Tim's Atlanta Real Estate Blog ~ Save Money. Avoid Rip Offs.

Mises vs. Keynes. After 70 years of Keynes, It's Time for Some Real Change

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:17:09 -0600

The Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece today about Ludwig von Mises. It is well worth the read and then it would be well worth the effort to do a little more research on Mises and his Austrian school of economics.

I'm sure most people have heard of John Maynard Keynes. He's the "brilliant" economist who is the father of the government stimulus.

...along came John Maynard Keynes's tome "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" in 1936. Keynes was dapper, fresh and sophisticated. He even wrote in English! And the guy had chutzpah, fearlessly fighting the battle against unemployment by running the currency printing press and draining the government's coffers.

He was the anti-Mises. So what if Keynes had lost his shirt in the stock-market crash. His book was peppered with fancy math (even Greek letters) and that meant rigor, modernity. To add insult to injury, Mises wasn't even refuted by Keynes and his ilk. He was ignored.

Ludwig von Mises wrote his book "The Theory of Money and Credit" back in 1912, just one year before our Federal Reserve was born. Unfortunately, his book, written in German, really didn't get much play. It explained exactly why something like the Federal Reserve would eventually lead to ever more volatile business cycles.

This is the best, to the point, analysis of his theory and is very relevant to our current situation:

Government-imposed interest rates artificially below rates demanded by savers leads to increased borrowing and capital investment beyond what savers will provide. This causes temporarily higher employment, wages and consumption.

Ordinarily, any random spikes in credit would be quickly absorbed by the system-the pricing errors corrected, the half-baked investments liquidated, like a supple tree yielding to the wind and then returning. But when the government holds rates artificially low in order to feed ever higher capital investment in otherwise unsound, unsustainable businesses, it creates the conditions for a crash. Everyone looks smart for a while, but eventually the whole monstrosity collapses under its own weight through a credit contraction or, worse, a banking collapse.

The system is dramatically susceptible to errors, both on the policy side and on the entrepreneurial side. Government expansion of credit takes a system otherwise capable of adjustment and resilience and transforms it into one with tremendous cyclical volatility.

It reminds me of the academic debate between communism and capitalism. Even after seeing the Soviet Union do a 70 year long experiment with total government control and seeing it fail, many still think that more government control is the path to work towards.

So now that we've been following the path of Keynes for the past 70 years and have seen how it has failed, many still think that more of the same is what is needed. More government stimulus and more government borrowing. Hopefully our system won't collapse like the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, it will probably take a collapse in order to get back to a system that works.

So How's the Stimulus Package Working? Wasn't Unemployment Supposed to be at 7.8% by Now?

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:47:07 -0600

Remember how we were told how important it was to pass the $787 billion "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act"? Obama's chief economic advisor, Christina Romer, put out a nice study showing how many jobs would be created or saved with this "stimulus" bill.

On page five of the report they had a nice graph projecting the unemployment rate with and without the stimulus bill being enacted. That was in January of 2009, just 10 months ago. Let's see how the best and brightest economic minds in Washington did vs. the reality of what has actually happened.

With the Recovery Plan, the unemployment rate was projected to be 7.8% by now. Without the Recovery Plan it was projected to be 8.8%. The reality is that it's 10.2%. The actual rate is 43% higher than they projected!!

I'll let you decide whether it's a matter of incompetence or a matter of deceit in order to get their agenda passed.

With this sort of track record, can we trust them at all with the projected cost of the proposed healthcare bill?

Walmart's Straight Talk. $45/month for Unlimited Talk, Text & Data. No Contract.

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:44:41 -0600

Get Verizon's wireless network at more than 50% off. I heard about Straight Talk in a blog the other week and checked it out. It sounded like a great deal so I switched from Verizon.

Tracfone buys blocks of time from Verizon and resells it using Walmart as it's marketing arm. So you get the quality of the Verizon network but at a bargain price with no contract to tie you down.

I've been with Verizon for years now and I figured that this is a no brainer. I was paying Verizon $99/month for unlimited talk. Text would have been an additional $10 and data an additional $10. With Straight Talk, I get unlimited talk, text and data. I guess the only negative might be that the phone selection is limited and there isn't any big discount on the phones. I just had a very basic phone so the Razor, $99, was a step up for me.

The switch over was pretty easy. I went to Walmart and bought my phone and service plan. I logged onto Straight Talk and keyed in some numbers along with my current Verizon account number. In seconds, my current phone number was ported over to my new phone. I had to make a simple call to activate it and I was done. I quickly set up a new voice mail messege and I was back in business. It took me maybe 5 minutes to get it all up and running.

Fifteen minutes of work could save you a lot on your cell phone bill.

Bite Size Halloween Candy. Are We Poorer or Just More Thrifty?

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:35:56 -0600

My Halloween memories go back to 1964-1973. I remember in the early years, we'd come back home with a bag full of full size candy bars. I kind of remember seeing the bite size candy starting to creep into my bag around 1970.

Last night, my kids came home with nothing but bite size and mini size candy.

It made me wonder about what has changed? I grew up in a very blue-collar middle class area in Pennsylvania. Now I live in a much more white-collar upper middle class area.

Are we actually poorer than we were in the sixties or are we just more thrifty or less giving?

Steamy Stock Market News Reports Arousing My Interest in Investing

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:28:24 -0500

The DOW broke though the 10,000 mark and the reports on it sound like the reporting of a pornographic movie.

Stephen Cobert put together a really funny collection of financial news snippets reporting the new high in the stock market in very seductive terms.

Enjoy.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Money Shot

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Michael Moore

Have professional courtesy but don't cross the line.

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:31:28 -0500

As a real estate agent, I always remind myself who I'm working for. I have to do what's best for my client. If that means your client gets upset or loses money, so be it. It's not my job to make sure both sides are happy with the deal. It's my job to get the best deal for my client.

Broker Bryant says it better than I can so I'm just going to reblog his post.

Via Bryant Tutas-Tutas Towne Realty, Inc:

Hi folks. Let's talk a little bit about professional courtesy. I hear this term quite a bit on AR and in my business. Usually, it goes something like this:

"The listing agent should have told me he had other offers on the property, as a professional courtesy".

"Even though my buyer's offer was a low ball the listing broker should have gotten back to me before the offer expired, as a professional courtesy."

You get my point. Anyway, let me see if I can shed some light on this professional courtesy "thingie". First, I want to say, that anyone who has ever worked a deal with me will tell you that I am very professional in all that I do. I treat my peers with respect. I am always willing to help "newbies" in anyway I can and if I say I'm going to do something, I do it.

