So, a step in the right direction, hopefully.  My buring question remains, however…what happens to those of us who are dealing with Chase, who flat out refuses to consider HAMP for those of us who qualify? 

They insist on their CHAMP, which is supposed to be “a parallel version of HAMP, just an in-house version.”  This claim is FALSE.  22 months later, 2 CHAMPS with payments way over 31% of my monthly gross income, is laden with false statements (joint tenants do NOT exist in my home and I will not sign something stating the latter) & a gross amount of additional fees added to the principal balance Carol Masters told me were “not legal so we don’t really do that.”  But they did.

I was JUST told by Carol at Chase that my “income was too high for a HAMP” after being told it was “mandatory to include child support in order for your income to qualify for a HAMP.”  The list of incorrect, misleading comments continues as does this process.

So.

P.S., Thanks, Karen - as usual, great reporting.  I hope you know how much everyone appreciates ProPublica’s help with this mess!!  :)

This is all about credit card debt and the refusal of politicians and government in general to stand up to the banks and demand they offer real credit card debt reduction programs.

This would give homeowners more breathing room to keep on their mortgages, making them more reliable banking customers as well.

The key is, the reduction in credit card debt interest rates would first go to those who can actually reduce their actual debt load each month.

This would do two things, it would mean people aren’t just piling on more debt that they may never pay down, and it will also begin to free up some additional spending money each month to make minor credit card purchases even as their credit debt load goes down.

There is a difference between paying 19% or higher, versus paying down debt at 2.9%, a big difference.

This whole thing started when the credit card companies decided to become overly greedy…raising interest rates in most cases to 29.99%.  We were paying our bills on time, etc., but once all the interest rates went up, we couldn’t keep up any longer.  We had to make a tough decision to file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy or lose whatever we had.  We’ve managed to get a loan modification (actually, WF refinanced the current balance at a lower interest rate, but our loan payment is still more than 31% of our income), but we no longer deal with credit cards.  It’ll be 5 years in the Chapter 13 program, but once it’s over, we’ll be free and clear.  Our creditors, on the other hand, will get less than 51% of what we actually owed them. Seems they will be losing money rather than gaining it….I guess being greedy doesn’t always pay!

So, the fraud is twofold—-first, the ill-advised, if not illegal securitization process involving billions of mortgages—-aside from their toxicity, it remains unclear as to who actually owns the note since diligence was not observed in the title transfer process (MERS)  The lenders are in no position to service that kind of massive debtload, and would be insolvent if the investors were repaid.  Great doing business with a bunch of greedy, immoral miscreants, isn’t it?

Then, the credit card nightmare—-29.99% interest?  What?  That re-defines usury—-no thanks, I gave up at 14%..

They are trying to foreclose on me, despite the egregious violation of TILA—-even including phony income statements and loan flipping.

Court date is approaching—-in my state, the judges haven’t seen too many cases with BofA as the Defendant.  Wish me luck and justice after a two year nightmare.

Story needs more specific identification of the “government watchdog panel.” It is the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) created in October 2008 to review financial markets and their regulatory system. Its chair is former Senator Fred Kaufman.

I was almost ashamed of how I had to beat the lenders and credit card companies at their own game.  I was dishonorable and ruthless in dealing with all of them. Now, as time has passed and I read about the continual misery created by these companies in their dealings with respectable people, I sleep well at night, knowing that sometimes you need to get a little dirty when you are dealing with dirt…...Best regards and bon voyage to BOA, Chase, WellsFargo, AmericanHomeMortgage, Countrywide, First Franklin,Wachovia, SunTrust, GMAC and most of all Capital One and AT&T and American Express.
Did I miss anyone?.....nope….I gotcha all.

Here is a case worth reading from a borrower who came to see me for help
His payment with Citi was $2000, payment went up to $2600 so he satrted to strugle to make the Mortgage payment, he requested a Loan Mod, he straggle with the bank for at least 6 months did not get anywhere, Finally after trying and trying and months and month Citi granted a mod for $1732.00 great mod! and he was happy, but at the same time that his mod was granted his Mortgage went to Vericrest Financial (it change hands) he send his 1st payment to Vericrest for $1732,00, and a 2nd 3rd and 4th payment after the 4th payment he received a letter form Vericrests informing him that he was in default ! wow in default? he call Vericrest and inform them that he could not be in default because he has been sending the payments every month Vericrest told my client that he has been sending his payment short that his payment should be $2600, so he pointed out to Vericrest that his loan was modified and send copies of the modification he fight with Vericrest for months until Vericrest put the house in foreclosure and return his 7th payment to him, and they gave him a choice, either he comes out with $8000 cash and the difference another $8000 spread in a year plus the mortgage payment or his house will be foreclose, so he went and he was force to file chapter 13 to save the home,
He canme to see me today and I’m going to do everything in my power to help him, because this is outrageous !
God bless America !

