T-4 days and counting...

Well, I kinda feel like I should consult my Bucket List for some crazy shit to fill these next four days...sky-diving? spontaneous travel? tango lessons? eating monkey brains...well, maybe not that last one. But I do hear they're quite good chilled.
Regardless, the final countdown is upon us. And judging by the news blasts I get from various sources, we're full steam ahead towards a default and every damn politician's too proud to reach for the break or cut the wheel.
As it stands right now, the Senate has rejected Boehner's debt plan and Obama is pleading with everyone to move forward with a plan.
The way I see it: the right, who's stance has become hardened and far more immovable by extremist Tea Partiers is going to force the left to cede on several points, making the eventual deal absolute dog shit. If that doesn't happen, we'll default. And you know what, why not?
Maybe we need it. Maybe as a country we need to fall on the cold, hard surface of concrete failure to wake up and fucking give a shit! To demand that this ridiculous juvenile banter NOT be a part of democratic governance. To become engaged, or at the very least, have the slightest fucking clue as to what's going on. Maybe it will take a massive default to make that happen. Because the way I see it, either way, things will get worse.
I really hate to be so pessimistic but let's look at the options. As I suggested, new taxes won't be on there in any useful form. Loopholes for the rich and greedy will remain in tact, because both sides are up to their necks in corporate shit. Government spending will be annihilated. In fact, anything remotely "Keynesian" will be flushed.
Keynes, as you may know, was the British economist who among other things, founded the IMF (the original one, not the debt hauling colonialists of today) and built up an economic theory based on choice government spending to bolster a sagging economy. It was this mentality that the New Deal was founded upon. Even Nixon once said, "We're all Keynesians now." Well Dick, not so much anymore.
Nope, now we're Freidman fostered, free market corporate junkies, and anything government can do, big business can do better. Cut government spending, cut taxes and hope by pulling the regulation rug out from under the market, it'll be stable enough to find footing. Well, it's not! For fuck's sake, look at the facts: for example (again, I urge you to do research as well - not hard facts to find), according to JPMorgan Chase - a corporate heavyweight - U.S salaries are at a 50-year low relative to the GDP and company sales. Simultaneously, profit margins of big corporations have soared to almost 13%, the highest since the 60s. And why are profit margins so damn high? Well, at least 75% of the reason, is because wages are low. In a nutshell, pay people less, keep more. Makes sense. Is that any way to boost an economy? Fuck no! Does anyone give a shit? Apparently not.
As Harold Myerson says in the Washington Post, "Where's the rage?"
I'm with you Harold, where the hell is it?
We may not have the ability to pull out a New Deal, but we certainly have the ability to cut tax loopholes for the rich and raise taxes to boost revenue, WHILST boosting government funded infrastructure projects. That in turn would provide jobs for the now 9.2% of Americans out of work, who would then be taxed according to their wages, and in tiny steps, the economy would pick itself up off the floor, begin to lick it's wounds and maybe, just maybe sneak out of the House before right wing Tea Partiers beat the ever loving shit out of it.
But I fear that view is too Utopian. At least for where we stand right now. And that is why I play with the idea of a default, play with the positive aspect of giving every single American a kick in the ass. Because that's who's gonna get it. You don't think the pansy political players in Washington are gonna feel a pinch. No, no. They're career politicians, pockets deeper than pre-historic caves. They'll be fine. It'll be you, and it'll be me. The ones who have up till now, paid for it, and due to our laissez-faire response, will continue to, because we make no motion to object.
So for the next four days, enjoy apathy, enjoy the nonchalant carefree attitude of a citizen with no woes. Because the gigantic cloud of woes hanging above us, will drop. If not on August 2nd, at some point in the future. We will be forced to care. Unless by some miracle, we wake up before we are woken...

