Argie vote unlikely to kill deal recovery : But don’t expect miracles

Argie vote unlikely to kill deal recovery : But don’t expect miracles

Asset Securitization Report–SourceMedia (April 28, 2003)

The leading contenders in Argentina’s presidential election are unlikely to derail a budding recovery in structured finance, most observers said. But even if the new administration swiftly executes market-friendly policies, a proper securitization sector looms only in the medium- to long-term, after banks have cleaned up their books and genuine confidence returns to the battered market.

“We need a president who will sow the seeds of business certainty in the country,” said Juan Pablo de Mollein, associate director of Latin American-structured finance at Standard & Poor’s. “Only after that happens can we see the generation of assets such as auto loans and mortgages come back to life.”

The signs leading up the elections, scheduled for April 27, are heartening. “Interest rates and the dollar have been falling ahead of the elections, and that’s good for the sector,” said Mario Kenny, a partner at law firm Nicholson y Cano. Those indicators are inarguably a response to a recent climb in poll numbers for the two market darlings among the candidates: Carlos Menem and Ricardo Lopez Murphy.

Still, first-round results and voter intentions under different run-off scenarios remain disconcertingly opaque. Everyone expects a second round. According to recent polls, only former president Menem might collect more than 20% of the vote in the initial ballot. While he and Lopez Murphy appeal to financiers, two rivals with experience as provincial governors, Adolfo Rodriguez Saa and Nestor Kirchner, are pushing an agenda that is more hands-on than many investors would like. Further on the left stands market bogeywoman Elisa Carrio, who is plumping for income distribution, selective capital controls and interventionist policies for the oil business.

Menem, Lopez Murphy and Kirchner appear to be ahead in the days before the vote, but picking the definitive winner is like predicting the outcome of a dizzying game of musical chairs.

Restoring credibility to Argentina’s banking system and cleaning up a landscape strewn with ugly defaults – including the government’s – are among the main challenges facing the incoming administration, analysts said. According to Merrill Lynch, the sovereign needs to restructure a whopping US$65 billion with overseas and local investors. At the same time, banks are saddled with appalling mismatches on their books due to the pesification of debts.

Merrill predicts a “wait-and-see” period of a few months should Kirchner or Rodriguez Saa prevail. A win by Carrio, most agree, would cause at the very least short-term financial upset. “There would again be rising interest and dollar rates,” said Sergio Capdevila, head of trust services for local bank Banco de Valores.

Higher rates would, of course, cripple consumer credit, an asset that is just beginning to make a comeback. On the flip side, a continued drop in interest rates – most likely under Lopez Murphy or Menem – would further spur consumption. That sector has yielded a couple of deals in the last several months, the last being a securitization of consumer loans originated by Banco Saenz (see ASR 4/23, p.18). Argentine chain Garbarino and the local operations of Chilean department store Falabella are waiting in the wings with transactions as well, sources said. A continued improvement in the economic climate would bring them out.

On the agricultural front, chances are producers and exporters will keep tapping funds via securitizations since banks remain in such poor shape. The return of serious bank funding is not expected in the short term even under the administration of the more market-friendly candidates. “The banks have no capital to lend right now; that’s something that’s not going to be resolved quickly,” said a Buenos Aires-based analyst.

On the other hand, some point out that if the situation normalizes – still at the soonest a medium-term scenario – foreign banks could step in to provide cash for the export sector, which is in overdrive thanks to the cheap currency.

While the poll numbers for both Carrio and Rodriguez Saa have edged down recently, their policy talk on the oil sector is troubling to the investment community. Both have mentioned the possibility of setting up a state oil company, a proposal disparaged by many analysts as ill conceived and fantastical. “The state is bankrupt, where would they get the resources to do that?” one banker asked rhetorically. Perhaps more unsettling are calls by the Carrio and Rodriguez Saa camps for oil exporters to pay higher taxes or face forced repatriation of profits, since those ideas appear to be more politically palatable and are certainly more workable than establishing a state producer. A casualty of those policies would no doubt be Argentine oil giant YPF, the only issuer to break the silence of the Argentine cross-border market over the last year. In December and again in early February, the producer issued deals totaling US$520 million behind a concealed identity (see ASR 2/17, p.17).

