million households own 93% of all financial wealth.
The Great Middle Class between those in poverty and the top 20%--56 million households-- owns about $2.7 trillion in financial wealth, and the millions with mortgages own an additional $1 trillion in home equity. That comes to $3.7 trillion, or about 6.5% of the total household net worth.
Consumer durables--all the autos, washing machines, jet-skis, etc.--are worth about $2.2 trillion ($4.6 T = $2.4 T in consumer debt). Add the durables and the other wealth, and the Great Mortgaged Middle Class holds about 10% of the total household wealth ($5.9 trillion).
Before the housing bubble, households owed about $5 trillion in mortgages. The housing bubble came along, introducing the fantasy of home-as-ATM-cash-withdrawal-machine, and mortgages ballooned to over $10 trillion.
Back at the top of the bubble, the middle class had $6 trillion more assets on the books. Considering the Mortgaged Middle Class now owns about $6 trillion in net assets, then the bursting of the housing bubble caused their net worth to drop by 50%.
I'm not making any political statement here--these are the numbers.
http://www.oftwominds.com/....
And again, I want to thank Charles Hughes Smith for his continued friendship to me and his basic truth about the facts:
And BTW, if we add in the costs of the endless and dumb wars, the cost of the Bush cut tax extensions, or any meaningful way to re-negotiation of NAFTA, or our own Democrats standing up for the Unions in our nation, or for real HRC reform or real Financial Reform: it is no big whop or surprise why we keep being blamed by our own party for not being 'pragmatic enough.' This is not about being pragmatic at all.
What this is really about is standing up for our own party platform, which has become a fucking joke.
And btw, if you have not read OPOL's latest diary, I will suggest that you do, (he is my hero):
http://www.dailykos.com/...
And also this great diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
But god forbid, we should admit the truth: the only ones that are holding us hostage is our own party, our Democrats, who have much much more in common with the Rethugs and the Corporate overloads and the MIC than they do the American people, who are running on empty now.
I support each and every person on this site, who has been smart enough to take their money out of the last few remaining big 5 Banks in our nation, but the fact is the FDIC, can no longer bail them out. I moved most of my money to my local Credit Union, but still I cannot be deeply afraid. My husband and I lost big time after he had to move to the Pacific North West, during the height of the housing bubble, and we lost big, big time in our so called Pension Funds. That is why I no longer trust our government, or our party any longer, but more than that: Why in the fuck don't they understand how much American's have already paid? It is not that they do not understand it. They just don't give a shit. Many Congress people and Senators are millionaires so why in the hell should they care if the people of this nation, who got fully ripped off are going onto the new death panels? By all means, raise the ages of people to work for Social Security and Medicare, and did Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Portland, Oregon.
And that is a fact, Jack.
In the past several years, despite what most Americans (Independents, Democrats, and many moderate Republicans have stated what they wanted) it is still falling on deaf ears in our nation's capitol, Washington DC.
Like I denoted in a recent diary, when a strong progressive Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Portland, Oregon right after the AARP folded and fully supports this ideology of raising the age of Social Security and Medicare recipients (who paid into this so called welfare/entitlement programs ...more bullshit, I'm over it.) Coincidence? I don't think so.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The last thing that I expected was to 'get all radical' on my own party, but I have to tell you now I fully support this movement from: Join this National Mortgage Default Action here.
http://4closurefraud.org/...
Excuse me if I fail to understand, why most American's should be held hostage in their own homes by the way that Greenspan, Rubin, Clinton, Bush, Hank Paulson, and Geithner all fucked us, as did the SEC, the NYSE, the OCC and the total revolving doors of our government, so that even we, as honest decent working Americans, cannot even pretend to sell our homes, which has lost so much equity, to even move to another State to find another job, to support ourselves.
That is exactly the meaning of the word: HOSTAGE, means in case you don't get that.
But of course, there are few jobs to be had, but don't you dare think for a minute that you can move and sell your homes to find a new job. That is off the table, as is 'Impeachment for the Bush War Crimes, or the other major Crimes by Wall St./the Banks against most Americans.'
When all accountability went down the drain, so did our failed Democracy and Republic. Get over it.
And that is exactly the same reason our nation is in deep gridlock. And yes, we can spend endless hours blaming each party, but where is that getting us?
No where. They are both now fully bought off and paid off, and if you actually believe there will be any filibuster reform, or any financial reform, by those in our same government that keep living off the 'tit' of the suckers of last resort, (that would be us) then perhaps you do not understand the root of what Catch 22 really means. They will never reform those issues, because that would hold them accountable, and they refuse to do that, and we, the the peasants are in a total state of the Shock Doctrine, that we continue to drink the kool aide for. You want Green or Red kool aid? It is your choice.
Meanwhile, they all live the high life: They suck us dry and dry and dry again, and we pretend this is not going on.
This is why I fully support this new movement, because neither party is gives a shit about Americans, any longer: that has been perfectly clear to me for a long time.
http://4closurefraud.org/...
Thanks as always.
Ms. B.