Tag: Foreclosure

May One – Rerun/Recycled/New President/FooledAgain

Reminder more or less that May 1 is the International Worker’s Day and early American labor rights protesters initiated it. It’s an American tradition – not a Communist tradition. And it’s a pagan tradition from the dawn of time.

I hope you all had a great May Day. As I post this it’s still May 1 from the CDT zone westward. For those who saw the original post, you can just skip it or get refreshed. For those who haven’t seen it, it has some interesting background on the history of the day.

Herewith, a recycled essay:

May 1.

A lot of Americans have apparently been brainwashed during their formative years. Especially the crowd over at the site that shall not be named. The vast majority associate the first day of the month of May as a Soviet Communist celebration day. Then again a sizable number of Uhmericans think Saddam Hussein was complicit in the 9/11 atrocities. Oh, and the wiretapping started after 9/11 and not like late February or early March of 2001.

May first was a holiday before there was a May. It’s a cross-quarter day. That means it falls about halfway between a solstice and an equinox. Back before keyboards, laser mice and high-speed internet connections people used to notice these things. The only thing that emitted light, besides fire, was in the sky. You can check out the sky anytime. Just click here. Cool, huh? And you didn’t have to let go of your mouse to do it.

So back in the days of stone knives and bearskins, and I’m not talking about the Star Trek episode where Spock and McCoy have to build a time-machine thingie with 1930s tech, or even the dark ages of eight bit processors, RAM limits of 65536 bytes and machine code, I’m talking real stone and real bear. Hell, sabre-tooth tiger and wooly mammoth times. Back when chipped flint was high-tech. In the time of neo-pagans (not to be confused with the neopaganists of today).

Together with the solstices and equinoxes (Yule, Ostara, Midsummer, and Mabon), these form the eight solar holidays in the neopagan wheel of the year. They are often celebrated on the evening before the listed date, since traditionally the new day was considered to begin at sunset rather than at midnight.

Festival name Date Sun’s Position

Samhain 1 Nov (alt. 5-10 Nov) ? 15° ?

Imbolc 2 Feb (alt. 2-7 Feb) ? 15° ?

Beltane 1 May (alt. 4-10 May) ? 15° ?

Lughnasadh 1 Aug (alt. 3-10 Aug) ? 15° ?

There are Christian and secular holidays that correspond roughly with each of these four, and some argue that historically they originated as adaptations of the pagan holidays, although the matter is not agreed upon. The corresponding holidays are:

   * St.Brigids Day (1 Feb), Groundhog Day (2 Feb), and Candlemas (2 or 15 Feb)

   * Walpurgis Night (30 Apr) and May Day (1 May)

   * Lammas (1 Aug)

   * Halloween (31 Oct), All Saints (1 Nov), and All Souls’ Day (2 Nov)

Groundhog Day is celebrated in North America. It is said that if a groundhog comes out of his hole on 2 February and sees his shadow (that is, if the weather is good), there will be six more weeks of winter. February 2nd marks the end of the short days of winter. Because average temperatures lag behind day length by several weeks, it is (hopefully) the beginning of the end of winter cold.

It’s been Groundhog Day in Iraq for five seven years now. But who’s counting?

UPDATE: we’ve been lobbing explosives into Afghanistan since Clinton’s time. The definition of insanity is repeating the same act and expecting a different result. Our MIC PWOT is insane – but it keeps their funding flowing while we lose our jobs and homes.

It’s 2010 now and nothing has really changed that much, has it? I hope you enjoyed this May Day. It’s a day for Working Class Heroes.

There’s more:

On Earl Avenue

Is there a soul to a house?

If we call it just a house and not a home, does it still possess a soul separate from the vagaries of mortgages, layers of paint, or crayon, or grease on the walls, busted pipes in the winter, the seepage stains that are like Mercatur projections of alien continents on whitewashed mortared walls?

Does the heart of a house exist outside any memory of the tangible moments that mark the living within? Or does the spirit of a house, soul-centered in an aging body of wood and brick and nail, pulse simply because there are lives, loves and deaths that pass through?  Perhaps an invisible, silent, tender skin of cares, of worries, of hopes, coats every moment exchanged. Coats the hallways, the rooms, the stairs, the steps leading away. In this old house on Earl Avenue.

A Diary A Day – Let’s Name Names at that crap table

I have been asked some interesting questions in my series A Diary A Day. Like is it possible a single home mortgage is represented in multiple bundles, or has trigger multiple insurance payments.

Let explore the possibilities below the fold.  

A Diary A Day-7 million homes lost-5 million more could follow

I tried this diary on Tuesday and pissed a lot of people off, not my intention.  I am trying again because this is really important and I promise to take the time and choose my words carefully. There are a lot of reasons Obama organized us and showed us how to demand better of all government, in the very near future we are going to need everything we know and everything we can learn.

