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STORIES:
Inside
the foreclosure factory, they're working overtime - (www.msnbc.msn.com) In a quiet office in downtown Charlotte, N.C., dozens of Wells Fargo’s
foreclosure foot soldiers sit in cubicles cranking out documents the bank
relies on to seize its share of the thousands of homes lost to foreclosure
every week. They stare at computer screens and prepare sworn affidavits that
are used by lenders in courts across the country to seize homes. Paid $30,700
to start, these legal process specialists, the title that goes with the job,
swear an oath under penalty of perjury that they're corporate vice presidents.
They're peppered with e-mails from managers to meet daily quotas of at least 10
or 11 files day. If they fall short, they face a verbal warning. Then written.
Two written warnings could cost them the paycheck that supports a family. As
more than one source for this story told msnbc.com, "I can't afford to
lose this job." Pressured to meet daily production quotas, they are likely
making mistakes that inadvertently could toss a family out of its home and onto
the street, according to these workers.
MERS
foreclosure issue headed to Oregon Supreme Court - (www.oregonlive.com) With Oregon's state and federal courts singing a variety of different
tunes on the mortgage industry's controversial nationwide document-registration
system, someone will finally ask the state Supreme Court to step in. If
the high court gives the system a thumbs down, it could throw a wrench into
thousands of pending foreclosures in Oregon and potentially upend thousands
more already completed. An order filed this week in the U.S. District
Court in Portland said that court's chief judge will certify questions for the
Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has to formally accept the questions, and it
has the latitude to reject or even reword them.
The
California Exodus - (online.wsj.com)
'California is
God's best moment," says Joel Kotkin. "It's the best place in the
world to live." Or at least it used to be. Mr.
Kotkin, one of the nation's premier demographers, left his native New York City
in 1971 to enroll at the University of California, Berkeley. The state was a
far-out paradise for hipsters who had grown up listening to the Mamas & the
Papas' iconic "California Dreamin'" and the Beach Boys'
"California Girls." But it also attracted young, ambitious people
"who had a lot of dreams, wanted to build big companies." Think
Intel, Apple and Hewlett-Packard. Now, however,
the Golden State's fastest-growing entity is government and its biggest product
is red tape. The first thing that comes to many American minds when you mention
California isn't Hollywood or tanned girls on a beach, but Greece. Many
progressives in California take that as a compliment since Greeks are
ostensibly happier. But as Mr. Kotkin notes, Californians are increasingly
pursuing happiness elsewhere.
Parody
site puts Bank of America in your hands - (money.cnn.com) What would
Bank of America look like if it were owned by its customers? YourBofA.com, a parody site launched this week, lets the
crowd take a stab at answering that question. Mimicking the real Bank of
America site's look, it takes scathing aim at the bank's missteps and invites
visitors to share their ideas about what a taxpayer-owned Bank of America
should do. Several thousand contributors have already sent in suggestions. The site's creator is Yes Lab,
an organization that helps activist groups launch what it calls
"media-getting creative actions." America's second-largest bank was
an obvious target, Yes Lab director Andy Bichlbaum says. "Bank of America
is sort of the low-hanging fruit," Bichlbaum told CNNMoney.
Bank
of America Faces Bad House-Equity Loans - (www.bloomberg.com) Bank of America Corp.,
whose home- equity mortgage portfolio exceeds its stock market value, probably
will say about $2 billion of junior loans are bad assets tomorrow even as some
borrowers are still paying on time. That’s what Barclays Capital estimates the bank will
report in its first-quarter results, following decisions by JPMorgan Chase
& Co., Wells Fargo
& Co. (WFC) and Citigroup Inc. (C) to
reclassify $4.1 billion of junior liens as nonperforming. Regulators are
pressing for the change on concern that falling home prices have wiped out collateral on
many second mortgages, leaving them as unsecured debt. About 20 percent of the
nation’s $845 billion of home-equity loans exceed the value of the properties
when combined with primary mortgages, according to CoreLogic Inc., and about 36
percent of Bank of America’s were at least partly “underwater” at the end of
last year, according to regulatory filings.
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