I did see that and more through local news sources, but the truth is that it doesn’t matter how low his polls go, he will still be re-elected just like Daley. As they say here, “vote early, vote often and don’t let death stop you!”

Methinks Fannie and Freddie are making profits on the backs of those homeowners they foreclosed on through the servicers acting as their agents in court. They have also done a great job of having their mortgages excluded from any “settlements”, i.e. the 49-state AG fiasco last year.

One of the dirty little secrets is that all of their pretty loan servicing guidelines are nothing but tissue paper since none of the servicers have to actually follow them! That makes it so much easier to evict homeowners instead of working with them.

Got news for people, housing costs have eaten up 50% or more of paychecks for a very long time! I’m surprised, and yet not surprised, that Illinois is only a yellow state rather than a red state. It’s probably those darn down-staters skewing the numbers again. Here in the Chicago metro region, housing has been unaffordable for a couple of decades at the very least. There are many housing advocate groups that meet once a year or maybe few and bemoan the fact that housing is so unaffordable, but I have yet to see them doing anything concrete to solve the problem. About 10 or so years ago was one of those times and Thomas Marcucci, who was the mayor of Elmhurst, was quoted as saying he was proud of the fact that the teachers, police and firemen could not afford to live in the town they worked in! What an arrogant SOB, but that is the general attitude and nothing is ever done to solve the problem. Even C.H.A.D. (Community Housing Advocay and Development), an organization whose mission is to provide affordable housing charges market rents.

1. Who is paying the bounced check fees for the victims that was caused by Rust Consulting sending out bad checks? While they might fix the problem by depositing money to make them good, there had to be thousands of people who incurred fees from their own banks for depositing the bad checks, or who wrote checks thinking that the money was there!

2. Jobless claims keep falling because employers are running out of people to fire! There aren’t enough jobs being created to keep up with new workers coming into the overall pool and millions have been unemployed so long they are no longer counted. There are also the millions of long-term unemployed who are being counted, but the weekly jobless claim numbers are for first time unemployment claims, not those already unemployed. I’m not a math whiz, but this is an obvious problem for the “experts.”

3. Juan Cole is obviously smoking something good if he thinks Obama doesn’t want to go to war in Syria!

4. Penny Pritzker has more problems than just off-shore tax shelters, there’s the little matter of her role in the family’s failed bank a decade ago, including this letter to the managers and employees at the time. Please note that the first story was published in 2008 during Obama’s first Presidential campaign which includes this gem: “Part of the reason we got a current mortgage crisis has to do with the fact that people got suckered in to loans that they could not pay,” he told a crowd in Reading, Pa., last week. “There were a lot of predatory loans that were given out, a lot of teaser rates. Banks and financial institutions making these loans were making money hand over fist.”

That’s why I don’t read the comments! :)

Seriously though, there really are too many people who don’t live in the real world. I would guess that many of those with the worst comments are the kind who have their heads in the ground and don’t pay attention to what is truly going on around them. At a certain point you just have to pity them and move on.

WGNTV had this as one of the lead stories on their 11:00 am broadcast:

http://wgntv.com/2013/04/24/chicago-workers-strike-over-wages-at-mcdonalds-to-macys/

p.s. Today is the 24th

As moronic as this is, let’s not forget that thousands or millions of homeowners won’t get a dime from this “settlement” because 4 banks chose not to participate. When is someone going to start talking about that?

Afternoon all! It’s spring here in the Chicago/NE IL area and we’re having actual spring-like weather, meaning that we’re bouncing up to 50 degrees every few days. Today is colder and around 40ish, but the forecast for tomorrow is 72.

As for organization, I’ve always been one of those people who have organized chaos. There are piles everywhere, but I can usually put my hands on whatever I’m looking for somewhat easily. However, due to my age, physical health and medications, my memory is steadily getting worse and it’s taking longer to find things.

I moved last fall after voluntarily choosing to give my house back to the bank, but due to a stalker issue in my HOA had to move almost everything myself via the car. When I figured out there were 15-20 boxes of books, I knew it was time to admit I had a problem. My new library’s book sale was last month and I committed myself to donating as many books as possible. Of course I had to page through every single book to make sure nothing valuable got stashed, but ended up donating 7 boxes and 1 bag (had a pb series that wouldn’t fit in a box and didn’t want to break it up). All donated boxes were sorted into categories so the library friends didn’t have to do extra work. I was also good and didn’t go to the sale because I thought it would defeat the purpose. Now to finish going through everything else, including those boxes that have been moved from place to place unopened for 10-15 years.

Saw a story on marketwatch.com this morning that Obama’s putting Social Security anything in his budget is illegal per Public Law 101-508, title XIII, Sec 13301(a) dated Nov. 5, 1990 and H.R. 1259, the “Social Security and Medicare Safe Deposit Box Act of 1999 – link here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/does-obama-want-to-push-granny-off-a-cliff-2013-04-09?link=MW_popular – anyone know if there’s any truth to that?

Demarco’s refusal to let Fannie and Freddie do principal write downs is not the only issue, though no one would ever know that since it’s never discussed. I can’t speak for Fannie, but why is Freddie allowed to negotiate and sign contracts with bank servicers that gives them a pass on following their Official Guidelines which specify every single thing having to do with how to service their mortgage loans? From personal experience per those OGs, I was eligible for a HAFA deed-in-lieu which provides a few thousand dollars for transition expenses, but was instead forced to give up my house in foreclosure court because both GMAC/Ally and Freddie told me their contract supersedes the OGs.

There is a hell of a lot wrong with the FHFA and what Demarco does or doesn’t do, but Obama is never going to get rid of him because he would lose a valuable scapegoat regarding why homeowners cannot be helped. As for Schneiderman and Coakley, they should just give it up and walk off the stage while hanging their heads with shame since their words are meaningless.