Fri 2010-10-08 21:53 EDT

MERS 101

MERS - Mortgage Electronic Registration Inc. - holds approximately 60 million American mortgages and is a Delaware corporation whose sole shareholder is Mers Corp. MersCorp and its specified members have agreed to include the MERS corporate name on any mortgage that was executed in conjunction with any mortgage loan made by any member of MersCorp...Thus in place of the original lender being named as the mortgagee on the mortgage that is supposed to secure their loan, MERS is named as the ``nominee'' for the lender who actually loaned the money to the borrower. In other words MERS is really nothing more than a name that is used on the mortgage instrument in place of the actual lender. MERS' primary function, therefore, is to act as a document custodian. MERS was created solely to simplify the process of transferring mortgages by avoiding the need to re-record liens -- and pay county recorder filing fees -- each time a loan is assigned. Instead, servicer's record loans only once and MERS' electronic system monitors transfers and facilitates the trading of notes...MersCorp was created in the early 1990's by the former C.E.O.'s of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Indy Mac, Countrywide, Stewart Title Insurance and the American Land Title Association... MERS, as has clearly been proven in many civil cases, does not hold any promissory notes of any kind. A party must have possession of a promissory note in order to have standing to enforce and/or otherwise collect a debt that is owed to another party. Given this clear-cut legal definition, MERS does not have legal standing to enforce or collect on the over 60 million mortgages it controls and no member of MERS has any standing in an American civil court. MERS has been taken to civil courts across the country and charged with a lack of standing in reposession issues. When the mortgage debacle initially, and inevitably, began, MERS always routinely brought actions against defaulting mortgage holders purporting to represent the owners of the defaulted mortgages but once the courts discovered that MERS was only a front organization that did not hold any deed nor was aware of who or what agencies might hold a deed, they have routinely been denied in their attempts to force foreclosure. In the past, persons alleging they were officials of MERS in foreclosure motions, purported to be the holders of the mortgage, when, in fact, they not only were not the holder of the mortgage but, under a court order, could not produce the identity of the actual holder. These so-called MERS officers have usually been just employees of entities who are servicing the loan for the actual lender. MERS, it is now widely acknowledged by the courts, has no legal right to foreclose or otherwise collect debt which are evidenced by promissory notes held by someone else...

MERS 101.

naked capitalism Mon 2010-09-20 09:24 EDT

Theoclassical Law and Economics Makes the Law an Ass

William Black

...The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allows businesses to make unlimited political contributions to judges and politicians. When judges are elected, the need for these contributions inherently turns judges into politicians. Sympathetic judges are corrupt businesses' most valuable allies. Corporations and their senior officials can commit civil or criminal wrongs with impunity if their case is assigned to a friendly judge...Yves noted that the Chamber of Commerce was leading the effort to elect CEO-friendly judges...The Chamber distributed a plan for a hostile takeover of university departments of economics and finance (and the courts and the media) proposed by Lewis Powell (the soon to be Supreme Court Justice). Extremely conservative ``law and economics'' proved to be central to this effort. The law and economics movement began as a non-ideological approach to explaining and aiding judicial decision-making. The scholars leading the movement had diverse views. The Olin Foundation transformed law and economics into an ultra ideological field dominated almost exclusively by passionate opponents of government ``interference'' in ``free enterprise.'' Olin specialized in creating well-funded positions in academia for scholars that had an ``Austrian'' approach to economics...Law and economics has, for over two decades, been dominated by theoclassical economic dogmas that have proved false...There are now tens of thousands of law and economics graduates that have taken a class in theoclassical law and economics. They were taught that theoclassical economic assertions (often falsified decades ago) were objective facts devoid of ideological content. They have been taught that economics has proven that regulation is unnecessary, hopeless, and harmful...

ass; economics make; Law; naked capitalism; Theoclassical Law.

Sun 2010-01-31 11:43 EST

Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment: The Stock Market Has Never Been This (Intermediate-Term) Overbought - October 19, 2009

In reviewing the status of the market late last week, the condition of the data was something of an anomaly in that regard. On the valuation front, stocks are presently overvalued, but to levels that we've observed at least several times in history. The anomaly relates to market action, where we can no longer find a single historical instance where stocks were more overbought on the combination of short- and intermediate-term measures we respond to most strongly. Indeed, only one instance comes close, which is November 28, 1980...the peak of the furious advance in S&P 500 driven by enthusiasm over "less bad" economic news, though with little proven economic strength. It was the last day of the 1980 bull market. The economy later proved to have been in a short lull within a double-dip recession, taking stocks to their final lows in 1982...One of the notable features of extreme overbought conditions is that investors rarely have much opportunity to get out...

2009; Hussman Funds; intermediate term; October 19; Overbought; stock market; weekly market comments.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis Mon 2009-10-12 09:22 EDT

One Hand Clapping Theory Analyzed

Michael Shedlock

Numerous people have asked me to comment on Chris Martenson's article The Sound of One Hand Clapping - What Deflationists May Be Missing. Chris Writes: ...``Trillions in probable and provable losses quietly exist, out of sight, on the balance sheets of the Federal Reserve and other financial institutions. If they ever come out of hiding and onto the books, I think the deflationists will be proven correct beyond all doubt. But let me ask this: What prevents the authorities from simply storing them out of sight forever?...I am now wondering if they cannot keep this up indefinitely.'' ...In a credit based economy, the odds of a sustainable rebound without bank credit expanding, and consumers participating is not very good. Even if one mistakenly assumes that the recent rally is a result of pretending, should we count on sustained success now more so than a measurement of stock prices in April of 1930, or any of Japans' four 50% rallies? I think not. Pretending cannot accomplish much other than prolonging the agony for decades. This is the message of Japan. Moreover, the US is arguably is worse shape than Japan because our problems are unsustainable consumer debt, high unemployment, and massive retail sector overcapacity. Those are structural problems that no amount of pretending in the world can possibly cure. In due time, the market will focus on those problems.

hand clapping theory analyzed; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis.

Thu 2009-07-30 00:00 EDT

Hussman Funds - The Destructive Implications of the Bailout - Understanding Equilibrium - May 18, 2009

-- ``The Treasury has issued an enormous volume of debt into the frightened hands of investors seeking default-free securities. This has allowed the Treasury to finance a massive and largely needless transfer of wealth to bank bondholders so easily over the short-term that the longer-term cost has been almost completely obscured...transferring wealth from those who did not finance reckless loans to those who did... the Treasury and Federal Reserve have crowded out more than a trillion dollars of gross investment that would have otherwise have been made by responsible people in the coming years, shifted assets to the control of those who have proven themselves to be irresponsible destroyers of capital, and have planted the seeds of inflation that will cut short any emerging recovery.''

18; 2009; Bailout; Destructive Implications; Hussman Funds; Understanding Equilibrium.

Mon 2007-12-10 00:00 EST

Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment: December 10, 2007 - Overbought in an Unfavorable Market Climate

"Treasure plan...equivalent of the FEMA response after hurricane Katrina"; "Provably incorrect ideas are eventually proven incorrect."

2007; December 10; Hussman Funds; Overbought; Unfavorable Market Climate; weekly market comments.