Foreclosuregate
Ian Punnett welcomed investigative reporter Greg Hunter, who detailed how foreclosure mills are creating massive amounts of counterfeit promissory notes, so banks could legally foreclose on homeowners. "When you start drilling down on this, you're going to find all kinds of malfeasance," he declared. However, Hunter lamented, unlike the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980's which saw about 1,000 people sent to jail, the current financial debacle has yet to yield any indictments, despite being forty times bigger. "Not a single person has been charged criminally," he marveled, "with what I think is the biggest fraud in all of history."
Hunter explained that promissory notes are a critical aspect of the unfolding Forclosuregate. These notes, he said, are supposed to act as proof that the bank has the right to collect on a mortgage. However, Hunter revealed, as the larger banks purchased mortgages in bundles, many of these promissory notes were lost. Likening the notes to physical dollars, Hunter pointed out that they are "financial instruments," and, thus, cannot be recreated or copied for official use. As such, he cautioned homeowners who are currently paying a mortgage that "you don't know what they're going to say at the end of 15, 20, 30 years of you paying." Along those lines, he shared one troubling tale of a man who paid off his mortgage and was then told that the deed to his home was essentially lost in the mire of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meltdown.
Looking ahead to the future, Hunter warned about what he called "the Fed's biggest fear." He noted that many adjustable rate mortgages will be recast over the next year, resulting in a massive increase in payments for homeowners, peaking in November of 2011. However, the stream of income from the homeowners must continue in order to maintain the economy. Therefore, Hunter theorized that the Fed will take a number of dangerous steps in order to "keep interest rates artificially low until this clears out." This course of action would result in people staying in their homes and still paying their mortgages, but would also "destroy the dollar while you're doing it."
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