Sunday, April 7, 2013

Monday April 8 Housing and Economic stories


TOP STORIES:

Realtor Gets 108 Months for Mortgage Fraud Scam - (www.7thspace.com) Michael Jacoby, age 44, of Castle Rock, Colorado, and Derek Zar, age 30, of Commerce City, Colorado, were sentenced last Friday by visiting United States District Court Judge Kathryn H Vratil to serve 108 months in prison and 63 months in prison, respectively, for a mortgage fraud scheme, the United States Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and IRS-Criminal Investigation announced. Following his 108-month prison sentence, Jacoby was ordered to spend five years on supervised release and pay $2,979,712 in restitution. Following his 63-month sentence, Zar was ordered to spend three years on supervised release and pay $1,417,902 in restitution. Michael Jacoby, Derek Zar, and co-conspirator Susanne Zar were found guilty by a jury on August 30, 2012. According to the indictments and testimony at trial, between January 2005 and continuing through September 2006, in the State and District of Colorado, the defendants knowingly devised and intended to devise a scheme to defraud various financial institutions and other commercial lenders that funded residential mortgages and to obtain moneys, funds, and other property owned by and under the custody and control of those financial institutions and commercial lenders by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses and representations. 

Obituary: Pornographic Film Star of Deep Throat Who Became Realtor - (www.nytimes.com) Funny….  The arc of Mr. Reems’s life — which took him from Marine to “Deep Throat” to mendicant to successful real estate broker — came to renewed attention in 2005 with the release of “Inside Deep Throat,” a documentary about the film’s legacy for which he was interviewed on camera. The scheduled release this July of “Lovelace,” a biographical film starring Amanda Seyfried as Linda Lovelace and Adam Brody as Mr. Reems, seems likely to ensure his continued place in public memory.

Merkel Vents Anger at Cyprus Over Bailout Plan as Deadline Looms - (www.bloomberg.com) European and Cypriot officials were locked in talks to find a formula to avert the Mediterranean island’s financial collapse, struggling to forge consensus on a bailout package before the European Central Bank cuts funding. Cyprus’s options narrowed today after Russia spurned a bid for a loan and German lawmakers dismissed the Cypriot government’s latest rescue proposals. That left the troika of international creditors to hammer out fresh terms with President Nicos Anastasiades’s coalition focusing on the fate of Cyprus’s ailing banks. “We believe that in the next few hours we could be able, with a lot of difficulties, to reach a framework that will be within the policies of the EU, European Central Bank and IMF,” Averof Neofytou, deputy president of Cyprus’s ruling Disy party, told reporters in Nicosia, referring to the troika of creditors. “We are trying hard. I believe we may have a result today.”

Why global economies face an age of deflation - (www.bloomberg.com) In recent years, monetary and fiscal stimulus across the world have led to the assumption that serious inflation, if not hyperinflation, is on its way. I believe chronic deflation is more likely. The expectation of rising prices is reasonable. Most people have only experienced inflation. The last meaningful episode of deflation was in the 1930s. That’s also the last time the U.S. was truly at peace. Deflation is a peacetime phenomenon. The U.S.’s bouts of inflation, however, have historically occurred during wartime. That applies not only to shooting wars, but to the Cold War and the War on Poverty. These are periods when vast overspending by the federal government is combined with a robust private economy. These aren’t the conditions we have today, when government stimulus can’t offset private-sector weakness.

Eric Holder makes it official: crime is the economic model - (www.economonitor.com) It’s official. The nation’s top cop, Attorney General Eric Holder, has clearly articulated the administration’s policy on crime at the biggest banks: it will not be prosecuted. Indeed, as we’ve long expected, the criminals in top management will not be investigated, they will not be indicted, they will not be prosecuted, and they will not be punished. Period. If you want to lie, cheat, and steal, the safest place to be is at an institution like Citi, BofA, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, or Goldman. There’s no downside to criminal behavior if you can work your way to the top of any of these “systemically dangerous institutions” (SDIs as Bill Black calls them). 




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