The Dow Jones Industrial Average has topped 10,000 for the first time
in a year, as JPMorgan Chase reported massive profits in the third
quarter. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that
major US banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees
about $140 billion this year—a record high. But on Main Street,
foreclosures are also at record levels, and the official unemployment
rate is expected to top ten percent. We speak to former bank regulator
William Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One.
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's efforts to force the
modifications of distressed mortgages, while laudable, is likely to
fall far short because the foreclosure crisis has grown and threatens
to dwarf government efforts to relieve it, a special congressional
watchdog panel warned in a report released Friday.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, created to monitor how taxpayer
bailout dollars are being spent, warned that the administration's Home
Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, announced in February, seems
sure to prove ineffective.
Thousands of people swarmed Cobo Hall in chaos this morning trying to get applications for housing and utility payment assistance from the city of Detroit.
People fainted, others fought as the Detroit Police Gang Unit tried to keep people in line --- some since last night --- and in check.
"It's a disaster here," former assistant Detroit Police chief and city council candidate Gary Brown said, handing out water. "This is dangerous. Very unorganized, very dangerous."
WASHINGTON — The nation's foreclosure crisis
has swamped lawyers for the poor, leaving thousands of low-income
homeowners across the country without legal assistance that could save
their homes.
Legal offices providing help to the poor are
turning away many who have been hit hard by the economy, according to
lawyers in cities across the country who were interviewed by USA TODAY.
During the real estate bubble, older urban neighborhoods across the nation, from Atlanta to Baltimore to Cleveland to Sacramento and countless communities in between fell victim to a devastating plague of predatory lending and mortgage fraud.
Too big to fail -- do you ever wish you'd never heard that phrase.
Put it up there with the global war on terror and the end of history.
As president Obama addressed Wall Street and talked up modest
regulatory reform, the giant elephant in the room was the fact that
through this crisis those already too big banks have only gotten bigger.
Minneapolis - Police arrested seven people today outside the
foreclosed home of Rosemary Williams, a Minneapolis woman who has
publicly refused to leave the property for months.
BOSTON - Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. continue to lose their homes each month in an ongoing crisis that is wreaking chaos on communities, advocates say.
Millions are out of work and high mortgage interest rates are kicking in, and many families can't keep up with their mortgage payments, housing advocates say. The U.S. Department of Labour reported Friday that a record number of people are out of work.
"People are so far behind,'' Stephanie Portea, director of ACORN in Florida, told IPS.
This week, the Obama administration summoned mortgage company executives to Washington to demand they move faster to lower payments for homeowners sliding toward foreclosure. Treasury officials called on the companies to hire and train more people quickly to field applications for relief.
But industry insiders and legal experts say the limited capacity of mortgage companies is not the primary factor impeding the government’s $75 billion program to prevent foreclosures.
A public interest group in St. Paul is filing a class action lawsuit to halt foreclosures until the federal government fixes problems with a mortgage modification program.
The lawsuit, which is expected to be filed in federal district court, challenges an Obama administration program established earlier this year to give mortgage lenders incentives to modify home loans for struggling borrowers.
