Speaking Out on the Great Recession

Confusing Morality With Duty: It's the Reason You Keep Paying Your Underwater Mortgage and Overpriced Credit Cards
First published by the Huffington Post 11/03/2011
    For ten years I've worked out personal finances with families and singles in trouble. The numbers usually scream "walk away!" Most people don't – until they're financially ruined. This is why you keep paying – and why you are not morally obliged to pay.

Occupy Wall Street as Seen Through Machiavelli's Lens
First published by the Huffington Post 10/26/2011
     I do not know how political sage Niccolo Machiavelli, author of The Prince, would have estimated the OWS prospects of success. However I am certain of the warning he would be giving the ruling class, the one-percenters: they are pushing the people too far.

Message to Mortgage Banks and the Feds: It's Time to Take the Haircut
First published by the Huffington Post 10/20/2011
    The "moral hazard" is worse than you feared: Americans are figuring out that morality changes as society changes, and that morality no longer includes obediently paying the mortgage. So do you want to take your haircut by mortgage principal reductions – or foreclosures? That is, are you ready to deal with homeowners – or do you want your haircut with your heads plucked one hair at a time? Because principal reductions are the only realistic way left to prevent a flood of strategic defaults and foreclosures.

The Numbers Are In: Personal Debt Walkaway Is An Important Economic Stimulus
First published by the Huffington Post 5/19/2011
     A recent report by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce calculates that $67 billion a year less in home interest payments are being made than in early 2008. Many observers believe that this drop is primarily due to home walkaways, and that the cash freed up is largely flowing back into the consumer economy.

Making the Case Against Mortgage Banksters, Part Two:
How state Attorney's General offices can finance criminal prosecution of banksters
First published by the Huffington Post 3/7/2011
     With the Federal government seemingly intent on letting the banksters go free with a few token fines, state AGs need to pick up the burden on criminal prosecution. Some thoughts on how they can pay for the high cost of prosecution.....

Making the Case Against Mortgage Banksters, Part One:
How the mortgage industry can be successfully prosecuted on criminal grounds
First published by the Huffington Post 3/3/2011
     Federal prosecutors have trotted out three reasons why they aren't prosecuting mortgage banksters: difficulty gathering evidence, the cases are too complex for a jury, and it's too hard to prove intent. No lawyer I've spoken to agrees. Nor do I. This is an analysis of why the criminal cases can be made.

The Broken Covenant Between Rich and Middle Class
First published by the Huffington Post 2/15/2011
     Henry Ford did not invent the middle class; it had been around a long time in the form of artisans and shop-keepers. Nor did Ford single-handedly drive the expansion of the American middle class; the Industrial Revolution was already doing that. What Ford did accomplish on January 5th, 1914 – when he unilaterally raised workers' salaries from a minimum of $2.34 a day to $5 a day – was to hugely undermine the tradition of industrial worker exploitation embraced by the robber barons of the late 1800s..

What's Good For Main Street Is Good For America: The Case For Walking Away From Debt
Posted: 11/6/2009, updated: 6/25/2010 and 9/17/2011
     An article on the morality of walkaways and how defaulting on personal debt may in fact be good for America in the long run.