Since 2004 7 MILLION homes have been lost to foreclosure. There are about 3 million more homes under the protection of Chapter 13, homes the lenders are trying to chip out and take. There are more than 5 million sub prime loans in or on the verge of foreclosure right now. 1 in 8 homes has either been lost or is in jeopardy of being lost and we are not at the bottom yet. Not since the Great Depression has the average American suffered the wrenching loss of home and job and future. It is not only a significant turn over of wealth but will also bring significant changes to the American landscape. Depending on how deep the turn over it will change American cities and towns for all time and with those changes the quality of life for all of us.

And so it starts the slumming of America, more below the fold.  

A Diary A Day – a Humongous Heaping Healthy Helping of FRAUD

Yesterday I diaried about my understanding of how the meltdown happened, here. But there is part of the diary worthy of a diary on it’s own. The very important part played by Wall Street’s three biggest arbiters of credit. We will look at their part combined with how these instruments were allowed to be traded that may be the largest fraud ever perpetrated against the American people. We will discuss the illegal actions that can and MUST be pursued below the fold.

A Diary A Day- Get this math – It’s VEGAS BABY!!!!

In researching my Sunday diary I ran across some interesting facts and figures I thought I would share with you. Grab a pencil and paper, your pocket calculator and pop some pop corn because this is going to be entertaining in a sick and disgusting sort of way. Follow me below the fold for a trip to the house of cards where our dreams live, located at the intersection of greed and larceny with a little betrayal along for the ride.

A Diary A Day – The losers are winning and it isn’t us

Well, well, well it seems Ben Bernanke is at it again, joined by ex-treasury guy from Goldman Sachs, Andrew Tilton. You might have already guessed they are finding ways to take OUR money. Their remarks are in this article from Bloomberg. We will discuss below the fold.

A Diary A Day – Housing Starts Up-The Slumming of America Begins

Much to everyone’s surprise housing starts were up in February. Unfotunately the increase was for multi-family dwellings no doubt preparing to house all those on the street from foreclosures. The largest increases were in the Northeast, South and Midwest. Oddly California hard hit by foreclosures has a good backlog of housing available. And so it starts the slumming of America, more below the fold.  

Banks – a diary a day until we fire up the Quattro (poll)

Up front disclaimer, I am suing WaMu and their successor, JPMorgan. You can read the saga here and here. While my battle with them doesn’t change the facts here, it does serve to explain my rage. On second thought when I exhort us all to take a page on retribution from Conan the Barbarian  … “crush my enemies, drive them before me and hear the lamentations of the women,” rage doesn’t quiet cover it. Here is the latest installment about Jamie Dimond thief in chief at JPMorgan, you will find the comments there from people who are made as hell. Follow me below the fold for a mere snack, a snippet, a snapshot of what the banks and Wall Street and their sycophants have been up to, because I want you mad as hell too.

Stop ‘vilifying’ executives, JPMorgan’s crybaby CEO pleads

Up front disclaimer, I am suing WaMu and their successor, JPMorgan. You can read the saga here and here. While my battle with them doesn’t change the facts here, it does serve to explain my rage.

“When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said in his speech. “I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country.”

Hey Jamie, hear that faint music in the background? It’s the worlds smallest violin. By the time this is over you will be lucky if an angry mob hasn’t come to get your greedy larcenous butt. Trust me Jamie, I want the last payment you get from US, the tax payers you swindled to be a life time vacation, all expenses paid in Sing Sing or Leavenworth. Follow me below the fold for the reality of of Mr. Dimond’s world whether he is willing to acknowledge it or not.

Bank Bailout Won’t Fix Systemic Criminality Its RICO Time

Banks are more than broken, they have become ongoing criminal enterprises. This goes beyond simple bookkeeping errors to systemic criminality. Want to fix the mortgage problem? Start auditing banks and prosecuting under RICO. Giant bonuses, trips to Vegas and Super Bowl sponsorship are really the LEAST of the problems with banks. Follow me below the fold for what they aren’t talking about on Morning Joe, or any of the MSM.  

What Are They Doing About All This?

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

The answer is Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Zippo. Zero.  They haven’t got a clue.  They are going to let it all come down, however it comes.

Permit me some extreme grouchiness.  And anger.  And despair.

People I know were evicted today from their home in the wake of not being able to pay their mortgage.  A long legal battle ended.  They lost.  The Sheriffs were there.  There was the cliche, the spectacle of having the young children sit on the curb while the furniture was deposited on the lawn. I don’t have $30,000+ to loan them to stop it.  Nor do their friends or family.  And I don’t see Congress or anybody else stepping in to do anything about this.  Maybe later on, when they’ve moved out and lost their home and are living somewhere else.  Maybe then there will be some “relief.”  For somebody else. I wish they lived in Chicago, but they don’t.

And then there’s this:

Photobucket

One Year of the DJIA

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