Here’s what you helped us to do. Hoisted from comments:
Noreen Evans says:
May 9, 2013 at 10:50 am
Yves, I wrote the Homeowners Bill of Rights, along with 2 of my legislative colleagues. The major sticking point was how the legislation would be enforced. We who wrote the bill felt strongly that the homeowner should have some ability to enforce the law. Without the ability to sue the foreclosing institution, the legislation had no teeth. And without the ability of the homeowner to seek attorney’s fees, the homeowner would likely have no legal representation. Glad to see the legislation is working as intended. However, one of the problems we now have is that now our courts are severely underfunded so even if the homeowners can sue, they may never have their day in court. Anyway, thank you for staying on top of this issue. Could not have done this without the work you do.
And keep in mind, this isn’t “work you do” in the personal sense. Most of what I’ve learned and written about on the mortgage and foreclosure beat has come from readers. Some have educated me about the intricacies of the law, some told me about the horrors they’ve faced in dealing with abusive servicers and clueless or captured judges, and some have stepped forward to act as whistleblowers. And of course, many of you have also helped make this effort possible via your financial contributions to this site.
So remember: We’ve helped save peoples’ homes, though our little corner of the universe.
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Rock on!
Fight the Power!
In knowledge, there is strength. Or at least endurance. And as Billy Joel once reminded us in a somewhat cliched way, “Sometimes just surviving is a noble fight”.
Or, somewhat more elegantly put by T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets:
“So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years-
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres-
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholy new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate – but there is no competition –
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
Even tho’ TS Eliot had a sad heart, this is actually a good description of progress. Thanks.
Laugh, my friends, and dance and sing!
Or weep and wail with sorrow.
What California is today,
The rest will be tomorrow.
So apt, :-) yet so misunderstood by the audience.
Bravo!
Hit the tip jar, people! Yves is great, throw her the kudos that are well deserved! Now is the perfect time!
Noreen has always been very engaged. Had a blog when she ran the Assembly Budget Committee in 2007-08.
Glad she knew where to go.
Kudos !!!
Deeeeelightful!
Yay! Yay us!
Congratulations to all the players for your tenacity and most sincere regards for those who have had to and continue to suffer because of this inhumane scum we call, the elite!!!
Yves, YOU have saved not just homes, but lives. And WE all know that is no exaggeration.
hmm! Sweety
“Catch-22 says they can do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”
Good to hear Yves – I’m at an all time low on the ability to make a difference in this mess.
Of course you are. And that helps everyone else.
BUDGET 2014
The Obama budget (long overdue) has tax changes including individual, corporate, estate and excise taxes. Those making over $1 million would pay more. It would cost them almost $83,000 on average.
Those making $50,000–$75,000 would pay an average $ 60 more.
Between $100,000-$200,000 about $150 on average.
For highest incomes, limited the value of itemized items to 28%, limit the benefit of large tax-favored retirement accounts, impose a Fair Share minimum tax at 30% of adjusted gross income
over $1 million, raise taxes on estates, gifts and certain family trusts.
It would raise about $1 trillion over ten years. Most of new revenue will come from those making $200,000 or more.
Why not retire Bush tax cuts for the rich and the Obama payroll tax cut for all workers?
Why not a much higher minimum wage to increase revenue?
Why not cut Pentagon and Medicare the two big spenders?
Oh! I forgot. David Koch Tea Party House members want only tax cuts and spending cuts all across every agency.
Pass a law that Federal Employees cannot accept anything with a monetary value. Fed Fund Campaigns.
Yay! good news is so hard to come by these days :(
Thank you, Yves. Relative with young dependents lost his job and his home in Southern California and is in a catatonic state with severe depression. Talented artistic person who bought the house with a significant down payment he received for a song he wrote that was performed by a top recording artist who died last year. Those whose passion, skills and abilities lie in fields other than finance and law, and who are financially naive, have often paid a particularly heavy price to the financial predators.
What to say? That’s so heart wrenching, and it’s happened to so many, with no outrage from the nooz media outside of a rare piece in search of a journalism award, versus a change for the better and the Humane.
That’s why I’m not about to get sappy any more (I certainly used to, only to be ultimately, and severely, disappointed) with a politician who goes after predators, that’s their job, and the least they can do. If politicians had been doing their job none of this would have happened in the first place.
On the other hand, Yves, her crew, and the commenters here – who share vital info and offer warm support – are the ones who deserve all of the warm embraces and praise.
I’m only in the peanut gallery so I’ll just echo the congratulations to everyone who keeps pushing back against the greed and corruption.
It supports my theory that people who believe Darwinism means “survival of the fittest individual” are completely wrong. Survival of the fittest, for all of human history, has meant cooperation. Through the hunters/gatherers phase, the agricultural phase, the industrial phase, and the information phase, every tectonic shift in culture has been defined by how people cooperate with each other.
In our collective push back against the plutonomy, we demonstrate the superior strength of cooperation. And, in the long run, we save the plutocrats from themselves — demonstrating our superior moral high ground.
I agree. You are soooooo helpful with this comment. Thank you :-* (big kiss, btw)
I share the same opinion as Dianne and Scott: Thank you expressing my opinion cogently and succinctly. To Yves, all the best and thanks.
Thank you so much, Kaj , for the validation. It was a gift, bright spot, and stepping stone in, yet another, rather soul sucking day.
I voted all D except for Sheriff.
I Asked for a review. 100% were R.
I contacted D hdg to investigate. Found no wrong?
Blarney—–Programed that after X number of votes all will be R on a vote.
1 of 10—1 0f 25 or????????
A major Ohio praper exit polls had always been accurate
Kerry by 16 in it.
Bush won by 16.
Doebold President had told him “I guarantee you Ohio”
Where are our law enforcement agents?
10 Banks have a Monopoly over about 7000 Banks.
Carry 80% of all deposits.
10 Big Oil control our Oil
10 control our Health Care Insurance
10 control TV
10 will control our major newsprint when Koch buys Chicago Tribune.
3 Control Beer Distribution.
1 Controls BJ in White House
20,000 Lobbyists Buy my vote.
Top 10% own 73% Net Wealth–83% Financial Wealth–43% Individual Income-
Pay 18% Tax Rate.
1 family has more wealth than 90% of families
We Rank in OECD nations
#1–largest percent of workers earn lowest wages–44M get minimum wage
#2–Least Tax on Corporations as % GDP
#3 Least Taxed nation As % GDP
#4 on Inequality
In bottom 5 in 1980
PLutocracy Folks. No question.
They bought our Congress
Score one for the people.
Good on ya, Yves and commenters.
There are women who make things better… simply by showing up. There are women who make things happen. There are women who make their way. There are women who make a difference. And women who make us smile. There are women of wit and wisdom who- through strength and courage- make it through. There are women who change the world everyday… Women like you, Yves.
Ashley Rice
(my fortune is crossing the path of a woman so deserving of this quote…thank you)