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“Excitement is Contagious” said David Coleman a Canadian entrepreneur while he explained to me how one of the companies he was promoting works. “People will follow you if your sincere and excited enough about an idea.”

That phrase stuck with me over the years, I hadn’t heard anything like that before. I kept wondering to myself why no one taught me that in school or in a workshop. I wondered if there were others like David here in the Middle East. Then I met Habib Haddad.

Founder of successful Yamli.com, Arabic-English transliteration tool we’ve covered since it’s launch in 2009. But that’s not all Habib has to be proud of, he’s also the co-founder of YallaStartup a community and platform that solely exists to support startups.

I was fortunate enough to meet Habib in Amman during the MENA ICT Forum where he explained to me his vision and how he wants to change the Middle East by creating what he called “an atmosphere that facilitates serendipity”.

Habib and YallaStartup co-founders Sami Shalabi of Google and Elie Khoury of Woopra found a perfect opportunity for Middle Eastern startups in Startup Weekend.

Startup Weekend is a not-for-profit that gives entrepreneurs a 3 day crash course in building startups. Day1 is matching talent and creating teams (if they don’t join as a team to begin with), day 2 is for design & development, and day 3 is pitching the idea and competing with the other participants.

So basically it’s an Entrepreneurial slumber party with adrenaline instead of pajamas, and a startup battle instead of pillow fights.

And since it’s global, it happens over a given weekend in 13 cities simultaneously. To get an image of just how massive that is, you should know the show up in Beirut alone was around 250 participants that launched 34 startups in 3 days. It’s mind-blowing I tell you.

Addressing participants, the founders said “this event is not a competition but about living the life cycle of a startup in just one weekend! It’s about getting interest for your idea, matching you with co-founders and team members, and showing each and every one of you what you are capable of.”

The most amazing part of it, is the fact the winners from the 13 cities went head to head with their startups by posting a video describing their startup, which was then voted on and the winner was decided after a couple of days. Guess who dominated the Global Startup Weekend scene? Beirut.

One of Beirut’s very own startups called Mimix, a platform to translate all languages into whatever sign language dialect the user chooses, implemented through a graphical representation of hand signs. People who need to speak sign language won’t need to speak any other language if using Mimix.

The runner ups to for the Beirut competition were Capsu.ly a free infinite community based storage solution, and Hintout a social platform that revolves around activities & going out. You can read the full coverage of YallaStartup Weekend here.

We wish all participants the best of luck and will continue to let you know which of them actually turn into money-making startups in the near future.  Check out the Mimix elevator pitch video.

 

Did you know our prison population has topped over 2 million inmates? This is the first time in the history of our country: a sad statistic, to say the least.

How can we save our children from dying young or going to prison for years? Does it make sense to have this argument in today's society?

The reason I ask is because mainstream culture is so bent on glorifying terrible role models. What is preached and sold is a lifestyle that would get most youth put in an early grave or a prison cell for years. Too many of our children will follow this idealism to either end.

Especially those inner-city children with no dad at home. Many in the poor communities come from single family homes. Most of these homes are led by the mom doing her best to raise her young.

The role models in the neighborhood are as bad as the ones the media is pushing. What can be done? It seems hopeless in many cities from Chicago to Detroit. The story seems to repeat itself with no end in immediate sight.

I do, however, feel that if values change at an early age, we would be able to make an impact on this disturbing trend. This trend? Prison population is rising and our young are dying.

President Obama has directed the Department of Justice and Education to launch the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention.

Too often our young kill each other. Life isn't a movie, nor is it a music video. When we kill someone, they are dead... most of the time we will go to prison. Maybe for life and maybe not. Regardless, there are consequences for all of our actions. Families, both ours and of our victims, will be affected in the most negative ways.

Continued on the next page



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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

bench craft company rip off device

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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“Excitement is Contagious” said David Coleman a Canadian entrepreneur while he explained to me how one of the companies he was promoting works. “People will follow you if your sincere and excited enough about an idea.”

That phrase stuck with me over the years, I hadn’t heard anything like that before. I kept wondering to myself why no one taught me that in school or in a workshop. I wondered if there were others like David here in the Middle East. Then I met Habib Haddad.

Founder of successful Yamli.com, Arabic-English transliteration tool we’ve covered since it’s launch in 2009. But that’s not all Habib has to be proud of, he’s also the co-founder of YallaStartup a community and platform that solely exists to support startups.

I was fortunate enough to meet Habib in Amman during the MENA ICT Forum where he explained to me his vision and how he wants to change the Middle East by creating what he called “an atmosphere that facilitates serendipity”.

Habib and YallaStartup co-founders Sami Shalabi of Google and Elie Khoury of Woopra found a perfect opportunity for Middle Eastern startups in Startup Weekend.

Startup Weekend is a not-for-profit that gives entrepreneurs a 3 day crash course in building startups. Day1 is matching talent and creating teams (if they don’t join as a team to begin with), day 2 is for design & development, and day 3 is pitching the idea and competing with the other participants.

So basically it’s an Entrepreneurial slumber party with adrenaline instead of pajamas, and a startup battle instead of pillow fights.

And since it’s global, it happens over a given weekend in 13 cities simultaneously. To get an image of just how massive that is, you should know the show up in Beirut alone was around 250 participants that launched 34 startups in 3 days. It’s mind-blowing I tell you.

