Dear CIGAs,
Click the chart below to enlarge in PDF format
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
You are seeing the very fabric of the securitized investment vehicle mortgages being challenged in various ways, in various states.
Here is an interesting question: Most servicers are owned by the same company that is the present owner of your mortgage. If the principle, the owner of your mortgage, was Lehman and Aurora their subsidiary is the servicing company how do you know that in fact the SIV holding your mortgage is being serviced properly? If not and a bankruptcy stood in your way, can you claim free of legal jeopardy that you had in fact paid your debt?
I would suggest that at the least you would have a hard uphill climb not to be liable once again for everything you have already paid as well as the rest of the debt on one hand and a bankruptcy to collect from on the other hand. Think about it.
Look at it this way. You have a large CD with the same regional bank that holds a debt you owe. That bank goes broke. You do not have a contract with that bank called a right of offset. You will lose what you have with the bank, and still owe the same bank the debt that you owed to them.
How many of you in this position have a right of offset agreement? The answer is probably none.
Mortgage transfers spur R.I. lawsuits
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, October 25, 2009
By Christine Dunn
A Providence lawyer, George E. Babcock, said his entire practice is now devoted to challenging the legal standing of a private mortgage registration service, the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., known as MERS, to foreclose under Rhode Island law.
Formed in 1995 by the mortgage finance industry, MERS was created to increase profits and efficiency by eliminating the need to record changes in mortgage ownership at local government property registries. MERS is a corporation that also acts as a nominee for lenders and their successors.
Babcock said he wonders why local governments and county deed registries have never challenged the MERS system before, because by allowing lenders to bypass the process of recording mortgage transfers with government entities, “millions and millions” in fees to local government have been lost.
But it took the foreclosure crisis to shine the light on MERS, which some have blamed for enabling the mortgage securitization craze and the questionable lending practices that preceded the housing bust.
Despite being on the losing end of an Aug. 25 decision by Providence Superior Court Judge Michael A. Silverstein, which he has appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, Babcock said he is still filing “two or three” MERS lawsuits a week for clients hoping to stop foreclosure proceedings. Babcock estimates he is pursuing a total of about 100 MERS cases.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Housing sales are up? Children as young as 7 years old have been discovered as first time buyers taking advantage of the tax credit.
Foreclosures, due to change in deeds, are booked as sale. Something really smells in that Green Shoot.
‘Double bubble’ means more real estate trouble
Developers face huge crunch as downturn hits office buildings, malls, hotels
By John W. Schoen
updated 4:29 a.m. MT, Thurs., Oct . 22, 2009
That big whoosh you’re hearing is the air rushing out of a commercial real estate bubble.
More than two years into the worst housing crisis in decades, commercial real estate is shaping up as the second half of what some are calling a “double bubble.” Owners of shopping malls, hotels, office space and apartment buildings — and the bankers who financed them — face a major crunch over the next two years as the mortgages on those properties start coming due.
Much like homeowners who now owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth, many commercial property owners have seen the value of their properties plummet, increasing the risk of default on hundreds of billions in commercial real estate loans.
That is expected to put more stress on thousands of banks that have already been deemed “not too big to fail.”
“I have never seen anything this bad,” said Dan Tishman, CEO of Tishman Construction, one of the nation’s leading construction and management firms, comparing the current slide to major commercial real estate busts in the 1980s and ’90s.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Yeah, sure organized crime.
This is more than likely someone trying to protect themselves with very bad advice.
$1,000,000 in gold and currency ($50 bills) is rather modest in size, about one half loaf of bread.
CBSA seizes $1 million worth of gold and currency
Vancouver Sun October 22, 2009
About $1 million worth of gold and currency has been seized at the Douglas border crossing by the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement.
Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan commended the CBSA and the RCMP for the seizure, noting that "smuggling of undeclared assets, guns and drugs at our borders is often the lifeblood of gangs and organized crime in our country."
He added the government will continue to pursure "our tackling crime agenda" and has introduced other measures such as legislation to ensure mandatory jail time for those convicted of serious crimes, and setting new penalties for property theft.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Large scale conflicts? I wonder who they are referring to.
Russia ‘needs to be’ ready for ‘large-scale conflicts’
Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:43:48 GMT
Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev says the country should be ready for "large-scale conflicts".
"In 1993, we said that military conflicts have been ruled out, but life has shown this is not the case," AFP quoted Patrushev, as saying on Thursday.
"There have been regional and local conflicts, and we cannot rule out large-scale conflicts and we need to be ready for this," he added.