Even under an auspicious framework, securitization sectors mauled by the crisis, such as MBS and deals backed by federal participation revenues, will conceivably take years to return. The pesification of debt triggered massive defaults in those sectors and investors will be licking their wounds for years to come.

Some economists suggest an overhaul of the co-participation system, whereby the federal government distributes taxes to the provinces. “A less rigid and simpler system needs to be put in place to make provinces accountable for tax collection,” said Merrill Lynch in an elections report penned by fixed-income strategist Pablo Goldberg.

MBS is far off on the horizon, not least because there has been no mortgage origination since the crisis erupted in the final weeks of 2001. And just the mention of BHN, the acronym for the originator of Argentine MBS, sends shivers up the spines of emerging market investors. Banco Hipotecario Nacional, the full name of the bank, defaulted on all its deals, which amounted to US$616 million.

But even if BHN eventually sorts out its problems, mortgage origination is still stifled by an unrelated problem. To keep a lid on price increases, the government has imposed a prohibition on indexing debt to inflation. But that is a sine qua non of long-term credit in Latin American countries. Even in much safer emerging markets, like neighboring Chile, nominally denominated mortgages are unheard of. “You can’t have mortgages without indexation; it’s as simple as that,” said one Buenos Aires-based banker.

Copyright 2003 Thomson Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.thomsonmedia.com

States Fight Foreclosure Rescue Scams

January 21, 2008

Foreclosure

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/01/foreclosure_states.html

The wave of foreclosures has brought even more pain to some strapped homeowners – a wave of mortgage rescue scams. Some attorneys general are gearing up to counter these fraudulent operations.

In Iowa, Attorney General Tom Miller has drafted a package of legislation providing new safeguards to people taking out mortgages.

Miller’s package also contains a bill that directly addresses mortgage foreclosure rescue fraud – scams that prey on people facing foreclosure by asking them to pay hundreds of dollars for so called assistance or “rescue” from the danger of foreclosure.

“The problem is these ‘rescue scams’ just take people’s money and fail to do almost anything to help them avoid foreclosure,” Miller said. “And they take precious funds from people who are vulnerable and who can least afford to be cheated. This is the definition of adding insult to injury.”

Dan and Patricia Potter, Des Moines residents who were the victims of a questionable foreclosure “rescue” scheme, joined Miller at a news conference last week.

The Potters were in danger of foreclosure, and paid $795 to a company that claimed it would set up arrangements to help them stay out of foreclosure. But Miller said the company made no attempt to make the arrangements, and then insisted on another $500 payment. The Potters were able to recover about half of the $795.

“Foreclosure rescue scams are just starting to appear in Iowa,” Miller said. “It’s a symptom of the overall climate of an avalanche of foreclosures here and all over the country. We need this legislation to prevent the problem flaring up here as it has in many other places,” he said.

In Indiana, Attorney General Steve Carter filed a lawsuit against Indianapolis-based Capital Foreclosure, Inc. seeking nearly $20,000 in restitution for customers and an injunction to halt the company and its operators from illegal practices.

“Some people lost their homes after placing their trust with this company,” Carter said. “The company exploited the vulnerability of its customers who faced foreclosure.”

Carter says nearly 20 people sought “foreclosure rescue” and credit counseling services from Capital Foreclosure and its operators, Eriq Brye, Kenneth Brye and Sallie Brye. Individuals paid fees and other costs that ranged from $40 to as high as $4,100.

The attorney general’s office is seeking customer restitution totaling $19,176 and penalties and costs of up to $5,500 per violation.

