CAPITALISM IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT

By Laura Bassett
HUFFINGTON POST

The Village of Hempstead, a relatively low-income, minority-heavy municipality on Long Island, pulled its money out of JP Morgan Chase bank on Tuesday as part of a statewide campaign protesting the bank’s dismal mortgage modification record.

“It’s important that Chase and all the big corporate banks start to heed the minority communities,” Hempstead Mayor Wayne Hall said in an interview. “There’s a lot of power in the minority communities. If we all stick together and start withdrawing our money out of these big banks and start putting it into more favorable banks, Chase will review its procedures for modifications.”

Nearly one in every four U.S. homeowners with mortgages — or 10.8 million people — currently owe more on their home than it’s worth. In Hempstead, almost 4 percent of homes are in the foreclosure process, according to Dealbook, a rate four times Nassau County average. While data on Chase loans in Hempstead are hard to come by, in nearby New York City, only six percent of the 1,027 borrowers with Chase mortgages who asked for help in the past year were granted a permanent modification, according to a report released recently by the Center for New York City Neighborhoods. Moreover, a full 80 percent of these homeowners have not even received an offer for a loan modification.

Chase’s national modification record is not much better. Of 233,653 trial modifications started by Chase under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) launched in 2009, the bank now has just 71,657 active permanent modifications, according to the latest data from the Treasury Department.

One Hempstead homeowner, Maribel Toure, said she has been trying and failing to modify her mortgage loan with Chase bank for two and a half years.

“It has been an unhealthy experience, with bad communication and no response,” she told NY Communities for Change, a coalition of working families in low- and moderate-income communities. “I have to work 16-hour shifts in the hospital to make extra money, and I’ve asked for a modification three times, but have gotten no straight answer — I’m stuck in limbo.”

A Chase spokesperson said the bank has “served the financial needs of the Village of Hempstead well” for more than 30 years.

“In New York, Chase has offered 50,000 modifications to struggling borrowers and has prevented seven foreclosures for every one foreclosure here,” he said. “This past weekend, we met face-to-face with 2,200 borrowers in Brooklyn to help them stay in their homes.”

The Village of Hempstead is the first municipality in the country to close a bank account due to foreclosure policies. But a spokesperson for NY Communities for Change said many local governments throughout the state are planning to close their Chase accounts in the coming months. New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams marched into a Park Avenue Chase bank in February to close his account, and major unions have also announced their intention to pull their pension-fund money out of JP Morgan Chase.

“Banks like Chase should be ashamed of themselves,” Hempstead Deputy Mayor Henry Conyers said in a press release. “They were bailed out with taxpayer money – now look what they are doing to the taxpayer: foreclosing instead of modifying.”

By Maxwell Strachen
HUFFINGTON POST

In 2009, the Internal Revenue Service announced plans to unleash a new enforcement unit called the Global High Wealth Industry, the goal being to better investigate the complex finances of America’s wealthiest taxpayers.

They weren’t kidding.

Recently released IRS statistics indicate that the federal government increased their audits of America’s richest taxpayers — those with incomes above $10 million — by 75 percent last year. Nearly one in five — 18.5 percent — of America’s richest households dealt with an audit. In 2009, the Global High Wealth Industry’s first year of operation, the IRS audited only one in ten of America’s richest taxpayers.

Complex tax evasion has become an increasing problem in recent years, with popular strategies including conversion of income into capital gains and stashing cash in Swiss banks.

Audit rates also increased among some lower income brackets, but none so much. The second highest audit increase was among the second highest income bracket: those reporting incomes of $5M-$10M. They saw a 55 percent increase in their audit rate, totaling 11.6 percent. High, but much smaller than the increase experienced by the $10M-plus bracket.

Audits rate for those with incomes between $1-$75K remained largely the same.

Overall, the IRS increased the percentage of audits by about 11 percent from the year prior. That means 1.58 million tax returns — about 1.11 percent of all returns filed — were audited, costing the IRS about 53 cents per $100 collected — a 3 cent increase from 2009.

Criminal investigations by the IRS also increased by 14.2 percent this year, according to Businessweek. Demographic breakdowns of the alleged criminals are unavailable.

By Sara Ackerman
HUFFINGTON POST

To find a community bank or credit union near you, visit www.moveyourmoneyproject.org

More than 4 million accounts have already moved away from the nation’s largest banks and this trend will only increase according to Moebs Services, an economic research firm in Lake Bluff, IL. Previously, large banks with over $50 billion in assets held 45% of the 130 million consumer checking accounts in 2009. That number has been decreasing dramatically with Bank of America losing 400,000 accounts in 2010 alone.

This trend will only continue, according to Michael Moebs, CEO of Moebs Services, who predicts an additional 7 to 9 million accounts moving by the end of 2011. The trend should plateau in 2012 after the nation’s largest banks see between 13 and 17 million accounts moving to local community banks and credit unions in just three short years. If Moebs’ predictions come to fruition, the largest financial firms will only hold a third of all free checking accounts in the US by the end of 2012, a huge drop from the 45% they held in 2009.

This mass-exodus from the nation’s ‘Too Big To Fail’ firms is by no means accidental. Customers are beginning to wise-up to Wall Street’s abuses and are choosing to vote with their dollars. The Move Your Money project, a campaign that began around a Christmas dinner table by Arianna Huffington and a few friends, encouraged individuals and institutions to divest from the nation’s largest Wall Street banks and move to local financial institutions. One year later, the campaign has been a major success, boasting over 36,000 supporters and coverage in more than 150 different media outlets. The Move Your Money project continues to give the disenfranchised American a chance to truly make a statement against the financial firms who wreaked havoc on our economy.

Not only are people seeing the moral imperative to move their money out of the ‘Too Big To Fail’ firms, they are also growing weary of the exorbitantly high fees that Wall Street execs continually dream up and dupe their customers into paying. Previously, banks were allowed to enroll consumers into “overdraft protection” which allowed a person to spend beyond their checking account, but with a hefty fee ranging from $25-35. After the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform bill passed in July of last year, the rules have changed and consumers have to opt-in for overdraft protection.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take the banks long to come up with new ways to swindle money from their customers. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase have already begun experimenting with new fee structures based on consumer behavior such as maintaining a certain minimum balance, enrolling in direct deposit and using a debit card a certain number of times each month. Banks are also beginning to charge customers monthly fees for what once was a free checking account, and customers are beginning to take notice. Derek Juhl of Seattle went into Chase to close his account after he found a monthly fee had been attached to his once free checking account and was told, “Congress made us do it,” a fairly disingenuous claim considering 65% of banks still offer free checking in-spite of the new rules.

Moebs predicts that with an increase in fees, the largest banks have signaled an intention to move away from free checking accounts altogether, in large part because the endeavor is no longer profitable for them. Moebs explains, “If banks have high overhead, deposit accounts are not helpful. Usually banks in the transaction business have to be very efficient and be within their economies of scale.”

Moebs, who created a process on economies of scale, patent pending, explains that the large financial institutions have long surpassed this mark and are currently trying to reign in on overhead by getting rid of their least profitable customers–people who maintain low balances and commit too many errors like overdrawing their account and bouncing checks.

However, “this is not the death of free checking” says Moebs. Rather, small regional and community banks, as well as credit unions are still willing and able to offer free checking accounts and on average, charge 70% less in overdraft fees. With lower overhead costs and higher efficiency, small financial institutions can still offer free checking accounts and remain profitable.

So what are you waiting for? Don’t wait for the Wall Street firms to nickel-and-dime you, move your money today!

To find a community bank or credit union near you, visit www.moveyourmoneyproject.org