Addressing participants, the founders said “this event is not a competition but about living the life cycle of a startup in just one weekend! It’s about getting interest for your idea, matching you with co-founders and team members, and showing each and every one of you what you are capable of.”

The most amazing part of it, is the fact the winners from the 13 cities went head to head with their startups by posting a video describing their startup, which was then voted on and the winner was decided after a couple of days. Guess who dominated the Global Startup Weekend scene? Beirut.

One of Beirut’s very own startups called Mimix, a platform to translate all languages into whatever sign language dialect the user chooses, implemented through a graphical representation of hand signs. People who need to speak sign language won’t need to speak any other language if using Mimix.

The runner ups to for the Beirut competition were Capsu.ly a free infinite community based storage solution, and Hintout a social platform that revolves around activities & going out. You can read the full coverage of YallaStartup Weekend here.

We wish all participants the best of luck and will continue to let you know which of them actually turn into money-making startups in the near future.  Check out the Mimix elevator pitch video.

 

Did you know our prison population has topped over 2 million inmates? This is the first time in the history of our country: a sad statistic, to say the least.

How can we save our children from dying young or going to prison for years? Does it make sense to have this argument in today's society?

The reason I ask is because mainstream culture is so bent on glorifying terrible role models. What is preached and sold is a lifestyle that would get most youth put in an early grave or a prison cell for years. Too many of our children will follow this idealism to either end.

Especially those inner-city children with no dad at home. Many in the poor communities come from single family homes. Most of these homes are led by the mom doing her best to raise her young.

The role models in the neighborhood are as bad as the ones the media is pushing. What can be done? It seems hopeless in many cities from Chicago to Detroit. The story seems to repeat itself with no end in immediate sight.

I do, however, feel that if values change at an early age, we would be able to make an impact on this disturbing trend. This trend? Prison population is rising and our young are dying.

President Obama has directed the Department of Justice and Education to launch the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention.

Too often our young kill each other. Life isn't a movie, nor is it a music video. When we kill someone, they are dead... most of the time we will go to prison. Maybe for life and maybe not. Regardless, there are consequences for all of our actions. Families, both ours and of our victims, will be affected in the most negative ways.

Continued on the next page



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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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“Excitement is Contagious” said David Coleman a Canadian entrepreneur while he explained to me how one of the companies he was promoting works. “People will follow you if your sincere and excited enough about an idea.”

That phrase stuck with me over the years, I hadn’t heard anything like that before. I kept wondering to myself why no one taught me that in school or in a workshop. I wondered if there were others like David here in the Middle East. Then I met Habib Haddad.

Founder of successful Yamli.com, Arabic-English transliteration tool we’ve covered since it’s launch in 2009. But that’s not all Habib has to be proud of, he’s also the co-founder of YallaStartup a community and platform that solely exists to support startups.

I was fortunate enough to meet Habib in Amman during the MENA ICT Forum where he explained to me his vision and how he wants to change the Middle East by creating what he called “an atmosphere that facilitates serendipity”.

Habib and YallaStartup co-founders Sami Shalabi of Google and Elie Khoury of Woopra found a perfect opportunity for Middle Eastern startups in Startup Weekend.

Startup Weekend is a not-for-profit that gives entrepreneurs a 3 day crash course in building startups. Day1 is matching talent and creating teams (if they don’t join as a team to begin with), day 2 is for design & development, and day 3 is pitching the idea and competing with the other participants.

So basically it’s an Entrepreneurial slumber party with adrenaline instead of pajamas, and a startup battle instead of pillow fights.

And since it’s global, it happens over a given weekend in 13 cities simultaneously. To get an image of just how massive that is, you should know the show up in Beirut alone was around 250 participants that launched 34 startups in 3 days. It’s mind-blowing I tell you.

Addressing participants, the founders said “this event is not a competition but about living the life cycle of a startup in just one weekend! It’s about getting interest for your idea, matching you with co-founders and team members, and showing each and every one of you what you are capable of.”

The most amazing part of it, is the fact the winners from the 13 cities went head to head with their startups by posting a video describing their startup, which was then voted on and the winner was decided after a couple of days. Guess who dominated the Global Startup Weekend scene? Beirut.

One of Beirut’s very own startups called Mimix, a platform to translate all languages into whatever sign language dialect the user chooses, implemented through a graphical representation of hand signs. People who need to speak sign language won’t need to speak any other language if using Mimix.

The runner ups to for the Beirut competition were Capsu.ly a free infinite community based storage solution, and Hintout a social platform that revolves around activities & going out. You can read the full coverage of YallaStartup Weekend here.

We wish all participants the best of luck and will continue to let you know which of them actually turn into money-making startups in the near future.  Check out the Mimix elevator pitch video.

 

Did you know our prison population has topped over 2 million inmates? This is the first time in the history of our country: a sad statistic, to say the least.

How can we save our children from dying young or going to prison for years? Does it make sense to have this argument in today's society?

The reason I ask is because mainstream culture is so bent on glorifying terrible role models. What is preached and sold is a lifestyle that would get most youth put in an early grave or a prison cell for years. Too many of our children will follow this idealism to either end.