But, and it's a big but, sometimes what you are expecting me to do, as a "professional courtesy", is completely against what my customer/client is telling me to do or not do. Last time I checked, I work for my customer/clients NOT my peers.

My job, as a listing broker, is to look out for my Sellers and do everything I can to get their property sold in a reasonable amount of time and for a reasonable price. Sometimes, that may require my Seller and I to "sit on" your Buyer's offer. We may even choose to ignore it completely. We can do that. We may even use your offer to negotiate a better deal with another Buyer. We can do that too.

And you know what? I don't have to tell you I'm doing it. There is nothing unprofessional about that. Your Buyer is NOT my concern. What may seem like my lack of action or response, from your perspective, may very well be a negotiating strategy from my Seller's perspective. Don't jump to conclusions about my professionalism or lack of.

I completely agree that we should all work together and that we do not have to work in a disrespectful manner. We should be professionals in all we do. If you want to be a professional then please remember who you are working for and who is paying you. Your "professional courtesy" could very well jeopardize your customer/client's position. How professional is that? What say you?

Bryant Tutas
Broker/Owner
Tutas Towne Realty, Inc
Licensed Florida Real Estate Broker
http://CentralFloridaShortSales.com

http://ShortSaleSuperStars.com

Are you a Florida REALTOR(R) looking for a change? Check it out.

CENTRAL FLORIDA REALTOR(r) OPPORTUNITIES

Copyright © 2009 http://www.brokerbryant.com/ | All Rights Reserved

Massachusetts Land Court Reaffirms Ruling Invalidating Titles To Thousands of Foreclosures

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:23:43 -0500

A judge's ruling in Massachusetts might invalidate thousand of foreclosures going back to 1989.

Long ruled that banks can't foreclose on homes unless they have complete paperwork covering every time a specific loan changed hands.

The judge found that fixing documents after the fact, as Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank did in the Springfield cases, isn't enough. He ruled that flaws not resolved earlier can depress bids at foreclosure auctions, reducing how much consumers who face home losses get for their places.

"The issues in this case are not merely . . . a matter of dotting i's and crossing t's. Instead, they lie at the heart of the protections given to homeowners and borrowers," Long wrote yesterday.

Experts say the ruling paves the way for thousands of people who've lost houses to foreclosure to challenge their homes' seizures

I enjoyed reading the complete ruling. The banks were arguing that that's the way they've always been doing it so it shouldn't be a big deal. I was glad to see the judge stick to the law.

If they believe a change is warranted to reflect "industry standards and practice," they must seek that change from the legislature. I note, however, that if those "standards and practice" have brought us to the present situation (see, e.g., Chairman Ben Bernanke, Financial Innovation and Consumer Protection, speech at the Federal Reserve System's Sixth Biennial Community Affairs Research Conference (Apr. 17, 2009); R. Posner, A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent Into Depression (Harvard University Press 2009)), "we should learn something from that experience." Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 242 (1944)

A good read on the topic was posted by Karl Denninger. Some interesting discussionon his Market Ticker Forum. Denninger did a post last month explaining the problem in more detail

I'm not a lawyer so I thought before writing my own post, I would see if any resident expert on ActiveRain wrote about the topic. I saw Richard Vetstein's post and thought it would be best to reblog it since he's actually an attorney who seems to be pretty knowledgeable.

Via Richard Vetstein (Vetstein Law Group, P.C.):

Originally posted on The Massachusetts Real Estate Law Blog

Today, Massachusetts Land Court Judge Keith Long reaffirmed his controversial ruling made back in March 2009 that invalidated foreclosure proceedings involving two Springfield homes because the lenders did not hold clear titles to the properties at the time of sale. A copy of the decision can be found here.

As I outlined in my prior post on this case, the problem the Land Court dealt with in this case is what happens when modern securitized mortgage lending practices meets outdated foreclosure laws. When mortgages are packaged to Wall Street investors, the ownership of a mortgage loan may be divided and freely transferred numerous times on the lenders’ books. But the mortgage loan documentation actually on file at the Registry of Deeds often lags far behind.

The Ruling

Judge Long ruled that foreclosures were invalid when the lender failed to bring the ownership documentation (known as an assignment) up-to-date until after the foreclosure sale had already taken place. An assignment is a legal document confirming that a mortgage loan has been transferred from one lender to another. Assignments must be recorded with a registry of deeds so anyone researching a property’s title can track the loan’s origin and ownership. Oftentimes, as in the Ibanez case, lenders will sell bundles of loan and record backdated assignments with an effective date before the first foreclosure notice. Judge Long effectively prohibited this practice.

Despite the lender’s attempt to convince him otherwise, Judge Long came out (again) in favor of consumers:

The issues in this case are not merely problems with paperwork or a matter of dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Instead, they lie at the heart of the protections given to homeowners and borrowers by the Massachusetts legislature. To accept the plaintiffs’ arguments is to allow them to take someone’s home without any demonstrable right to do so, based upon the assumption that they ultimately will be able to show that they have that right and the further assumption that potential bidders will be undeterred by the lack of a demonstrable legal foundation for the sale and will nonetheless bid full value in the expectation that that foundation will ultimately be produced, even if it takes a year or more. The law recognizes the troubling nature of these assumptions, the harm caused if those assumptions prove erroneous, and commands otherwise.

Judge Long also had some choice words for lenders:

[T]he problem the [lenders] face (the present title defect) is entirely of their own making as a result of their failure to comply with the statute and the directives in their own securitization documents… What the plaintiffs truly seek is a change in the foreclosure sale statute (G.L. c. 244, § 14), which can only come from the legislature.

What Now?

That’s a good question and one not readily answerable. To be sure, the current state of flux and confusion surrounding foreclosure titles affected by an Ibanez issue will remain intact until an appellate court considers the case or some action by the Legislature (which may be unlikely). Given the importance of the decision, I predict that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will take the unusual step of taking the case directly from the Land Court.

As for what happens in the year or so the case may be in appellate limbo, I asked an in house counsel for a leading title insurance company, and his response was essentially that it’s going to take a fair amount of time and research to figure this one out. If there’s an existing title insurance policy on the property, some but not all of the title companies may be willing to insure over the problem. If there’s no title policy in place, affected parties are going to have to ride this one out for awhile.

Once title insurance companies offer some further guidance, I will post it here.

Is The FDIC Killing Short Sales?

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:01:18 -0500

This is a big story that needs to get out there.

It's all starting to add up and make some sense. Unfortunately, it's the same old story. Taxpayers are getting screwed and the well connected like George Soros and making billions.

