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Hip-Hip-Hooray for the CFPB!! Those mortgage companies should be subject to the corporate death penalty. I wonder how many people are left homeless and on the streets as a result of their abusive, illegal business practices.
When my husband & I moved to Oregon and bought our first home over twenty years ago, we picked a piece of property cheap enough that we could own it outright from the start, thus avoiding a mortgage. In light of all the mortgage abuses and foreclosures to have surfaced since then, I now realize that it was one of the smartest decisions we ever made. It was a modest place; a mobile home, just a little over a thousand square feet, but in good condition; a palace compared to any of those dilapidated dumps we'd rented back in California. It served us well for the next seventeen years, before we eventually replaced it with this manufactured home.
Before we got this property, landlords had turned our lives inside out, forcing us to move every few years. It had taken quite a toll on us. Even before all that mortgage crap was exposed to the light, it seemed to me that dealing with a mortgage company might be no better than dealing with a landlord. How right I was. - Aliceinwonderland
Bob Cox, I couldn't have said it better. And this is why I keep insisting, there's no excuse for not voting! Those who sit home on election day are a big part of the problem. - AIW
Those who worshpped FBI's Hoover will always want to use whatever techniques that are available to get information they can use for personal advantage. Tthis is the reason why the denial of the first 10 Amendments by various justices and members of Congress are so dangerous. We MST rise up and change Congress!
I believe in personal freedoms, that is the American way. In a world where people vote against their own interests, this is yet another disturbing way to interfere in people's personal lives.
Like Patton said, it is not for our soldiers to die for our country, but to make the other guy die for his country.
Don't fall on your swords. Fight back. Bring people to justice. Neutralize the enemy.
You know who they are.
No excuse for not voting!!!
More times than I could count, I've heard Thom assert that Democrats & Republicans are not the same. And I have to agree, even as sick as I am of this corrupted two-party system of ours. - AIW
If you're young enough..still working..maybe it's a good idea..but I am, obviously, very untrustworthy of the current system....casino capitalism.
Palindromedary ~ In your case I would agree.
By the way, here's a diagram that might be easy to understand:
http://www.veracode.com/images/mitm-steps.gif
And even if mitm (man in the middle) isn't happening between you and your bank... how much do you trust that you don't have a root kit installed key-logger and trojan on your computer that evades detection from virus checkers. Yes, there are also rootkit checkers but do they always catch them all? How often do people run them?
I would think that instead of using one's main O/S that is vulnerable to malware, that one should boot up an O/S on a thumb drive...some Linux distro..like Ubuntu Live...or something like Tails or Backtrack...something you use exclusively for banking and nothing else. Although it's hard to imagine that you'd use Backtrack for nothing else. ;-}
You know, if the Banks would only give their customers a bootable thumb drive with a specially tailored and encrypted O/S for only doing bank transactions..protected, of course with a password and a fingerprint scanner...that would be a lot safer than using one's home computer with it's possibly corrupted O/S. It would be easy...with the computer off...insert the thumb drive into the computer...turn the computer on...and hocus pocus...you're on-line to your bank and you are not using your main O/S or possible corrupted hard drives. It boots up with only the O/S from the thumb drive using only the computer's RAM memory. Then when you are done banking... power down and remove the thumb drive till you need to bank again.
But there would still be MITM....;-{
DAnneMarc: One could also say that spreading your money around to a number of different banks (or even mattresses) would help to lessen risk. The problem with taking any risk when you get to be my age...(ie: one foot in the grave) is that you would likely not have any time at all to recover any loss. I may not have 10 years. No, the risk is too great. And I think banks are risky enough even in savings accounts. I am more worried about another financial shocker than I am about inflation. And as Thom Hartmann predicts...2016 is right around the corner. Some analysts even believe it will be sooner. I wonder if I will have time to dig holes in my back yard to stash the loot before the banks collapse and FDIC will not be able to cover any of it?