Miller, meanwhile, says foreclosure rescue scams take money people desperately need to address their foreclosure situation, and they may cause people to delay authentic efforts to modify a mortgage and come to terms with lenders that the borrower can afford.

“Some rescue scams specifically tell people not to contact their lender or loan servicer, and that can just make matters worse,” he said.

Deep Capture

Check out this dude

http://www.deepcapture.com/deep-capture-the-explanation/

Kaptur Starts New Congress As Longest Serving Democratic Woman In House History

January 6:

Kaptur Starts New Congress As Longest Serving Democratic Woman In House History

| Print |

Representative Marcy Kaptur, the senior woman in the House, served as one of four teller clerks in the vote for Speaker of the House as the 111th Congress was convened.

Kaptur began her 14th term as representative of Ohio’s Ninth Congressional District. The occasion marked her elevation to the role of dean of the Ohio delegation and a place in House history as the longest-serving Democratic woman in the history of the House of Representatives.

“I am thrilled to begin a new Congress with so many new faces from Ohio,” Kaptur said. “With a Democratic President and such a strong Democratic majority in Congress, we have an unprecedented opportunity to ensure peace and prosperity for Ohio and the entire country.”

Besides serving as teller clerk at the invitation of Speaker Pelosi, the Speaker also appointed Kaptur to serve as one of her appointees to the important House Steering and Policy Committee, the leadership body that assigns members to committees and spearheads internal policy discussions in the Democratic Caucus.

As a result of yesterday’s Steering and Policy decisions, Kaptur was able to insure that Ohio will be well-represented by Freshmen across the Committee spectrum. Representative Marcia Fudge (OH-11) was named to the Education and Labor Committee, Representatives Steve Driehaus (OH-01) and Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15) were both named to the Financial Services Committee, and John Boccieri (OH-16) was named to Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Last month, Steering and Policy chose Representatives Zack Space (OH18) and Betty Sutton (OH-13) for the prestigious Energy and Commerce Committee.

Kaptur, meanwhile, will remain as a senior member of the coveted House Appropriations Committee where subcommittee selection will take place later this week. She will also continue to serve on the Budget Committee.

The Ohio delegation now stands at ten Democrats to eight Republicans, the first time since 1934 the delegation has had a two seat Democratic margin.

squatters

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squatting

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Steered Wrong: Brokers, Borrowers, and Subprime Loans

http://www.responsiblelending.org/issues/mortgage/research/steered-wrong-brokers-borrowers-and-subprime-l-oans.html

In recent years, a majority of subprime loans made in the United States have been originated by mortgage brokers, who can properly be characterized as the “engine” of the subprime market. The rapid growth of subprime lending was fueled by thousands of mortgage brokers across the country delivering billions of dollars of subprime loans to mortgage lenders, who in turn packaged and sold them to Wall Street investors.

Because of their major role, mortgage brokers have had significant influence in which loans were originated, who received them, and at what price. Ideally, mortgage brokers present their clients with available financing options and help them choose the most suitable loan. But the dismal performance of subprime mortgages has put brokers and their actual practices under increased scrutiny.

In this report, we analzyed broker pricing patterns by comparing the cost of loans provided by mortgage brokers to those provided by retail lenders, such as banks, credit unions, and mortgage bankers. We analyzed more than 1.7 million mortgages originated between 2004 and 2006 and compared “matched pairs” of loans with similar risks to contrast the experience of borrowers who received loans from brokers and retail lenders.

We found significant differences between broker and lender pricing on home loans, primarily on mortgages originated for families with weaker credit histories: From the first year of the loan, borrowers with credit profiles in the subprime range pay substantially more for brokered loans than they would have if they had obtained their loan directly from a lender. In the first year alone, a typical subprime borrower pays over $1,000 more; this cost gap grows to over $5,000 after four-years, and almost $36,000 over a 30-year life of the loan.

Read our press release about this report.