Via Bob Hertzog (Summit Home Consultants):

Is The FDIC Killing Short Sales?

As some of you already know, I blogged recently about being interviewed recently by our local NBC news affiliate. To read the blog, click here. Basically, IndyMac Bank (now OneWest Bank), is holding one of my clients hostage, demanding a $75k promissory note, or they will proceed to foreclosure. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why they were doing this. The BPO came in at the contract price of $275k, with a net to IndyMac of $241k. What advantage could there possibly be for them to proceed to foreclosure?

Yesterday, I figured it out. You see, IndyMac was taken over by the FDIC and sold to OneWest Bank in March/2009. Guess who the investors are behind OneWest? George Soros, Michael Dell, Steve Mnuchin (former Goldman Sachs executive), and John Paulson (hedge-fund billionaire).

Now, listen to the deal they got from the FDIC....

Basically, they purchased all current residential mortgages at 70% of par value (70% of the outstanding loan amounts). They purchased all current HELOCS at 58% of Par Value!!!

Next, in order to "sweeten the pot", the FDIC stepped in and guaranteed the following: For any residential mortgages where OneWest experiences a loss, the FDIC will step in and cover anywhere from 80%-95% of the loss. The loss is calculated using the ORIGINAL LOAN BALANCE, not the amount that OneWest paid for the loan. Let's use my clients situation as an example:

Loan Amount is $478,000, plus 6 months of missed payments, for a grand total of $485,200

OneWest pays $334,600 for the loan

We have an all cash offer of $241,000, net to OneWest.

So, let's do the math, shall we? The net loss, according to the FDIC formula is the ORIGINAL LOAN AMOUNT minus the amount of the offer. In this case, $485,200-$241,000, or $244,200. Next, the FDIC, according to their Loss Share Agreement, writes a check to OneWest for 80% of the so-called "net loss". So, in this case, OneWest gets a check from Uncle Sam for $195,360 (.80 X $244,200).

Add the $195,360 to the sales price of $241,000, and you get a grand total of $436,360. Remember, OneWest paid $334,600 for the loan. So, OneWest puts $101,760 in their pocket, thanks to the FDIC. Folks, that is over $100k of our hard-earned tax dollars!

So, you ask...Why does this program hurt short sales? Because, our brilliant government offers this SAME PROGRAM FOR FORECLOSURES! The only difference is, the government picks up 80% of the tab on all of the extra costs associated with a foreclosure (BPO's, upkeep, utilities/maintenance, legal fees, etc.)

So, If I'm OneWest, why would I want to waste my time negotiating through a Short Sale, when I can make the same amount of money (if not more) by just letting it go to foreclosure? And we wonder why nobody can get a Loan Modification? Why would OneWest approve a loan modification for this guy, when they can foreclose and make over $100k? And, to add injury to insult, they have held this loan for 6 months! Not a bad ROI, huh?

What infuriates me the most is that in my particular case mentioned above, they have the guts to hold my client hostage for a $75k promissory note, after they are already making more than $100k on the sale!!! This is his primary residence, 1st Position loan, and OneWest has NO RECOURSE! Imagine if they could make $100k, then get a deficiency judgement! Talk about making some big bucks!

Can you say "GREED"?

The scary thing is that over 50 banks have Shared Loss Agreements in place with the FDIC. Some of them include: Bank of America (go figure), CitiMortgage, Wells Fargo, etc.

This entire agreement between the FDIC and OneWest can be found here, on the FDIC website. It's all there, for the world to see! They have it all layed out. All of the formulas, worksheets, etc.

Now, it's up to us to bring it to the attention of our elected officials and the media. Enough is Enough!

UPDATE 9/18/09: I JUST READ AN AWESOME ARTICLE ON THIS, THAT GOES INTO WAY MORE DETAIL THAN MY BLOG ABOVE. TAKE THE TIME TO READ IT WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE! CLICK HERE TO READ IT.

Wait, it gets better...The FDIC just announced that it needs to start borrowing money from the U.S. Treasure in order to replenish it's deposit insurance fund (the same fund being used to pay all of these banks in the Loss Share Agreements). Go Figure! Click Here to read it.

Short Sale Strategies- Getting The Facts Straight - Case In Point

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:28:48 -0500

Can someone with good credit and good assets actually get a lender to do a short sale for them?

Katerina Gasset gives real life examples of situtations where banks are accepting short sales for people who's "hardship" might not be exactly what one would define as a hardship.

The bottom line is, everything is negotiable and you never know what a bank will be willing to do until you approach them with a proposition.

Via Nestor & Katerina Gasset Realtors® Wellington Florida Luxury Homes (International Properties and Investments, Inc.):

Short Sale Strategies- Getting The Facts Straight For Sellers With Money- Case In Point

Let me set the record straight with who can get a short sale approved and who can not.

The main answer to the question is that is all depends on the lender and their policies regarding approving short sales.

Most lenders would rather have a short sale approved then foreclose on yet another property even if there is no financial hardship.
There are some lenders who will only approve short sales for financial hardships and others who will approve short sales if the terms are right for just about anybody.
Before taking on short sales you need to find out the policies of each of the short sale lenders that you will come into contact with.

It is simply NOT true when agents tell you that your clients without financial hardships can not do a short sale. In fact, just the mere fact that an agent is making a judgment call like that without knowing or trying is doing a disservice to a seller. It depends on how hard you want to fight for your sellers.

There are a lot of blogs out there where agents who say they know how to do short sales are not stating the facts correctly.

Just because your seller does not have a financial hardship does not mean they will not get approved for a short sale.

First let's get clear on what a short sale is since even after the last several years of short sales being prominent here in Florida, many states are just now beginning to experience short sales in their respective markets. A short sale is when a seller's property is worth less and will only sell for less than what the seller owes to his lender. So the seller is going to have to ask his lender to accept less than a full pay off of what he borrowed from his lender. It is up to his lender to say yes or no or yes with conditions.

A short sale is a short pay off of a loan, nothing more, nothing less. There are many terms and conditions that can be attached to a short pay off.

So now that we all understand what a short sale actually is we can look at some different possible outcomes for a wealthy seller, an investor or a non financial hardship case. There are also many cases where the seller may appear not to have any hardship but after you ask some probing questions you may discover hardships that the seller may not think of. I will write a short sale strategy post on this process.