Palindromedary ~ As the saying goes, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Compared to other ways to risk capital Mutual funds are far less risky. Try starting a business. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. At least with Mutual funds you spread those eggs amongst many baskets. If you're afraid to step off the curb you will never get anywhere. Mutual funds are baby steps; but, if you're patient enough, they will get you across the street. Just remember to diversify with several firms. The more baskets the better. Also, don't get discouraged because you take a hit. That will happen. The strategy is a long term one... if you have the time you will benefit.
AIW -- I do not understand what you mean by no excuse. No excuse for what?
I was actually assigning blame to Thom for bad mouthing dems on election day 2010 without pointing out how different they were from repugs.
DAnneMarc: Funny cartoon and so true! ;-}
By the way, speaking of Mutual Funds....
"The 2010 Flash Crash resulted from a mutual fund firm's algorithm gone wild. Knight Capital lost $440 million on a buggy algo last summer. Computerized trading has also been blamed for the volatile markets of the past few years." And that $440 million loss occurred in just over 1/2 hour.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-07/%E2%80%9C-year-glitch%E2%80%9D-...
Of course, several other entities moved in to "save the day" but it goes to show that even Mutual Funds are not really very safe. When you are gambling your money to get a few percentage points of interest per year and you could lose it all...well maybe half... in just a few minutes...it's really not a very good bet.
Loren Bliss ~ Very well said. I agree. Thanks for pointing out that little tidbit about 2011. Basically, that's why I want to know who have been targeted. The very suggestion that at any moment there could be 30,000 potential terrorists walking around this country is absurd. That would be like 1 out of every 15 people in the Bay Area. I want to know what else these people may have had in common to justify targeting. To learn that occupy protesters were targeted would certainly prove my suspicions.
>>>Mozilla Calls on World to Protect Firefox Browser From the NSA<<<
Mozilla Firefox is the only browser to have completely open source code for anyone to analyze. If the NSA attempts to put in a back door..it is possible for someone to catch it..and even correct it and publish it for others to download and use. This isn't possible for any of the other browsers because they are all, in whole or in part, proprietary (ie:closed software). Just like the NSA did with Lavabit...forcing Lavabit not not to reveal to the public that the NSA installed a back door...the NSA could install back doors in all those other browsers and force the vendors to keep quiet about it.
http://truthalliance.net/Archive/News/tabid/67/ID/11405/Mozilla-Calls-on...
Aliceinwonderland ~ We've been doing online banking for years without a problem. A super convenience. The bank has a great way of intercepting fraud. After all, that's their bread and butter nowadays. Anything suspicious sends up fraud flags and you get a phone call to confirm the transaction. You don't answer and your account gets frozen until they find you. Routinely I will get calls to confirm various transactions. So far all have been false alarms; but, the efforts by the bank really makes me feel secure. I also like the ability to access my accounts 24/7 to see what's up. Doing a quick transfer at 10pm at home in my pajamas is so much easier than standing in line at the bank during my lunch hour. Online bill pay is a life saver too. You can even set the account to pay automatically and the bank saves the records of all your transactions so there is no, "Your check got lost," or, "Your check is late." So far nothing weird. Probably best of all I don't keep a lot of money in the bank. Money saved is a bank is money lost. That is no place for your life savings. The interest paid does not keep up with the rate of inflation. I just keep there what I need to pay bills. You should check it out. Maybe just put your toe in the water with a small checking account. Just enough to take advantage of the conveniences; but, not enough to lose sleep over. In the long run, you might be glad you did.
Sorry Thom, you really miss-constructed this issue.
No one will want the government to "tell us what we can and can't have", by framing your view as an attempt by the government to discourage or encourage behavior is not good for this debate and not the best understanding of this idea.
What Republicans and Conservatives should be able to get behind is the idea of Accountability and Responsibility on part of the Individuals and companies to account for the impact of their choices. Everything we do or take into our bodies should be taxed to cover the real cost to society. People should be free to live their lives as they want, but it is perfectly reasonable to add a tax to those goods that are known to cause huge medical or environmental concerns. We should be willing to get enough people and resources we need to handle every "issue" we have in our country and pass the costs off to those that participate in it. This works with well for "Companies that pollute and/or evade taxes": All we need is to put enough regulators on the bill to cover the problem and pass the full cost off to the offending companies.
