At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want
~Lao Tzu
People have objectives, and are very good at rationalizing why these objectives are efficient and just. As Lao Tzu noted, if you know what you want, you know the answer too. [However, Tzu seems to think this is a good thing, as if our authentic, innermost wants are better than those that come after reasoning].
The robo-signer kerfluffle is a pretext to pander to the mob, just like razing kulaks back in the good old days. People like Paul Krugman, who's id leads his superego rather directly, suggest that those signatures affirming that some person owns the mortgage on some property and hasn't paid, may not have had first-hand information to that effect. They may have been using hearsay information. This is the kind of legal breach is hardly a grand problem that must be addressed prior to further foreclosures. How many of you have clicked 'I have read the EULA agreement' when downloading software without actually doing so? Is that a problem?
The main issue is in any foreclosure is: 'When is the last time you made a mortgage payment?' If it was several months ago, the rest doesn't matter. If people paid their mortgage bills, robo-signers would not be problems, and if they don't pay their mortgage bills, there will be a problem. Having the servicer spend a day on their affidavit won't make it any more accurate, the facts are pretty easy to see.
In my litigation experience I remember that it was rather pointless getting indignant about what my adversary was saying, because when dealing with someone who has bad faith, they won't be satisfied when you address their specific points. They would say 'this is about enforcing the law', as if a spreadsheet of the SPY returns since 2000, downloaded from Yahoo!, that I transferred to my home computer, was a violation of my confidentiality agreement. The specifics did not matter, it was the principle, they would say, the sanctity of contracts, the importance of protecting their property rights. Details being complicated, costly litigation commenced, which was the end game. For many people, an indefensible unstated principle is their end game, but because it is self-serving and petty, one can't say it directly. Thus, various pretexts are paraded as principle, and quickly forgotten once their damage has been done.
8 comments:
OK - but I would not cry for the dealers. And I would not cry for EULA's for that matter if some court declared them too complicated or deceiving to be enforced.
If people paid their mortgage bills, robo-signers would not be problems, and if they don't pay their mortgage bills, there will be a problem.
Similarly, if bankers stay solvent and don't need taxpayer bailouts there will be giant bonuses, and if they blow up the financial system with reckless behavior then there will be a problem.
Oh wait. Morality plays are only for poor people. Rich people can't help themselves, they follow profit and self-interest and inevitably create a better world as a result. Everyone knows how useless it is to moralize about gravity; the same goes for the actions of the rich. If a banker gets rich buying crap from one place and selling it somewhere else, that is just the Tao.
But if a lawyer gets rich because he successfully sues a financial institution that couldn't be bothered to manage its paperwork, or if a politician gets elected because he successfully appeals to voters, oh man, fuck that Buddha shit, that just gets my blood boiling. It is an abomination, horribly unnatural, destructive, ruinous. What an outrage!
Sure this stuff gets eaten up by silly moralists who think that something positive is accomplished when banks that break the law are punished. But we are rational folk who should just leave morality out of it: the simple fact is that people who don't make their mortgage payments automatically deserve the bad things that happen as a result.
See the clarity that is gained when we put aside our subjective feelings and focus on the objective facts? Namely:
1. People who make loans are just pursuing their enlightened self-interest and can't be held responsible for anything.
2. People who take out loans are dodgy characters willing to violate universal norms of decency and fairness in their misguided attempt to get ahead.
Glad that is clear.
The problem is it is difficult to know whether the servicers have their facts straight (e.g. maybe they refused to accept a payment?), when they are committing fraud on the courts.
I would have thought you were a believer in Rule of Law, Eric, so why are you defending fraud?
'Similarly, if bankers stay solvent and don't need taxpayer bailouts....'
Which would be the case if the borrowers repay the loans. Particular piquant irony being that the same govt. making the bailout--temporary, as it turned out--was responsible for coercing the bankers into making the loans in the first place.
You remember the initial gripe about home lenders, don't you; they weren't lending to enough deadbeats.
the same govt. making the bailout... was responsible for coercing the bankers into making the loans in the first place.
The cult of personal responsibility strikes again! Everyone must be held responsible for their actions... except for people "responsible" for making loans... those people are innocents, mere puppets of an unfair and unjust society. If only they were educated, or had any money or resources at their disposal, they could survive... but really they never had a chance.
Double standards much? But then again, we're well into Dunning-Kruger territory here. I may as well be banging my head against the wall.
Banging your head against the wall might help you see that the bankers WERE being 'held responsible for their actions' (i.e. not making loans to people with poor prospects of repaying those loans).
Virtually every govt. agency with any plausible interest in home ownership joined in the attack. Even the Attorney General of the US threatened bankers who wouldn't comply with criminal prosecution. You must be a really tough guy to blow off that kind of pressure.
If people paid their mortgage bills, robo-signers would not be problems, and if they don't pay their mortgage bills, there will be a problem.
Indeed, the world would be a wonderful place if there were no credit risk. Of course, we wouldn't need bankers, or much of a financial system at all. We could simply have a system where each could provide in accordance with their abilities, and each could receive according to their need. In fact, someone may have suggested something like that once.
You must be a really tough guy to blow off that kind of pressure.
Isn't that why the bankers get the multi-million dollar bonuses?
At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want ....
Very disappointing text, missing just e v e r y point brought up by the ones caring about - try zerohedge 4 the industry side and angrybear 4 the civic one. or google william black 4 here -
if nothing else, if basic laws are systematically broken experience could lead you 2 the idea there is systematic interest in (and benefits from) breaking law ... and indeed there seem to be quite lot of arguments in this direction.
Last not least Paul Krugman ... ego aside it´s not him who is leading the charge. He isn´t even commenting as far as I can see/google. What does this tell about your center of being?
looking forward to a more nuanced view on this mess - which is so much more messy than you seem 2 care about ...
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