Chase does not want to help people stay in their homes. How far can they go?

Mortgage companies, banks, servicing companies, ALL OF THEM, drove many to foreclosure the same way the credit card companies are doing it.  Interest rate goes up…can’t afford the payment anymore, screw you!

I have a Wells Fargo business credit card and my interest jumped 4%, never been late or missed a payment. I’ve gone without some creature comforts to ensure this happens. When I called them to find out why, I was told that it was across the board. Somehow I feel this was around the time they bought Wachovia. I was told I would have to fill out another credit app in order to get this reduced. I’m in the construction industry and my business is down 65% from 07 when I foolishly fell for their fixed rate card. Lies sweet Lies.

In my 38 years in const. I’ve seen 1st hand that when construction goes down so does the economy. Now we no manufacturing base or const.only the “thought base” for high-tech & banking but there will be lots of structures for them to operate out of while we are in tents chasing the credit score carrot.

We live in a Representative Republic & vote for people to govern according to their promises and they follow a money trail after being elected & vote accordingly without our best interest in mind. We vote new people in & it’s a very short time till they loose their souls. Why can’t we have a vote of No Confidence for our self interest governing officials? Maybe there is an ulterior motive to all this in addition to rampant greed.

Too bad we don’t organize and start calling, e-mailing, & writing letters en masse & inundate their systems (banks and politicians) so they can’t conduct business as usual, depriving them the privilege of pillaging US more. Politicians aren’t going to stand up to them only help them when they screw themselves up and have us bail them out so they can make lateral moves amongst themselves making them even bigger. What about Antitrust Laws? Maybe we need a real genuine Democracy instead of people who are in it for their own self interest. I thought they were Public Servants.

In December 2007, I attended a local meeting organized by a County Government accommodating the then Secretary of Treasury Paulson. Being only 5 feet away, I asked a question, looking into his eyes, about how serious the problem is? He blinked, became upset, and spewed some political speak which when boiled down, revealed about 5 trillion dollars. This was deduced not from him but about the impact on the Country, which at time had about 9 Trillion in debt, and he alluded to a number of 14 Trillion. His plea for private and public sector cooperation on mortgage and home ownership has fallen on deaf ears, as it has on Mr. Geitner. 
The reason it hasn’t worked is the Private sector is still in shock over its catastrophic blunder, and refuse to believe the value in real estate, and securities, and derivatives could have been now
valueless. They have convinced the FED, and Treasury they need Time to cover the mistake and recapitalize. How long that will take will be played by them to first enrich themselves, without regard to high cost subsidies they demanded to remain open in free markets.
Now ask those Privateers to take a hit on Real Estate Value when notional values of total global debt is 50Trillion is unthinkable to them. So we the taxpayer and homeowner current and past are required to cover them.
The solution Nationalize the Real Estate Market. We did once before and it stabilized the Market for 30 years.
This is a National Emergency, but everyone in DC, Wall Street, and foreign interest embroiled in it do not want to face it.

Hi Ron, do you mean something like “SwarmtheBanks” dot com?  I started that blog with the idea of swarming banksters who aren’t doing the right thing, but realized without any financial backing it would be virtually impossible to get enough people involved.

However, swarmthebanks is still a great place to keep up to the minute on dozens of foreclosure blogs, including propublica.

huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/15/2500-homeowners-put-in-fo_n_797224.html