Especially those inner-city children with no dad at home. Many in the poor communities come from single family homes. Most of these homes are led by the mom doing her best to raise her young.

The role models in the neighborhood are as bad as the ones the media is pushing. What can be done? It seems hopeless in many cities from Chicago to Detroit. The story seems to repeat itself with no end in immediate sight.

I do, however, feel that if values change at an early age, we would be able to make an impact on this disturbing trend. This trend? Prison population is rising and our young are dying.

President Obama has directed the Department of Justice and Education to launch the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention.

Too often our young kill each other. Life isn't a movie, nor is it a music video. When we kill someone, they are dead... most of the time we will go to prison. Maybe for life and maybe not. Regardless, there are consequences for all of our actions. Families, both ours and of our victims, will be affected in the most negative ways.

Continued on the next page



view company's website

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

Steve Lopez: Dodgers divorce ruling good <b>news</b> for fans who want <b>...</b>

Around my office, the reactions were nearly unanimous recently when it came time to decide whether to keep our shares in a Dodgers season-ticket plan. One guy had the good sense to opt out; the rest of us saps, who...

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foreclosure victims

Despite escalating outrage over rampant foreclosure fraud, the Federal Reserve now appears ready to eviscerate a key mortgage regulation in an effort to spare banks the losses from their own wrongdoing. Even as bank executives preposterously claim to have wronged nobody in the foreclosure process, they're pushing hard to unwind the only serious federal rule that protects borrowers from predatory loans and improper foreclosures. As if the last decade of abuse wasn't bad enough, banks are once again mobilizing to screw borrowers in the pursuit of epic bonuses. And once again, it appears that the Federal Reserve has become an accomplice to this nationwide mortgage scam.

Today, top mortgage officers from the nation's largest banks are telling the Senate Banking Committee that they aren't kicking the wrong people out of their homes. This is simply false. Problems at mortgage servicers have been going on for years, long before banks got into trouble for illegally robo-signing foreclosure documents. People are kicked out of their homes without cause in the United States every day. If the top executives at America's largest banks don't know this fact, they lack the competence needed to run their organizations.

Law firms that work with troubled borrowers are jam-packed with horror stories about foreclosures caused entirely by banks, not borrowers. Families who never miss a payment come home to an eviction notice, or a thug breaking down their door.

But it's even more common for borrowers to find themselves in trouble because their bank engaged in blatantly predatory lending. There is only one serious federal remedy for predatory lending, and the Fed is now knowingly trying to gut that remedy in order to help banks avoid losses from their own fraud. The remedy is called rescission, and it works like this:

If a bank failed to make key consumer protection disclosures about a mortgage, the borrower can demand that all of the interest and closing costs on the loan be refunded. Equally important, the bank must also stop all foreclosure proceedings and give up its right to foreclose. Once the bank gives up its right to foreclose, the full amount of the mortgage, minus interest and closing costs, becomes due. This isn't a free lunch for the borrower, especially when the value of her home has declined dramatically, but it's better than nothing, and it does impose real costs on banks.

For this process to function at all, it is absolutely critical that the bank be barred from foreclosing before the borrower has to pay off the remainder of the loan. A borrower can easily owe hundreds of thousands of dollars after winning a rescission. Few victims of predatory lending actually have that kind of money on hand.

This is the whole point of rescission, and it's been on the books since the Truth in Lending Act was passed in 1968. Without it, the consumer protections detailed by that law have no teeth. A bank is barred from engaging in predatory lending, but if it does it anyway, it faces no serious punishment.

Rescission, in other words, is the only federal legal device keeping banks in check on predatory lending (as the last decade proves, it's nowhere near enough). Predatory lending is really bad. If banks engage in it, they should face dramatic consequences. They don't get to foreclose and they give up all of the profit they expected to score from the predatory loan. If the borrower doesn't have all of the money on hand to pay off what's left, the bank has to deal with this money coming in over time.

The bank lobby and the Fed are now trying to completely gut the substance of this regulation. The Fed has just proposed a new rule that would reverse the order of payments and the right to foreclose under rescission. Under the new rule, a bank that has engaged in predatory lending does not have to give up its right to foreclose until after the borrower has paid off the full remaining balance of the loan.

Under the Fed's proposal, if you're the victim of illegal predatory lending, the bank will still get to foreclose on you unless you pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars all at once. And you'll have to pony up what the bank says you owe, which may be very different from what you actually owe. That eliminates the usefulness of rescission, making the new rule a bailout for predators.

The Fed knows full well that it's gutting the law here. The Board of Governors and their staff have met with key consumer lawyers no less than three times about this exact rule proposal, and the Fed is going ahead with it anyway.

Here's what's really going on. The largest banks don't have enough capital to weather a bad housing market. And any process that sheds light on the documentation procedures at mortgage servicers will expose the big banks to investor lawsuits. But investors can't sue without those documents. Rescission judgments create a paper trail for illegal loans. In addition to creating immediate losses for banks, rescission documents that banks sold illegal loans, giving investors who bought mortgage-backed securities ammunition for well-founded lawsuits. Those lawsuits, in turn, could sink some of the biggest names on Wall Street, something the Fed has been trying to prevent at all costs since 2008.

