December 2008 archive

Remember That It Isn’t

Only America That Is Effected

By The Economic Meltdown

Firms Charge Thousands To Modify Mortgages

Nonprofits Offer Service For Free, Advocates Say

By Renae Merle

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, December 26, 2008; Page A01

A growing industry has emerged to take advantage of the unprecedented wave of foreclosures, charging distressed homeowners for help negotiating better loan terms — a service provided for free or for a nominal fee by many nonprofits.

Such companies charge $500 to $2,500 or more and are drawing the ire of consumer advocates, regulators and lenders, who say many are just the latest version of foreclosure rescue scams and can make it more difficult for homeowners to get help.

“You don’t need to go out and hire someone to help you,” said Michael Gross, managing director of mortgage servicing for Bank of America.

In a Teeming French City, Safe Harbor at the Movies



By STEVEN ERLANGER

Published: December 25, 2008

MARSEILLE, France – Marseille prides itself on being a port city, a rough melting pot of differences rather like its signature dish, bouillabaisse, which combines various fish, some very expensive and some considered just a cut above trash.

Some of the toughest districts in France’s second-largest city are in the hills above L’Estaque, which inspired Braque and Cézanne. But poverty is high, drug use is common and resentments run deep.

Samia Ghali, 40, is the new Socialist mayor of these districts, or arrondissements, with nearly 100,000 constituents. Of Algerian descent herself – like roughly a quarter of Marseille’s 826,700 people – she is consumed by the economic crisis washing over France and its poor, and she is convinced that these neighborhoods are going to burn.

USA

Expansion of Clinics Shapes a Bush Legacy



By KEVIN SACK

Published: December 25, 2008

NASHVILLE – Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas.

For those in poor urban neighborhoods and isolated rural areas, including Indian reservations, the clinics are often the only dependable providers of basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations, asthma treatments, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

As a crucial component of the health safety net, they are lauded as a cost-effective alternative to hospital emergency rooms, where the uninsured and underinsured often seek care.

We’re Just Having Fun

Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

How very awkward.  And how very typical.  On December 24, Preznit Bush suddenly became concerned about appearances and revoked a pardon he gave New York real estate developer Isaac Toussie the day before, after reports surfaced that Toussie’s family gave almost $40,000 to Republicans.

Of course, the White House mouthpiece immediately  took the story through a muddy spin cycle:

White House press secretary Dana Perino said neither Bush nor counsel Fred Fielding was aware of the GOP contributions from the father of Isaac Robert Toussie, who had been convicted of mail fraud and of making false statements to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Perino said Bush had also been unaware of other aspects of the Toussie case that were revealed in news reports yesterday.

“Looking at the totality of the case, more could have been described to the president,” Perino said. “The political contributions certainly were not known. It raises the appearance of impropriety, so the president prudently decided not to go through with the pardon.”

This commentary is original to All Over the Board:

Harold Pinter died yesterday of cancer at age 78. He was one of the great playwrights of the twentieth century. In his plays, like The Homecoming, The Birthday Party, and Old Times, he caught the ambivalent and restless conflict, the striving for significant personal connection and the intricate by-play of emotion and memory, that lay at the heart of the human dilemma.

Pinter also was one of the great moral voices speaking for human justice and freedom the English-speaking world has seen in recent times. This is most evident in his final testament, his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, which he received in 2005.

What we are experiencing here in America, and the world over for that matter, is the inevitable collapse of the consumerist culture. For years we have gorged ourselves on the upside of consumerism but now we all must suffer the downside of this system. The consumerism system relies on three things. The first is that the system must be in a constant state of economic expansion. The second is that the planet must have an infinite supply of resources to supply the ever expanding amount of goods needed to support the ever expanding economy. The third is that the people must be trained to live in a state of constant consumption. See the Story of Stuff to learn more about that and watch Money as Debt for an explanation of how the ever expanding wad of credit that fuels the consumerist economy has no real value.