Someone mentioned the problem is two-fold and they explained why they believed that.  My feeling is it is way past being any kind of “fold”, its one big gigantic wad of corruption, deceit, being sold down the river by our “justice” system, our representatives in Washington D.C, the banks, its collusion, all of them either consciously engaging in self-serving greed and avarice of unparalleled proportion.  There is failure everywhere you look to do the right thing.  And, as someone else pointed out, it started long ago with bankruptcy law ‘reform’ which meant to keep people from getting any relief from their debts, in many cases, and giving financiers the weapons needed to lock and load on the citizens who were struggling to get by.  If you recall, after the changes made in banking and credit regulations, it enabled the banks to, if you were one hour late making your payment to raise your interest rate from perhaps 9 percent to 29 percent which yes, is usury, government sanctioined loan-sharking.  And not just for the credit card account you “missed” on, but for every other credit card account you had, you were in the sights of the guys holding the weapons and they opened up on their card holders.  They thought they were pretty cool getting the nod from Uncle Sam to do what they were doing.  None of them had any vision, they don’t need any when they look no further than the end of their nose for that’s where their concern with the state of the world lies.  Their interest starts and ends with them.  It’s all coming together like some bowery boy hawked up a nasty vile glob that everyone is having to deal with.  You see we also have creditors, those creditors who raised the interest to 29 percent, taking a tax write-off when the accounts went unpaid.  After they did that, theyi sold them off to a group of scum-sucking swine known as junk debt buyers who have zero to no conscience.  They pay maybe $5 for a $1,000 debt.  Where else can you find a product to “sell” with such a fantastic mark-up?  And the thing is its very comparable to the MERS fiasco where no one knows who has what because somehow these debts can be sold numerous times and so pity the poor fool who gets tracked down, stalked, browbeaten in to paying via these junk debt buyers, OR in many cases, they get default judgments because they know people are intimated by the court system and either don’t show up or can’t show up because if they take off work to go to court they might get fired or at the very least frowned on and not promoted plus its leave w/o pay for a lot of them.  And if they do make it to court, these swine who filed suit (remember the $5 trinket they are wanting you to pay $1000 for) use fraudulent YES FRAUDULENT affidavits, NOT mistaken affidavits with errors, they are FRAUD knowingly, willfully, and with arrogance presented to a judge who often times either doesn’t know the score (but he should) or frankly doesn’t give a rat’s behind, so he lets these people stall and delay drawing out the proceedings so if the victim does take off work to go to court betcha anything it gets continued month after month, waiting for the day when the debtor finally can’t make it to court and then SNAP, gotcha, SUDDENLY they are ready to go, they move in with their fake affidavit and give it to the fake judge and get their fraudullently obtained judgment against you for the $5 trinket and they want the whole $1,000 even though it should not be allowed to be so because remember, the original creditor wrote of much of the loss on his taxes so now you’ve got more money coming in than what the object is worth.  Which amounts to violations of the RICO statutes because two people are collecting/profiting for the same amount of money.  And if you get one of the cases where more than one junk debt buyer bought the loan in some cases you may pay it off only to find some other scummy debt buyer stepping up to the plate and saying HE owns the debt and he wants you to pay again.  If you don’t pay or can’t pay, no problem, they will garnish your wages and seize your entire bank account in which case you can’t pay Bank of America or Chase or Wells Fargo and so there goes your home or you can’t pay your rent and then you’re homeless but nowhere in this entire process does anyone besides the debtor actually give a damn.  They don’t care if you can’t feed your children or you’re now living in your car.  Too bad.  Another contributor is our congressman and other representatives.  If you write them and tell them about what’s happening you will get back a computer-generated note saying thanks for contacting me about (in my own case the letter was about something other than what I wrote about) whatever and have a nice day.

People go to Washington DC and,, even if they start out halfway decent, before long they look around and see all the couble-dealing, they see Congress with their cadillac health plan and their self-voted for raises, they see them arrogantly denying even a cost of living raise to social security or disability pensions (the same pensions they rob from or should I say “borrow” from to balance some of their pork belly projects).  POWER and GREED are evil, POWER leads to GREED and ARROGANCE.  These ‘public servants’ who campaigned so fervently and told us how they were going to represent us, our interests, are way past wanting to help us.  They willl PRETEND to want to help us, keep the peasants appeased so they don’t revolt.  But they don’t really care.  And why should a congressman continue to get huge raises they vote for themselves to get at midnight when no one else whose among the struggling working poor getting any raises.  Workers are losing their insurance or it costs so much they can’t afford it.  The whole country is struggling while Nero plays the fiddle.

These outright CROOKS should be going to prison, not taking a vacation over the holidays to rub elbows with obama in Hawaii.  The came shamelessly to court with their forged documents and fraudulently sworn to affidavits, seize homes and bank accounts when they KNOW damn good and well that their entire case is built on lies and by now the courts and judges have to know as well but because its easier to abuse the little people than to hold the “too big to fail” people accountable so they aren’t going to prison they are back in court the next day to do the same thing ten or more times to someone else.