How close to the edge are the banks? Many mortgages that they account for as profitable assets are actually huge losses. The most obvious example of this insanity involves second lien mortgages. There are lots of kinds of second liens loans, but the important thing to remember is that they're the first asset to be wiped out when housing prices decline. Right now, they're in big trouble.

The second-lien holdings of Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase are about equal to their total capital. If you wipeout second liens, these banks are done. Right now the banks are accounting for these second liens as if they were worth nearly 100 percent of their original value—even though these loans only trade at only about one-quarter of that value. If banks take the market's value of just one class of assets, they're gone.

This class of assets goes completely under if banks have to own up to the current foreclosure fraud mess. The only real way to fix the documentation fraud problems is a nationwide program reducing the amounts that borrowers owe on their mortgages to current home values. Doing that forces the banks to acknowledge that their second lien mortgages are, in fact, worthless.

So the big banks and their protectors at the Fed are launching a two-pronged strategy. First, they're trying to prevent investors from obtaining the loan documents that will fuel well-justified lawsuits. Second, they're trying to give banks even greater control over the foreclosure process, in order to allow banks to continue to game accounting rules. This is a premeditated strategy to save banks from losses created by their own fraudulent, predatory behavior. It has no place on the books of the Fed, particularly after the central bank's total failure to prevent the mortgage abuses of the past decade.

It's not too late for the Fed to turn back. It can, in fact, abandon this bailout, and leave consumer protection issues to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is designed to handle exactly this sort of issue, for exactly this reason.

Diane Thompson of the National Consumer Law Center, who was a rock star at yesterday’s hearing, made a point that has gone overlooked. She said that you can get much better compliance on loan modifications if you actually fund mediation programs and legal services attorneys. There are mandatory mediation programs up and running in Philadelphia and New York, and they have been far more successful in preventing foreclosures – by about 50%, according to Thompson. It’s just a matter of getting the servicers into these mediation programs instead of hoping they will initiate modifications on their own.

As for legal services, as I said a couple days ago, Dodd-Frank authorized $35 million dollars for legal services for homeowners facing foreclosure, but never appropriated the money. Thompson said, “All of the robo-signing allegations were only discovered, brought to light by aggressive, competent attorneys working very diligently to represent their clients. Homeowners cannot negotiate these kinds of issues without lawyers. Low-income homeowners particularly need the lawyers… we urgently need that funding.”

I’ve been taking a look at this issue over the past couple days, contacting people on the Hill, and it doesn’t look good. The funding does not exist in the Treasury/HUD appropriations bill, one of the routine spending bills that need to be passed. It’s not entirely likely they’ll get passed at all, let alone that the report will get reopened to insert that funding in there.

Some Senators are looking for other ways to get the funding through. Some want to allow TARP funds to get used for legal assistance. Others, like Sherrod Brown, have been asking for expansions of legal aid since June. He wants the Treasury Department to allow the Housing Finance Agency’s Hardest-Hit Fund (HHF) to be used in counseling and legal aid services for foreclosure victims.

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off
Piers Morgan El frente a frente contra Fox <b> Noticias </ b>: Parte de Rupert <b> ...</ b conversaciones sucesor> Larry King de CNN sobre las posibilidades en contra de Fox News.

Campamento Carnahan Para Fox News <b> </ b>: ¿Por qué solo nosotros fuera? | TPMMuckrakerLawyers para el ex candidato al Senado Robin Carnahan argumentan que la cadena Fox News es singularizar el demócrata de Missouri en su demanda alegando su campaña violado los derechos de autor de la red.

Esta semana en la tarjeta de crédito <b> Noticias </ b> - MoneyBuilder - sentido de lo que <b> Siempre ...</ b> por LowCards.com más de ocho millones de personas abandonan la tarjeta de crédito utilizar Más de ocho millones de consumidores dejaron de usar las tarjetas de crédito durante el año pasado, según un nuevo estudio de TransUnion. El uso de propósito general ...


bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Despite escalating outrage over rampant foreclosure fraud, the Federal Reserve now appears ready to eviscerate a key mortgage regulation in an effort to spare banks the losses from their own wrongdoing. Even as bank executives preposterously claim to have wronged nobody in the foreclosure process, they're pushing hard to unwind the only serious federal rule that protects borrowers from predatory loans and improper foreclosures. As if the last decade of abuse wasn't bad enough, banks are once again mobilizing to screw borrowers in the pursuit of epic bonuses. And once again, it appears that the Federal Reserve has become an accomplice to this nationwide mortgage scam.

Today, top mortgage officers from the nation's largest banks are telling the Senate Banking Committee that they aren't kicking the wrong people out of their homes. This is simply false. Problems at mortgage servicers have been going on for years, long before banks got into trouble for illegally robo-signing foreclosure documents. People are kicked out of their homes without cause in the United States every day. If the top executives at America's largest banks don't know this fact, they lack the competence needed to run their organizations.

Law firms that work with troubled borrowers are jam-packed with horror stories about foreclosures caused entirely by banks, not borrowers. Families who never miss a payment come home to an eviction notice, or a thug breaking down their door.

