Summary: An important article at Harper’s, one every American should read, about the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), created in 1995 by the banks to circumvent property and mortgage laws in the US.
“What’s happened is that, almost overnight, we’ve switched from democracy in real-property recording to oligarchy in real-property recording. There was no court case behind this, no statute from Congress or the state legislatures. It was accomplished in a private corporate decision. The banks just did it.”
— Christopher Peterson (Prof Law, U Utah)
“Stop Payment! – A Homeowners’ Revolt Against the Banks“, Christopher Ketcham, Harper’s, January 2012 — Open PDF’s are online at Scribd (until it’s taken down). Hat tip to Barry Ritholtz.
Other posts about the housing bubble
- Diagnosing the eagle, chapter I — the housing bust, 6 December 2007
- “Idiots Fiddle While Rome Burns” – comforting and facile rhetoric, 24 July 2008
- A must-read for every American citizen: “The Fannie Mae Gang”, 25 July 2008
- A vital but widely misunderstood aspect of our financial crisis, 18 September 2008 — Too many homes.
- Knocking down houses in order to save the village, 20 October 2008
- Destroying houses in order to boost home prices, 16 December 2008
- The housing crisis allows America to look in the mirror. What do we see?, 9 March 2009
- Another step to solving the housing crisis: downsize cities by destroying neighborhoods, 2 April 2009
- Sparks of justice still live in America – cherish them and perhaps they’ll spread, 11 September 2009 — About foreclosures.
- Who should we blame for the mortgage crisis?, 16 January 2010
- Cutting through the fog to clearly understand the housing crisis, 8 July 2010
- Housing Update – dynamite to blast us out of our lethargy?, 27 July 2010
- Here’s an opportunity for the Tea Party: fighting foreclosure fraud by banks!, 22 September 2010
- A briefing about the foreclosure fraud crisis: its origin and impacts, 14 October 2010
- Who caused the housing crisis? Why do people not believe all the studies?, 15 November 2011
- More use of the big lie: shifting the blame for the housing crisis, 29 December 2011