I KNOW THIS because not only am I dealing with BOA’s foreclosure/banking b.s., i’m also dealing with a junk debt buyer and their equally scummy “law firm” got a default judgment against me by engaging in fraud, lies and deceit and then they filed to garnish my bank account but for the time being they had the wrong bank.  But this same company has gotten huge fines and sanctions in other states and forbidden to use their fake robo-affidavits in that state but no problem they still use them in mine.  They are liars and I openly accused them of fraud and mail fraud and their only response was to switch lawyers, bring in a fresh team so they can put the fraud charges behind them and start out with a fresh slate.  I gave evidence to the court of their deceit and trickery and FRAUD UPON THE COURT which amounts to prosecutorial misconduct and they were not fined, they were not held in contempt as they should have been.  Rather than tuck their tail between their legs and go home, they are back at me again with a new fresh/arrogant/smug-faced pestilance-infested young attorney who is still trying to use his tricks of the trade in front of a new judge to force me to answer the interrogatories I already answered but its a power play.  He’s going to make an example of me for daring to try to swim upstream.  He’s going to attempt to rake me over the coals again even though NOT ONE SIGNLE SOLITARY DAMN PIECE OF EVIDENCE has ever been shown that I have a debt to anyone much less them, that they have the right to collect, NOTHING but lies for evidence and with the courts looking the other way they are going to continue to browbeat me and force me to got downtown to court again, over and over to play their stupid games.  They are using the court to intimidate me, to frustrate me, their lawsuit has no merit and yet for what will soon be a year, they are still breathing down my neck.  I filed a coplaint against the attorney in the case which went nowhere.  Though the oversight committee which gets its authority from Congress advertises itself as the force that keeps our attorneys and courts honest, they don’t, its just another act for them to point to so that they can show others that you must just be a deadbeat because this oversigt committee would do something to them if they were acting in bad faith but the don’t.  They told it was not their place to intervene because I have redress available in court and so that’s where I need to “fix” it.  If that is the case then why does this committee exist because where else are you going to have problems with an attorney but in court.  So now if you want fairness you are told to fight that out in court too when they are still on your case for a debt you don’t owe with fake evidence and lying scum sucking “lawyers” all coming together to browbeat you into submission, to wear you down, arrogantly and with total disregard and with NO CONSCIENCE because THEY KNOW, based on what they have been told in other courts that their “evidence” is nothing more than trickery meant to deceive the court.  Having been fined and sanctioned in other states does not slow them down for one second, they are right there at the courthouse doors with another fistful of fake affidavits ready to get their pound of flesh.

I am sick and tired of spending what feels like every waking moment trying to stave off Bank of America and now this new pistilence, creditors who call constantly but won’t leave a message, they continue to call over and over, and send you letters saying “we now have a judgment against you so it would be to your best interests to cooperate”.

And then, the final insult, I get a call from a “debtor-friendly” lawyer who says he’s heard about my difficulty and he’d like to help me so i tell him my story and my outrage and you know what?  After telling him how I have been misused by the court this arrogant pompous godless creature says he will make a “deal” with me and for Four or Five Hundred Dollars he will go talk to these slime who got the judgment and work out something so I CAN PAY THEM in smaller amounts, like maybe $300 a month.  I told him, YOU AREN’T LISTENING, I’m not paying these people one cent of anything because they have abused me, lied about and to me and to the court and now YOU come to me and want me to PAY YOU to make a deal with the devil?  And even if I did, I’ll bet you anything he would either come back with a deal that was no deal or one so outrageous that i couldn’t do it and he’ll say “sorry, thats the best I can do for you, bye now” and there goes my $500 and I’m still owing these slimy lowlife bottom dwelling people who say they are LAWyers?

Everywhere you look, the system is set up to use the powerless, to drain the lifeblood from them, to suck every last red corpuscle from you and if they leave nothing but a lifeless body behind in their wake WHO CARES?  If I haven’t paid them back entiredly, they will have a lien on my home or then start to browbeat the survivors of their victim, in their eternal nonstop unending pursuit of MONEY.  I do believe no greater truth was ever told than that money is the root of all evil.  People sell themelves out, OUR representatives sell themselves out, where do you turn?

Go to legal aid, right, thats what I was told.  I told them I did not owe this debt, never had such an account and all they did was send me a brochure telling me how to spend more wisely in the future so I can stay out of debt and out of trouble.

I am FED THE PHUCK UP with government and politicians and LAWYERS and hoards of Shylock debt collectors who have no conscience all they have is an insatiable NEED for MORE food/money and they will hound you to the gates of hell until you pay one way or the other.  They have not found a way, to my knowledge, to follow us into the next world but I’m sure if there was a way they would be the ones who would find it and use it.

