2005 was the year that David Suter
was pilloried metaphorically anyway
by a mostly conservatives but there are a few who
few of us progresses in there who were kinda upset with him
for the kilo case kilo versus New London Connecticut those of you who are Supreme
Court wonks know what I'm talking about those of you who don't let me explain
the fifth amendment
and and where I'm going with this by the way this is David suitors revenge
and and it's a good one and what's happening here
is that cities particularly in this case a in particular a
sitting california richman california has figured out a way
to use the Supreme Court decision
to help our homeowners and screw the banksters
are not screw the banksters leave the banksters
intact but not profitable not as profitable as they would otherwise be
and so let me just you know lay out how it works
its really pretty 340 for small a kilo decision actually first of all the fifth
amendment
the fifth amendment to the Constitution says that
if is says the first ball that the government has the right to seize
private property for government purposes for the purposes a building schools
roads and it doesn't specify what the purposes
are but in fact here's what it says nor shall private property be taken for
public use without just compensation
K that's in the fifth amendment so in other words
the government has the authority to take private property for public use
but they have to pay whatever the market you know just compensation whatever the
market value of the property is
so if they decide they want to build a road or bridge through where your house
is located they
can come to you and say you are going to sell your house to us
we will have an independent appraiser determine its value and that's what
we'll pay you
or some variation on that theme now historically this was always
just for government purposes like you know we're going to do this
and we're gonna build a military base their we're gonna do this we're gonna
build a school there
run take your house a bill to school run take your house to build a superhighway
these are all government functions
well in 2005 actually earlier than that the city in New London Connecticut
had a part in town that was on the beach
as I for as I recall or near waterfront it was you know significantly high value
property
it was basically low-income housing and there was a corporation a for-profit
corporation is said to the city if the London Connecticut
are sees that property from those slumlords are well whoever you are the
high or the people who live there
sees that property give it to us
or sell it to us said whatever the value of it is
and we will bill olds balls in casinos and high and housing and incentives
generating a million dollars a year in tax revenue it'll generate a hundred
million dollars your tax revenue
ill be better for the city it'll be
you know quack quack quack more tax revenue
better quality life bloody blah what about poor people live there well they
get to go live someplace where they don't have a view
rather cynical but
hey it resonated with the Supreme Court so the lawsuit was brought against New
London
was you guys don't have the right to take private property and give it to a
private for-profit corporation
the government is not going to end up owning this it's gonna be a private
for-profit corporations going to end up owning this the only rationale you're
using is that the government's gonna get more taxes the quality life in New
London
as a city is going to be better and even that's arguable
but the supreme court said not this is fine
which radically expanded the power
of state federal and local governments to seize your property for pretty much
any purpose that they declared to be in the
using the phrase from the fifth amendment public interest
now comes the city love richman california
richman california now I understand all this works richman california
is looking at all these underwater homes I mean this is one about one other towns
was really hit badly
during the inflation up the housing bubble you saw
an explosion in property values in California
in Richmond was one other cities with the explosion happened
and so what they're doing is they're going in there saying basically
you know is somebody's got a two hundred thousand dollar mortgage on a hundred
thousand dollar haha
on a white house that is now worth a hundred thousand
the bank might soldiers were 200,000 back when they launched the money in
2006 but
Inc no more so it's worth a hundred grand you go to a thousand dollar
mortgage
and this is a danger to the town people don't walk away from it
they're going to default now the banksters don't care
data there there's federal backup program set for banksters they get to
deduct the the
not only do they get to date of their taxes but they also get
money from the federal government when they take a hit on a
on a a on a foreclosure banks actually make profits on foreclosures that's why
the pushing so hard
to push through foreclosures
so what the town to say to the bank is screw that
if you hit somebody's got to a thousand dollar mortgage at a hundred thousand
dollar value house
we are going to come to you the bank and the homeowner
and offer to buy that house
for a hundred thousand dollars minus the cost %uh the whole process of figuring
it out in evaluating and determining and
phrasing and bloody body blah so it's good about 20 percent of top
city by eighty grant will buy that house from you for 80 grand
and you the bank you get the right of 220,000 I lost you don't lose a penny
federal criminal back you up on this to the homeowner than
we are going to offer to sell that house back to them
and we're going to work with this company that's taking the twenty percent
of the top to deter you know to make all this happen
they're going to get your mortgage for eighty thousand dollars a current rates
you get a brand new twenty or thirty year mortgage
at three or four percent interest rate for a tea grant
on a house that's worth a hundred thousand dollars the homeowner now has
already
instantly twenty thousand dollars equity their house
so the homeowners payments are dropped tremendously so that they can
instead us any money to the bank every month they can go to the community can
buy things at the local stores
and %uh stimulate the economy create demand not just the local economy with
all national Chi Minh is a really good thing
the homeowner has exhorts building equity as they start paying down that
house over the next 20 years
the house is worth more and more and more so when they retire they can they
can
you know have a place to live where they can or they've got equity in it they can
sell the house and live off that whatever they want
missus classically how the middle class builds equity
and the banks are you know they're made all their fight
as you can imagine the banking industry is hysterical about this a couple towns
I tried this the past
and said the and the banking industry came in with lobbyists and lawyers
lawsuits rats in all kinds of think what Wells Fargo
in fact the city a for the city abridgment
just came you know just they were just crazy they said we believe his approach
what our mortgage investors
right now there's banksters it will then I can make as much profit
the housing market no sector the housing market at all and the communities in
borrowers that its proponents claim they would be helping
now sorry not gonna happen
so Richmond you know it D has not backed down so far in fact their city attorney
looked into this and came back and said you know we can do this
so let me just now say to every
any housing activist by the way it was occupy Richmond it was pushing this
this was the Occupy movement that was pushing this good on them
let me say to every city in America any city officials were listener anybody's
act mister anybody has a house its underwater
talk to your local city officials about using their fifth amendment powers have
eminent domain
to take your home and then sell it back to you
at fair market value this
would work banksters will be happy to pay banksters are showing record profit
last year factors make more profits
than any time in the history of planet Earth
in the history of Western civilization the banksters can handle
trust
this is the Thom Hartmann program
so pretty straightforward stuff richman california is a Bay Area sit near San
Francisco sent a letter to 32 back saying we're gonna do it