But it's even more common for borrowers to find themselves in trouble because their bank engaged in blatantly predatory lending. There is only one serious federal remedy for predatory lending, and the Fed is now knowingly trying to gut that remedy in order to help banks avoid losses from their own fraud. The remedy is called rescission, and it works like this:

If a bank failed to make key consumer protection disclosures about a mortgage, the borrower can demand that all of the interest and closing costs on the loan be refunded. Equally important, the bank must also stop all foreclosure proceedings and give up its right to foreclose. Once the bank gives up its right to foreclose, the full amount of the mortgage, minus interest and closing costs, becomes due. This isn't a free lunch for the borrower, especially when the value of her home has declined dramatically, but it's better than nothing, and it does impose real costs on banks.

For this process to function at all, it is absolutely critical that the bank be barred from foreclosing before the borrower has to pay off the remainder of the loan. A borrower can easily owe hundreds of thousands of dollars after winning a rescission. Few victims of predatory lending actually have that kind of money on hand.

This is the whole point of rescission, and it's been on the books since the Truth in Lending Act was passed in 1968. Without it, the consumer protections detailed by that law have no teeth. A bank is barred from engaging in predatory lending, but if it does it anyway, it faces no serious punishment.

Rescission, in other words, is the only federal legal device keeping banks in check on predatory lending (as the last decade proves, it's nowhere near enough). Predatory lending is really bad. If banks engage in it, they should face dramatic consequences. They don't get to foreclose and they give up all of the profit they expected to score from the predatory loan. If the borrower doesn't have all of the money on hand to pay off what's left, the bank has to deal with this money coming in over time.

The bank lobby and the Fed are now trying to completely gut the substance of this regulation. The Fed has just proposed a new rule that would reverse the order of payments and the right to foreclose under rescission. Under the new rule, a bank that has engaged in predatory lending does not have to give up its right to foreclose until after the borrower has paid off the full remaining balance of the loan.

Under the Fed's proposal, if you're the victim of illegal predatory lending, the bank will still get to foreclose on you unless you pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars all at once. And you'll have to pony up what the bank says you owe, which may be very different from what you actually owe. That eliminates the usefulness of rescission, making the new rule a bailout for predators.

The Fed knows full well that it's gutting the law here. The Board of Governors and their staff have met with key consumer lawyers no less than three times about this exact rule proposal, and the Fed is going ahead with it anyway.

Here's what's really going on. The largest banks don't have enough capital to weather a bad housing market. And any process that sheds light on the documentation procedures at mortgage servicers will expose the big banks to investor lawsuits. But investors can't sue without those documents. Rescission judgments create a paper trail for illegal loans. In addition to creating immediate losses for banks, rescission documents that banks sold illegal loans, giving investors who bought mortgage-backed securities ammunition for well-founded lawsuits. Those lawsuits, in turn, could sink some of the biggest names on Wall Street, something the Fed has been trying to prevent at all costs since 2008.

How close to the edge are the banks? Many mortgages that they account for as profitable assets are actually huge losses. The most obvious example of this insanity involves second lien mortgages. There are lots of kinds of second liens loans, but the important thing to remember is that they're the first asset to be wiped out when housing prices decline. Right now, they're in big trouble.

The second-lien holdings of Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase are about equal to their total capital. If you wipeout second liens, these banks are done. Right now the banks are accounting for these second liens as if they were worth nearly 100 percent of their original value—even though these loans only trade at only about one-quarter of that value. If banks take the market's value of just one class of assets, they're gone.

This class of assets goes completely under if banks have to own up to the current foreclosure fraud mess. The only real way to fix the documentation fraud problems is a nationwide program reducing the amounts that borrowers owe on their mortgages to current home values. Doing that forces the banks to acknowledge that their second lien mortgages are, in fact, worthless.

So the big banks and their protectors at the Fed are launching a two-pronged strategy. First, they're trying to prevent investors from obtaining the loan documents that will fuel well-justified lawsuits. Second, they're trying to give banks even greater control over the foreclosure process, in order to allow banks to continue to game accounting rules. This is a premeditated strategy to save banks from losses created by their own fraudulent, predatory behavior. It has no place on the books of the Fed, particularly after the central bank's total failure to prevent the mortgage abuses of the past decade.

It's not too late for the Fed to turn back. It can, in fact, abandon this bailout, and leave consumer protection issues to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is designed to handle exactly this sort of issue, for exactly this reason.

Diane Thompson of the National Consumer Law Center, who was a rock star at yesterday’s hearing, made a point that has gone overlooked. She said that you can get much better compliance on loan modifications if you actually fund mediation programs and legal services attorneys. There are mandatory mediation programs up and running in Philadelphia and New York, and they have been far more successful in preventing foreclosures – by about 50%, according to Thompson. It’s just a matter of getting the servicers into these mediation programs instead of hoping they will initiate modifications on their own.

As for legal services, as I said a couple days ago, Dodd-Frank authorized $35 million dollars for legal services for homeowners facing foreclosure, but never appropriated the money. Thompson said, “All of the robo-signing allegations were only discovered, brought to light by aggressive, competent attorneys working very diligently to represent their clients. Homeowners cannot negotiate these kinds of issues without lawyers. Low-income homeowners particularly need the lawyers… we urgently need that funding.”