Now a vast majority of causal connections are hard to establish, but we do not need to be exact, we make our best-informed decision on what the costs are and what amount of taxes we need to introduce and the important part is that we do not add a penny more than what is necessary. Ideally, we should be able to let the people that live responsibly pay a very minimum tax.
I would think it would be very interesting to know what that would look like. And another route should be the subsidizing of healthy activities and foods.
I'm with you 100%, Aliceinwonderland! I will go to the fuss of writing a check, addressing an envelope, putting a stamp on it and taking it to a post office (inside only).
I got caught in a "you didn't pay"/"yes I did pay" fight back when the internet first came into being and I thought it was a good idea to pay my bills on-line. I had no processed checks to prove it like I would have had. The problem was eventually fixed with no explanation as to who was at fault...the bank that indicated the amount was debited or the mortgage company who claimed it wasn't paid.
Of course, they don't even mail you processed/cleared checks anymore but I still cannot trust on-line transactions in light of all of the hacked accounts that happen all the time.
Even checks are not all that safe either...all those people that might handle your letter could easily get your account number and routing number along with your name and address. But I'd rather help keep the Post Office in business.
I had that happen once when mail was stolen out of an overstuffed outside mail box located right in front of the post office just before Christmas one year. What a hassle...had to go to the bank..cancel those checks... and switch to new accounts and it took the bank over a month to investigate and restore my funds. No explanation as to what happened.
What is most significant about this information is what the government is NOT allowing Google, Yahoo and Facebook to release: the figures from 2011. Why 2011? Because that's the year the Occupy Movement happened. By every rational estimate, retaliatory surveillance was therefore at an all-time high, with the number of individuals targeted no doubt in six figures at least.
ken ware/Palindromedary ~ On the subject of iphones... I think this cartoon says it all:
http://truthalliance.net/Portals/0/Archive/Gallery/24/1185598_4369174630...
In my post #6 I said CME data base when I meant CMS data base.
I hope that they eventually release the names of this spy victims. Thom speculates that they have family abroad. I would like to learn that is all there is and nothing nefarious such as, several people simply being people of influence. 30 - 300 people could be national security. 3000 - 30,000 is more like a witch hunt.
And the authorities had plenty of data about a planned Boston Marathon attack as well but they ignored that too! So, really, the reason they are spying on us is not to protect us...it is to protect the ruling powers against us when we finally revolt against them. It's kinda like when the United States and it's allies put the heavy on Syria to get rid of it's chemical weapons and when they ever do then they won't have any real defense against a US attack. They did that with Iraq as well before they attacked Iraq.
It'll be a cold day in hell before I do banking or pay bills online. And I don't care how many people insist that it's "safe". I don't trust it. Meanwhile companies have been trying for years to get us all to pay online. For awhile they even resorted to this sleazy tactic of manipulation, "losing" my checks and then harassing me for nonpayment. I believe they did this deliberately, to make me "get with the program" and pay my bills online. Hah! I refused to budge, and still pay by check, and if they don't like it they can just kiss my A$$.
Far as the NSA is concerned, they too can kiss my posterior. I hate the thought of being spied on, but I'll keep on saying whatever I please, wherever and whenever I please, and take my chances. I refuse to be paranoid and live in fear of what "they" might think or what "they" might wanna do to me. I was born a free spirit and I'll die a free spirit, and that's all I've got to say about this issue of spying... except that I still think Snowden is a hero for blowing NSA's cover like he did. - Aliceinwonderland
If the purpose of spying is to keep us safe; it seems to me after all this spying, the last chance we had to do just that, was when republicans ignored the Clinton admins group monitoring al Qaeda.. And the Bush had in what's even told by the Clinton admin something was up. Can you imagine if this were reversed that republicans warned a democrat admin, who ignored the warning, then 911 happened. Probably the best way o beep America safe if to get liberals into public office.