One other thing I want to get really straight right now is that we do list and sell short sale listings and we have clients from all different financial backgrounds and situations. So the cases I will expand upon are real but I can not disclose the names to protect the identity of clients' financials. I want to make it very clear that these are true cases. I am not making this stuff up. I am not teaching out of some real estate book. I am not out in left field. I am in my own back yard, my own field of short sales. So if you want to listen to agents who don't do short sales but tell you how to do them, that is your decision. We are in the trenches. We carry a lot of listings and we close a lot of short sales.

When you first do your intake evaluation with a potential short sale client you must make certain things very clear and you must assess the client's situation. Financial hardships are relative and you can create a good case if you know the right questions to ask.

When we have clients who have money in their bank accounts or who own several to many other properties we will not take their short sale listing unless they agree to participate in the terms of the short sale. The usual way that a short sale lender treats a short sale is that the more financially strong the homeowner is, the more the lender is going to want them to contribute with a cash contribution towards the short fall and/or a promissory note.

We have closed on short sales where there is not a financial hardship for the homeowner but that something else changed in their lives. We just closed one that Broker Bryant referred to us where the sellers have great credit, they own and live in a home in another state and they no longer wanted their rental here.

They had tenants in the rental who were paying the mortgage. Their lender turned down our first short sale offer because the sellers were current on their mortgage on the rental which is the property they wanted to do the short sale on. So then they stopped paying their mortgage.

We received another offer. You should have seen the bank statements and what they used their money for. They were also paying off their credit card debt. They kept the rental money too. The first lien holder let them off free and clear through our negotiations with them. The second lien holder asked for a $30,000 promissory note which we negotiated down to $13,000 with payment of $110 per month and ZERO interest. This was a great offer for these sellers and they understood going into this deal that they would be required to participate in some way.

It was not our job to judge their motives or whether they were 'worthy' of a short sale approval or not. Our job was to negotiate the best possible outcome for them based on their own set of circumstances.

We never take their initial offer as fact. Everything is negotiable.

Nearly every situation where there is not a hardship case the seller is going to be adding cash or signing a note. If the sellers do not want to take part in that then we don't take the listing. There are many ways around this situation which we won't go into now- suffice it to say- you got to pay if you want to play.

On our financial hardship cases, we always get our sellers off without any payment plan or cash contributions even when there is PMI involved, which I will post on later- how to deal with PMI companies.

We have another listing where the seller owes over 2.6 Million dollars ( not disclosing exact #s). We just got approval on the short sale to close in the $600,000's. The buyer is going to pay all cash. The lender wants a $25,000 cash contribution. The buyer and seller are going to pay that contribution to the short sale lender.

Case in point- Seller has over 1 million dollars in his bank account and has some joint accounts. He was going to pay to play then changed his mind. We have been through several buyers because the lender wants a cash contribution from the seller of $50,000 but the seller does not want to take that out of his bank account. He owns several other properties and is not late on any mortgage payment except this one. This is not sitting too well with his lender. They feel he is getting off too easy. We negotiate back, saying, what does it matter, still better than a foreclosure. Now we finally found a buyer who is going to contribute a large hunk of this and the seller now will finally contribute to make the short sale happen. We will get this closed.

Case in point- Seller owns many properties around the country. They want to short sale their rental here in Florida. They make very good money. We will only accept their short sale listing if they agree to contribute to the short sale financially. We know their lender and they will be able to do the short sale. The seller agrees to participate financially if that is a condition. Knowing this lender- they most likely will require a contribution. The seller understands this and will participate. Investors can get short sales approved. We have one investor where we have listed and sold 4 of his properties so far as short sales and all were approved. By the way, all of his were Countrywide loans.

Case in point- Doctors and attorneys. We list and negotiate short sales for attorneys' personal and investment properties. We have already listed and closed short sales for 2 attorneys and are in negotiations on short sales for 3 other attorneys right now. The attorneys look great on credit and paper. It is all about selling their story. They all understand that based on their occupations alone they are going to be scrutinized and expected to play ball with cash to close or promissory notes. Many attorneys have taken a hit in income depending on what their specialty is. So although they may be able to pay a mortgage payment of $3500 a month; they no longer can make payments of $7,500 a month. If the lenders are not going to approve their loan modification which has been the case for each of our attorney clients their best option may be to try to get a short sale approved, cut their losses and move on with their lives and businesses.

The biggest obstacle is getting your short sale file to the upper management in these cases because employees at these servicers are looking at the occupation of 'attorney' or 'doctor' and instantly judge them to be some rich people who are much better off than they are. Diligence is key here.

Hopefully this clears up some misconceptions as to who may get approved for a short sale. Please remember this is based on Florida stats, Florida laws and the way the lenders treat properties in Florida which is going to be much different than in Arizona or other trust deed states. The only constant is that rules and policies change in regards to short sales often.

For more information about Florida Short Sales- click here.

T o view Florida Short Sales- Click here . We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

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Short Sale Strategies- Getting The Facts Straight- Case In Point! -was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sale Strategies- Getting The Facts Straight- Case In Point!.*

Short Sale Commissions. Know What the Bank Will Pay Upfront.

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:13:04 -0500

Cutting commissions on a short sale has been a hot topic over the past few days.

My thinking about commissions associated with short sales is that the listing commission should be negotiated up front with seller, listing agent and also seller's mortgage lender who is going to be asked to take a big hit to make the transaction happen. Let all parties involved agree before any work is started.

How can a seller in a short position agree to pay a listing commission when he knows he can't pay off the mortgage? I really don't think that is a valid contract. Agreeing to something that you know you can't perform is fraud. So why would you knowingly enter into such a contract and expect a third party to respect your contract with the seller?

I haven't taken a short sale listing so I really have no idea if a bank will agree on a commission before the listing is taken or not. But that just seems like the most logical thing to do. If you can't work out a reasonable commission, then you shouldn't take the listing.

Here is a perspective that might make you see things from the bank's perspective a little.

Let's say that you take on a short sale and the bank cuts your commission to practically nothing. Since your listing agreement is not with the seller's bank, but with the seller, there isn't much you can do. You decide to go after your seller for the commission that they agreed to pay you after the closing of the sale that shortchanged you.

Let's say that the seller owns a second car worth $20,000 which just so happens to be what they owe you for your commission. You and the seller agree that the seller will sell the car and give you the proceeds in order to settle your claim against them for your real estate commission.

They hire an attorney to arrange the sale of the car. The attorney finds a buyer for the car for $20,000. This is a very skilled attorney who has a lot of experience and isn't ashamed to charge what he thinks he is worth. He charges the seller $18,000 for his services which leaves the seller only $2,000. The seller is $18,000 short on your commission. This is the only asset they have left.