Listen to April 8, 2008 press teleconference announcing the release of this report.

Read Statement of report author Keith Ernst, Senior Policy Counsel, CRL.

Read Statement of California State Assemblymember Ted Lieu.

Read Statement of Pamela Kennebrew, Philadelphia Unemployment Project. Listen to Ms Kennebrew.

Say “No” to Gotcha Bank Fees

Say “No” to Gotcha Bank Fees

The Federal Reserve Board wants to know what you think.

Should the Fed:

* Require banks to let customers out of their expensive overdraft systems upon request?

* Or make banks get your permission before enrolling you in the first place.

Here’s a chance to help them get it right.

Tell them you want opt-in.

Banks should simply not be allowed to enroll their customers—without their permission—in systems that approve overdrafts without warning, and that artificially increase the number of $35 fees the banks’ can charge for a shortfall. It is fundamentally unfair.

As the FDIC confirmed through a survey of their banks, the practice is out of control. It is costing working people big chunks of their hard-earned income.

Comments on the Federal Reserve Board’s new rules are due March 30, 2009.

The “gotcha” practices that banks are using to inflate overdraft fees are not acceptable. Tell the Fed you want opt-in, and if you have been burned by banks’ unfair overdraft practices, tell them your story.

Send a letter to the following decision maker(s):

Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System

Below is the sample letter:

Subject: Docket No. R-1343: We say “NO” to Gotcha Bank Fees

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

Tell the Fed you want opt-in, and if you have been burned by banks’ unfair overdraft practices, tell them your story.

Sincerely,

mario kenny

Take Action!

Instructions:

Click here to take action on this issue

Tell-A-Friend:

Visit the web address below to tell your friends they have a chance to say NO to gotcha bank fees.

Tell-a-Friend!

What’s At Stake:

Prevailing overdraft practices artificially drive up fees

Banks and credit unions now enroll many of their account holders into the most expensive option for covering overdrafts—an option customers generally don’t want and didn’t ask for—and leave them without the information they need to protect their funds. Under these systems, financial institutions routinely approve uncovered transactions without warning their customers of a deficit in their accounts, and charge an average $34 fee for each incident, even when the uncovered purchase is for just a few dollars.

Fees vastly outweigh shortfalls

Almost half of all overdrafts (46%) are triggered by debit cards at the ATM or the point of sale. These overdrafts could be easily prevented with a warning or denial. Most debit point-of-sale overdrafts are small, averaging less than half this $34 fee, meaning that these overdraft loans cost nearly $2 for every dollar advanced to cover the shortfall.

Unfair practices

Unfair practices include holding deposits longer than necessary and clearing daily transactions from the highest to the lowest, which often allows the bank to charge more fees than are warranted. Banks and credit unions are collecting $17.5 billion per year in abusive overdraft fees, higher even than the $15.8 billion extended in funds to cover the overdrafts.

Campaign Expiration Date:

March 31, 2009

Those $18 billion in bonuses were earned from hidden profits: The Joke is on Us

http://livinglies.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/those-18-billion-in-bonuses-were-earned-from-hidden-profits-the-joke-is-on-us/

January 30, 2009 · 1 Comment

Obama is course correct in his outrage. Taking hundreds of billions of dollars from the taxpayers to cover the appearances of catastrophic losses and then paying bonuses for good management is over the top by any standards. But neither he nor the media is correct in assuming that that the bonuses were not in fact earned by the people who defrauded us in the first place with the mortgage meltdown. Those bonuses were paid BECAUSE PROFIT WAS GENERATED even if it wasn’t completely reported. Nobody seems to get it — the key acronym is OPM (other people’s money). Wall Street did not lose any money, they made record profits, kept it, took taxpayer money too and now they are in the process of also taking the properties of unsuspecting homeowners who still don’t understand what hit them and how it was done.

