Friday, January 05, 2007

Human History... Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter. >> >> The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives. >> >> Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed. >> >> Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement. >> >> Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girliemen. >> >> Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided. >> >> Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass. >> >> Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. >> >> Another interesting revolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat. >> >> Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. >> >> Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living. Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. >> >> Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get MORE for nothing. >> >> This ends today's lesson in world history: It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it. >> >> A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers, and to more liberals just to tick them off.

3 comments:

The Investigator said...

I found this to be a little humorous and somewhat analogous to how things really are. Are the Liberals the manipulators and taxers of production and are Conservatives the producers?

Anonymous said...

Experts: Housing Slump to Worsen in 2007

MoneyNews
Friday, Jan. 5, 2007


NEW YORK -- Economists predict that the current housing slump will persist into 2007 and further damage the economy, reports The Associated Press. In fact, they say the nation's economy could grow at the slowest pace in five years.

The housing slump will lead to layoffs in housing-related industries such as construction, real estate agents, mortgage brokers as well as furniture and appliance manufacturing and sales.

According to the AP, economists at Goldman Sachs estimate job losses directly related to housing's correction would total more than 1 million over the next two years.

Those layoffs will likely knock 1 percentage point off the nation's gross domestic product in 2007 compared to 2006. The current GDP is 3.3 percent, based on analyst estimates. A 2.3 percent growth rate would be the slowest since the economy grew by 1.6 percent in 2002 — when the nation was emerging from recession.

The 2.3 percent growth estimate indicates that economists aren't expecting a recession in 2007.


Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, tells the AP that he predicts the economy will grow at a 2.3 percent rate in 2007.

Behravesh points out that "the recession in the housing market does not seem to have had much of an impact on the consumer. The bad news on housing has been offset by good news on wages, jobs and the stock market."

However, David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, notes that there are many risks to growth in 2007: "Betting that nothing goes wrong could turn out to be a bad bet. It wouldn't take much of a disruption in the Middle East to send oil prices back up again."

A return of higher oil prices could send the U.S. consumer packing.

Anonymous said...

Suit alleges massive mortgage scam

By: CHRIS BAGLEY - Staff Writer

A network of scam artists convinced unwitting investors to buy houses using questionable loans and then backed out, leaving the investors on the hook for as much as $5 million apiece, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in Riverside County Superior Court.

Temecula attorney Richard Ackerman filed the suit against Jovane Investments on behalf of an anonymous client, who he said was duped into buying five houses in and around Murrieta in early 2005.

The purchases allegedly relied on mortgage loans brokered by Stonewood Consulting Inc., Ackerman said. Stonewood isn't named as a defendant in the suit, but the company and its president appear to be at the center of tangled web of financial advisers and family members who were involved in the alleged scheme, he said.


Stonewood representatives did not immediately respond to e-mail messages or to calls to the company's Murrieta office and its president's cell phone.

According to the suit, the anonymous plaintiff is stuck with 10 loans and payment obligations of more than $20,000 a month, far beyond her ability to pay.

All told, the alleged scheme involved as many as 400 investors and an estimated $1.2 billion of property, Ackerman alleged in the complaint.

The district attorney's white-collar crime division began to investigate the matter late last year, Kelly Hansen, a senior supervisor in the office, said Friday. Hansen declined to comment on the specific case, but said it is one of 19 cases of alleged mortgage fraud the division is pursuing. Mortgage-fraud scams are particularly common when real estate values are already skyrocketing, as they were in Riverside County from 2003 through 2005, Hansen said.

The alleged scam worked like this, according to Ackerman and another attorney whose clients were involved: An investor would buy two, three or as many as eight houses within days of each other. Stonewood would apply for loans on behalf of the client, typically for two loans totalling 20 percent to 25 percent more than the appraised value of each house. The investor would pay the seller close to the asking price, typically $450,000 to $600,000. Jovane Investments would then pocket the excess cash, often $100,000 to $120,000.

Part of that money would be used to make regular mortgage and tax payments on the houses, the attorneys said. It seemed to be a great deal for the investors, the suit alleges, so they would bring in friends and family members. Most were middle-class professionals with annual incomes of $40,000 to $70,000, and many of them were nurses at Rancho Springs Medical Center, Ackerman said.