I feel such loathing, such contempt for my government and “my” lawmakers and for the courts and for LAWyers.

They have taken my peace of mind but that has no pricetag and according to them I still owe them money and they will use every trick in the book to try to get it, it may be or maybe not “legal” but that’s beside the point because by now they are like a mob in a feeding frenzy, they see everyone else getting away with it from the big banks on down, taking homes and money and leaving shells of people and empty houses behind but THEY DON’T CARE and that is the sad truth, NO ONE cares, unless you count the ‘fake’ care and concern but then since everything else is fake I guess fake ‘care’ fits right in.

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/one_million_loan_revolt_-_loan_modification_
foreclosure_deception

Sign the petition

If I can collect 1 Million names and take them to Congress, I think we can help ourselves, numbers talk and numbers get attention.

Sign the petition and share the petition and your stories, you do not have to be late or in a bad scenario to join this action.

The concept is simple and powerful. Gather the signatures of at least one million homeowners, and present them to our Congress with the express purposes of changing bank and loan servicing company’s practices. This petition will prove the veracity of the crisis that is taking place in America today. Banks are destroying people’s good names using deceptive practices and loan modification is a sham.

Ask yourself this question: “When was the last time my bank cooperated in any way with helping me keep my home?” Or how about this one: “How many times must I fax document A before they receive it?” These issues are serious, and the banks treat us like we are “not their problem”. Well, if you think they should not be allowed to continue to hide behind regulatory loopholes while they take away everything from good people then sign this petition!

If you would like to participate in this grassroots attempt to change this country’s current loan practices in time to save our homes please fill out the following form. This is completely private and confidential. It will be used for only the practice laid out above, and will not be disseminated to any other entity for any purpose whatsoever. This information will be destroyed upon completion of the act above described.

This is an important day in America, and, for many of us, our days are numbered. The banks and servicing agencies who control our lives have abused their power for the last time. We need to send a message to Washington, and this petition is our voice! It is time for all of us to stand together to demand attention, for united we are many, and even a politician cannot ignore a million voices!

I started this movement on Wordpress and after talking to many and seeing how Change.Org makes a difference I figured it is time to get with the program. I personally have signed 4 petitions with this group in the last 60 days, so I know this is the place to be for the effort!

Enforcement using misdirected government lawyers following instructions from senior government officials
all of whom come from the banking community leads to what we have.

All delivered through the good offices of our elected officials as a group with out to much thought for individuals.

The American Way

Dear friends:  I think the the “mess” is WORSE than ever, because even those who were over the 31% of income, but still CAN PAY THAT amount(myself) are “not allowed” to be modified, when,—if income is sufficient, the banks should be COMPELLED to modify(—they took TARP monies, they NOW have-to modify, but they don’t, falling-back on excuses that put ME to blame).  One sends them papers 4-5 times,—THEY(EMC-CHAS) LOST those papers OVER 5 times, so NOW, EMC-CHAS can do whatever it wants.  I can’t UNDERSTAND HOW EMC-CHAS can under-report my pre-HAMP payment as “less/late/or not sent”, when I can PROVE a debiture was made matching the payment.  Our credit is then ruined, because Mitigations Dept. of EMC “accepts” the payment, but EMC-CHAS’ “Trump-card(—with my apologies to the ‘Donald’), is their Collections dept., which lists my “on-time/on-the-money” payment as “short”, making me “so-many months behind…on my mortgage” when my pre-HAMP payments WERE ON-TIME/Right-amount.  Certainly, the employees can’t “question” what comes from higer managment, and I don’t think the file-clerks “lose” the papers.—I think some Foreclosure “expert” @ EMC-CHAS steals a paper/two from each file during the night, as a means of increasing his bonuses on foreclosure.  I can’t prove this, but how can this “short-term thinking” persist, where there’s MORE to be made by Foreclosing—I guess the banks will ALWAYS try to get one to be late/not paying enough, EVEN IF one IS Not late/paying enough.  The Foreclosure mess is “Win-lose”.  It could be “Win-win”.  And who CARES about these banks STOCKHOLDERS?  Are they “chopped-liver”?  If I’m foreclosed, these parties will LOSE:—me,—my servicer(—could have shown an eventual profit by modifying),—my renter,—the locales having services I now don’t need,—the local/county/state TAX STRUCTURES, as a foreclosed home may be “on the market” for many months, and holding companies are incorporated, paying less/month than I would, last and least, the banks own stockholders.  Could it be that Banking wants as much as it can steal, NOW, because they KNOW the dollar’s “toast”, and they’ll make less, with cheaper dollars, so they have less incentive to “modify” if the dollar’s crashing?

