Rep. Marcy Kaptur With Some 'Reality From Ground Zero' on Ohio Foreclosures
By Heather Sunday Oct 11, 2009 12:00pm
Rep. Marcy Kaptur cites an example of how bailing out the banks has done little to help struggling home owners in Ohio. Bill Moyers also asks Kaptur about her speech on the House floor where she urged foreclosed homeowners to be squatters in their own homes.
This was a really fantastic segment from Bill Moyers Journal and I encourge everyone to watch the entire interview with Kaptur and Simon Johnson at Moyers' site.
MARCY KAPTUR: Let me give you a reality from ground zero in Toledo, Ohio. Our foreclosures have gone up 94 percent. A few months ago, I met with our realtors. And I said, 'What should I know?' They said, 'Well, first of all, you should know the worst companies that are doing this to us.'
I said, 'Well, give me the top one.' They said, 'J.P. Morgan Chase.' I went back to Washington that night. And one of my colleagues said, 'You want to come to dinner?' I said, 'Well, what is it?' He said, 'Well, it's a meeting with Jamie Dimon, the head of J.P. Morgan Chase.' I said, 'Wow, yes. I really do.' So, I go to this meeting in a fancy hotel, fancy dinner, and everyone is complimenting him. I mean, it was just like a love fest.
They finally got to me, and my point to ask a question. I said, 'Well, I don't want to speak out of turn here, Mr. Dimon.' I said, 'But your company is the largest forecloser in my district. And our Realtors just said to me this morning that your people don't return phone calls.' I said, 'We can't do work outs.' And he looked at me, he said, 'Do you know that I talk to your Governor all the time?' He said, 'Our company employs 10,000 people in Ohio.'
And I'm thinking, 'What is that? A threat?' And he said, 'I speak to the Mayor of Columbus.' I said, 'Why don't you come further north?' I said, 'Toledo, Cleveland, where the foreclosures are just skyrocketing.' He said, 'Well, we'll have someone call you.' And he gave me a card. And they never did. For two weeks, we tried to reach them. And finally, I was on a national news show. And I told this story. They called within ten minutes. And they said, 'Oh, we'll work with you. We'll try to do some workouts in your area.'
We planned the first one after working with them for weeks and weeks and weeks. Their people never showed up. And it was a Friday. Our people had taken off work. They'd driven from all these locations to come. We kept calling J.P. Morgan Chase saying, 'Where's your person? Where's your person?' And they finally sent somebody down from Detroit by 3:00 in the afternoon. But out people had been waiting all morning and a lot of people that's how they treat our people.
BILL MOYERS: You did a remarkable thing on the floor of the House recently. And I want to show my audience a clip of a speech in which you urge people to break the law.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
MARCY KAPTUR: So why should any American citizen be kicked out of their homes in this cold weather? In Ohio it is going to be 10 or 20 below zero. Don't leave your home. Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don't have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can't find the paper up there on Wall Street. So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave. In Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois and all these other places our people are being treated like chattel, and this Congress is stymied.
(END VIDEO)
BILL MOYERS: Wow. You are urging them to resist the law when the Sheriff shows up to throw them out of their home.
MARCY KAPTUR: I'm saying that they deserve justice, too. And that the scales of justice in front of the Supreme Court are supposed to be balanced, and they're not. And that possession is 90 percent of the law. And that you have legal rights, as a home owner. You have a right to legal representation. You have a right before the judge to have the mortgage note produced by whomever in the system has it. Judge Boyko of Cleveland threw out six cases, because when the foreclosures came up, the financial institutions couldn't produce the note. Our people deserve their day in court.






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Democrats getting the 'spine' flu?
Isolate both Weiner and Grayson to determine patient zero, stat!
/snark off
I like your humor in 'spine' flu.
.
I salute you, Jimmi the Grey!
I'm loving these progressive Democrats in Congress. Even the women have balls.
Gonads! All women have 'nads--ours are just a little higher and inside our bodies.
And, bear in mind that women have been agents of change throughout history. Our tendency toward nurturing, relationship-building, and peace has of late been much ridiculed, but we continue our activism nonetheless.
Ever see a woman going through a divorce? I've seen some serious activism during divorces. Go ahead and praise yourself though.
it'll inspire Reed to grow a pair!
WAMU was bought out by chase , having been with them for 15+ yrs , I knew all of the people in my branch , when asked why I was closing my account , i told them because i did not want to have any thing to do with chase , they replied " we are getting a lot of that " .
Good for you REP.Kaptur , send this clip to all of the congress .
She's got ovaries! Too bad so many of the male Dems don't.
Kaptur for President!
that will give them the spine to speak truth to power, then I hope the Dems grow some soon!
...a teaparty! (not exactly) ...but similar.
Another "eggcellent" way to say "F*&K off" (to the banksters!)
I think everyone should get a gun and quit paying the mortgage and car payments...(it's all one bank now anyway)
The repo-men will be overwhelmed and there will be safety in numbers...
"I think everyone should get a gun and quit paying the mortgage and car payments..."
Ya know, not all of us have house and car payments. Some of us didn't over extend. I may only have an old house and a truck with almost 300k on it, but damnit, I OWN them. If you're in a piss poor situation because you didn't read and understand your loan documents, don't come crying to me for a handout. You bit off more than you can chew. WTF would anyone want a car payment anyway? Buy a junker, upkeep it and run it until it dies, repeat, rinse. Buy nothing on credit unless you know you can pay it.
