Month: December 2010

Viral ‘Messiah’

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

I’d like to think I had something to do with this, because when I first linked to it, there were only 11 hits. I’d read about the event in the paper and was waiting for the official video to appear (in the meantime, I posted a couple of the bystander videos – this one has much better audio), and as soon as it was up, I posted it here, and on Facebook, and pushed it on Twitter. Then I put it up on C&L, which gets 150,000 or so viewers a day. I’m sure that each of those viewers sent it to someone else, too.

Now over 5 million people have seen it, so apparently a lot of other people liked it as much as I did. Hallelujah!

Fed wants to strip key protection for homeowners

~ susie

There’s no obvious reason why the Fed would do this, unless it’s aimed at putting assets back on the banks’ books to cover up their losses:

WASHINGTON — As Americans continue to lose their homes in record numbers, the Federal Reserve is considering making it much harder for homeowners to stop foreclosures and escape predatory home loans with onerous terms.

The Fed’s proposal to amend a 42-year-old provision of the federal Truth in Lending Act has angered labor, civil rights and consumer advocacy groups along with a slew of foreclosure defense attorneys.

They’re not only asking the Fed to withdraw the proposal, they also want any future changes to the law to be handled by the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which begins its work next year.

In a letter to the Fed’s Board of Governors, dozens of groups that oppose the measure, including the National Consumer Law Center, the NAACP and the Service Employees International Union, say the proposal is bad medicine at the wrong time.

“At the depths of the worst foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression, we are surprised that the Fed has proposed rules that would eviscerate the primary protection homeowners currently have to escape abusive loans and avoid foreclosure: the extended right of rescission.”

Because the public comment period on the Fed’s proposal is still open until Dec. 23, a spokesman declined comment on the matter.