Steadfast Finances

 Banking,Mortgages,Real Estate         2 comments

The Mortgage Electronic Registration System, known as “MERS”, fallout just keeps getting better. In recent months legal challenges have arisen regarding alleged inadequacies and improprieties in the foreclosure process including allegations of insufficient or incorrect supporting documentation and challenges to the legal capacity of parties right to foreclose. Consistent with the Membership Rules there will [...]

 Real Estate         No comments

It would appear that several state pension funds (the big boys) are none too happy about “Project Mayhem“, and are finally beginning to speak out and demand the banks who are foreclosing, are temporarily prevented from foreclosing, or sold (what appears to be) worthless mortgage backed securities (MBS) to do their jobs instead of issuing [...]

 Politics,Public Awareness         No comments

Unless you’re new here, you’ve probably figured out I’m an advocate of the Move Your Money movement. My reasons for are multiple, but here are a few: TBTF banks knowingly and willingly violating the most basic of property rights law and legal documentation practices. [Greenspan admits financial crisis caused rampant fraud and criminal actions.] TBTF [...]

 Economy,Humor,Real Estate         No comments

One of the more clever ideas from the movie Fight Club is the idea that terrorism could originate from nefarious actions involving economic warfare. This means actions that could affect the value of our currency, the value of our future investments, repayment of our debts, etc. Here’s a brief quote: [Narrator turns himself into the [...]

 Banking,Financial Crisis,Politics         No comments

After you spend some serious time in finance, you begin to pity those who haven’t caught on to the Greater Fool Theory. The greater fool theory is the belief held by one who makes a questionable investment, with the assumption that they will be able to sell it later to “a greater fool”; in other words, buying [...]

 Banking,Consumer Education,Financial Crisis         5 comments

Anyone who bashes Finreg (aka Financial Regulation) after the financial meltdown, the near nightly tightening of the credit market, and after two rounds of quantitative easing obviously knows little to nothing about what went on to cause the real estate bubble, much less, what is still occurring within the legal system from ticked off mortgage [...]

 Banking,Financial Crisis,Real Estate         No comments

The ever evolving foreclosure crisis (aka – fraudclosure, forclosuregate, etc.) can be distilled down to a simple either or scenario… We can either have: a rational resolution to the foreclosure crisis preserve the capital structure of the (Too Big To Fail) banks We can’t do both. – Damon Silvers, Director of Policy and Special Counsel, [...]

 Banking,Politics,Real Estate         No comments

A very thought provoking interview with Chris Whalen at King World News today on fraudclosure, mortgage backed securities, the multi-trillion dollar oopsie that is the herpes infected U.S. real estate market, and the realization that corporatism (e.g. multinational corporations effectively buying politicians to further their corporate interests) has removed ethics and morality from American politics. [...]

 Humor,Infographics & Chartology,Real Estate         2 comments

If comedians jokingly refer to Florida as “America’s penis“, then the above graphic illustrating the percentage of total homes that are in foreclosure would suggest that the U.S. real estate market, and Florida in particular, has a raging sexually transmitted disease. As Gonzalo Lira so cleverly put it: Mortgage Backed Securities are America’s Herpes—the gift [...]

 Economy,Financial Crisis         No comments

In hopes of upping my historical knowledge of all things economic, I placed William Bernstein’s new book The Birth of Plenty on my reading list. (Personal finance gurus will recognize this name from the best selling book The Four Pillars of Investing). While reading last night, one particular passage sent a shiver down my spine [...]

 Banking,Business Trends,Peer to Peer Lending         7 comments

Now this is how you run a solid, old fashioned type of bank. CNBC interviewed a small, community bank CEO (Frank Sorrentino) from North Jersey Community Bank today, and if I was ever fortunate enough to run a bank, this is how I would hope to get it done. The old school banking model: Take [...]

 Financial Crisis         2 comments

I realize that most people are probably tired of discussing how Wall Street’s greed cannibalized their own pro-capitalist business model, but when one of the most articulate Wall Street insiders decides to speak out, it’s probably in your best interest to listen. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Michael Lewis, author of one of the best Wall Street books [...]