With much fanfare and headline buzz, Obama announced a new program to help homeowners. What is it? They simply lifted the 125% refinancing cap for mortgages attached to residential properties. Previously one could not refinance a home more than 125% of it's current value. Now you can refinance your mortgage where the principle is twice what the value of your home is. Nice huh? Mortgages only held at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will qualify and the program is only open until 2013. Your bank must approve and any mortgage sold to Fannie, Freddie after May 31, 2009 also doesn't qualify.
We have a name, HARP, for this program. Yet another mnemonic, similar to hopeless HAMP which was also released with much fanfare. Homeowners found HAMP to be a labyrinth of bureaucratic no help, designed to be a rat maze pretending somewhere there was some cheese.
Washington Post:
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, working with the Obama administration, said that up to 1 million “underwater” borrowers might benefit from an expanded program that targets homeowners who owe more than their properties are worth.
Congressman Peter DeFazio smelled a rat and boy did he find one. A host of Oregon forest thinning and clearing jobs, created by the American Recovery Act and funded by taxpayer dollars, went to foreigners, brought over on H-2B guest worker visas, instead of unemployed Americans. DeFazio fought and obtained funding for those forest projects and jobs in the 2009 Stimulus bill. DeFazio assumed with so many unemployed and desperate U.S.
The State Unemployment statistics for September 2011 were released. These 10 states, plus the D.C. area, in order, have unemployment rates at or above 10%: Nevada, 13.4%, California, 11.9%, Michigan 11.1%, South Carolina, 11.0%, District of Columbia, 11.1%, Florida, 10.6%, Mississippi, 10.6%, Rhode Island, 10.5%, North Carolina, 10.5%, Georgia 10.3%, Illinois, 10.0%.
One would think once a company had been convicted of defrauding the government, they wouldn't see another dime. Not so, shows a new DoD report. Believe this or not, the DoD has awarded over $1.1 trillion dollars in defense contracts to companies have been convicted, found liable, or settled fraud charges earlier with the DoD since 2001.
Senator Bernie Sanders summed up some of the numbers buried in the report:
Over the past ten years, DOD awarded $254,564,581 to companies that were convicted of a crime in connection with a DOD contract during that same period of time. To make matters worse, DOD awarded $33,079,743 of that to convicted companies after they had been convicted.
Over the past ten years, DOD awarded $573,693,095,938 to companies that were found liable or settle charges of a civil wrong in connection with a DOD contract during that same period of time. To make matters worse, DOD awarded $398,081,775,397 of that to those companies after they settled the charges or were found liable.
The numbers become increasingly shocking if you look at company affiliations. Over the past ten years, DOD awarded $1,104,423,438,564.10 to entities affiliated with companies that have a history of fraud.
The Government Accountability Office has completed their audit of the Federal Reserve. Guess what the GAO found? Conflicts of Interest. It seems the Banksters are sitting on the Federal Reserve board, supervising their own institutions. The fox is guarding the hen house in other words. One of the most damning GAO discoveries is the timeline of Goldman Sachs turning into a holding bank and a Goldman Sachs board of directors, Stephen Friedman, also serving as the New York Federal Reserve chair.
The September Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation, increased 0.3% from last month. Food increased 0.4% and energy 2.0%. Gas alone increased 2.9% in a month and food at home, or groceries, increased 0.6%. Core CPI, or price increases minus food and energy costs, rose 0.1%. Core CPI is a Federal Reserve inflation watch number.
Buoyed by one-time gains from accounting changes and the sale of assets, Bank of America reported a $6.23 billion profit for the third-quarter
What were those accounting changes and sale of assets? It appears Bank of America moved Merrill Lynch derivatives to a FDIC insured subsidiary. Bloomberg:
Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.
Now that corporations have managed to get their glorified offshore outsourcing and tax haven bad trade deals, they are after the next thing, paying no taxes on profits made overseas. It's not enough multinationals made sure patents squeeze out the lone inventor and turned intellectual property into a glorified multinational shell game, they want more. Up next is their corporate tax holiday, complete with up is down lobbyist talking points, all to get yet another corporate giveaway through Congress.
David Cay Johnston calls the propaganda Orwellian:
Political tax talk is becoming Orwellian: Secrecy is Democracy. Auditors Reduce Collections. Tax Cheats Will Be Caught With Fewer Auditors.
With much fanfare and headline buzz, Obama announced a 
We have a name, HARP, for this program. Yet another mnemonic, similar to hopeless 
One would think once a company had been convicted of defrauding the government, they wouldn't see another dime. Not so, shows a new DoD report. Believe this or not, the DoD has awarded over $1.1 trillion dollars in defense contracts to companies have been convicted, found liable, or settled fraud charges earlier with the DoD since 2001. 
Bank of America just made 
Now that corporations have managed to get their glorified
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