You think to yourself that the seller is an idiot for paying the attorney $18,000 to sell a $20,000 car which then leaves only $2,000 for them to pay you. You call the attorney and say that $18,000 is way too much of a fee to charge for selling a car and that the attorney needs to reduce his fee so that your seller has more money to pay you. The attorney promptly reminds you that you have no right to interfere with the attorney's agreement with the seller. The attorney has to run his business as he sees fits and it's only up to him how much he charges for his services. He has the exclusive right to sell that car for the seller and he's not going to cut his fees one penny.

You tell the seller that the $18,000 in fees to sell a car is way too much to spend and you can show them others who will do it for much less. This will allow the seller to be able to pay a much bigger portion of the commission that they owe you. The attorney says that you are illegally interfering with a contract between two other parties.

The seller says that his attorney has worked long and hard to find this car buyer and put together this deal. His attorney has many expenses he needs to pay to stay in business. Your seller goes into details about how expensive it is for attorneys to run a business. The attorney says that the partners in his firm actually take a big portion of the fee and he, himself, actually ends up with very little.

I guess my point is that a short sale is not a normal real estate transaction and if you choose to participate in it, be aware of what can happen and cover yourself accordingly. If you can't get the bank to agree to an acceptable commission up front, then decide whether or not you want to spend your time in such a risky situation.

Social Security Ponzi Scheme Starting to Collapse. Deficits to Start Next Year.

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:39:04 -0500

Social Security wasn't supposed to start paying out more than it took in until 2016 according to the 2009 OASDI Trustees Report. Surprise, Surprise. Due to the unexpected rise in unemployment and early retirements, that dreaded day is here right now.

Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that's happened since the 1980s.

The deficits - $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 - won't affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.

Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn't expect the increase to be so large.

Just what we needed, something else to increase the budget deficit. Do you think that their assumptions on unemployment and GDP going forward are too optimistic or too conservative? I think that they are probably expecting a much stronger recovery than we will actually see.

Even Matthew Lesko Sees Where All of the Free Government Money is Leading. Really Ironic.

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:22:42 -0500

This is too funny, Matthew Lesko doing a satire on his own commercials.

If you haven't seen Matthew Lesko, he sells books on how to take advantage of all kinds of government programs. The second video is actually one of his ads.

I find it so funny and ironic that he did the first video. I guess it's just a whacky world we live in.

If the Economy is Turning, Why Are Ships Sitting Idle at the Peak of the Christmas Shipping Season?

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:30:28 -0500

I've seen many economists say that the recession has ended and the economy has started to turn.

Last week I showed how state sales tax receipts in July and August are down about 10%.

At this time of year, most of the products that are going to be sold during the Christmas season need to be on a boat on their way to store shelves.

Instead of ships being loaded down with cargo, steaming across the oceans, empty ships are floating around remote waters with no place to go.

The ghost fleet of the recession is an indicator that is saying that the recession doesn't look like it's over yet.

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year
...
This time last year, an Aframax tanker capable of carrying 80,000 tons of cargo would cost £31,000 a day ($50,000). Now it is about £3,400 ($5,500).
...
'A couple of years ago those ships would have been steaming back and forth, going at full speed. But now you've got something like 12 per cent of the world's container ships doing nothing.'

Shipping numbers and sales tax receipts are two real time statistics that show what's actually going on in the economy. It's hard for the government to distort them too much.

Businesses seem to think that Christmas sales will be way down this year. I guess if they guessed wrong, shoppers will be fighting over the limited supplies.

Bailouts Are Mob Rule, not Rule by Law

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:29:26 -0500

Do we live by mob rule or the rule of law? The more I think about it, the more I see it as mob rule. Better yet, mobster rule.

I don't believe in any kind of bailouts. I'm a simple guy. I believe in living by the law and having the government enforce the law. The law should protect people from theft, fraud and assault. The law should enforce contracts. The law shouldn't favor one group of people over another.

When you start straying from those limited duties and allow the government to show favor to one group or another, you either get mobster rule or mob rule, which turns into mobster rule.

What do bailouts do? They take money from the many and funnel it to the few. Who decides who gets the money? There always has to be decision makers for that. The more you influence the decision makers, the more likely you'll get a piece of the bailout.

In mobster rule, you get corrupt government officials manipulating the system to the benefit of their benefactors. You have to be a Good Fella and play the political game. If the common folk don't pay, they have Guido, the IRS agent, pay them a visit.

Unfortunately, the common schmuck just doesn't have much influence. So they get upset and angry when they see favors being dished out to insiders who have the means and connections to influence the decision makers.

If they band together and form a majority, they might be able to get the system to steer some benefits to them. Many call this democracy. I like to refer to it as mob rule. Mob rule is great if you are part of the mob. But I'd hate to be the chicken when it's me and two foxes deciding what's for dinner. Mobs have to eventually get organized and have leaders, so it eventually gets back to mobster rule.

Human nature is what it is. Our founding fathers recognized it and set up a great system to account for this human nature. They created the Constitution that put strict limits on what the Federal government was allowed to do. Unfortunately, we have allowed these limits to be ignored and now with the passage of time, have forgotten how important these limits were.

I feel sorry for everyone who is upside down on their home. Real estate prices weren't supposed to go down. Like much in life, timing is everything. But should we tax everyone, homeowners and renters, in order to help the few home owners in trouble? Is that fair to the renter who sat on the side lines because they thought the prices people were paying for homes were crazy? Should we prop up home prices to help current home owners. Many non-owners haven't benefited yet from past home appreciation and unless prices come down, they'll never be able to hop on to the homeowner bandwagon. So by propping up prices, you help some but hurt others.

So what should be done? Maybe you are the smart and wise one who can decide who pays and who receives. That's a very powerful position to be in. Can you handle that power? Should you really have that power?

I say that the big government experiment has been tried and shown to be a failure. It's time to get back to basics and back to very limited government as stipulated in the Constitution.

Let's get the government out of guaranteeing everything. It has taken a generation or two to finally see that the nanny state just doesn't work. I think it's becoming clear that the system has removed personal and corporate responsibility from decisions.

Whenever there's too much of a guarantee, people take more risks or they don't do good due diligence.

Why worry about what bank you put your money in? The FDIC is there to bail you out if you make a bad decision. So you go with the bank that pays you the most interest. Why not? There's nothing to lose. In order to pay you that extra interest, the bank has to make riskier, higher paying investments. If they luck out, you win and they win. If not, the taxpayer bails out the banks because they are too big to fail.

Fear of loss is a good thing. It's one of the checks that keeps things balanced.

