National Road Fund Broke In One Month

I just read a news article by LISA STARK and KATE BARRETT Sept. 5, 2008 about the money for the nationwide projects of repairing our roads and bridges being depleted to almost nothing by one month's time. Since drivers are driving less to conserve their gas and save some pocket change because they want to have enough to buy their groceries which has also rose in costs the Department of Transportation are warning that they now have less revenue to pay for the road and bridge repairs across our nation.

Yep, less purchases at the pump means less money in the kettle for our highways. In fact Lisa writes, "the department called for an immediate infusion of $8 billion in tax revenues into the fund. That's precisely what some Democrats in Congress have been trying to do -- and a move that the administration, just six weeks ago, opposed."

But the Transportation Secretary, Mary E Peters a bias Republican, tells us: "Every family understands that constantly spending more than you earn is a recipe for insolvency. Yet many in Congress have refused to apply that same common-sense thinking to the federal program that currently accounts for close to half of all highway and transit investments."

Yet Senator Murray, Democrat stated "It's too bad that it has taken an emergency to force the administration to pull its head out of the sand and appreciate how serious this problem is."

Well, at least the proof that the Democrats in Congress had been trying to do precisely what was needed with the Republican Bush Administration opposing them just six weeks ago is CATALOGED in the Congress Library. Oh, yeah! Too bad Mary E. Peters put her foot in her mouth, and lied flat out because now her words blaming Congress wrongly is also recorded in the news for historical facts of her Republican lies.

Rising Foreclosures And Delinquencies

And just when you thought it was getting better. Well it's not. No!

According to Alan Zibel, an AP Business Writer for on line news, now the blame has been shifted again. Yep instead of it being borrowers with bad credit, now the blame is homeowners with good credit who took out exotic loans with ballooning monthly payments. Well I cannot speak for the other home owners, but I was told that my loan was a 30 year fixed. I did not want an exotic, balloon loan. But unfortunately my husband and I found out too late that the broker for the lenders lied to us. And after our loan was sold to another lender that was when the real problems started to come with the medical bills piling up. Don't you just love it when they LUMP all the homeowners into one category?

In the news Alan writes: The problem that policymakers and Wall Street once assured us was 'contained' to subprime mortgages has proven to be anything but," Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research, said in a research note. Gee, even I new that before I read it in Zibel's news article.

Now we are being warned that this wave of mortgage defaults flooding the market, with homes plunging in value, is expected to continue through the year 2010. One of the faults is loss of income or drop in income with either unemployment, health and medical, or loss of a spouse through death or divorce. And the numbers are climbing with new foreclosures rose from the first quarter in 35 states and Washington, D.C.

There were a few states where the foreclosures declined, but that was because those states passed laws to slow the foreclosures process and give the homeowners time to catch up on their payments.

Yet the blaming continues with the nick name "Liar Loans" because they claim that the incomes were not documented. That is a lie. My husband is a computer contractor who works for different consulting firms for their clients and we do our INCOME TAXES every year. Our income is well documented.

So Go ahead and blame the consumer. After all, we have had eight years of the Bush Administration, the Republican economists experts, and the Business news media who every year have blamed the American consumer for not spending enough. In fact, beginning November and December of 2001, all we got was complaints on how our not spending more was driving down the economy. Too bad we are not given an opportunity to review those news casts from money news on CNN, Fox cable, MSNBC and all the local station news as well along with all the Republican financial experts telling Americans that they should be using their credit cards more.

Yep, these last eight years, each and every year, the Republican financial experts and money news reporters have blamed the financial mess on the American consumers.

Job Loss Still Rising

The Associated Press on line reported on Sept 5 2008 the unemployment rate is higher than the economic experts expected. Yep, Employers slashed 84,000 jobs in August as we hit a 6.1 five year high in unemployment. A financial toll is effecting our economy as the housing, credit and financial crises worsen. The employment deterioration tumbled all major stock indexes on Thursday. Yet I do not recall hearing anything of it on any of the news stations or the local news.

In fact, the number 84,000 does not seem to add up to the list of jobs that were loss in the government's Labor Department Report. In the report the lists include: "Factories cut 61,000 jobs, construction firms eliminated 8,000 jobs, retailers axed 20,000 slots, professional and business services slashed 53,000 positions and leisure and hospitality got rid of 4,000." You do the math.

