Even as August saw more Americans lose their homes to foreclosure than in any other month on record, there are growing concerns over the legality of many of those proceedings.

JPMorgan Chase has suspended legal proceedings on 50,000 foreclosures, due to concerns about the validity of the foreclosure documents, a spokesman for the bank told CNBC Wednesday (hat tip to Zero Hedge).

JPMorgan spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed to the AP Wednesday that “employees signed some affidavits about loan documents without personally verifying the files.”

The decision is the latest signal of a potentially massive stall in the nation's foreclosure process. Last week, after GMAC Mortgage halted its foreclosures in 23 states, the Washington Post reported that one of GMAC's employees hadn't read the roughly 10,000 foreclosure documents he approved each month (and now Colorado wants to be added to that list of states). It then turned out that the “robo signer” might not have been alone.

Phi Beta Iota: We called for a freeze on all foreclosures and evictions back in October 2008, instead of bailing out Wall Street where one $10 million bonus could cover an astonishing number of mortgage payments among the poor and lower middle class. The US Government failed to assure justice for all those who have been evicted to date. This move by JP Morgan is a good one, and also reminds us once again how important INTEGRITY is at every stage of every process. The reality is that most final “holders” of aggregated mortgages never had the actual loan note to begin with. The Department of Justice should have known that and should have advised all relevant policymakers and politicians of this fact, but in the rush to bail out Wall Street, the public interest was ignored, demeaned, and betrayed.

2010/09/302010/09/30

How the “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” class launched several internationally known start-ups

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Health, 12 Water, Civil Society, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, International Aid, Methods & Process, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Strategy, Technologies

Working through partners, getting to market faster

The Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability class has launched several internationally known start-ups (including Embrace, Driptech and D.Light.) But main route for student teams to get their life-changing products into the hands of people in the developing world is by working with NGO partner organizations.

Working with partners is the quickest way to market: it eliminates the need to create a business model and distribution infrastructure, so that students can focus on getting the best possible product to people who need it.

Professor Jim Patel, who founded the class, and Erica Estrada, who teaches the class and directs our Social Entrepreneurship Lab, discuss why this is such a critical route-to-market for students in the class:

Continue reading “How the “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” class launched several internationally known start-ups”

2010/09/302010/09/30

Journal: Chuck Spinney on Deadly Games of Deceit

09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney On the Record

The linked article by William Pfaff illustrates how the Pentagon set up Mr. Obama to do its bidding.

Are Obama’s Hands Tied?

28 September 2010

By William Pfaff

A splendid and courageous new book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, by Andrew J. Bacevich of Boston University (and for many years previously, the U.S. Army), describes with lucidity the degree to which the power of the American presidency over war and peace has been weakened in our day, and, in important respects, superseded.

One might call this a silent coup against the presidency, but a coup implies intention: a responsible actor who sets the coup d’etat into action for a defined purpose. The argument Bacevich makes implies that a coup can be institutional or intellectual, and come from outside as well as inside government. Its characteristic is to create a situation in which a president is no longer free to act as he might wish, because all of the doors except one have been closed.

Read Rest of Original Article

Chuck Spinney's Original Comments Continued

The name of the bureaucratic game, of course, is to remove all realistic alternatives to the Pentagon's preferred decision before that decision is made. Pfaff's discussion is based on Andrew Bacevich's new book “Washington Rules.” I have not read Bacevich's book yet, and will not be able to until I return to the states in November, but I have read several reviews and from that perspective can say that the behaviour Pfaff describes comports well with behavior I witnessed in my years in the Pentagon.

The picture is more subtle and far more complicated than that portrayed by Pfaff, however.

Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinney on Deadly Games of Deceit”

2010/09/302010/09/30

Journal: The Domestic Politics of Afghanistan

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Corruption, Government

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Following editorial appeared in today's Washington Post, commenting on a series of three excerpts of Bob Woodward's new book, “Obama's Wars.” Invite your attention to highlighted portions, particularly the final one, “,,, the president had treated the military as another political constituency that had to be accommodated …” Anybody wanna speculate how that's making the guys on combat outposts in Afghanistan feel today?

