NORTH DAKOTA'S MIRACLE

NORTH DAKOTA’S ECONOMIC “MIRACLE”

—IT’S NOT OIL

North Dakota has had the nation's lowest unemployment ever since the economy tanked. What's its secret? 

In an article in The New York Times on August 19^th titled “The North Dakota Miracle,” Catherine Rampell writes:

Forget the Texas Miracle. Let’s instead take a look at North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate and the fastest job growth rate in the country.

According to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, North Dakota had an unemployment rate of just 3.3 percent in July—that’s just over a third of the national rate (9.1 percent), and about a quarter of the rate of the state with the highest joblessness (Nevada, at 12.9 percent).

North Dakota has had the lowest unemployment in the country (or was tied for the lowest unemployment rate in the country) every single month since July 2008.

Its healthy job market is also reflected in its payroll growth numbers. . . . [Y]ear over year, its payrolls grew by 5.2 percent. Texas came in second, with an increase of 2.6 percent.

Why is North Dakota doing so well? For one of the same reasons that Texas has been doing well: oil.

Oil is certainly a factor, but it is not what has put North Dakota over the top. Alaska has roughly the same population as North Dakota and produces nearly twice as much oil, yet unemployment in Alaska is running at 7.7 percent. Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming have all benefited from a boom in energy prices, with Montana and Wyoming extracting much more gas than North Dakota has. The Bakken oil field stretches across Montana as well as North Dakota, with the greatest Bakken oil production coming from Elm Coulee Oil Field in Montana. Yet Montana’s unemployment rate, like Alaska’s, is 7.7% percent. 

A number of other mineral-rich states were initially not affected by the economic downturn, but they lost revenues with the later decline in oil prices. North Dakota is the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008. Its balance sheet is so strong that it recently reduced individual income taxes and property taxes by a combined $400 million, and is debating further cuts. It also has the lowest foreclosure rate and lowest credit card default rate in the country, and it has had NO bank failures in at least the last decade. 

If its secret isn’t oil, what is so unique about the state? North Dakota has one thing that no other state has: its own state-owned bank.

Access to credit is the enabling factor that has fostered both a boom in oil and record profits from agriculture in North Dakota. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) does not compete with local banks but partners with them, helping with capital and liquidity requirements. It participates in loans, provides guarantees, and acts as a sort of mini-Fed for the state. In 2010, according to the BND’s annual report: 

The Bank provided Secured and Unsecured Federal Fund Lines to 95 financial institutions with combined lines of over $318 million for 2010. Federal Fund sales averaged over $13 million per day, peaking at $36 million in June. 

The BND also has a loan program called Flex PACE, which allows a local community to provide assistance to borrowers in areas of jobs retention, technology creation, retail, small business, and essential community services. In 2010, according to the BND annual report:

The need for Flex PACE funding was substantial, growing by 62 percent to help finance essential community services as energy development spiked in western North Dakota. Commercial bank participation loans grew to 64 percent of the entire $1.022 billion portfolio.

The BND’s revenues have also been a major boost to the state budget. It has contributed over $300 million in revenues over the last decade to state coffers, a substantial sum for a state with a population less than one-tenth the size of Los Angeles County. According to a study by the Center for State Innovation, from 2007 to 2009 the BND added nearly as much money to the state’s general fund as oil and gas tax revenues did (oil and gas revenues added $71 million while the Bank of North Dakota returned $60 million). Over a 15-year period, according to other data, the BND has contributed more to the state budget than oil taxes have.       

North Dakota’s money and banking reserves are being kept within the state and invested there. The BND’s loan portfolio shows a steady uninterrupted increase in North Dakota lending programs since 2006. 

According to the annual BND report:

Financially, 2010 was our strongest year ever. Profits increased by nearly $4 million to $61.9 million during our seventh consecutive year of record profits. Earnings were fueled by a strong and growing deposit base, brought about by a surging energy and agricultural economy. We ended the year with the highest capital level in our history at just over $325 million. The Bank returned a healthy 19 percent ROE, which represents the state’s return on its investment.