Now also in the same news article in the Associated Press: "Job losses at all private employers -- not including government -- came to 101,000 in August." It seems we just keep getting higher figures in the reporting, yet the government report have the number lowered.

Loss Mitigation or Delinquent Department

I have experienced something horrifying to me. If it isn't illegal, it should be.
This all began shortly after my original mortgage company sold my account. At first I was OK by it. Then our life began to take a turn for the worse a combination of unemployment and illness.

My husband's permanent secure high tech job disappeared back in 2002 to outsourcing. Since that time we have managed to stay afloat with my husband working temporary contract jobs in his field. Of course those jobs are not easy to come. They are few and far in-between so I managed to put some money aside during his working sessions so we do not loose the house when the next job is hard to come by .

However, we encountered a set back with my husband's health when he was suffering from gall stones in his gall bladder while he was unemployed. First it took a long time to get a doctor and a hospital to diagnose the problem. Why? We do not have insurance, and I found out that unless the doctors can pin point the problem, they do NOT have to treat you. It took more than 6 months of my husband suffering before someone at a hospital took his pain seriously and finally performed the operation of removing the gall bladder. It has been five months since the operation and he has had no more problems. My husband even had a job waiting for him to start. Within a two week period he was on the new job.

We did fall back just a little so I called to make a payment in late March. Saxon told me to filled out Loss Mitigation paperwork with Saxon Mortgage and not to make a payment until they had a chance to work out a plan. As soon as I received and completed the Loss Mitigation paperwork, I faxed it to them April 8 2008. I never heard from Saxon, so I called a week later. They claimed there was nothing on their computer about the Loss Mitigation, So I redid the paperwork and faxed it the Same Day April 12 2008.

Yet I still had not heard from them so I decided to send a May payment in good faith. But the mortgage company did not acknowledge that they received it. In fact I did not receive a statement. Not wanting to give them a reason to take my home, I sent another payment June 8 2008 using an older payment stub and a letter. A week later I received a call from the mortgage company. They did acknowledge receiving the May payment, but they placed it in another account to use toward a repayment plan. The mortgage company also asked if I paid another payment, it would aid me in my repayment plan. But after that not to send any more until a plan was worked out.

Well I informed Saxon that I did send out a payment a week prior. And few days later, I checked my on-line bank statement and the second check was paid out to Saxon Mortgage on June 17, 2008. The money was subtracted from my checking account on that day by the bank in my checking account. I thought everything was fine, UNTIL...

When I still did not hear from Saxon nor receive any statement during the week of July 20, full month later, I spoke with Stanley a representative of Saxon. Stanley of Saxon delinquent department claimed that Saxon did not receive that June check. He wanted me to send proof of confirmation. So I quickly got a copy of the front and back of both checks from my on-line banking which showed the date it was cashed and paid to Saxon mortgage along with a running on-line balance bank statement of my checking account showing when both May and June checks were paid out. According to my bank, it clearly showed the second check being paid on June 17 2008, more than a full month before. I faxed it to the Delinquent Department fax number provided to me by Stanley with Saxon Mortgage.

Several days later they still claimed they did not receive it. Then I told the person over the telephone that I did faxed it too them and I will again go ahead and re-fax the information to him right then and there. He then claim that he finally found the information and did acknowledge that I paid it, but he claimed that they did not received the check until June 21, 2008. In fact the Saxon representative claimed that I broke contract with the company because he claimed that I was suppose to get it to them by June 20, 2008.

Well, 'DO-THE-MATH!' My bank subtracted the money from my Bank checking account, paying it to Saxon Mortgage on June 17, 2008, which is four (4) days prior than June 20th. Now the mortgage company delinquent department wanted me to refill out the Loss Mitigation paperwork based on their claim that they did not get the check until after a date they set. Yet no one ever set a date with me since I already had sent the check PRIOR to the discussion of me sending a second check. Well I still had the originals saved on my documents so I refilled them and faxed the paperwork immediately.

Yet something kept stirring at me. I felt as if I was being conned and my information was being manipulated by the Saxon mortgage. I began to believe that Saxon was deliberately setting me up so that they could foreclose on my home. The recent news of a family whose home was foreclosed and the wife committing suicide came to mind. The husband claimed that his wife was working with the Mortgage company's Loss Mitigation department for months and she was constantly calling them sending them more paperwork. He mentioned that she had to redo the paperwork several times because their mortgage company claimed there was a slip up, or they did not get it, or it wasn't gotten to them on time. Maybe, I would not had paid attention to the news when they spoke of that on CNN, but it was the 'COLDNESS' of the TV CNN money news people that got me. That was why I remembered it.

