So how’s that deregulated, free-market banking industry working out for ya’? If you’re one of the saps who can’t pay your mortgage – in many cases because of the financial crisis wrought by crappy loans from crappy banks on stupid bets – not so good.

Apparently, the nation’s largest banks can’t figure out how to properly foreclose on homes. Although, you’d think they had enough practice to do it in their sleep.

Oops, I forgot. These are the financial wizards who claim the collapse was a huge surprise to them. The ones who’ve claimed foreclosure is the “moral” thing to do. The ones who break into homes to change locks before the home is even in foreclosure.  I guess the light from their sky-high bonuses blinded them to reality and civil behavior.

Robbie the Robo-Signer
In a demonstration of the alleged efficiency of the private sector, Bank of America and others used “robo-signers” – people who sometimes sign as many as 6,000 foreclosures a week -  to OK them without even looking at the paper work. The problem has reached such epic proportions B of A has decided to stop all foreclosures until they can get their house in order. Several other banks are set to join them soon.

Harry Reid’s (D-Dipshitvada) response was to “thank Bank of America for doing the right thing” – which is like thanking a drunk driver for only maiming you because he hit the brakes and would’ve otherwise killed you.

Closer to the proper analysis is Tom Domonoske, a lawyer and consumer advocate in Virginia. Domonoske says the foreclosure experience is much like the predatory lending schemes that tanked the economy. “It’s the same process, falsifying documents to make them look acceptable to someone. They’re falsifying foreclosure documents so judges will look at them and say, ‘Here’s an affidavit. It’s signed.”

All the worse is that a bipartisan bill (finally bipartisanship!) making foreclosures much more difficult on homeowners comes across the President’s desk soon. He promises to veto it.

It’s not that there isn’t plenty of blame to go around for this mess. Many homeowners stupidly took on more debt than they could pay or believed slithery predatory lenders when they said being in debt ass over teakettle was all the rage. “Hey, it’s trendy! Everybody’s doing it!”

Wing-Tipped Wolverines
But despite the banks and government trying to foist the whole sad adventure onto the homeless and soon to be homeless, they look more like the super jackwads. Republicans never saw a regulation they liked. Bushbama never saw a regulation they’d enforce. And, Congress never saw a reason to nip these crapweasels in the bud during their “irrationally exuberant” phase. Everything had to collapse – something any mouse with a human brain saw coming long before it got here – for them to do anything.

And when they did something, it was to the banks’ benefit.

Here’s the thing. Government wouldn’t have to regulate banks (or any other industries) if the industries stopped doing stupid, disingenuous, and dishonest things. Most of the regulations we already have were put there to corner the wing-tipped bastards like wolverines in rut.

Now the answer everyone looks for is more regulation – regulation that gives the wolverines a nice feather bed to lay upon. We don’t need no more stinkin’ regulations, we need to enforce the ones we have…with extreme prejudice.

Since Sharron Angle thinks Sharia law is taking over the country, lets do Mohamed proud. Any banker caught breaking the rules should have his hand cut off for stealing and we should keep hacking body parts until they look like Monty Python’s blood-spurting knight.

That way, it’ll be a lot easier to run from them when they try to steal the shirt off your back.

Related articles

• Foreclosure Cases: Bank Glitch Or Serious Fiasco? (npr.org)
• Foreclosure freeze? What is that? (money.cnn.com)
• Your Equity May Disappear During Foreclosure (livecrunch.com)
• Foreclosures: An eventual eventuality (hsh.com)
• Pelosi Calls For Investigation Of Foreclosure Fraud (huffingtonpost.com)
• Jon Stewart Weighs in on Foreclosure Crisis (shoppingblog.com)
• Robo-signers (schott.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Lawyers, Politicians Feed on Foreclosure Freeze (businesspundit.com)
• Watch Out for New Foreclosure Scams (dailyfinance.com)
• Why Are Distressed Homeowners Still Paying Their Mortgage? (online.wsj.com)
• Where is the foreclosure mess leading? (blogs.reuters.com)
• Why is Elizabeth Warren protecting dumb people? (salon.com)
• Regulators Seek Curbs for Bank Bonuses in Europe (nytimes.com)
• Why politicians can’t make good policy (economist.com)
• Jim: Bankers Broke The Economy And Got Rich Doing It ” SpeakEasy (blogs.alternet.org)

Tags: Bank, Bank of America, bankers, banking, bankinig regulation, bonuses, default, Foreclosure, Harry Reid, homeowners, JPMorgan Chase, Mortgage, Real estate, robo-signers, Tom Domonoske

HOW SMALL IS TOO SMALL? - If some businesses aren't "too big to fail", can't some small businesses be "too small to survive"?

It doesn’t matter if you’re obscenely wealthy, living under a bridge, own a Mom and Pop business, or are the most mega of mega multinationals, you want a tax break. Regardless of how much your lobbyists can con out of legislators or how much the country can afford to give, everyone promises to rush right out and stimulate the heck out of the economy, thereby single-handedly putting everyone back to work.