Maybe some long held beliefs need to be changed.

Real estate prices always go up.
Your home is an appreciating asset.
Renting is just throwing money away.
Some banks are too big to fail.
Trust me, I'm from the government.

Let's stop the insanity of relying on the government to bail us out. No good will ever come of it. It just gets us going down the road of dependency and away from self reliance.

The best way to start to change things is to vote out every Congressperson who voted for any bailouts. Throw them out and replace them with people who respect the limits imposed by the Constitution. When government gets to be an insignificant player in the lives of people, and gets back to enforcing the laws, freedom will be given the opportunity to work it's magic again.

I trust the actions of free people over the actions of big government.

Losses Don't Just Disappear. Eventually Their Loss Is Your Tax Bill.

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:48:17 -0500

Money magazine just had the stories of 4 people who were "victims" of the housing bubble. These people all have made it through a tough journey and you kind of feel happy for them that they are out of their dire circumstances.

A series of personal choices and a few unforeseen circumstances wrecked them finanacially.

"their goddaughter came to live with them. ....

Bill stopped working so someone would be home, which halved the couple's income. Then, there were big expenses for taking care of the child.

"She needed a lot of extra care," Lori says. "We put a lot of money into her education, dropping $50,000 the first year into Sylvan Learning Center for remedial work."

The coup-de-grace happened when Lori injured her back and couldn't work.

They burned through their savings and took out a second loan on the house. Their monthly mortgage bill, about $1,400 when they first bought the house, ballooned to $4,400. They started missing payments; they simply didn't have the money. They went nine months without paying.

"Oh my God, it was so horrible, the worst stress we'd ever been under," Lori says. "It sent my husband over the edge to a nervous breakdown."

Before this all happened, the article goes on about how they spent a lot of money on vacations and nice stuff. I guess they didn't think saving for a rainy day was very important.

So they did a short sale and now they are have their dream jobs and are renting a place from his mother.

That sounds nice that everything worked out and they are back on their feet.

But I began thinking about the losses that were taken by the bank in the short sale. Do those losses just disappear? These people borrowed real cash from their cash-out refinances to buy real stuff. They were supposed to repay the money from the money they eventually earned by doing real work. So when they default on the loan, does the work they needed to do in the future to repay the loan just magically disappear? Can we just forget about it and make believe it never happened?

Let's follow the money. There are a few possible scenarios.

The bank has to take the loss. I guess it's just part of the business that they are in. Their job is to try to lend money to people who they think will be able to pay them back. On this one they took a loss. So the bank's shareholders will lose money.

But what if this is one of the many troubled banks or a bank that is "too big to fail". They will get a bailout from the Treasury which means that Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer are picking up the loss.

What if it is a bank that actually does fail because they made too many of these loans that didn't get paid back? Well then the bank gets shut down by the FDIC and all of the bank assets are sold off and any losses eat up the capital reserves that the investors in the bank paid. I guess that's a risk of investing in a bank. Now the way the FDIC is supposed to work is that it supposed to monitor the capital reserves a bank holds in case some of it's loans go bad. Usually the FDIC forces a bank into bankruptcy when they figure that the reserves are at a point where if they had to sell off all of the assets of the bank there wouldn't be enough to cover all of the deposits of their depositors.

Unfortunately, the FDIC hasn't been doing their job too well. They've been waiting too long to close down many banks until the losses of the banks are more than the capital reserves. So not only do the investors get wiped out, but now the FDIC has to dip into their insurance fund to pay off all of the depositors.

Now the FDIC is out of money. It is broke. So now it has to tap into a credit line that the Treasury has issued to it.

You got it. That means Mr. and Mrs. taxpayers gets to pick up the loss.

The point is that losses just don't disappear into thin air. Someone has to pay for them. Someone has to sell something of value or work a certain length of time to produce the money that was squandered or lost by someone's unfortunate circumstances.

So the taxpayer who was lucky and thrifty and conservative with his money gets to pick up the tab for someone else's misfortune and lack of savings.

The taxpayer also gets to backstop the bad decisions of the incompetent bankers without sharing in the profits that were made from the fees collected in originating the loans. The banks get to keep the profits while the taxpayer gets to share in the losses. With that kind of set up, why wouldn't a bank try to make as many loans as possible? Why not go for the high risk, high fee loans? When times are good, profits go up and big fat bonuses are given out. Bonuses that don't get clawed back if things eventually blow up.

I have a feeling that some of this is what's getting many taxpayers riled up. They might not know the exact details of how they are getting screwed, but they get the sense that something just isn't right here and they keep getting the short end of the stick.

Voluntary Taxes. Politicians and Their Twisted Meanings of Words

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:21:04 -0500

My general rule of thumb is to never trust what a politician is saying even though it sounds like they are saying something that you agree with.

It seems like many politicians can take a simple word and attach a very different meaning to it.

Harry Reid says that paying your income taxes is voluntary? Forget about the little detail that if you don't pay them that the IRS will use force to collect them or use force to put you in jail. You see, "voluntary" in his dictionary means that you are allowed to fill out the forms yourself and send in your taxes in the mail.

I wonder if you rob a bank but allow the teller to fill up your bag while you're pointing a gun at them, is the bank voluntarily giving you their money?

Jan Helfeld has done a bunch of interviews over the years asking some pretty simple questions. He gets down to the basic principles on issues. It's interesting to see how many of those that he interviews get all flustered and angry. I find it very entertaining.

Here's Harry Reid explaining how the US tax system is a voluntary system. It makes you question everything else that comes out of his mouth.

If the Economy Is Turning, Where Are the Increases in Sales Tax Receipts?

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:48:39 -0500

With 70% of our economy driven by consumer spending, one would expect that the recession won't be over until people begin to increase their spending.

So the question is, "Are consumers increasing their spending?"

One of the most direct ways to measure increased consumer spending is to monitor sales tax receipts. It's one of the most current measures of sales and it's what's actually happening. It's not what someone hopes to buy. It's what they actually went out and bought.

The Census Bureau puts out state sales tax numbers every quarter about three months after the end of the quarter.

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government takes those numbers and makes some adjustments for inflation and puts out a nice report with nice graphs and charts. Here is their latest that gives the numbers for the end of the first quarter 2009 with some preliminary numbers for May and June.

The January-March quarter was the worst on record for states. The worst decline in sales tax in 50 years represents historic weakness in one of the two major tax sources for states.