Although I never received a notice of any foreclosure, I was so frustrated and fearful of loosing my home that I told my son we may end up loosing our home if Saxon continues to playing with me.
On July 25, 2008 my son connected me to a friend of his who did a three-way calling for me to speak yet with his friend who just happens to work for a company that specializes in negotiating better mortgages for the homeowners. Since July 28 2008, I hired his company to negotiate on my behalf for a much better mortgage with Saxon. His words were, Stop paying them, do not talk to them, if they call tell them that my company is doing your talking for you, and if anything regarding foreclosure should come in your mail just FAX it too me immediately so that I can stop the foreclosure process.

I did finally begin to receive a Saxon billing statement on August, but it had the payment as received by Saxon on July 10 2008.

What a bunch of crock??? Saxon manipulated the information in their computers so much that they have the funds for the check, which was cashed and paid by my bank to Saxon on June 17 2008, as received and paid a FULL MONTH later.

Isn't it illegal for Financial institutions to be manipulating the information of the homeowners just so they can STEAL the homeowners home right from under them? The FBI and the IRS should be freezing Saxon's operations, and assets immediately. Everyone from the owners of Saxon to the top CEO to all the employees in the Delinquent Department and the Loss Mitigation Department should all be arrested and taken away in hand-cuffs and NEVER ever be able to 'SEE-THE-LIGHT-OF-DAY' again.

Republican Moral Ideas

Today, August 5, 2008, at the age of 55 years I thought I had seen and heard it all. Well even I was shocked today after reading the report on abcnews.go.com. Forget about almost falling out of my chair. I did fall out of my chair! Yep, there was something in the news today that just literally took my breath away as I began gasping for air while turning blue and chocking.

I never thought I would ever read anything like this. But that is just what happens when a Political Party like the Republican Party, ride high on the insistence that they are the 'MORAL MAJORITY Party'. The Republicans also for decades have won big on the claim that they are the 'FAMILY VALUE Party'. However, the Republican slogan will have to change, thanks to John McCain's 'DOUBLE-TALK' mouth at one of his small town rallies today.

"I was looking at the Sturgis schedule, and noticed that you had a beauty pageant, so I encouraged Cindy to compete," McCain told an audience at the rally. "I told her [that] with a little luck, she could be the only woman to serve as both the First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip."

Now what is wrong with a beauty pageant, you ask?

Nothing is wrong with a beauty pageant, EXCEPT when that Beauty Pageant is of 'TOPLESS CONTESTANTS'. Nothing is wrong with a beauty pageant, EXCEPT when that Beauty Pageant has the contestant exposed without any decency.

Hmm, could this be the 'NEW-KIND-OF-CAMPAIGN' John McCain said he was running?

The Weekend Blues

During a time when AP economics writer, Jeannine Aversa, informs us 'Stores, factories and other businesses large and small showed workers the door last month, sending unemployment to its highest rate in four years and adding to the evidence an economic recovery remains far off. Employers clamped down on hiring and cut 51,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has shed jobs each month this year — 463,000 in all.'

Also reports like that of Jim Marshall in the Reuters news report, 'the analysts at Standard & Poors warned against mortgage related debt products in Internet emails, stating in one email, where a S&P manager wrote that the 'ratings agencies were helping to create an "even bigger monster -- the CDO (collateralized debt obligation) market. Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of card falters."'

While still getting news of 'U.S. auto sales plunged to a 16-year-low in July, led by a 27 percent drop at General Motors Corp , as high gas prices and tight credit sent the industry into a tailspin' , written by Poornima Gupta of the Reuters news on-line.

And as many stories of the 'Oil giants Chevron Corp. and Total SA wrapped up a string of gargantuan, record-breaking earnings reports Friday, a stretch in which six of the major international oil companies topped $50 billion in combined profit for the first time.' Like the one told to us by John Porretto, AP Business Writer during the same time period people are struggling to decide whether they buy gas for their cars to get to work or groceries to eat. During a time when people begin to purchase that heating oil to prepare for the winter, wondering if the Oil giants are planning to create another questionable paper written demand and supply to call it a shortage while raising prices even higher.

