Finance Matters

Posts Tagged ‘financial crisis’

A Nashville, Tenn. foreclosure case concerning JP Morgan Chase and a former civil rights activist is slowly starting to draw national attention.

JP Morgan Chase started foreclosure proceedings on 78 year-old Helen Bailey when the elderly woman fell behind on her monthly payments because of high medical expenses. But Bailey’s case has been picked up by the Occupy Nashville movement, who has taken it up as one of their major causes. Since then, the movement of support for Bailey has garnered over 37,000 signatures on the social action site Change.org.

The criticism of Chase has focused on the fact that the bank has continued foreclosure proceedings whilst running a promotional campaign that compares Chase’s dedication to serving the local community to the vision Dr. King had when he was striving for civil rights, said Will York, a member of Occupy Nashville’s Housing Protection Group. The campaign features Chase’s collaboration on a web project of Dr. King-related documents called The King Center.

“It’s interesting that Chase needs a spokesperson in Martin Luther King to sell their special brand of callousness,” York told Business Insider.

Bailey herself was a civil rights activist that marched in protests and attended Dr. King’s speeches in Nashville. She’s lived in her house in Nashville for over 12 years, and it is only two houses away from her church. 

A Chase spokesperson told Business Insider that the bank has postponed a foreclosure sale on Bailey’s home four times and hopes to reach an amicable solution. The campaign against Chase comes during a period of heavy negative publicity for banks amid the Occupy Wall Street movement and multiple public lawsuits connected to subprime mortgages issued before the financial crisis.

The support movement wants Chase to stop taking money from Bailey, reasoning that they have already made a profit from the elderly woman paying 7% interest on her house. In addition, Occupy Nashville has found a company that is willing to buy the house from Chase for $85,000, which will free Bailey from her mortgage obligations.

“We believe she’s paid her dues to Chase and it’s time for them to step up and show some social responsibility,” York said.

The campaign for Bailey has recently gathered speed with increased publicity by drawing support from civil rights activists like Cornel West and Black Leadership Forum head Gary Flowers. The outcry of supporters has already helped Bailey—Chase planned an auction of her house last month, but that has been delayed until next week, according to York. The bank knows of the protest movement and the petition but has not communicated with Occupy Nashville or other Bailey supporters, he added.

Bailey’s foreclosure struggle has been featured by Change.org and is the most popular “Economic Justice” movement of the week. Change.org has succeeded in the past in helping those in need stop home foreclosures from banks, though what’s in store for Bailey is still up in the air.

Occupy Nashville has also created a video in support of Bailey:

Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Here’s How JP Morgan Beat Goldman Sachs To The Second Underwriting Spot On The Facebook IPO
• People E-Mail Their Horrible Bank Of America Stories To YouTube Star Jackie Ramos All The Time Now
• For Two Solid Minutes, Jim Cramer Sounded Like He Was Giving A Speech For Occupy Wall Street Last Night

John T. Harvey is Professor of Economics at Texas Christian University and a leading non-neoclassical economist. He is doing his bit to raise awareness of alternative approaches to economics via a blog that is published by Forbes Magazine. John explains his motivation for establishing this blog as follows:

I am a firm believer that economics can and must be made understandable to the general public, but that our discipline has done a very poor job in this regard. This is particularly true of macro issues, where people quite naturally assume that their personal experiences are analogous to those at the national scale. Very often, this is not the case, with the result that politicians and voters (and some economists) press for policies whose effects are quite the opposite of what was intended. That this is problematic has never been more evident than today. I also try to steer as clear of politics as possible. I want to explain how things work, not what you should believe.

John’s most recent blog entry takes aim at one of my favourite targets: neoclassical economists and their role in blindly leading the world into the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. He notes that “economists were the ones who provided the intellectual justification for the transformation of our economy over the past thirty years”, and shows just how bizarre their

When asked what was most important to success as an economist, students ranked these skills in this order:

1. Being smart in the sense of being good at problem solving.
2. Excellence in mathematics.
3. Being very knowledgeable about one particular field.
4. Ability to make connections with prominent professors.
5. Being interested in, and being good at, empirical research.
6. Having a broad knowledge of the economics literature.
7. Having a thorough knowledge of the economy.

No, I did not accidentally type the list backwards! And, if anything, the relegation of “knowledge of the economy” to dead last has become worse. Courses that would have provided context and empirical grounding to theory have been slowly replaced over the past thirty years by those teaching more mathematical methods. Today, students learn more about set theory than they do about the merger movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries–if they hear about the latter at all, which is increasingly unlikely.

John is also very complimentary about my approach to economics.

I recommend reading “How Economics Contributed to the Financial Crisis“, and subscribing to John’s blog as well.

Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Proposed Robo-Mortgage Settlement Might Give Banks A Free Pass
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Dentist Dad May Be Worth ~ $60,000,000
• Here Are The Ads You Will See On Super Bowl Sunday—By Quarter, In Order

Today was a huge day for the economy. U.S. companies added 243k jobs in January and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3%.

This fueled a major surge in the stock markets, which hit some major milestones.  Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq hit pre-financial crisis levels.  The Dow closed at 12,862, a 4-year high, and the Nasdaq jumped to 2,905, an 11-year high.

The S&P 500, which is arguably the best snapshot of the U.S. stock markets, hit 1,344, a 6-month high.

Here’s a look at some historical charts courtesy of Yahoo Finance.

SEE ALSO: Wall Street’s Sharpest Minds Predict Where Stocks Are Headed In 2012 >

Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• STOCKS GO NOWHERE ON MORE DISAPPOINTING DATA: Here’s What You Need To Know
• Asian Markets Are Mixed After Chinese PMI Beats Expectations
• European Markets Are In Total Melt-Up Mode To Start The New Month

Paul Krugman is giving a talk in Paris, and he’s put up several charts that he says are key to understanding the Eurozone crisis.

This one may be the best, as it debunks the idea that the PIIGS — called the GIPSIs in this chart — were running up debt like crazy.

They weren’t. They had declining ratios, which only exploded once the financial crisis hit.

Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Why Portugal Might Be The Real Trigger That Causes The Eurozone To Spiral Out Of Control
• Two Big Lessons From The Dazzling Market Rally In Europe…
• European Markets EXPLODE Higher And Investors Wonder If The Rally Can Last

From WSJ…

Richard D. Parsons, who as chairman of Citigroup Inc. helped steer the bank through its near-death experience in the financial crisis, is considering stepping down after three years in the post, said people familiar with the situation.

The 63-year-old Mr. Parsons is expected to decide by early March, these people said.

We’re not sure what to make of it. You don’t hear much about Parsons, and it’s hard to imagine this move would been se seen as a huge game-changer, especially with the CEO/Chairman roles split.

Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Worst Political Failure Of The Obama Administration
• Here Is The Anti-Obama Administration Letter That Was Read To Almost Every Catholic Sitting In Church Today
• ROBERT SHILLER: A Housing Bottom? What Are They Thinking?