A 19 percent return on equity! How many states are getting that sort of return on their Wall Street investments? 

Timothy Canova is Professor of International Economic Law at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. In a June 2011 paper called “The Public Option: The Case for Parallel Public Banking Institutions,” he compares North Dakota’s financial situation to California’s. He writes of North Dakota and its state-owned bank:

The state deposits its tax revenues in the Bank, which in turn ensures that a high portion of state funds are invested in the state economy. In addition, the Bank is able to remit a portion of its earnings back to the state treasury . . . . Thanks in part to these institutional arrangements, North Dakota is the only state that has been in continuous budget surplus since before the financial crisis and it has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. 

He then compares the dire situation in California:

In contrast, California is the largest state economy in the nation, yet without a state-owned bank, is unable to steer hundreds of billions of dollars in state revenues into productive investment within the state. Instead, California deposits its many billions in tax revenues in large private banks which often lend the funds out-of-state, invest them in speculative trading strategies (including derivative bets against the state’s own bonds), and do not remit any of their earnings back to the state treasury. Meanwhile, California suffers from constrained private credit conditions, high unemployment levels well above the national average, and the stagnation of state and local tax receipts. The state’s only response has been to stumble from one budget crisis to another for the past three years, with each round of spending cuts further weakening its economy, tax base, and credit rating. 

Not all states have oil, of course (and it’s hardly a sustainable economic basis), but all could learn from the state-owned bank that allows North Dakota to capitalize on its resources to full advantage. States that deposit their revenues and invest their capital in large Wall Street banks are giving this economic opportunity away.

This article was written for YES! Magazine. Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and the author of eleven books, including Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.

SOURCE:  Ellen Brown - August 31st, 2011
www.webofdebt.com/articles/north_dakota.php

ANTI-MERS DECISION

Finally an ANTI-MERS DECISION

(Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos)
The judge’s denial of MERS/BoA’s Motion to Dismiss in the case of Nueces County v.  MERS et al. is AMAZING!  Not because it’s novel, but because it actually follows the law!  It’s like Neil Garfield or Matt Weidner or David Rogers wrote it.  Or like I wrote it!   In fact, in my losing case of Kirby v. Bank of America (Southern District of Mississippi, 2012), I did use many of these same arguments–any sane, reasonable person would have!  You have got to read this decision!

Normally I might be tempted to highlight a sentence or two from the judge’s order and then mumble through my understanding of it, but with this brilliant order, all that needs to be done is to provide the blockbuster, bombshell quotes from it (for those who may not have the time or inclination to read it).  The quotes themselves are commentary enough, so here goes:

1. “MERS does not, however, hold any beneficial interest in the deeds of trust, and it is not a beneficiary of the deeds of trust.  It is merely an agent or nominee of the beneficiary.” (p. 14)

2. “By having itself designated as the “beneficiary under the security instrument” in the deeds of trust presented to the County Clerk for recordation in the County’s property records, knowing that it would be listed as the grantee of the security interest in the property, it appears that MERS asserted a legal right in the properties.  The Court concludes that, viewing the FAC’s allegations in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, one could plausibly infer that the recorded deeds of trust [naming MERS as "beneficiary"] constituted fraudulent liens or claims against real property or an interest in real property. ” (p. 14)

3.  “While Defendants may not have acted with the actual purpose or motive to cause harm to the County, the FAC alleges that through their creation of MERS, Defendants intended to establish their own recording system in order to avoid having to record transfers or assignments with the County and paying the associated filing fees. (FAC ¶¶ 2, 3, 17.)  Accordingly, one can reasonably infer from the allegations set forth in the FAC that Defendants were aware of the harmful effects the fraudulent liens would have on the County.  That is sufficient to establish intent.” (p. 16)