At no time did the investment bankers have their own capital at risk during the selling of the mortgage backed securities. They were ALWAYS using the money of other people (investors). Every time money moves, financial insitutions make money. In this case both their existence and their profits and fees were and remain largely undisclosed. Starting with the “forward sale” (i.e., selling what you don’t have “yet”) of certificates of mortgage backed securities at a nominal rate of interest that could never be paid and filling in the void with either non-existent mortgage obligations or deals in which the actual expected life of the “loan” was as little as a month and at most five years, investment bankers made astonishing profits PLUS fees. Selling a note with a nominal interest rate of 18% to an investor looking for a 6% return enabled investment bankers to receive $900,000 on a “loan” that was funded for $300,000. You don’t really think they went wild selling these things because they were making money on volume with basis points as fees do you?

And at the “pretender lender” level where a financial institution pretended to be the underwriter of a home loan and where the committees to verify viability, value and income were disbanded, they put on a good face because they were being paid for the renting of their charter to people and companies who were operating as bankers without even being seen, much less regulated. So the “pretender lender” would charge all the “normal” fees for a sub-sub prime loan into which the borrower was steered when they qualified for a conventional loan, PLUS an undisclosed 2.5% fee for renting their charter out to an undisclosed third party. Now Countrywide and others are telling borrowers that they won’t reveal the true name of the lender because the information is confidential. Why? Because when the borrower and investor get together they will have proof positive of  identical fraud on both ends of this game. You didn’t think that these lenders were advertising for borrowers because they were making a few hundred dollars on each loan plus interest, did you? NO, they were never at risk because they were using OPM and they got paid $30,000 on that $300,000 loan funding.

Did you think home prices went up because of increased demand for housing? Take a look around you. We have enough inventory to satisfy demand for the next three or four years without another stick being nailed. Home prices went up because Wall Street needed to move money — lots of it — $13 trillion to be exact. And they had a problem. They had run out of borrowers, buyers, and homeowners seeking refinancing. So they invented them and inflated the “price” or “value” of the house to satisfy the demand from Wall Street for $100 billion per month in paper.

It isn’t that the bonuses were unearned or that actual losses were incurred. The story here is that they didn’t lose money and did earn the bonuses. It was everyone else who lost money. And yet we continue to throw money at the “infrastructure” (translation: big institutions) for the same stupid WMD reasons that got us into Iraq. There are 6,000 depository bank institutions in this country alone, most of whom are NOT in trouble. Most community bankers and loan managers at credit unions didn’t play the mortgage meltdown game. Without a penny of “bailout” they could have filled the void created by these giant thieves and credit would be flowing. There is nothing new in that model. Every time a financial institution buckles, the FDIC, OCC, FED or OTS steps in, breaks them up and distributes the assets with value to healthy institutions. The only reason that didn’t happen  this time is that government was in bed with the regulators.

Credit will flow when the world has confidence in the United States economy and financial system. A fraud has occurred under our watch (all of us). The system can’t correct until the fraud is corrected, the damages are measured and a plan is in place that will actually (not cosmetically) put people back in the position they were in before the fraud occurred. That means the mortgages must fall, the notes must be reduced (or eliminated) and the investors must have a GOOD bank representing them that will participate in equity appreciation in the homes, not a BAD bank that will apply lipstick to a pig. Right now it is the mortgage servicers and other middlemen who never put up a dime who are getting and keeping the houses and proceeds of foreclosure sales. They are laughing all the way to their own bank.

Putting homeowners back in the black will provide a greater stimulus than any plans being offered today, although the current stimulus packages are badly needed for us to compete globally. Putting investors in a position where they can recover some or all of their investment will inject confidence into limping marketplace. And putting the thieves in jail will tell the world, we recognize and correct our mistakes — giving us a chance to regain or re-earn some moral high ground.