There is a new story brewing in the works about 'New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo plans to imminently charge Citigroup Inc , accusing it of fraudulently marketing and selling auction-rate securities, and destroying documents that had been subpoenaed' in the Reuters by Joseph A. Giannone and Jonathan Stempel.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080802/bs_nm/citigroup_subpoenas_dc;_ylt=Ar2mX7W1.bpaHLPLWs0iq4SyBhIF

More Jobs Lost As few Return

According to an on-line news article 'U.S. Loses 51K Jobs but Some Outsourced Jobs Are Coming Back' written by Alice Gomstyn of ABC News, "As the U.S. economic slump continues, American jobs are increasingly in short supply: the U.S. Labor Department reported on Friday that employers shrunk payrolls by 51,000."

Yet Gomstyn lets us know what employers like Monster Job on-line search Vice President O'Donnell are are saying about the returning jobs that were outsourced, "You've got to have a workforce that you can control and you can invest in and grow talent and skills over time, and that usually doesn't happen offshore,".

Gosh, and it took O'Donnell from when Bush first took office in 2001 until today, August 1 2008 to figure that one out. That is seven years of the Republican selling the lie that Americans are too stupid to do the jobs. Gee, what happened? Did Americans all of a sudden become intelligent again?

Remember, the whole concept of outsourcing was based on GW's early speeches about how "the American worker did not have the intelligence or skills or base knowledge for the high tech industry." GW Bush also stated during that same time period from 2001 through 2002 that "America will no longer be a High Tech country! America is now a service country!" Those words still rip through my heart, tearing it to shreds.

So according to Bush in his early speeches, the country of American workers who created the 'SILICON CHIP', and the country of American workers who created the 'PC', and the country of American workers who created the 'INTERNET', the country of American workers who built the 'SPACE ROCKET' for the Apollo missions and 'FIRST MOON MISSION', the country of American workers who launched the successful 'SATELLITES' into space, the country of American workers who designed and built the 'SPACE SHUTTLE' and had the successful space missions, the country of American workers who had the successful 'MARS MISSIONS', was just not smart enough to be the High Tech country anymore? Oh yeah and by the way, the country whose American workers created and built the first 'TELEPHONE', the first 'AIRPLANE', the first 'AIR CONDITIONER', the first, 'CABLE NEWS NETWORK' is just not smart enough?

But now, a new awakening is arriving. A very small portion of the jobs are returning. Just not the highly technical ones yet.

Alice also wrote in her ABC news report, "In March, AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson told a Texas business group that the communications company was having trouble finding qualified applicants to fill 5,000 jobs -- mostly customer service positions -- that it had pledged to move back to the United States from India, according to a Reuters report."

Wow, did Randall Stephenson mean to say that when AT&T first took the jobs to India that all those new workers in India who took those jobs away from Americans had all the skills to work for a telephone company without having to be 'TRAINED?, or SCHOOLED in any way? Well if I remember those news articles in March concerning AT&T did admit to spending a lot of time and a lot of $$$$$$$ dollars in the millions or billions to train those Indian workers in India when they first outsourced those jobs back in the early Bush years.

Well maybe AT&T is just not willing to spend the same amount of time or money training the American worker that AT&T spent on the Indian Worker.

Also concerning the report written by Alice on AT&T, "An AT&T spokesman Thursday backpedaled from Stephenson's comments. Michael Coe told ABC News that AT&T had filled more than 2,500 positions and that the company is confident it will fill the rest."

Brain storm! Why not spend the same amount of time and money to train the American workers in the United States that you need just like you, AT&T, did on the Indian workers in India. DUH!

Alice of ABC news also got reaction from other companies who are either returning the jobs or bringing new jobs. ""It takes 70 Korean or Chinese workers 20 minutes to make a Chi flat iron," he said. "Now, in the United States and in Houston, with five people, I can make an iron in five minutes." Shami, who was first profiled by ABC News Houston affiliate KTRK, said he is building a new facility in Houston that he hopes will house 1,000 new workers within a year. He said he expects to neither save nor lose money through the new venture. A Palestinian immigrant, Shami said he's just doing his part to help the U.S. economy. "The only way to recover our economy is if we start manufacturing," he said. "I'm doing my part as a good citizen, that's all.""

Gosh, did Farouk Shami just give the workers of the United States of America a compliment?

You mean to say that the top 'CEO's' who were complaining in 2001 and 2002 that the American workers were just lazy and that the companies had to find more reliable workers was all a lie? Hmmm, What are the chances of that happening?