4. “Accordingly, the Court concludes that the FAC sets forth sufficient facts to give rise to a plausible inference that Defendants made false statements to the County regarding their rights under the deeds of trust and their relationships to the borrowers in the mortgages issued by MERS members.” (p. 22)

5. “County records as having a security interest in the properties.  Accordingly, viewing the allegations of the FAC in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, the Court concludes that one could plausibly infer that Defendants made material misrepresentations of fact to Plaintiff in the deeds of trust presented to the County for filing.” (p. 23)

I’m so excited I can hardly contain myself!  This judge gets it EXACTLY right!  She even defers to Carpenter v. Longan!  There is obviously a major schism in the Texas federal judiciary, and this judge–Nelva Gonzales Ramos (an Obama appointee)–comes down on exactly the right side!

Source:  http://libertyroadmedia.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/omg-this-anti-mers-decision-is-amazing/

Even if You Pay On Time

 (This article for research.  Please visit the CBS links within the article for more facts.)

Foreclosure Fraud: How You Can Be Driven to Default Even if You Pay On Time

 The new nation-wide investigation into foreclosure frauds comes as no surprise to people who follow the mortgage service business. Shoddy, deceptive paperwork has plagued homeowners for years. In the industry's slimy underside, firms push borrowers into default and foreclosure, even when they've been making payments on time.

SPECIAL REPORT:
Foreclosure Mess: What it Means for You

• How The Foreclosure Mess Could Hurt The Housing Market
• Don't Be Driven to Foreclosure by Mortgage Fraud
• Is Your Lender Taking Advantage of You?
• Why We Need a National Freeze on Foreclosures
• Will a Foreclosure Freeze Fix the Housing Market?
• 50 States Launch Joint Probe into Foreclosures

Their business model makes defaults profitable, says Marie McDonnell who has been auditing mortgages for accuracy since 1986. The ugly chain of deception starts with the way a servicer might handle your escrow account.

A mortgage service company collects your monthly payments, deducts a fee, and passes the remainder to the investors who own the loan. The majority of the servicing is done by big banks, such as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. Your payments usually include a sum for property taxes and homeowners insurance premiums, which goes into an escrow account. The servicer uses that account to pay the taxes and premiums as they come due.

However, every homeowner should check his or her mortgage escrow account -- right now -- for one of two wrongs.

First, the servicer might be putting more into escrow than you actually owe, hoping you won't notice. That gives the bank extra money to earn some interest on. Or second, you might owe more than you realize. That leads to underpayments, default, fat late fees owed and, eventually, foreclosure.

As an example of the first case, take Nathalie Martin, who teaches bankruptcy law at the University of New Mexico. She recently noticed an unusual change in her escrow account. Her property taxes had risen by about $60 a month, yet her servicer -- without notice, she says -- had started withdrawing an extra $120 from her account. The same thing was happening to some of the clients of the university's law clinic, who were seeking help with loan modifications or foreclosure notices.

When Martin called her servicer (and actually got a live body instead of a machine), she was told that the extra $60 was a "voluntary" payment on her part. Voluntary? Not likely. The servicer had simply helped itself to her money. You're supposed to get a notice 30 days before an increase, but servicers don't always send it out, McDonnell says. Or the borrower overlooks it.

Martin complained and the extra charge was stopped. Her advice to homeowners: Every time your taxes or insurance premiums rise, calculate how much you'll have to pay over the next year and divide by 12. That's the amount that servicers should be charging for your escrow each month. They're allowed a little extra only if there's a shortage of money in the account they have to prove it.

Also, be sure check your monthly mortgage statements, if you get them (some servicers send statements only once a year). Homeowners with fixed-rate mortgages might not open the envelopes, because they don't expect their payments to go up. But the servicer might raise your escrow payment -- and overcharge you -- in advance of a tax change. You have to watch them every minute.

If you accidentally underpay, you fall into a cruel trap.

This happens when you don't realize that your escrow payments are going to rise. When you make your next payment -- at the old rate -- it won't be enough to cover the escrow plus the mortgage payment due.