The cash from each new round of loans was used to cover the regular mortgage and tax payments on the last round, giving the arrangement the form of a classic "pyramid" scam, Ackerman said.

Aside from Jovane, the suit names Sunburst Financial Systems Inc., Oetting Enterprises and several lenders as defendants. The suit also cites payments among the defendants and other parties, including Stonewood Consulting and Hendrix Montecastro, Stonewood's chief executive; and his mother, Helen Montecastro, whom Ackerman said is a nurse at Rancho Springs. Ackerman said he expects to add additional defendants to the suit.

Ackerman said he was still trying to understand the exact relationship among the various participants. But financial documents and recorded telephone calls indicate all were involved, he said: The monthly mortgage payments came from Oetting Enterprises, known most recently to be based in Palm Desert; Jovane Investments was listed on one typical mortgage application as a securities firm managing $96,000 in a clients' assets, Ackerman said.

Sunburst is licensed to do business in Riverside County as Jovane Investments, according to county records. Sunburst is registered to a Chris Oetting of Palm Desert, according to state records.

Investors had no written guarantees that Oetting Enterprises would continue to make the monthly mortgage payments, said Ashley Abano, a San Diego attorney retained by two families that bought houses in the arrangement.

Things began to come apart in the fall, Abano said, when Oetting Enterprises simply stopped making payments on most of the loans. One of the families had taken out loans on eight investment properties and refinanced their own house, Abano said. The family received nine notices of default since mid-December, he said.

In most cases, the families put up little or none of their own money, the attorneys said. But several already have seen their credit ratings plummet, and several are in danger of being evicted from their own homes, the attorneys said.

Banks and other lenders can typically cover part of a defaulted loan by taking possession of the house and selling it.

"The lenders are the biggest victims of all," Ackerman said.

An investor with four, five or six mortgages who attempts to buy another house on credit would set off red flags among lenders, Ackerman noted, especially if he or she had no proven income from renting out the properties. But because most of the loans were completed within days of one another, they hadn't appeared on credit reports by the time the lenders checked, Ackerman said.

Ackerman's own client chose to sue anonymously after she received nonspecific threats over the telephone. Ackerman said he would apply for class-action status next week, a move that would allow him to represent numerous other investors who aren't already aware of the lawsuit.

Abano said he hadn't reviewed the complaint Ackerman filed, but might recommend that his clients join the suit after doing so.

Chris Oetting couldn't be reached for comment. Hendrix Montecastro didn't immediately respond to messages left on his cell phone and at Stonewood's office Friday afternoon. Helen Montecastro also could not be reached.

Stonewood's attorney, Bill Sauls, was in meetings Friday afternoon and couldn't be reached, according to another attorney in his San Diego office, who acknowledged the firm had received the lawsuit. Ackerman said Sauls has denied that Montecastro and Stonewood are involved with Jovane, a claim Ackerman rejected.

A San Diego financial adviser said three of her own clients were involved in the operation. Including investors known to the adviser, to Ackerman and to Abano, the alleged scam took in at least a dozen investors with two to three dozen properties.

"The total number of loans affected by Jovane-related activities is likely in the hundreds, if not thousands, within the Temecula/Murrieta area," the complaint filed Friday alleges.

Depending on the number of properties involved, and depending on how heavily the properties are concentrated in individual neighborhoods, the alleged scam could levy a big blow to local real estate values, according to Ackerman and one prominent real-estate agent.

Large numbers of empty, foreclosed homes in a neighborhood can make it difficult for the banks to sell them for close to the amount of the mortgages they issued. The empty homes for sale can also force other sellers to slash their prices.

Ackerman estimated that renters occupied half or more of the investment properties, but said they were not paying nearly enough to cover the mortgage payments.

Rising numbers of foreclosures last year have already begun to undercut the market, economists, analysts and real estate agents have said.

In Riverside County, one notice of default ---- the first step in foreclosure proceedings ---- was issued for every 330 residents in September, according to RealtyTrac, an information provider. That rate has been rising for more than a year and is now the highest rate in the state.

Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2615, or cbagley@californian.com.