Noted economist and independent candidate for Florida governor Farid Khavari called for all Americans to withhold their mortgage payments to apply pressure to banks. "And, as governor, I will sue every bank that forecloses on anyone with bogus documents. If they do it more than once, we will do our best to bar them from doing business in Florida.
"Foreclosures are rampant and there is no end in sight as long as unemployment is high. And there is no reason to expect unemployment to do anything but get worse," said Khavari. "My economic plan for Florida will generate a million jobs in three years, but foreclosures will continue to rise unless we do something now.
"The banks brought us the housing bubble. They drove up home prices and wrote millions of stupid loans. Then they bet on the loans failing, using credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations.
They won the bets and collected their money, so why are they crying? Meanwhile, they have raised interest rates, cut credit lines, and lowered almost everyone's credit rating, including the majority of people who never missed a payment," Khavari said. "This has brought our economy to a standstill.
"Until we clear up the foreclosure crisis, the economy can't move forward. And the banks are doing nothing but making it worse. They collect on their bets, then grab the homes and put families in the street using bogus documents. Then they sit on the houses because they don't want to admit they are worth less than their books show.
"Every family in America lost out, but we bailed out the biggest insurance company and the biggest banks in America, and their employees collected billions in bonuses. And what have they done since but destroy our economy? The banks need a wake-up call, like a two-by-four upside their heads," Khavari said.
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