Preliminary data for the April-June quarter suggest that fiscal conditions deteriorated even further, and the second major tax source for states—the income tax —weakened dramatically.With data for April and May now available for 45 states, tax revenue for the two months combined has declined by nearly 20 percent versus the same period last year. Nearly 97 percent of states reporting personal income tax data had a year-over-year decline, with a median decline of 33.2 percent, while 95 percent of states reporting sales data had a year-over-year decline, with a median decline of 10 percent.

I looked for stories about more recent state sales tax receipts. If the economy has turned the corner then numbers for July and August should be starting to show improvement.

But everywhere I looked, I found stories about local and state governments trying to figure out how to deal with declining tax revenues.

Texas sales tax receipts plunge

The state collected $1.75 billion in revenue in August, 12.5 percent less than in August 2008. The revenue comes from sales made in July, according to the comptroller’s office. Sales tax revenue has dropped in Texas every month this year except January and by a larger amount every month since May.

Mississippi sales taxes down 23.7% in July

Some observers appeared to be "shocked" by the sudden fall in sales tax receipts in Mississippi in July. Collections for July were 10.8 percent below projections and a stunning 23.7 percent below July 2008 collections.

Kentucky sales tax down 8.1%

Among specific revenue accounts, individual income taxes fell 4.2 percent and sales taxes fell 8.1 percent.

Arkansas sales tax down 8.9% in July and August

Gross receipts collections (primarily of sales and use taxes) for the fiscal year ar $345.7 million, down $34 million, or 8.9% below the same period in 2008. The collections are also 10% below revenue forecasts.

Illinois sales tax down 11.5%

Illinois continued its downcast revenue picture in August...

The sales tax, usually the second-greatest revenue source, brought in 11.5 percent less revenue than last year.

Nevada taxable sales drop 12.7%

June's taxable sales show just how quickly losses accelerated toward the fiscal year's end. Nevada merchants sold $3.3 billion in goods in June, down 20.5 percent when compared with $4.2 billion in June 2008. Clark County stores moved $2.5 billion in merchandise, a 21.7 percent decline from $3.1 billion a year earlier.

It was the second consecutive month of sales declines above 20 percent, and the eighth straight month of double-digit decreases.

The newest numbers look especially bleak when you consider they came on top of sales drops in 2008, said Brian Gordon, a principal with local research firm Applied Analysis.

"The pace of decline locally in consumer spending is fairly dramatic and has continued to be down year over year," Gordon said. "These are comparisons to periods in the prior year that were also down.

Virginia revenue continues to slide in August

Sales taxes declined by 5 percent, reflecting July retail receipts.

Colorado sales tax down 13.3% in July

And the situation is not turning around yet, Kennedy said.

July's sales tax revenue was down 13.3 percent compared to July 2008, individual income tax payments were down 7.7 percent and corporate tax receipts down 31.2 percent, she said.

So my question is, if the economy has turned the corner, where are the sales taxes?

ACORN. Pitiful or Perverse?

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:23:04 -0500

If you haven't seen the Acorn tapes, I would take the time to watch them. Go to BigGovernment.com

Baltimore: Exclusive Story
DC: Exclusive Story
New York: Exclusive Story
San Bernadino: Exclusive Story
San Diego: Exclusive Story

I'm still trying to understand these Acorn workers. I guess there is a whole other world out there and it frightens me to know that it exists.

What would you do if a couple comes in posing as a pimp and a prostitute, and they ask you how to go about getting help with a loan so that they can operate a whore house staffed with 13 El Salvadorean girls who are under the age of 15? The pimp wants to use the money to fund his future political career.

Instead of being flabberghasted and stunned by such a thought, they really don't flinch at all and begin to brain storm on how best to go about executing such a venture.

I guess it scares me because it shows me that there are people out there who are willing to help with just about anything. They don't seem to be bad or evil people. But how can something so perverse not phase them at all? Are things like this common place to them?

Jon Stewart did a nice bit on the story which is a good summary if you don't want to watch all of the video.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The Audacity of Hos

www.thedailyshow.com

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34% of Defaults Due to Borrowing Against Home Equity

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:00:01 -0500

A new study estimates that 34% of mortgage defaults are due to people who borrowed against the increasing equity of their homes during the bubble years.

The money that was extracted seems to have been used on consumption or home improvements vs. buying investments or paying down credit card debt.

Home equity-based borrowing is stronger for younger households, households with low credit scores, and households with high initial credit card utilization rates. ...

Our estimates suggest that home equity-based borrowing is equal to 2.8% of GDP every year from 2002 to 2006, and accounts for 34% of new defaults from 2006 to 2008

So a third of all of the mortgage defaults are probably due to people using their homes as piggy banks.

A large part of the recovery in GDP after the 2001 recession was due to this phantom wealth. What's going to replace that portion of the GDP now that many of those big borrowers and big spenders have empty piggy banks?

Congressman: It's My Townhall Meeting and I Don't Allow Videos Because They Might be Posted on YouTube

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:06:39 -0500

The arrogance of some of these Congressmen keeps amazing me.

A student at Representative Baron Hill's town hall meeting stood up and asked why they weren't allowing her to do a video of the meeting.

Congressman Hill verbally slapped her down and said:

"This is my town hall meeting and I set the rules and I've had these rules

(laughter... the student still tries to say something)

Let me repeat that one more time.

This is my townhall meeting for you.

And you're not going to tell me how to run my Congressional office.

Now the reason I don't allow filming, is because, usually the films that are done end up on YouTube in a compromising position."

Unbelievable.

Scientific Study Finds That Power Lines Don't Affect Home Prices. Do You Agree?

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:59:07 -0500

I couldn't believe it when I saw this study referenced recently.

The authors note that researchers and appraisers may mistakenly attribute a negative price impact to proximity, while the true impact is associated with the transmission line easement.

"The professional literature cited, combined with the results reported here, support the position that a presumption of material negative effects of HVTLs (high-voltage transmission lines) on property values is not warranted," the article states.

My limited observations of buyers and power lines tells me that power lines are a big negative and I would really have to believe that it's reflected in the price.

My rough guesstimate would be that power lines reduce the price of a home by around 10-15% depending on exactly how close they are and how bad they look. Many buyers won't even look at a home backing up to power lines.

What is your opinion?

Fidel Castro Is Congresswoman's Shining Role Model? I Think I Need to Vomit.

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:39:35 -0500

Representative Diane Watson had some very nice things to say about Fidel Castro.

"Did anyone say anything about the Cuban health system?"

And lemme tell ya, before you say "Oh, it's a commu-", you need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. [APPLAUSE]

And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found...well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro...

I thought I would study a little Cuban history to read more about the wonderful leaders such as Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.

