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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (19830)	9/25/2009 8:15:35 PM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

I believe Broken Cloock referred to ACORN as a "grass roots movement of poor people".

To: longnshort who wrote (19830)	9/27/2009 8:54:10 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 103300

Homeowners who 'strategically default' on loans a growing problem A study shows that people who abruptly and intentionally abandon their mortgages often have high credit scores, in stark contrast with most financially distressed borrowers. NATION'S HOUSING By Kenneth R. Harney September 20, 2009 latimes.com Reporting from Washington Who is more likely to walk away from a house and a mortgage -- a person with super-prime credit scores or someone with lower scores? Research using a massive sample of 24 million individual credit files has found that homeowners with high scores when they apply for a loan are 50% more likely to "strategically default" -- abruptly and intentionally pull the plug and abandon the mortgage -- compared with lower-scoring borrowers. National credit bureau Experian teamed with consulting company Oliver Wyman to identify the characteristics and debt management behavior of the growing numbers of homeowners who bail out of their mortgages with none of the expected warning signs, such as nonpayments on other debts. With foreclosures, delinquencies and loan losses at record levels, strategic defaults and walkaways are among the hottest subjects in residential real estate finance. Unlike in earlier academic studies, Experian and Wyman could tap into credit files over extended periods to identify patterns associated with strategic defaults. Among researchers' findings are these eye-openers: * The number of strategic defaults is far beyond most industry estimates -- 588,000 nationwide during 2008, more than double the total in 2007. They represented 18% of all serious delinquencies that extended for more than 60 days in last year's fourth quarter. * Strategic defaulters often go straight from perfect payment histories to no mortgage payments at all. This is in stark contrast with most financially distressed borrowers, who try to keep paying on their mortgage even after they've fallen behind on other accounts. * Strategic defaults are heavily concentrated in negative-equity markets where home values zoomed during the boom and have cratered since 2006. In California last year, the number of strategic defaults was 68 times higher than it was in 2005. In Florida it was 46 times higher. In most other parts of the country, defaults were about nine times higher in 2008 than in 2005. * Two-thirds of strategic defaulters have only one mortgage -- the one they're walking away from on their primary homes. Individuals who have mortgages on multiple houses also have a higher likelihood of strategic default, but researchers believe that many of these walkaways are from investment properties or second homes. * Homeowners with large mortgage balances generally are more likely to pull the plug than those with lower balances. Similarly, people with credit ratings in the two highest categories measured by VantageScore -- a joint scoring venture created by Experian and the two other national credit bureaus, Equifax and TransUnion -- are far more likely to default strategically than people in lower score categories. * People who default strategically and lose their houses appear to understand the consequences of what they're doing. Piyush Tantia, an Oliver Wyman partner and a principal researcher on the study, said strategic defaulters "are clearly sophisticated," based on the patterns of selective payments observable in their credit files. For example, they tend not to default on home equity lines of credit until after they bail out on their main mortgages, sometimes to draw down more cash on the equity line. Strategic defaulters may know that their credit scores will be severely depressed by their mortgage abandonment, Tantia said, but they appear to look at it as a business decision: "Well, I'm $200,000 in the hole on my house, and yes, I'll damage my credit," he said of defaulters. But they see it as the most practical solution under the circumstances. The Experian-Wyman study does not try to explore the ethical or legal aspects of mortgage walkaways. But it does suggest that lenders and loan servicers take steps to screen and identify strategic defaulters in advance and possibly avoid offering them loan modifications, since they'll probably just re-default on them anyway. kenharney@earthlink.net Distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group. Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

To: longnshort who wrote (19830)	9/28/2009 9:07:02 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 103300

Fun with videotape: Tresa Kaelke from ACORN San Bernadino caught on tape saying admitting killing her husband.... <GGG> Tresa Kaelke: ACORN San Bernardino Worker Did Not Kill Husband September 17, 2009 at 11:22 am 1331 views \| 2 Recommendations \| 2 comments nowpublic.com Tresa Kaelke from ACORN San Bernadino was caught on tape saying admitting killing her husband and set up self defense claim. Soon after the video was online and aired in media channels, ACORN released a statement saying Kaelke lied deliberately in the video. Kaelke's former husband is very much alive and living in California. "They were not believable", said Ms. Kaelke of the two actors. "Somewhat entertaining, but they weren't even good actors. I didn't know what to make of them. They were clearly playing with me. I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me. Like Stephen Colbert does – saying the most outrageous things with a straightface." While her sense of humor might not be funny to many people, the fact is that she spun false scenario afterfalse scenario and the videographer ate them up. Here is the transcript of the controversial "confession". Kaelke: "I think in my life I have been abused also. I mean, just with an ex-husband. You know, that just beat the hell out of me, you know, a few times and then, you know, I killed him." O'Keefe: "How old were you then?" Kaelke: "Um, it was only, actually, about — well, I was 35." Giles: "Was he abusing you when you shot him or." Kaelke: "No. Not right that instant. He came at me and I let him throw me around a little bit, you know. And then I just picked up the gun and said (EXPLETIVE DELETED) you. And I shot him. And he died. Right there." Kaelke's supervisor, Spach, said Kaelke lied to the undercover reporters because she was afraid and wanted to "come across as a strong individual." Spach said Kaelke was not a prostitute and did not shoot her husband. Some of Tresa Kaelke's statements claimed to have been edited out to make ACORN look bad, and the filmmakers' journalistic standards were called into question. Others criticize FOX News for not doing proper fact check before airing the video. The original story on FOX still has not been updated even after new information has been released. In a FOX news interview, one of the undercover journalist Hannah Giles was asked if she actually checked Kaelke's background and whether or not her husband was killed. Giles said they were still working on that.