I’ve been taking a look at this issue over the past couple days, contacting people on the Hill, and it doesn’t look good. The funding does not exist in the Treasury/HUD appropriations bill, one of the routine spending bills that need to be passed. It’s not entirely likely they’ll get passed at all, let alone that the report will get reopened to insert that funding in there.

Some Senators are looking for other ways to get the funding through. Some want to allow TARP funds to get used for legal assistance. Others, like Sherrod Brown, have been asking for expansions of legal aid since June. He wants the Treasury Department to allow the Housing Finance Agency’s Hardest-Hit Fund (HHF) to be used in counseling and legal aid services for foreclosure victims.

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Despite escalating outrage over rampant foreclosure fraud, the Federal Reserve now appears ready to eviscerate a key mortgage regulation in an effort to spare banks the losses from their own wrongdoing. Even as bank executives preposterously claim to have wronged nobody in the foreclosure process, they're pushing hard to unwind the only serious federal rule that protects borrowers from predatory loans and improper foreclosures. As if the last decade of abuse wasn't bad enough, banks are once again mobilizing to screw borrowers in the pursuit of epic bonuses. And once again, it appears that the Federal Reserve has become an accomplice to this nationwide mortgage scam.

Today, top mortgage officers from the nation's largest banks are telling the Senate Banking Committee that they aren't kicking the wrong people out of their homes. This is simply false. Problems at mortgage servicers have been going on for years, long before banks got into trouble for illegally robo-signing foreclosure documents. People are kicked out of their homes without cause in the United States every day. If the top executives at America's largest banks don't know this fact, they lack the competence needed to run their organizations.

Law firms that work with troubled borrowers are jam-packed with horror stories about foreclosures caused entirely by banks, not borrowers. Families who never miss a payment come home to an eviction notice, or a thug breaking down their door.

But it's even more common for borrowers to find themselves in trouble because their bank engaged in blatantly predatory lending. There is only one serious federal remedy for predatory lending, and the Fed is now knowingly trying to gut that remedy in order to help banks avoid losses from their own fraud. The remedy is called rescission, and it works like this:

If a bank failed to make key consumer protection disclosures about a mortgage, the borrower can demand that all of the interest and closing costs on the loan be refunded. Equally important, the bank must also stop all foreclosure proceedings and give up its right to foreclose. Once the bank gives up its right to foreclose, the full amount of the mortgage, minus interest and closing costs, becomes due. This isn't a free lunch for the borrower, especially when the value of her home has declined dramatically, but it's better than nothing, and it does impose real costs on banks.

For this process to function at all, it is absolutely critical that the bank be barred from foreclosing before the borrower has to pay off the remainder of the loan. A borrower can easily owe hundreds of thousands of dollars after winning a rescission. Few victims of predatory lending actually have that kind of money on hand.

This is the whole point of rescission, and it's been on the books since the Truth in Lending Act was passed in 1968. Without it, the consumer protections detailed by that law have no teeth. A bank is barred from engaging in predatory lending, but if it does it anyway, it faces no serious punishment.

Rescission, in other words, is the only federal legal device keeping banks in check on predatory lending (as the last decade proves, it's nowhere near enough). Predatory lending is really bad. If banks engage in it, they should face dramatic consequences. They don't get to foreclose and they give up all of the profit they expected to score from the predatory loan. If the borrower doesn't have all of the money on hand to pay off what's left, the bank has to deal with this money coming in over time.

The bank lobby and the Fed are now trying to completely gut the substance of this regulation. The Fed has just proposed a new rule that would reverse the order of payments and the right to foreclose under rescission. Under the new rule, a bank that has engaged in predatory lending does not have to give up its right to foreclose until after the borrower has paid off the full remaining balance of the loan.

Under the Fed's proposal, if you're the victim of illegal predatory lending, the bank will still get to foreclose on you unless you pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars all at once. And you'll have to pony up what the bank says you owe, which may be very different from what you actually owe. That eliminates the usefulness of rescission, making the new rule a bailout for predators.

The Fed knows full well that it's gutting the law here. The Board of Governors and their staff have met with key consumer lawyers no less than three times about this exact rule proposal, and the Fed is going ahead with it anyway.

Here's what's really going on. The largest banks don't have enough capital to weather a bad housing market. And any process that sheds light on the documentation procedures at mortgage servicers will expose the big banks to investor lawsuits. But investors can't sue without those documents. Rescission judgments create a paper trail for illegal loans. In addition to creating immediate losses for banks, rescission documents that banks sold illegal loans, giving investors who bought mortgage-backed securities ammunition for well-founded lawsuits. Those lawsuits, in turn, could sink some of the biggest names on Wall Street, something the Fed has been trying to prevent at all costs since 2008.

How close to the edge are the banks? Many mortgages that they account for as profitable assets are actually huge losses. The most obvious example of this insanity involves second lien mortgages. There are lots of kinds of second liens loans, but the important thing to remember is that they're the first asset to be wiped out when housing prices decline. Right now, they're in big trouble.

The second-lien holdings of Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase are about equal to their total capital. If you wipeout second liens, these banks are done. Right now the banks are accounting for these second liens as if they were worth nearly 100 percent of their original value—even though these loans only trade at only about one-quarter of that value. If banks take the market's value of just one class of assets, they're gone.