Washington Post September 29, 2010 Pg. 20

The War Over The War

Bob Woodward's new book portrays an administration deeply divided over Afghanistan

Phi Beta Iota: The entire piece is below the line. We normally do not do this, but the Post is losing its mind again and demanding registration while also switching headlines and using a mediocre search engine. The President is a failure largely for lack of integrity: 1) he sold out during the campaign to the providers of the $500 million that was not from small donors; 2) he allowed David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel to dictate White House policy; 3) he failed to fix intelligence or get a grip on strategic perspectives of any kind; 4) he did not trust his instincts–this is a smart man afraid of Wall Street and the carpetbaggers. He has blown a historic opportunity for change, but our colleague Harrison Owen would say this was meant to be, for he has done what Dick Cheney could not do: shown the Democratic Party to be the twisted ignorant unethical beast that it is, the lite counterpart to the twisted ignorant unethical Republican Party.

Continue reading “Journal: The Domestic Politics of Afghanistan”

2010/09/292010/09/29

Nature Tries to Imagine a World Without Mosquitoes/Malaria

02 Infectious Disease, 07 Health, True Cost

Published online 21 July 2010 | Nature 466, 432-434 (2010)

Ecology: A world without mosquitoes

Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn't it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes, finds Janet Fang.

(download pdf version)
Every day, Jittawadee Murphy unlocks a hot, padlocked room at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, to a swarm of malaria-carrying mosquitoes (Anopheles stephensi). She gives millions of larvae a diet of ground-up fish food, and offers the gravid females blood to suck from the bellies of unconscious mice — they drain 24 of the rodents a month. Murphy has been studying mosquitoes for 20 years, working on ways to limit the spread of the parasites they carry. Still, she says, she would rather they were wiped off the Earth.

That sentiment is widely shared. Malaria infects some 247 million people worldwide each year, and kills nearly one million. Mosquitoes cause a huge further medical and financial burden by spreading yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya virus and West Nile virus. Then there's the pest factor: they form swarms thick enough to asphyxiate caribou in Alaska and now, as their numbers reach a seasonal peak, their proboscises are plunged into human flesh across the Northern Hemisphere.

So what would happen if there were none? Would anyone or anything miss them? Nature put this question to scientists who explore aspects of mosquito biology and ecology, and unearthed some surprising answers.

Continue reading “Nature Tries to Imagine a World Without Mosquitoes/Malaria”

2010/09/292011/01/04

Reference: Robert Steele at Huffington Post

About the Idea, Collective Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Key Players, Methods & Process, Open Government, Policies, Reform, Threats, Worth A Look

Robert David Steele

Recovering spy, serial pioneer for open and public intelligence

Posted: September 28, 2010 10:25 AM

It's Official — Steele Won Virtual Presidency

I held a bi-partisan vote today, with me representing the Democratic Party while I represented the Republican Party. Strict ballot access controls ensured a unanimous outcome — the new Virtual President of the United States of America is Robert David Steele, or for Latinos, Roberto David de Steele y Vivas.

Over the next 45 days, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I will announce one critical policy decision, always in the context of a balanced budget and always with the public interest in mind — this is not going to be pretty, but 45 days from today, every American will be able to compare my virtual track record with the actual track record of those seeking re-election, or in the case of a tiny handful that overcame enormous obstacles, those seeking election for the first time.

“The Century of the Self”: Must-See Documentary on Psychology, Advertising, Consumerism and Control

03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Health, Academia, Civil Society, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, True Cost, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

FULL VIDEO HERE

Century of the Self (ADAM CURTIS)

DOCUMENTARY DESCRIPTION
Episode 1: Happiness Machine
Episode 2: The Engineering of Consent
Episode 3: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed
Episode 4: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

CENTURY OF THE SELF asks the deep questions about the roots and methods of consumerism and representative democracy and the implications of the two. The foundation of this documentary is the idea that public relations and politicians have used the theories of Sigmund Freud to engineer a society of consent.

This series is about how those in power have used Freud s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy. Adam Curtis

For more information about this series, visit its Wikipedia page.

Keywords from imdb.com: Propaganda, Public Relations, Consumerism, Capitalism, Media, Advertising

Related:
Documentary – “The Corporation” (full movie in 23 parts at YouTube)

Category: Policies

Journal: Finally, A Break in Foreclosures

How the “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” class launched several internationally known start-ups

Working through partners, getting to market faster

Journal: Chuck Spinney on Deadly Games of Deceit

Are Obama’s Hands Tied?

Journal: The Domestic Politics of Afghanistan

The War Over The War

Nature Tries to Imagine a World Without Mosquitoes/Malaria

Ecology: A world without mosquitoes

Reference: Robert Steele at Huffington Post

Robert David Steele

It's Official — Steele Won Virtual Presidency

“The Century of the Self”: Must-See Documentary on Psychology, Advertising, Consumerism and Control