You might expect the servicer to use the money to cover your mortgage and notify you that the escrow amount was short. But that's not the way it works. Instead, the bank puts your payment into a "suspense" account.

None of the money is applied to the mortgage due. You're recorded as being in default. A late fee is charged and your false, bank-manufactured delinquency is reported to the credit bureau. "That's a theft of mortgage payments," McDonnell says.

If you don't realize what's happening because the servicer doesn't send monthly statements (or you don't check your statements), you'll send the same payment the second month. There's now enough money to cover the first month you "missed" but not enough for the second month. You've officially defaulted again.

At this point, the servicer will probably send you a pre-foreclosure notice, demanding all the past payments due, plus interest and fees. If you can't come up with a lump sum to settle the demand immediately, you might be foreclosed before you can even begin to straighten out the mess. "It's a train out of control," McDonnell says.

There's another way that a sloppy (or calculating) servicer can force a default. If you pay for homeowners insurance directly, without going through the escrow account, the bank might conclude you're uninsured. It will buy the insurance for you, without telling you -- and again, your regular monthly payment might fall short. The same thing could happen if you let your insurance lapse.

Even worse, the banks buy the insurance from an entity that they have a relationship with, paying two or three times the premium that a homeowner would pay directly, mortgage expert Jack Guttentag says.

McDonnell has audited many mortgages that predatory servicers have pushed into default, even though the homeowners always paid on time. The banks' incentive? High fees for late payments and for managing the foreclosure process. She believes that defaults became a profit center around 1995. Ever since 2005, servicers have been putting up "absolute resistance" to working thing out with the consumer, "even when I can prove servicer wrongdoing," she says.

You might be tempted to blame the errors and fraud that led to the current foreclosure freeze on the sheer volume of defaults. In fact, in this poorly regulated industry, the servicers have been getting away with abuse for a very long time. They need to be added to new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's lengthening list.

More on MoneyWatch:
Who Pays for a Foreclosure Freeze? We the Taxpayers Do
The Foreclosure Mills: How This Could Really Hurt the Housing Market
The Foreclosure Mess: It's Worse Than You Think

 

© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

 

BANKING IS RIGGED

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.

You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."

That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps.

Interest-rate swaps are a tool used by big cities, major corporations and sovereign governments to manage their debt, and the scale of their use is almost unimaginably massive. It's about a $379 trillion market, meaning that any manipulation would affect a pile of assets about 100 times the size of the United States federal budget.

It should surprise no one that among the players implicated in this scheme to fix the prices of interest-rate swaps are the same megabanks – including Barclays, UBS, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Scotland – that serve on the Libor panel that sets global interest rates. In fact, in recent years many of these banks have already paid multimillion-dollar settlements for anti-competitive manipulation of one form or another (in addition to Libor, some were caught up in an anti-competitive scheme, detailed in Rolling Stone last year, to rig municipal-debt service auctions). Though the jumble of financial acronyms sounds like gibberish to the layperson, the fact that there may now be price-fixing scandals involving both Libor and ISDAfix suggests a single, giant mushrooming conspiracy of collusion and price-fixing hovering under the ostensibly competitive veneer of Wall Street culture.

The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia
Why? Because Libor already affects the prices of interest-rate swaps, making this a manipulation-on-manipulation situation. If the allegations prove to be right, that will mean that swap customers have been paying for two different layers of price-fixing corruption. If you can imagine paying 20 bucks for a crappy PB&J because some evil cabal of agribusiness companies colluded to fix the prices of both peanuts and peanut butter, you come close to grasping the lunacy of financial markets where both interest rates and interest-rate swaps are being manipulated at the same time, often by the same banks.

"It's a double conspiracy," says an amazed Michael Greenberger, a former director of the trading and markets division at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and now a professor at the University of Maryland. "It's the height of criminality."