Of course, if this were possible we’d have avoided the financial collapse and licked unemployment before the first CEO could skim his bonus off the top. Truth is, if someone’s paid 2 bucks a year in taxes, they’d complain it wasn’t a buck.

Such is life in a capitalist society.

One of the most repeated mantras in the political/economic wilderness is that small businesses create jobs like an alchemist creates gold from base metal. I suspect that’s true because Big Corporations are a lot better at creating jobs in Bangalore than Bangor and it’s not like they have sterling track records to contradict that. But, if Big Businesses aren’t “too big to fail”, aren’t some small businesses “too small to survive”?

Small Biz Owners Have Bigger Balls Than Me
I have a lot of respect for anyone willing to work themselves silly trying to make a living out of the ether. They have bigger balls than me. But if the sole criteria for success was hard work, coal miners and garbage picker uppers would get the gazillion dollar bonuses.

Likewise, if the only criteria was the ability to take huge risks, corporateers would still come out in the lead, notwithstanding they took the risks with someone else’s money, doing something an imbecile should know better than to do, and tripling their compensation for failing to do what they set out to do. The only difference is the size of the risk that caused the business’s implosion.

TIE YOUR SHOES - Chances are a shoestring company won't be around long enough to create jobs.

Many, many more small business fail than survive. There are a variety of reasons. Some people never thought running a business was so tough. All they wanted was to escape some domineering middle manager of a boss. Others got loans no sane bank should’ve given them. Still others lacked a flair for the creatively entrepreneurial, somehow thinking the world needed one more pizza place or boutique shop selling dried flowers and “crafts” they wouldn’t keep in their own homes.

On a cost/benefit ratio, small business is a dicey way to create jobs. Most of owners end up on the unemployment rolls alongside anyone unlucky enough to work for them, while simultaneously stiffing creditors and their poorly paid serfs because they couldn’t pay the bills. That’s at least 4 jobs lost right there. One step forward, four steps back.

And, the jobs small business does create aren’t usually the skilled machinist, shipbuilder, electronics technician kind. Most are pizza delivery guys and high school kids twisting dried flowers into malodorous bunches for minimum wage – no vacation, no sick time, no retirement, no health coverage, and in some cases, not enough to buy the pizzas they deliver. The economy can’t aford to create many more jobs like that, regardless of who creates them.

Small Business Says It Can’t Pay
Small business and their lobbies routinely complain they can’t afford the minimum wages already set. They say they have to reinstitute a de facto indentured servitude system to make ends meet and what they say is true. In Big Biz, they call this under-capitalization.

But then, McDonalds and Pizza Hut claim the same thing because burger prices will have to move from Dollar Menus to Two Dollar Menus and that’ll cost the shareholders 2 cents per share. Neither would pay any more than absolutely necessary because every dollar going to employees is a dollar not shown on a profit sheet. They aren’t, as they often remind people, charities.

I believe in small business. They are an important part of the economy and shouldn’t be trivialized. They can create good, quality jobs and improve the economy. However, we can’t afford to incentivize the weak any more than we can afford to foot the bill for all the oil BP can spill or all the slave-labor jeans Levi’s can make in Bangladesh.

Like it or not, everyone – Big Business, small business, low-middle-and upper income taxpayers – have to give something up. What everyone really wants is a no-pain fix and that ain’t gonna happen.

So let’s be honest about the ability for any single segment of the economy to fix this problem. Small business is not the only option. If they can’t raise the capital to compete, they are too small to survive. If daft bankers make bad investments, they aren’t “too big to fail”.

Big corporations and their larger stockholders have to stop living like warlords in Afghanistan and not expect a return on investment is a God-given right. And the rest of us probably won’t miss a $100 a year tax break anyway. If we can’t, it’s cheaper for those who can to help those who can’t, regardless if you think it’s unfair, or socialism, or free marketism at its finest.

Just as not all jobs are equal, not all businesses nor taxpayers are either.

It’s a fact, get over it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• At Small Businesses, Hiring Slips (online.wsj.com)
• Douglas Herbert Will Fight For Small Business In 11th Congressional Distrcit (middletownmike.blogspot.com)
• Helping High Growth Small Businesses Create Jobs (whitehouse.gov)
• One Week Later, Nearly 2,000 Small Businesses Approved for SBA Loans Due to Jobs Act (whitehouse.gov)
• Help is on the Way for Small Business Owners with Passing of Small Business Jobs Act (prweb.com)
• Introducing Dashboard: This Week in Small Business (boss.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Intuit Small Business Employment Index Shows Continued Job Growth in September (eon.businesswire.com)
• Empowering small businesses means getting government out of the way (Rep. Harold Rogers) (thehill.com)
• Kevin O’Connor: 3 Reasons Why This Small Business Owner Thinks the $30B Small Business Program Will Be a Bust (huffingtonpost.com)

Tags: Bangalore, economic policy, Employment, job creation, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Small business, tax breaks, too big to fail, too smal to survive, unemployment