This class of assets goes completely under if banks have to own up to the current foreclosure fraud mess. The only real way to fix the documentation fraud problems is a nationwide program reducing the amounts that borrowers owe on their mortgages to current home values. Doing that forces the banks to acknowledge that their second lien mortgages are, in fact, worthless.

So the big banks and their protectors at the Fed are launching a two-pronged strategy. First, they're trying to prevent investors from obtaining the loan documents that will fuel well-justified lawsuits. Second, they're trying to give banks even greater control over the foreclosure process, in order to allow banks to continue to game accounting rules. This is a premeditated strategy to save banks from losses created by their own fraudulent, predatory behavior. It has no place on the books of the Fed, particularly after the central bank's total failure to prevent the mortgage abuses of the past decade.

It's not too late for the Fed to turn back. It can, in fact, abandon this bailout, and leave consumer protection issues to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is designed to handle exactly this sort of issue, for exactly this reason.

Diane Thompson of the National Consumer Law Center, who was a rock star at yesterday’s hearing, made a point that has gone overlooked. She said that you can get much better compliance on loan modifications if you actually fund mediation programs and legal services attorneys. There are mandatory mediation programs up and running in Philadelphia and New York, and they have been far more successful in preventing foreclosures – by about 50%, according to Thompson. It’s just a matter of getting the servicers into these mediation programs instead of hoping they will initiate modifications on their own.

As for legal services, as I said a couple days ago, Dodd-Frank authorized $35 million dollars for legal services for homeowners facing foreclosure, but never appropriated the money. Thompson said, “All of the robo-signing allegations were only discovered, brought to light by aggressive, competent attorneys working very diligently to represent their clients. Homeowners cannot negotiate these kinds of issues without lawyers. Low-income homeowners particularly need the lawyers… we urgently need that funding.”

I’ve been taking a look at this issue over the past couple days, contacting people on the Hill, and it doesn’t look good. The funding does not exist in the Treasury/HUD appropriations bill, one of the routine spending bills that need to be passed. It’s not entirely likely they’ll get passed at all, let alone that the report will get reopened to insert that funding in there.

Some Senators are looking for other ways to get the funding through. Some want to allow TARP funds to get used for legal assistance. Others, like Sherrod Brown, have been asking for expansions of legal aid since June. He wants the Treasury Department to allow the Housing Finance Agency’s Hardest-Hit Fund (HHF) to be used in counseling and legal aid services for foreclosure victims.

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

bench craft company rip off

Piers Morgan On Facing Off Against Fox <b>News</b>: Part of Rupert <b>...</b>

Larry King's successor talks about CNN's chances against Fox News.

Carnahan Camp To Fox <b>News</b>: Why Single Us Out? | TPMMuckraker

Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network's copyrights.

This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>

Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...

Making Money Working

As part of the ongoing Mashable Awards, we’re taking a closer look at each of the nomination categories. This is “Most Influential Social Good Champion” supported by Yahoo!. Be sure to nominate your favorites and join us for the Gala in Las Vegas!

Social Good is a brand new form of online giving that draws both from small non-profits and large brand cause-marketing campaigns. But like any burgeoning movement, social good requires champions to bring it to the public and promote its growth.

While “social good” and “influence” may not have absolutely concrete definitions (is influence based on Twitter followers? Raising the most money?), it is easy to see when an individual has taken on the cause of social good to create some real change.

Even though the exact parameters are a subjective call, we scoured the web for three social good activists who are using their skills to create change. We’ve highlighted three individuals who are utilizing social media and online campaigns to shape the way that we think about activism.

1. The Free Agent

Beth Kanter and Allison Fine defined the concept of the “free agent” this year in their book, The Networked Nonprofit. A “free agent,” as they defined it, is a “person who is passionate about a social cause, but is working outside of a nonprofit organization to organize, mobilize, raise money, and engage with others.” Using social media tools, free agents are able to make an impact that was once only capable within the infrastructure of an organization.

We’ve covered a number of free agents who had influence this year. Individuals like Shawn Ahmed, who posts YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube videos about poverty in Bangladesh; Mark Horvath, who gives homelessness a voice through his We Are Visible and Invisible People projects; and even Dan Savage, who launched the It Gets Better Project in September to support gay teens who face adversity.

Kanter, a free agent herself, has played an influential role in helping non-profit organizations accept and cooperate with these social media-powered activists. Among her efforts, she facilitated a conversation at the State Department’s Tech@State Civil Society 2.0 event about how non-profits and free agents can work together.

2. Ben Rattray, Founder and CEO of Change.org

There are two hurdles that almost every cause campaign struggles with. The first is making the complexities and realities of its cause understood. The second is mobilizing people effectively. Change.org, which was founded by Ben Rattray in 2006, helps solve both.

The site has more than 100 writers who contribute in-depth reporting on 15 different causes. When people come to the site to read about a cause they’re passionate about, they also have the opportunity to take action toward that cause by signing petitions. While these cumulative actions lack the drama of a protest, mobilizing a large network toward one specific action has proved a lot more effective than a hodgepodge of independent actions.

Change.org has partnered with thousands of non-profits, and together the community has accomplished more than 100 “victories,” in which they’ve changed an unjust practice, law or policy. The organization connects activists with similar passions, and by doing so it gives them power as a cohort that they would never have as individuals.

