The Coming Depression has Begun:Tent Cities have gone up in Suburbs

Key point: If there aren't enough buyers to hold prices UP with at least replacement demand, prices will inevitably come DOWN to an appropriate level. We're actually quite early in this process…There's a simple demographic fact underlying the collapse of housing. The Baby Boomer Americans who start to retire right about now have bid up the price of homes so high that the next generation of humans won't be able to buy them…

A federal judge in Ohio has ruled against a longstanding foreclosure practice, potentially creating an obstacle for lenders trying to reclaim properties from troubled borrowers and raising questions about the legal standing of investors in mortgage securities pools. Judge Christopher A. Boyko of Federal District Court in Cleveland dismissed 14 foreclosure cases brought on behalf of mortgage investors, ruling that they had failed to prove that they owned the properties they were trying to seize.

Because most foreclosures proceed without challenges from borrowers, few judges have forced trustees like Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York to prove ownership by producing a mortgage note in each case. Borrower advocates cheered Judge Boyko’s ruling.
A borrower signs loan papers when a loan is made. A representative of the bank signs as well, but the ONLY capacity in which the bank's representative signs is so as to certify that the borrower's signature is valid and correct. Put another way, the representative of the bank does NOT append his signature in a mode or manner that creates a contract between the borrower and the bank. The reason that the bank's representative does not sign in order to create a contract is that the bank is aware that it is not giving the borrower ANYTHING AT ALL.

When the borrower signs the documentation, what he or she is doing is creating a new negotiable piece of paper which, provided the bank or another party accepts it as such, can be converted into a LOAN. But it is a loan to the bank, not to the borrower.

The crucial point here is that when the person being foreclosed upon requests the contract when challenging the foreclosure in court, he or she will be able thereby to demonstrate to the court that the bank cannot provide any such document.

U.S. new home sales fell a steeper-than-expected 9 percent in November, but business activity elsewhere perked up this month, according to reports Friday that showed pockets of strength in the economy despite a housing sector meltdown.

Economist John Williams says real unemployment and inflation numbers -- figured the old-fashioned way -- may be two or three times what the government admits. Heres why, and what it means for Social Security.

The Fed generally decides to throw people out of work when it gets concerned about inflation, as is the case at present. The logic is simple; if unemployment increases, then workers will find it more difficult to push up wages. Bosses will decide that they can just hire another worker from among the unemployed if their current workers ask for pay increases. Since wages are a cost to businesses, if wages rise less rapidly, then costs will rise less rapidly, and firms will probably slow the pace at which they raise their prices. In other words, by using unemployment to slow wage growth, the Fed can restrain inflation.

A quote from the National Association For Business Economics...: The combined threat of subprime loan defaults and excessive indebtedness has supplanted terrorism and the Middle East as the biggest short-term threat to the U.S. economy.

Some sleight of hand the ruling elite have accomplished since 9/11, namely, that while Americans were pondering the color of the government's daily terrorist threat assessments, that government and its corporate cronies was taking them to the cleaners, picking their pockets, swindling, cheating, extorting, defrauding, hustling, ripping-off, double-dealing, conning, hornswoggling, hoodwinking, fudging, gouging, bamboozling, scamming, screwing, shafting, and let's not forget bilking the American middle and working classes. Hey, look over there-see the Italian spider climbing up the wall-or Osama hiding under your bed? And while you look, we'll steal you deaf, dumb, and blind!