Saving trees, killing dreams

It's no secret that I abhor big banks. They are a gleaming stone in the centerpiece of all that is evil and corrupt in this country. And when I feel as though there is no possible way that I could emotionally be filled with any more disgust, any more hatred, any more vehement abhorrence, something else comes up.
This is particularly grotesque, so if you need to pop some heart meds or take a little nap before you read this, please do so now...
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Banks foreclose and have been foreclosing on about 1 million houses per year since the "Great Recession" started. Families can't pay their bullshit mortgages and default on their payments, handing over their American Dream to the greedy little shit birds in the top office. In order to make this possible, the proper paperwork is obviously required.
Wall Street authored these subprime mortgages and forwarded them to the banks who made the loans. Now, the housing bubble that burst was a result of too many of these mortgages being doled out after the peak of the bubble in '05/'06. After that, it was a downhill spiral. And Wall Street knew it, so they threw out as many of these horse-shit mortgages as they could to as many poor saps that would take 'em.
And, in order to save on time, they decided to cut out some steps. Namely, the contractual step.
No, I'm serious.
These banks completely left out the part where it states that they own the loan, that they own the fucking house they're taking from you!
Again, I'm serious.
So, as you sit there, dotting your "i's" and crossing your "t's", trying desperately to keep your home, they don't even have a piece of paper with "i's" and "t's" on it. So, in reality, they have no right to take your house.
Thousands of homes, bundled into securities and traded back and forth from investor to investor, done so without a trace of paperwork. And with good reason: you can make a shit ton of money with just a few keystrokes on the computer - why wait for signatures and faxes, overnight document delivery - when you can press "Enter" and make enough for a sweet family vacation?
For example, Lynn Szymoniak, a lawyer and fraud specialist who went to court over the attempted foreclosure of her home. As she got to court, the bank admitted that it didn't have some key documents for her home, including the keystone: the assignment of mortgage document, which details who owns the loan.
A year later, the bank "found" it and all the other pertinent documentation....
Considering her profession, Lynn asked for copies of all these documents and checked 'em out.
The glaring fraud wasn't even covered up well. On her assignment of mortgage document, the date of acquisition for the mortgage was about 6 months after they sued her for foreclosure. So, somehow they pre-emptively sued her for a mortgage they didn't even have yet - how American of them. What the FUCK?!
And that's just one example. Ready for some more?
Realizing that they needed to get these documents out ASAP, banks outsourced some of their magically appearing paperwork. One of these companies was DocX, a company that hired people at $10/hour to sign fake contracts as Vice Presidents and Asst. Vice Presidents, Witnesses and Notary Publics (you know, the people who are supposed to validate a document's authenticity)!
These people worked in a relative signing sweatshop - signing up to 4,000 documents a day, with of course, fake names. One example, Linda Green, so chosen because it's short, easy to sign and simple. Going through documents, Lynn found that there were a myriad of "Linda Green" signatures, obviously signed by a myriad of different hands.
Of course, DocX has since been closed down and all the big banks deny having any knowledge of these shady dealings. And that's where those questions seem to have stopped...um what the fuck?!
To further showcase their arrogance, the contracts themselves were drawn up using language such as "Bogus Assignee" instead of the actual name of the homeowner. Um, fucking really?
Furthermore, instead of writing the name of the bank, many contracts would say random names, such as "Bad Bene" obviously not a bank I've heard of, or would fucking borrow from!
And these contracts were passed off as the real deal - went through COURTS OF LAW as legitimate assignments of mortgages, being the difference between keeping a home and losing it. People became homeless because of pieces of paper with literally bogus names and bogus signatures on them, about as real, and cloaked with lies as the American Dream.
And like I said, that's where it ends. That's where the 60 minutes special left us off.
How the FUCK can it end that way?
Is that it?!
Is that just how it is, like we're reading a fucking story?!
Is this acceptable?!
1 million homes - how many were bogus? Aside from the fact that the mortgages themselves were bogus to begin with - how many were compounded with fraud by not even having the paperwork to prove that they're assholes?!
I mean, come the fuck on!!!
Are we, as a people, going to sit here and apathetically shrug our shoulders, react by cursing to the wind and then DO NOTHING?!
Does their arrogance deserve no vengeance? Does their complete and total disregard for human life and rights deserve no retaliation?
Do they deserve their golden pedestals and diamond lives, while we struggle to survive? Do they?
Are we that low? That insignificant - that storied proud people, lower than shit?
I sure as hell am worth more...and every family that has had to suffer from the greed of the few is worth more, and the many must DO SOMETHING.