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MORE ON THE MURDER OF MARVIN SCHUR…the 93 year old retired machinist who froze to death because he couldn’t pay his electric bill

Posted in Uncategorized by gangbox on the January 29, 2009

from the WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE:

Funeral held for Marvin Schur

Unanswered questions remain in freezing death of 93-year-old Michigan man

By Tom Eley

29 January 2009

On Tuesday, a memorial service was held in Bay City, Michigan, for Marvin Schur, the 93-year-old man who froze to death some time between January 13 and 17 after the municipal electricity company installed a device on his house to limit his electricity because of unpaid energy bills. This “limiter” cut power to his house, and Schur eventually died from hypothermia amidst a bitter cold front that descended on Michigan that week.

Memorial service for Marvin SchurMemorial service for Marvin Schur

A great deal of anger lingers in this industrial town of 36,000 people over the city’s inhuman treatment of Schur and its callous response after his death. Neither the city nor the local newspaper, the Bay City News, has explained why it took so long for the circumstances of Schur’s death to come to light.

Dozens of people attended the service, including family members, friends and neighbors. In addition, several others attended who did not know Schur personally but came to express their solidarity and feelings of sadness and anger over the man’s fate. Schur had no children, but left behind a nephew in Saginaw, Michigan.

During the service one family member thanked the neighbors on Schur’s block for looking in on him and assisting him over many years. This was a rebuke to city officials who, in dodging responsibility for the man’s death, blamed the old man’s neighbors for allegedly failing to check on him. During the service the priest referred obliquely to the need to look after the weak and vulnerable, but did not specifically mention the circumstances of Shur’s death.

It was clear many people at the service remained angry over Schur’s needless and painful death. After the service, the World Socialist Web Site spoke with several people in attendance.

Gail FoxGail Fox

Gail Fox is a retired registered nurse on disability who lives in Bay City. She did not know Schur, but said, “I came because I had read the newspaper. This is a disgrace on the city.

“It’s really hard times here. I can’t afford my heating bills either. I keep my heat at 50 degrees, and I have a 16-year-old. We have to wear coats inside.

“Look at all the money they’re spending on the Wall Street bailouts. I’m still hoping that Obama can change things. I was surprised his stimulus package has nothing for people facing foreclosure. I thought he was going to give more to the people because the Democrats generally do. But I guess if you weren’t born with that silver spoon in your mouth nobody cares. ”

JoanneJoanne

Like Gail, Joanne, a retired supermarket worker, did not know Schur. “You would think that after being unable to pay his bills for four months, especially an old man, that someone would have come to talk to him. They could go out and take the time to make trips to put two limiters on the house, but they couldn’t check on him.”

“I wouldn’t put anything on the house that restricted electricity in that cold weather. Even if he knew what was on the box he wouldn’t have known what to do about it. He was too old.

“It was so cold they were saying even take in your animals. I had furnace trouble and got mine fixed. I remember when the furnace fan came on and I was so glad. That little man sat there, minute by minute, and nothing came on. He must have been wondering what’s going on.

“Some of us were talking and saying what about those big bailouts and this was a man just sitting in his house, reading his paper, who lost his life. It shouldn’t have happened to him.”

Another neighbor told the World Socialist Web Site that Schur, who was a medic in World War Two, “survived Mussolini, he survived Hitler, but he couldn’t survive the Bay City electric company.”

The death has provoked anger from far and wide. Hundreds of people from all over the US and beyond have posted comments on discussion threads at the end of the several Bay City Times articles about Schur’s death.

A secretary at the Bay City manager’s office told the Bay City Times that as of 10 a.m. Wednesday she “had taken about 50 calls from across the country and had another 35 voicemails from people angry with the city over Schur’s death.”

“I’ve taken calls from Canada, Massachusetts, Texas, New York, Alabama—and that’s just the ones I can think of off the top of my head,” the newspaper reported her as saying. “I don’t know how many anybody else has taken, but that’s what I’ve taken. (People are) calling all city departments, not just our office.”