Here's what Che Guevara wanted to do with the Russian nuclear missles in Cuba:

"If the missiles had remained," he told The London Daily Worker in November 1962, "We would have used them against the very heart of the U.S., including New York. We must never establish peaceful co-existence. In this struggle to the death between 2 systems we must gain the ultimate victory. We must walk the path of liberation even if it costs millions of atomic victims."

I recommend reading this long article chronicling the history of the Castro regime in Cuba. Here's just a small excerpt to give you the taste of the deeds that were done by "one of the brightest leaders" that Diane Watson has ever met. Maybe some day she'll get the opportunity to see what these great leaders do to useful idiots like herself.

Anderson vs Republic of Cuba, No. 01-28628 (Miami-Dade Cir. April 13, 2003): "In one final session of torture, Castro's agents drained Howard Anderson's body of blood before sending him to his death at the firing squad."

Eighteen thousand bodies would eventually join Howard Anderson's in mass graves. This tally comes -- not from some Cuban-exile scandal sheet in Miami -- but from The Black Book of Communism, written by French scholars and translated into English by the Harvard University press, not exactly an outpost of the vast right-wing conspiracy. But this cold statistic doesn't tell the whole story.

Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets shattered his bound body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro's theft of their humble family farm.

On Christmas eve 1961, Juana Diaz spat in the face of the Castroite executioners who were binding and gagging her. They'd found her guilty of feeding and hiding "counterrevolutionaries" When the blast from that firing squad demolished her face and torso Juana was six months pregnant.

Traditionally, firing squads have only two of its members with loaded guns. The rest shoot blanks. Not Castro's. In his, all ten members shoot live ammo -- all ten bullets rip into the staked hero or heroine. This incorporates more members into Castro's criminal organization, more members to resist desperately any overthrow of the system with the consequent settling of accounts.

Cuba's population in 1960 was 6.2 million. According to the human Rights group Freedom House, 500,000 Cubans (young and old, male and female) have passed through Castro's prison camps. At one time during 1961-62, 300,000 Cubans were jailed for political offenses islandwide. This makes Castro's political incarceration rate higher than Stalin's and Hitler's.

Also, the longest serving political prisoners of the century spent their hell in Castro's Gulag. Senores Mario Chanes de Armas, Angel de Fana and Eusebio Penalver all served thirty years in Castro's dungeons. Consider that Alexander Solzhenitsyn served 8 years in Stalin's Gulag as did Natan Scharansky. Many Cubans served over three times as long.

"For months I was naked in a 6 x 4 foot cell," recalls one prisoner, Eusebio Penalver (the longest serving black political prisoner of the Century, by the way -- jailed longer than Nelson Mandela.) "That's 4 feet high, so you couldn't stand. But I felt a great freedom inside myself. I refused to commit spiritual suicide."[12]

Credit for finally exposing the horrors of Castro's Gulag to a mass international audience must go to former political prisoner Armando Valladares and especially to his prison memoirs titled Against All Hope, released in 1984. Castro's extensive and murderous Gulag had been in operation for over two decades by then and had been exposed and denounced by many, as had Stalin's (Malcolm Muggeridge, Eugene Lyons, Arthur Koestler, etc.) in the 30's and 40's.

But just as it took the novelist Alexander Solzhenitzyn to finally shake the world awake about the Gulag thirty years after its murderous height, it took the poet Armando Valladares to expose Castroism to the mainstream, however late in the game. In 1960 Valladares had been arrested in his office for the crime of refusing to display a pro-Castro sign on his desk. He was summarily sentenced to 30 years of prison for the offense.

In prison, Valladares, like Eusebio Penalver, Chanes De Armas, Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, Huber Matos and so many others refused "to commit spiritual suicide." Which is to say, they rejected any "rehabilitation," or "re-education" by their jailers. They balked at any "confession" of their political sins. They knew all this applied only to their jailers. For this, Armando Valladares paid dearly. To this day he remains crippled from the beatings and starvings he endured in Castro's Gulag.

It's Obvious That We Shouldn't Guarantee Health Care to Crazy People

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:51:19 -0500

Below are some quotes from a doctor regarding our national healthcare policy.

My question to you is, "Do you want this doctor involved in your health care decisions?"

Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia." (Hastings Center Report, November-December, 1996)

When it comes down to making choices on who gets care, doctors might want to use a handy chart. It shows that the young and old should get less of a chance at being treated.

"Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions" The Lancet, January 31, 2009

""When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated

How does one rationalize these choices?

"Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments.

"Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination. . . . Treating 65 year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not."

Some say that there will never be a need to resort to this kind of rationing. We've all heard of President Obama saying that his plan has all kinds of measures that would bring about huge cost savings in medical care.

But look at the following quote:

"Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality of care are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change."

Was this said by some Republicans or Sarah Palin who just wants Obama's plan to fail?

No, it was actually Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama.

Please read the WSJ article for more details about this guy and begin to do your own research on the people who have Obama's ear.

From what I've read so far, I don't want people like this involved in my healthcare decisions or being involved in creating the policies that will affect me.

Think about how many people you see being labled as "nuts"by the news media. Many people who attended tea parties were called "nuts". Many Ron Paul supporters were called "nuts". Soon, anyone who opposes any kind of government regulation will be considered "nuts". Will opponents to the healthcare bill be considered nuts? What sane individual would oppose such a wise and wonderful deal? Will these people be left out when healthcare becomes limited? I guess it will all depend on what they decide the definition of dementia is. Remember a President dancing around the definition of "is"?

I found this video of a Congresswoman going over the same items. I'm glad to see this.

Bernanke Gets It Completely Wrong So He Gets Another Four Years

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:32:08 -0500

Here's a video showing how wrong Ben Bernancke was from 2005-2007. A good analysis of this video was done over at the Mises.org website.

No one will ever know if he saved us from finanacial meltdown last year. But he sure seemed clueless in the few years leading up to the crisis.

It's funny how the financial analysts listen to his every word and act like he actually can predict what the economy is going to do in the next year or two.

How can someone who got it so wrong be given so much respect for his predictions for the future?

The Ultimate Candy Man. This Video Makes Me Feel So Much Better About the Government

Tim Maitski "Video Agent Guy" (HomeAtlanta.com) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:31:45 -0500

This video is for all of those angry Tea Baggers and all the people shouting at their government officials.

Let's lighten up.

Sit back and watch this light hearted video and I'm sure it will make you feel so much better. Or maybe cry. I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Here's another video I saw with the same Candy Man theme.

I guess when things get so bad you just have to laugh at the absurdity of it all.