Patrushev made the comments while discussing a new version of Russia’s military doctrine, which officials have been drafting in recent months.
Last week, Patrushev said the new doctrine would allow Russia to carry out a "preventative" nuclear strike against would-be aggressors.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
It seems that the Taliban are making a public statement concerning their intentions.
Add this to Iran stuffing the "send in processed uranium to Russia to be energy graded" in the tank and we have had an interesting geopolitical day.
Suicide bomber strikes suspected nuclear weapons site in Pakistan
By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
ISLAMABAD — A suspected nuclear weapons site in Pakistan was hit by a suicide bomb attack, raising fears about the security of the nuclear arsenal, while two other terrorist blasts made it another bloody day in the country’s struggle against extremism.
Increasingly daring and sophisticated attacks by terrorists allied to al Qaida on some of Pakistan’s most sensitive and best protected installations have led to warnings that extremists could damage a nuclear facility or seize some nuclear material. The country’s nuclear sites are located mostly in the northwest of the country, close to the capital Islamabad, to keep them away from the border with arch-enemy India. However, that places them close to Pakistani Taliban extremists, who are massed in the northwest. Al Qaida has made clear its ambitions to get hold of a nuclear bomb or knowledge of nuclear technology. Several other sites associated with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have previously been hit.
Pakistan is reeling from a wave of terrorist violence that’s coincided with the launch of a U.S.-backed ground operation by the military against the country’s al Qaida and Taliban heartland of South Waziristan, on the Afghan border.
Friday morning a suicide attacker struck a check post on the boundary of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, an Air Force base at Kamra, about 40 miles outside Islamabad, killing eight people, including two security personnel, and wounding a further 15.
"There were strict security arrangements, so he [the bomber] was intercepted at the first check post," local police chief Fakhar Sultan told reporters.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
You see Green Shoots in today’s housing news. It smells a little like Limburger cheese.
What is wrong with post 65?
The Number of Job Hunters 65 or Older Skyrockets
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: October 23, 2009
It is well known that during the nation’s gale-force recession, many older Americans who dreamed of retirement continued to work, often because their 401(k)’s had plunged in value.
In fact, there are more Americans 65 and older in the job market today than at any time in history, 6.6 million, compared with 4.1 million in 2001.
Less well known, though, is that nearly half a million workers 65 and older want to work but cannot find a job — more than five times the level early this decade and this group’s highest unemployment level since the Great Depression.
The situation is made more dire because of numerous recent trends: many people over 65 have lost their jobs as seniority protections have weakened, and like most other Americans, a higher percentage of them took on debt than in previous generations.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Sure the banksters know something we do not. They themselves are the problem. They know about their own financial condition. They know there present earnings are marked up on OTC derivatives previously marked down. They are ace economists knowledgeable about others. They are protecting themselves against a change in FASB’s accommodating rule change.
Banks Piling Cash At Fed
Liz Moyer, 10.23.09, 05:00 PM EDT
Weekly data released Thursday by the Federal Reserve show excess reserves held at the Fed–the equivalent of banks stuffing bills into shoe boxes for storage–topped $1 trillion this week, a record, after climbing steadily since the markets froze up last October.
Last year, there was reason enough for banks to horde cash in preparation for the annual closing the books ritual known as "the turn." The credit markets had frozen up, banks weren’t lending to one another, and there was deep uncertainty about the state of the financial markets, prompting the federal government’s multibillion-dollar intervention with 19 major banks. Banks were unwilling or unable to risk their cash on longer-term assets.
This year, the fear has subsided, but there are still uncertainties. The 19 banks endured stress tests last spring and have raised $150 billion in new capital since then, but regulators continue to talk about whether capital requirements need further adjustment, meaning banks might have to come up with more.
In a speech in Massachusetts Friday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke talked about the idea of banks holding "contingent capital," which is debt that would convert to equity at a time of stress, giving large "systemically" important banks an extra equity cushion to avoid the same fate as Lehman Brothers.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Turkey will be a victim. They are playing both sides against the middle. While doing business with the middle.
Turkey Exposed: Cannot Pretend to be Both Pro-Israeli and Pro-Palestinian
Asbarez News
Playing the skillful political games of their Ottoman predecessors, Turkey’s current masters present their country under various guises — as European and …
Turkey confirms Iran gas deal
Tehran Times
TEHRAN — Turkey plans to carry out its $3.5 billion natural gas development plans in Iran, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Wednesday. …
