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STORIES:
Real
estate agent pleads no contest for house rental scam - (www.mercurynews.com) A 46-year-old
San Jose man pleaded no contest to grand theft for a home rental scam that
prosecutors say left renters without a place to live, with some of them evicted
from homes they thought they had legitimately leased. James Troy Wilson, a real
estate agent, reached a plea deal with the Santa Clara County District
Attorney's Office that was finalized Wednesday. A no contest plea has the same
legal effect as a guilty verdict. Under terms of the deal, when he is sentenced
on April 26, he should receive one year in county jail and pay restitution.
Prosecutors say in 2011, Wilson found vacant homes in Santa Clara, Contra Costa
and San Joaquin counties. He changed the locks, performed minor repairs, listed
them on Craigslist, and then rented them without the knowledge of the real
owners.
ARRRGH! Entrepreneurs Vent About
Obamacare - (www.cnbc.com) "The Affordable Care Act is certainly not affordable
for us as a small business in America," said
Marsha Newberry, owner of a business in Grand Prairie, Texas, in a post dated
last Friday. "I do understand what President Obama is trying to do,
however I do not believe this is the correct answer." "This has
caused our company to examine our projects and reduce our employee numbers by
eliminating the labor intense projects," she added. "All this to
avoid mandated healthcare by the federal government. So we slow and or reduce
our company growth to avoid complete closure of the company. Neither of these
are a good solution for small business in America." A Reno, Nevada,
business owner said: "We eliminated six jobs within the company, and we
will continue downsizing. We will outsource the functions previously done in
house in order to stay afloat. We have no budget for this damage. If that
doesn't keep us afloat, we will close our business down by September 30 this
year. Eleven more people out of jobs." Meanwhile, the National Federation
of Independent Business, which unsuccessfully challenged Obamacare in the U.S.
Supreme Court, issued a release Tuesday previewing other testimony that small
business owners had planned to provide the House Small Business
Committee.
Wells
Fargo Fabricated and Altered Mortgage Documents on a Mass Basis cap - (www.nakedcapitalism.com) Over the last two and a half
years, Wells Fargo, like most of the major mortgage servicers, claimed that it
had a “rigorous system” to insure that mortgage
documents were accurate and complete. The reason this mattered was that there
was significant evidence to the contrary. Foreclosure defense attorneys found
repeatedly that, for securitized mortgages, the servicer or foreclosure mill
attorney would present documents to the court that failed to show the
borrower’s note (a promissory note) had been transferred properly to the trust.
This mattered not only on a borrower level, but indicated that originators of
the mortgage securitizations hadn’t bothered transferring the notes properly to
the trusts that were to hold them. This raised the ugly specter of what was
called “securitization fail,” that investors had been sold securities that they
had been told were mortgage backed when they might in practice not be. The
robosiging scandal was merely the tip of the iceberg of mortgage and
foreclosure problems that resulted from the failure to adhere to the
requirements of well-settled state real estate law. The banks maintained that
there was nothing wrong with mortgage ownership or with the records. All they
had were occasional errors and some unfortunate corners-cutting with affidavits.
If they merely re-executed all those robosigned documents, all would be well.
Italian Banks’ Bad Loans Seen Rising as Gridlock Hampers Growth
- (www.bloomberg.com) UniCredit SpA (UCG) and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP), Italy’s
biggest banks, may struggle to boost profit as political gridlock threatens to
increase borrowing costs, worsen an economic contraction and drive up bad
loans. The Italian benchmark 10-year bond yield climbed as much as 0.44
percentage point and an index of the country’s financial shares dropped as much as 11
percent after last week’s general election left Italy’s largest political
parties groping to form a government amid a four-way parliamentary split. The
disarray may impede economic growth as the longest recession in 20 years and tougher
rules from regulators, including the Bank
of Italy, are already forcing banks to set aside more money against
doubtful loans, said Jacopo Ceccatelli, a partner at JC & Associati SIM, a
Milan-based financial advisory firm. Banco Popolare SC (BP), Italy’s No. 4 bank
by assets, said March 4 it will report a bigger loss for 2012 than analysts
estimated because of higher losses at its consumer credit unit.
Stock Run Will End Badly This Year:
Marc Faber - (www.cnbc.com) Echoing comments made on CNBC earlier this week by Stanley
Druckenmiller, founder of hedge fund Duquesne Capital, Faber said that it will
end badly for stocks. "But unlike Stan, I believe it will end badly this
year," Faber said. He sees two possible scenarios. Either a 20 percent
correction for stocks and then a move higher, or a scenario that is similar to
1987 or 2000 when stocks rise strongly early in the year only to drop sharply.
Faber has been calling for gold to outperform stocks, but acknowledges that the
yellow metal has been in a correction. "I'd rather buy something that is
relatively depressed than something that is relatively high," he said.
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