3. Scott Harrison, Founder of Charity: Water

Charity: water uses 100% of public donations to fund water projects and is transparent about how donations are used. Both of these qualities make it somewhat of an oddball in the non-profit world — which might be exactly what the non-profit world needs.

When people donate money to most organizations, they’re not sure what happens to their donation or how efficiently it was used. When they give to charity: water, they can look up a picture and GPS coordinates of the project they contributed to. Since the organization relies on private donors for the money that makes it run, there’s no doubt about whether your donation ended up paying for somebody’s flight instead of funding a water project. The organization even covers its PayPal fees on donations.

This model of transparency and accountability has created trust and helped raise more than $20 million for 3,196 projects in the past four years. We hope that its success will influence other non-profits to do the same.

What’s Your Pick?/>

Who were your social good champions this year? Let us know in the comments or nominate them for a Mashable Awards.

The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas)/>

In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the class='blippr-nobr'>Mashableclass="blippr-nobr">Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Together, we will celebrate the winners and the community of the Mashable Awards at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage in the beautiful New York New York Hotel. The event will include acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. In addition, there will be special guest presenters and appearances.

Date: Thursday, January 6th, 2011 (during International CES Convention week)/> Time: 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. PT/> Location: Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas/> Agenda: Networking, Open Bars, Acts, Surprises and the Mashable Awards Gala presentations/> Socialize: Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook, Foursquareclass="blippr-nobr">Foursquare, Meetup, Plancast, Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter (Hashtag: #MashableAwards)

Mashable Awards Category Sponsor:

Yahoo! is an innovative technology company that operates the largest digital media, content, and communications business in the world. Yahoo! keeps more than half a billion consumers worldwide connected to what matters to them most, and delivers powerful audience solutions to advertisers through its unique combination of Science + Art + Scale. Yahoo! is proud to sponsor this Mashable Award because Yahoo! is focused on connecting individuals to a community of millions so they can change the world together. That’s How Good Grows at Yahoo!. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal.

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, RichVintage

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class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Goodclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Good channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad

AT&T, T-MOBILE AND VERIZON WIRELESS ANNOUNCE JOINT VENTURE TO BUILD NATIONAL MOBILE COMMERCE NETWORK

Isis to Lead the U.S. Payments Industry from Cards to Mobile Phones; Available to All Merchants, Banks and Wireless Service Providers; Venture Led By Former GE Capital Financial Executive

New York – November 16, 2010 – AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless today announced the formation of a joint venture chartered with building ISIS™, a national mobile commerce network that aims to fundamentally transform how people shop, pay and save.

Isis’ initial focus will be on building a mobile payment network that utilizes mobile phones to make point-of-sale purchases. By utilizing smartphone and near-field communication (NFC) technology to modernize the payments process, Isis intends to deliver new levels of competition and value to consumers and merchants. Isis expects to introduce its service in key geographic markets during the next 18 months.

Michael Abbott has been named as Chief Executive Officer of Isis. Formerly with GE Capital, Abbott is a veteran financial services executive with extensive experience in the payment and technology industries.

“Our mobile commerce network, through relationships with merchants, will provide an enhanced, more convenient, more personalized shopping experience for consumers,” said Michael Abbott, Chief Executive Officer of Isis. “While mobile payments will be at the core of our offering, it is only the start. We plan to create a mobile wallet that ultimately eliminates the need for consumers to carry cash, credit and debit cards, reward cards, coupons, tickets and transit passes.”

Isis Brings Both Consumer and Merchant Scale

Founding members, AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, collectively provide wireless services to more than 200 million consumers who will have access to the Isis service. Isis is working with Discover Financial Services’ payment network, currently accepted at more than seven million merchant locations nationwide, to develop an extensive mobile payment infrastructure for the joint venture.

Barclaycard US, part of Barclays PLC, is expected to be the first issuer on the network, offering multiple mobile payment products to meet the needs of every customer.

“We believe the venture will have the scope and scale necessary to introduce mobile commerce on a broad basis. In the beginning, we intend to fully utilize Discover’s national payment infrastructure as well as Barclaycard’s expertise in contactless and mobile payments,” said Abbott. “Moving forward, Isis will be available to all interested merchants, banks and mobile carriers.”

How It Works

The new venture will enable contactless mobile payment and commerce services using near-field communication technology. NFC uses short-range, high frequency wireless technology to enable the encrypted exchange of information between devices at a short distance. The new system is being designed and built to include strong security and privacy safeguards.

About Isis

The joint venture is between AT&T Mobility LLC, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless and is based in New York City. The venture is chartered with building ISIS™, a national mobile commerce network that will fundamentally transform how people shop, pay and save. The Isis mobile commerce network will be available to all merchants, banks and mobile carriers. ISIS is a trademark of JVL Ventures, LLC in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos, product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.

eric seiger do

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error : Roll Call

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

Good <b>News</b>: Chrome Now Sandboxes Flash for More Secure Browsing

Adobe Flash Player is now sandboxed in the latest dev channel release of Google Chrome, bringing a huge security benefit to Chrome users. Here's why:

Google <b>News</b> Testing More Social Features With “Most Shared” Box

Google Operating System noticed Google News added a new box to the side bar named Most shared. The most shared box must be using social sharing features to.