And, Get Off My Lawn!
...not supporting Obama's policies.
aren't you aware that Obama is trying to get the banks lending again??? He has given them alot of money so they can do this!
Take out a mortgage...and do it for Obama! (and ACORN)
(snark)
I just shot your dog that won't hunt. Praise you oh holy fiscal one. Are you saying that all of those sub-prime mortgages were perfectly legit? I don't have a mortgage or car payment either, but I also know many people were victims of these financial gimmicks that Wall Street Banks cooked up.
She's wonderful. I love here already. Ohio should be very proud to call her their own, and every state in the union needs, if not deserves one just like her.
Now, too bad about that Obama guy huh?
She's my new hero. Americans were tricked into playing a rigged ballgame. I think it's pretty horrible to sell out Americans for short term profit at the expense of their well-being and basic needs. We need to quit cloning sheep and cows and start cloning her 24-7.
Geithner's phone line to power
they won't do it because they don't think of us as customers but as suckers. The large banks are gambling that the government will keep them safe while the foreclosures destroy the small and medium banks. I always believed that the government should have bought all of these mortgages for pennies on the dollar and renegotiate the mortgages with the homeowners. It would have saved the economy.
If you are being foreclosed take them to court and demand they produce the paper that proves that they own the loan.
If they do not have the bank note showing that they own the loan then they no longer have claim to the house or the loan and until someone produces that note the loan does not need to be paid.
Is that correct?
And what is the statute of limitations on this?
I mean, if that note was bundled and sold to BNP Paribas then it has been written off as of last year as proscribed by EU law and it no longer exists except as another piece of paper in a folder filled with other bundled sub prime notes in a filing cabinet in a storage room somewhere in France waiting for the legally proscribed time period before being shredded by a secure document destruction company.
If it was not bundled and sold to an EU investment bank and remains in US hands somewhere in a folder waiting to be catalogued then how long can a company who actually holds the note take to produce the note to demand payment before it is no longer enforceable?
Does that mean a shitload of Americans no longer owe any money on their homes and just don't know it yet?
Does anyone know the answers to these questions?
But it is a start.
From 2007:
Much more at the link.
Why couldn't DB show that they had the legal right to claim the properties? Bundles of mortgages being sold as bonds. Think Colbert's investment lasagna with a couple layers of fecal matter. ;o}
Thanks Michelle, that's got me going in the right direction. Can't seem to find out where the appeal is (and I'm assuming DB appealed).
The article is good, but make sure to check out the links provided in some of the comments.
Ruling by judges rattles mortgage industry
I don't find where DB appealed the original Ohio decision, maybe they didn't. Seems odd.
If you were an investment bank trying to collect on a mortgage and a judge told you that if you don't have the paper you don't own the mortgage would you want the publicity that an appeal would generate?
Particularly when you don't actually have any of the paper required for the mortgages that you are collecting on?
i just commented about this from randi rhodes' perspective...
she called it "cole slaw"... with some of the cabbage being tainted with e-coli.... but all mixed up, good and bad...
"investment lasagna" is great...
are robbing the American taxpayers, raping the American public dismantling and looting the American infrastructure......and getting away with it.
Greed is good, the rich are noble and NEVER question the actions or motives of your betters.
We have become a nation of gullible suckers.
Read about all 8 http://www.alternet.org/workplace/143146/8_sh...
Two of them:
1) I know C&L has posted several stories on Dead Peasants Insurance, but I wasn't aware of just how companies would get paid with TARP money!
“Dead Peasants Insurance”: Companies paid out $8 billion in premiums on millions of their employees, and expect to earn $9 billion in the next 5 years when these employees die. To make sure that the life insurance companies can pay out the winnings on our deaths, $22 billion in TARP money–our money– was set aside this spring for insurance companies"
2)The gap between wealthiest 10 percent and the rest of America is worse than at any time on record. Two-thirds of all income gains from 2002-7 went to the top 1 percent. The Walton family alone is worth more than the bottom 100 million Americans combined. Wal-Mart is a major player in the “dead peasants insurance” game; it’s alleged that dead peasant insurance payouts are used for executive bonuses.
I love Marcy Kaptur! She is my hero! As one buckeye girl with gonads to another all I can say is you go girl and give these bastards all the hell they deserve! Maybe your male counterparts can grow a pair if you set the example for them. We need more of you and less of those asshats John the cryer "Boner" and that bimbo - Michelle Bachman's long lost twin - Jean Schmidt.
the Consumer Protection Agency that has not been created, yet.
Block Bernanke confimation until he tells us how much money the FED gave to Black Rock. This is the firm ran by the same people who creating all of the financial instruments that enable Wall Street to rob the taxpayers blind. Ironically, it is supposed to the be the firm to renegotiate mortgage loans, etc.
Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don't have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can't find the paper up there on Wall Street. So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave.
wow.
i remember hearing that same info from randi rhodes well over a year ago...
she found that out from her own research... because of the "cole slaw" the banks had made out of all the different (good and bad) mortgages...
too bad that advice wasn't more widespread long ago...
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