The bad news didn't stop with swaps and interest rates. In March, it also came out that two regulators – the CFTC here in the U.S. and the Madrid-based International Organization of Securities Commissions – were spurred by the Libor revelations to investigate the possibility of collusive manipulation of gold and silver prices. "Given the clubby manipulation efforts we saw in Libor benchmarks, I assume other benchmarks – many other benchmarks – are legit areas of inquiry," CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton said.

But the biggest shock came out of a federal courtroom at the end of March – though if you follow these matters closely, it may not have been so shocking at all – when a landmark class-action civil lawsuit against the banks for Libor-related offenses was dismissed. In that case, a federal judge accepted the banker-defendants' incredible argument: If cities and towns and other investors lost money because of Libor manipulation, that was their own fault for ever thinking the banks were competing in the first place.

"A farce," was one antitrust lawyer's response to the eyebrow-raising dismissal.

"Incredible," says Sylvia Sokol, an attorney for Constantine Cannon, a firm that specializes in antitrust cases.

All of these stories collectively pointed to the same thing: These banks, which already possess enormous power just by virtue of their financial holdings – in the United States, the top six banks, many of them the same names you see on the Libor and ISDAfix panels, own assets equivalent to 60 percent of the nation's GDP – are beginning to realize the awesome possibilities for increased profit and political might that would come with colluding instead of competing. Moreover, it's increasingly clear that both the criminal justice system and the civil courts may be impotent to stop them, even when they do get caught working together to game the system.

If true, that would leave us living in an era of undisguised, real-world conspiracy, in which the prices of currencies, commodities like gold and silver, even interest rates and the value of money itself, can be and may already have been dictated from above. And those who are doing it can get away with it. Forget the Illuminati – this is the real thing, and it's no secret. You can stare right at it, anytime you want.

Source:  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425#ixzz2RrwU99OH

 

RESEARCH RIGHTS

Court rules citizens have the right to record police

NEWS - Billiou

This was taken from an obituary.  It shows that Joseph Michael Billiou III is related to Judge Peter Billiou Twede.  Other documentation may now be found through the Glenn County records.  The Judge assured that the illegally foreclosed property in Glenn County was given to a fraudulent claimant: Deutsche Bank, then sold to Joseph Michael Billiou III.  Exensive damage to a natural waterway, Stoney Creek is continuing to be excavated by aka: Mike Billiou

Joseph Michael Billiou, Jr., of Hamilton City, Calif., passed away on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, at the age of 89. Joe was born in Chico, Calif. on Dec. 16, 1922 to Joseph Sr. and Frances W. Billiou, and was raised on the family ranch in Glenn County, along with his sisters, Mary Elizabeth "Betty" (Miles d. 2012), Georgia (Twede d. 1991) and Theresa (McGowan). Joe attended Notre Dame parochial school in Chico and Hamilton City High School, where he ran track. He briefly attended Santa Clara before enlisting in the US Air Force.

During wartime, Joe proudly served his country as a B-17 pilot in the 379th Bomb Group based in England. After the war, Joe completed his business degree at UC Berkeley and then returned home to Hamilton City to begin his farming career. On June 30, 1951, Joe married Anne Rose Spencer, who entered into rest on September 20, 2012. During their married life they resided in the family ranch house and raised three children. During his career as a well-respected and progressive farmer, Joe was among the first to bring orchard crops to the area. Joe was an avid fly fisherman and loved traveling around the continent in pioneer fashion with Anne and many friends. In addition, Joe maintained life long relationships with his fraternity brothers and enjoyed their get-togethers each year.

Joe was a devout Catholic, who served on the church council, was a school board member for the Hamilton Union School District for many years, and served as a member of the Sunsweet Board of Directors.

Joe is survived by three children: Joseph Michael III (Kerry), Sally Marie (Billiou) Fleischmann (Robert), and Jane Anne (Billiou) Armour (Gerald); two grandchildren, Jordan Billiou Fleischmann and Victoria Rose Fleischmann; four stepgrandsons, Henry Fleischmann, Morgan Fleischmann, Joshua Fleischmann and Garrison Armour, and numerous nieces and nephews.

