Letter to Zywicki and the Banks from Non-Subprime Borrower

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I like this letter so I am posting it as its own article. I think the writer points out something that is very true — the Banks would have us believe that the “problem” is just with subprime mortgages. They like to do that because they figure people will have less sympathy and even some anger toward deadbeats who took out mortgages they couldn’t afford. First most of the mortgages affected by the various antics of the Banks — robo-signing, surrogate signing, forgery, fabrication and fraud, are NOT subprime mortgages.

Second, nobody who misses a payment for any reason is a deadbeat. When a company misses a payment it is called a distressed borrower and it is followed by a workout even when there are investor lenders in the mix. I know, I went to a seminar for lawyers that was ONLY about workouts for real estate foreclosures and the new requirements for TILA and RESPA. But that only seems to apply when you borrow millions instead of hundreds of thousands.

Third, nobody is hurt by helping people in distress. Somehow American generosity of spirit and ideology has been turned on its head by these banks who call themselves banks when in fact all they really are is marketing organizations more closely resembling MLM (multilevel marketing) pyramids than any financial institution I knew when I was growing up. They don’t use the basic principles of accounting, finance or economics to make, receive or process loans or deposits. Contrary to the implied injury to “honest” Americans who pay their bills (however misguided they might be as to whom they direct their payments), helping distressed homeowners — or all homeowners for that matter — simply makes sense.

The closest analogy that comes to mind is unfortunately a third rail with enough voltage to kill the casual traveler. In our society it is unacceptable to let someone die on the street when they could receive at least palliative care before death inside a hospital or doctor’s office. And if they die penniless we even bury them at no cost to anyone but the taxpayer. We don’t just leave them rotting on the pavement.

We all know this. If there is something we can do set a broken leg, we do it regardless of insurance, financial ability to pay or anything else. It is a basic instinct that we have followed as long as this country has been in existence and nothing has changed. By changing the way we think about it, Banks and insurance companies have convinced us to spend more caring for those who need help, with the “more” going into their pockets.  In the process it is now tens times more expensive to do what we do anyway. The reason it is more expensive is that we have let banks and their crony insurance companies become intermediaries in the process.

Instead of directly paying for these services through tax dollars like we used to do, we pay with tax dollars PLUS a very large premium because the cost of medical insurance supposedly includes these services even though they are already covered with tax dollars. And those costs, are then multiplied again by the profit that any company is entitled to claim. The more layers, the more profit. So what cost $1,000 becomes a $10,000 bill or more. The catch is that the banks and insurance companies market the political idea that if people can’t afford health insurance they shouldn’t get it. And they don’t. But they still get the medical care, because it is the only practical thing to do in a society like our society. As a practical matter we should only be paying for medical care — not medical care PLUS insurance profit PLUS bank profit.

Where am I going with this? If you assume that the distressed homeowner, worker or job-seeker has run out of options, then these people will end up on the streets requiring social services which they will get from tax dollars — police, fire, water, food, shelter etc. Like the man dying or injured on the sidewalk, they are going to get the help one way or the other and the expense of doing so through layers of ideology producing new industries whose sole business is to ACT (pretend) to be intermediaries and then ACT (pretend) that they are principals in transactions is absurd, expensive and impractical.

Securitization may seem unrelated but it is a natural outgrowth of this manner of thinking that the more layers of companies you insert into a simple process, the more complicated you make it, and the more companies you have demanding a profit even if they are all controlled by the same small group of titans on Wall Street. So we pay a mortgage tens times over and then demand more because after all someone got a benefit from the funding of the mortgage and THEY have not paid yet, even though there is no longer any obligation due because the real creditor (a group of investors and investment banks) have already been paid 10 times over.

So who pays the premium? In every case it is the taxpayer and those who are subjected to “private” taxation, which I define as anything you pay for a service that would be there anyway.

So the person who is paying their mortgage is paying taxes as well. Either way he or she is going to pay to help their neighbor — the only question is how much it will cost. Going the so-called conservative route costs more because it interposes businesses between a government function and the distressed citizen.The true conservative would seek to conserve tax dollars and thus reduce taxes. The neo conservatives spend like drunken sailors so their corporate friends can make even more money while the drain capital, resources and opportunities from our economy. 

We are putting millions of families out on the street, out of work, or under employed or forcing them to move in with relatives in homes already too small for the original tenants, creating stress, medical problems, suicides, crime and a myriad of other problems that are costing us money every time we say no to helping our neighbors. And the theory that saying Yes will encourage people to live in flop houses and half way shelters is utterly absurd. In fact, the facts prove it.

Either way it happens, and there is no flood of applicants to be homeless. There is however a flood of people in emergency rooms seeking medical care at 10 times the ordinary costs, because of the way the payment industry has created the infrastructure. We are heading for the same thing with housing. We empty houses and create a large homeless population whose upkeep is more expensive than leaving them in their houses until a better solution can be found.

So if you think it is unfair to pay $1 to help the helpless, how do you feel about paying $10 for the same thing?

Dear Professor Zywicki:
With all due respect, please do not publish any more “opinions” regarding the mortgage securitization scam.  Your article is misleading and minimizes the issues.  Not only do I have a MERS loan on my personal residence, I am a probate paralegal that deals with the mortgage securitization aftermath in my cases on a daily basis.  The attorneys in my office (with a combined experience of 80 years practicing law) and I are unable to come up with a solution because each set of facts are similar but unique to the specific loan.  However, we have concluded that the bottom line is that as a result of the variety and sometimes contradictory rulings coming from the Nation’s Judiciary, it falls on the homeowners to fork over the cash to clear the issues up if they want to keep their property and clear the chain of title.  The media has done a horrible injustice reporting the problem and I suspect that it is due to the fact that the fraud is so complex that even the media doesn’t “get it.”

Professor Zywicki, even though I am one of the lucky homeowners that has the ability to pay my month mortgage payment, I stopped paying as soon as I discovered the chain of fraudulent assignments that had been recorded.  Who do I owe the money too?  I have no idea but I am not going to continue paying until I see proof with my own eyes as to who or whom owns my promissory note.  If it takes me filing bankruptcy to find out, then so be it.  I have the documentation to fend off any servicer that attempts to foreclose on my home and will report any law firm that assists the servicer in an attempt to foreclose to the State Bar for discipline.

So, please do not make the situation worse by writing opinions that are misleading or that fail to address the real causes and results of the massive mortgage securitization fraud that was committed against our Nation’s homeowners.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Harwood

P.S.  I do not have a sub-prime mortgage.

Tags: bankruptcy, borrower, countrywide, disclosure, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, foreclosures, fraud, LOAN MODIFICATION, modification, quiet title, rescission, RESPA, securitization, TILA audit, trustee, WEISBAND
Posted in bubble, Corruption, Eviction, securities fraud |