Jack, this entire thing has been a charade which got us where?  The banks are doing fine for the time being but they are already getting into shady deals knowing there is no consequence if they fail, we, the grunts, will supply the money needed to bail them out and they will do nothing in return.

Forget what they said they would do, what they signed on to do.  The proof is they have been the most purposely inept bungling mass of fools.  No business could operate with people who can’t even figure out how to transfer you to the proper person to talk to.  how many times can they ACCIDENTALLY cut you off or transfer to the wrong number.

Obviously they can do better.  They didn’t bungle their appointment to pick up their payoff-tarp funds, the phone worked well enough to tell them the checks were ready.  I can tell you that in all the jobs that I’ve had throughout my life if I had been half as incapable and bungling as they are I would have been fired long ago.  Maybe they actually think they put an ad in the paper for good bunglers.  No executive worth his salt would tolerate this kind of incompetence IF it weren’t what he wanted anyway.

Our government, with all its resources, doesn’t seem to be able to levy sanctions on these scummy bankers and attorneys, why not?  They bombed the hell out of Sadam Hussein but they can’t control some bankers in sharkskin suits?

Its an act meant to distract while the real business is conducted, i.e. turning this country into the next socialist gulag. 

No jobs, no money, no communication if O has his way, the press mostly (I exclude Pro Publica) feeds us a homogenized pail of baloney.

Don’t look to the government to help you.  What kind of government would allow wrongful and fraudulent documents to be used to foreclose on houses in broad daylight without batting an eye.

Recently mr o told the bankers not to slow down the foreclosures, false documents or not, its not FAIR to the people house shopping.

Anybody who doesn’t open their eyes to the truth are dragging us down.  If everyone realized what he’s doing there would be a revolution and I do think there will be one someday but it may be too late.

And now, we have been done one better, as the saying goes…...a bill to terminate the HAMP program entirely——-useless bastards——I spent eight months on the Trial Program only to be denied because of failing NPV!’  Check this out.

http://4closurefraud.org/2011/01/28/a-bill-to-terminate-the-home-affordable-modification-program-of-the-department-of-the-treasury/

I wonder if there is anyone, say a congressman for example, who might ask himself if perhaps the reason it (HAMP) didn’t work and therefore is now desired to be dismissed to take its forgettable place in history is because no one really tried to make it work.  Of course it failed, it was doomed from the beginning. 

I do not think I am being cynical but merely a realist, it was not created to succeed.  It was created to distract us, it was created as something they could point to when times got desperate and say “we tried”.

Those who caused this problem by their own avarice and greed were well cared for by the government.  They were deemed too big to fail.  We, on the other hand, have apparently been deemed too small to care about.

And so a trick, a device was thought of.  The bankers are back on their feet engaging in the same kinds of illicit and immoral behavior as before so its time put away the pretenses and get down to business.  The business of keeping the rich wealthy and the poor doomed.

We are like the slaves in the galley, invisible but important.  We are not important in our own right, we are important because we are the engine that carries the wealthy where they want to go by doing all the menial but necessary things to keep the world turning for the aristocracy.

Anne,

Yes, I earlier put forth the notion that this issue is ‘two-fold’ which you properly re-framed into its real context——we are indeed imprisoned, and all you say rings the bell of truth.

I may bemoan the failure of HAMP, but it is only a reflection of what small ray of hope I have left for our
sorry Republic——long gone now into the bowels of our very own US version of an oligarchy.

Perhaps the volatile unrest through the middle east will be useful as our rulers ponder their future.

I wish you the best.

@acumen, I wish the best for you as well.  I wish I/we could be accurate and in the know about a happier subject.  There is a heavy snow here today, I am mindful of the stories I have heard about Russian dissidents banished to a Soviet Gulag in Siberia.  Just a passing thought, I look forward to spring, please soon. And wish you the best.

If it be asked what is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part of the Constitution, and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer, the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them; as if the general power had been reduced to particulars, and any one of these were to be violated; the same, in short, as if the State legislatures should violate their respective constitutional authorities. In the first instance, the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in the last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people who can, by the election of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers.
—James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
Source: THE FEDERALIST No. 44