A Catholic Rosary will be held on Wednesday evening, Oct. 24, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. at Brusie Funeral Home. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. John's Catholic Church on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012 at 11:00 a.m. followed by a Committal Service at Chico Cemetery.
Condolences may be sent to the family online at www.brusiefh.com.

Published in Willows Journal from October 24 to October 30, 2012 

 

Source:  http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/corning-observer/obituary.aspx?pid=160616970#fbLoggedOut

ALL WARS Are Bankers Wars

What Really Happened? All Wars Are Bankers Wars

 

Written and spoken by Michael Rivero.

The written version is here: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTI...

Video by Zane Henry.

You are welcome to make copies and to distribute this video freely. A free downloader is available here: http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/...

If you would rather have someone do it for you go here: DollarDVDProjectLiberty.com

Mike Rivero: All Wars Are Bankers Wars

In depth explain of how the bankers are robbing the American Republic blind

What Really Happened?

STOP COURT FRAUD

Now is the time to stop these Fraudulent Courts and their minions. I do hope you watch and LISTEN CAREFULLY to what is being said on this video. There is NO JURISDICTION by the courts and their attorneys over you. They are a corporation and as such must follow the international laws of commerce. The UCC (Uniform Commercial Code).   Find out more.    This is from redressright.org and this is his youtube channel. Very knowledgeable fellow.




Source: We Have Been Duped!

FORGERIES in FORECLOSURES

FROM ODIN WILD HUNT: This was posted on Neil Garfield's site - I believe reposted from elsewhere.  But the information is good.

Editor’s Analysis: First of all hats off to April Charney, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com and Yves Smith for the article on Forgery (see link below) James M. Kelley as a forensic document examiner — outstanding work!

This is one of the places where the rubber meets the road, but before you start celebrating take a deep breath: proof of forgery will NOT necessarily stop delay or alter the foreclosure. That is why I start with questioning the monetary transactions before I introduce the document deficiencies, fabrications and forgeries.

You have to put yourself in the Judge’s seat (or more properly, bench). A simple example will suffice to make my point. Suppose I loaned you $100 and you didn’t pay it back the way we agreed. Later I sue you and produce a promissory note you know you never signed but it looks like your signature, but you’ve admitted you owe the $100 and you admit you defaulted. Under those circumstances your evidence of forgery might be excluded from evidence -– because it is already established you owe the money and defaulted. In fact it should be excluded because it is no longer relevant to the proceedings. The debt is not the note — and vica versa.

The note is only evidence of the debt and taking that out of the equation still leaves the admissions, presumptions and witnesses by which the authenticity of the debt and default have already been taken as agreed and irrefutable. Some people look askance as Judges who apply the rules of evidence and accuse them of stupidity or dishonesty. But the truth is the forged fabricated note is at most corroborative evidence of something that is no longer a material issue of fact in dispute. The Judge has little choice but to rule in favor of the forecloser at that point. Hence, we keep pounding on DENY AND DISCOVER.

If you are filing the lawsuit you should, along with the initial summons and and complaint, file whatever discovery requests you have at the same time which all amount to “who are you, what are you doing here, why are you seeking collection of this debt, and by what authority.

Admitting the debt, note, mortgage etc can be either direct (“I admit that”) or indirect/tacit (“I understand what you are saying Judge but there is ample evidence of skullduggery here”). In most cases, either one is enough, especially with a Judge who is already assuming that the bank wouldn’t be there if there was no debt, note and mortgage and the presence of a default.

The borrower, who knows they did get money on loan, knows they did sign papers and knows they didn’t pay, naturally assumes that it is pointless to deny the basic elements of the foreclosure — the debt between the borrower and the forecloser, the note, which is evidence of the debt, and the mortgage, assignments and other instruments used by the banks to get you pointed in the wrong direction. AND THAT is where the defense goes off the deep end every time there is a “bad” decision.