Schur’s death demonstrates not only the bitter results of the profit system applied to basic human necessities, but the disgraceful conditions elderly workers face in the US. Rebecca Reimann, the director of the Bay County Division on Aging, told the local newspaper that while there are over 20,000 senior citizens in Bay County, “we reach about 2,000 to 3,000 of them,” adding “there’s no way were going to be able to know about every situation that’s out there.”

The director of the local state welfare agency in Bay County, Bernell Wiggins, refused to be interviewed for this article. Wiggins would not answer questions about services the state of Michigan provides to the elderly in Bay County. His employees are prevented by a state gag order from communicating with the press.

Unanswered questions

Discrepancies emerging in the official reaction to Schur’s death raise a number of questions. According to city officials, the limiter was put on Schur’s home on January 13, for an unpaid bill of close to $1,100. City officials have admitted that they made no effort to inform the elderly man that the device was installed, much less how to reactivate it so that limited electrical power could have been restored.

Then Schur’s body was discovered on January 17, but city officials made no public announcement of the tragedy. Representatives of city hall, the police department, the electric company, and the city managers office at first offered no comment, much less an explanation. Clearly they hoped to sweep the matter under the rug.

The local media, the Bay City Times and the Saginaw News, reported Schur’s death, but not its circumstances, in obituaries published on January 25, eight days after his body was discovered. Both accounts refer to Schur “pass[ing] away unexpectedly Sunday, January 15, 2009 at his residence.”

After Schur’s memorial service, a WSWS reporter spoke to a journalist from the Bay City Times. The journalist said that the newspaper became aware of the actual circumstances of Schur’s death only after neighbors told the newspaper that they believed Schur had frozen to death. This was confirmed to the newspaper by the coroner hired to perform the autopsy, Kanu Virani.

On Monday, the newspaper ran an article explaining that Schur had frozen to death after the city had cut off its power. The story was quickly picked up by national news media, and has provoked a wave of outrage.

But The Bay City Times has not raised the fact that city officials did not publicly acknowledge the nature of Schur’s death until at least a week after its occurrence.

City officials have yet to acknowledge responsibility for Schur’s death. After initial reactions attempting to pin blame on Schur himself and his neighbors, they have remained largely silent—concerned, no doubt, about the possibility of legal action for criminal negligence or more serious charges.

The callousness of the city, which is dominated by the Democratic Party, is indicative of a social system that regards the market principle—defense of the profit system at the expense of social need—as the holiest of the holies. In fact, even in the wake of Schur’s death city officials continue to operate dozens of “limiters” across the city, and have shut off power to scores of households this winter, many of which are doubtless inhabited by the elderly and small children.

Similar suspensions are taking place across the country and regularly result in house fires, asphyxiations, and freezing deaths. These deaths result directly from the policies of the US political and economic elite, which regard heat, water and electricity not as basic human rights, but as lucrative sources of profit for the financial aristocracy.

2 Responses to ‘MORE ON THE MURDER OF MARVIN SCHUR…the 93 year old retired machinist who froze to death because he couldn’t pay his electric bill’

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1.

MORE ON THE MURDER OF MARVIN SCHUR…the 93 year old retired … | Reduce My Bills said,

on January 29, 2009 on 7:48 pm

[...] MORE ON THE MURDER OF MARVIN SCHUR…the 93 year old retired … 29 January 2009 1 views No Comment MORE ON THE MURDER OF MARVIN SCHUR…the 93 year old retired machinist who froze to death because he couldn’t pay his electric bill . Posted in Uncategorized by gangbox on the January 29, 2009. from the WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE: … Go here to read the rest: MORE ON THE MURDER OF MARVIN SCHUR…the 93 year old retired … [...]

2.

Jim Samples said,

on January 30, 2009 on 2:07 am

This is rediculous. Turning off the means of keeping warm in these harsh winters is criminal and someone needs to be charged in this obvious murder.