Evergreene Digest A Journal of Progress for the Rest of Us

• A committed movement to tear off the predatory mask called MERS could yet turn the tide for struggling homeowners.
• The Forgotten Foreclosure Crisis

Ellen Brown, Yes! Magazine

Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system devised by and for the convenience of the mortgage industry. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut makes it impossible for banks to establish their ownership of property titles—and therefore to foreclose on mortgaged properties. The logical result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure-proof.

Mortgages bundled into securities were a favorite investment of speculators at the height of the financial bubble leading up to the crash of 2008. The securities changed hands frequently, and the companies profiting from mortgage payments were often not the same parties that negotiated the loans. At the heart of this disconnect was the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, a company that serves as the mortgagee of record for lenders, allowing properties to change hands without the necessity of recording each transfer.

• Twelve thousand new jobs in July -- when 125,000 are needed monthly just to keep up with population growth, when more than 15 million Americans are out of work, and when more than a half-million more state and local jobs are on the chopping block.
• Predictably, Washington's latest rescue effort falls woefully short
• U.S. Experiencing Worst Episode of Prolonged Unemployment Since Great Depression
• An aid package to the states to prevent layoffs was funded by cutting the federal food stamp program.

Robert Reich, Robert Reich

bdunnette / CC BY 3.0

Washington’s latest answer to the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression is $26 billion in aid to state and local governments. This still leaves the states and locals more than $62 billion in the hole this fiscal year. And because every state except Vermont has to balance its budget, the likely result is 600,000 to 700,000 more state and local jobs vanishing over the next 12 months (including private contractors and other businesses that depend on state and local governments), according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Say goodbye to even more of the teachers, firefighters, sanitary workers and police officers we depend on.

• With many still in dark, groups shed light on health care law
• Obama’s Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick

Richard Wolf, USA Today

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Bob Heberle

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., listens to aide Ellen Qualls during a May briefing to explain the law's benefits. Alex Wong, Getty Images

True or false: The new health care law will cut Medicare benefits for seniors. It will slash Medicare payments to doctors. It will ration health care.

In three polls conducted last month, large percentages of Americans answered "true" to each statement. All three are false.

Six weeks before the nation's health care delivery system begins a huge transformation, confusion reigns. For example: The debunked idea raised by opponents during congressional debate that "death panels" could make end-of-life decisions is seen as real by nearly half of those surveyed.

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Related:

• An aid package to the states to prevent layoffs was funded by cutting the federal food stamp program. That's nothing to brag about.
• Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

Joshua Green, The Atlantic

On Tuesday (Aug 6), President Obama signed a $26 billion bill to help state and local governments cover Medicaid payments and avoid having to lay off teachers and other public employees. In what passes for high drama in Washington, the House of Representatives was called back from its summer recess to vote on the package, and the successful outcome was hailed as a major Democratic victory. "We can't stand by and do nothing while pink slips are given to the men and women who educate our children or keep our communities safe,'' Obama said. "That doesn't make sense.''

No, it doesn't. But only by the occluded standards of contemporary Washington could this aid package be considered a victory. What began three months ago as a $50 billion emergency spending bill limped to the president's desk at half that size and was largely paid for -- "offset'' in the clinical terminology of the budget -- by cutting $12 billion from the food stamp program. In other words, a measure designed to help one group struggling in the recession came at the expense of another that is even worse off -- and growing rapidly.

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