The Judge is going to be looking for admissions by the borrower (not the forecloser) because of a very natural presumption that at one time was a perfectly reasonable assumption — that the bank would not waste time and money enforcing a debt that didn’t exist and a note that was never valid, nor a mortgage that was never perfected.

And the Judge is going to see any avoidance of enforcement on the basis of paperwork as a tacit admission that the debt is real, the default is real, and the note and mortgage were properly executed under proper circumstances —- because that is what banks do! Maybe it isn’t “fair” but it is perfectly understandable why we encountered a mindset that treated borrowers as lunatics when they first came up with the notion that the paperwork was missing, lost, fabricated, forged, robo-signed etc.

The study by Katherine Ann Porter, the San Francisco study and the studies in Massachusetts and Maryland and Massachusetts all point to a credit bid being submitted at foreclosure auction by a party who wasn’t a creditor at all. The San Francisco study said 65% of the credit bidders were strangers to the transaction and strange is the word to use in court. Did it change anything? No!

So where does that leave you? In order to be able to show the relevance of the forgery or fabrication you must attack the debt itself. Where would I be if I sued you on the $100 loan, produced a fabricated, forged note and you DIDN’T admit the debt or the default. The burden falls back on me to prove I gave you the $100.

What if I didn’t give you the $100 but I know someone else did. That doesn’t give me standing to sue you because I am not injured party. Can any of you state with certainty that the loan money you received came from the originator disclosed on the TILA, settlement and closing documents? Probably not because the ONLY way you would know that is if you had seen the actual wire transfer receipt and the wire transfer instructions.

Thus if you don’t know that to be true — that the originator in your mortgage loan was funded by the originator and was not a table-funded loan (which accounts for about 95%-96% of all loans during the mortgage meltdown), why would you admit it, tacitly, directly or any other way?

As a defense posture the first rule is to deny that which you know is untrue and to deny based upon lack of information or deny based upon facts and theory that are contrary to the assertions of the forecloser.Deny the debt. THAT automatically means the note can’t be evidence of anything real, because the note refers to a loan between the originator and the borrower where the borrower unknowingly received the money from a third or fourth party (table funded loan, branded “predatory” by TILA and reg Z).

Your defense is simply “we don’t know these people and we don’t know the debt they are claiming. We were induced to sign papers that withheld vital information about the party with whom I was doing business and left me with corrupt title. The transaction referred to in the note, mortgage, assignments, allonges etc. was never completed. The fact that we received a loan from someone else does not empower this forecloser to enforce the debt of a third party with whom they have had no contact or privity.”

THEN HAMMER THEM WITH THE FORGERY BUT USE SOMEONE AS GOOD AS KELLEY TO DO IT. WATCH OUT FOR CHARLATANS WHO CAN CONVINCE YOU BUT NOT THE COURT. THUS THE DEFICIENT DOCUMENTS CORROBORATE YOUR MAIN DEFENSE RATHER THAN SERVE AS THE CORE OF IT.

Practice Pointer: At this point either opposing counsel or the Judge will ask some questions like who DID give the loan or what proof do you have. If you are at the stage of a motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment, your answer should be, if you set up case correctly and you have outstanding discovery, that those are evidential questions that require production of witnesses, testimony, documents and cross examination. Since the present hearing is not a trial or evidential hearing and was not noticed as such you are unprepared to present the entire case.

The issues on a motion to dismiss are solely that of the pleadings. At a Motion for Summary Judgment, it is the pleadings plus an affidavit. Submit several affidavits and the Judge will have little choice but to deny the forecloser’s motion for summary judgment.

Attack their affidavit as not being on personal knowledge (voir dire) and if you are successful all that is left is YOUR motion for summary judgment and affidavits which leaves the Judge with little choice but to enter Summary Final Judgment in favor of the homeowner as to this forecloser.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/02/expert-witnesses-starting-to-take-on-forgeries-in-foreclosures.html