A law firm that had become a lightning rod in the controversy over mortgage-foreclosure practices has shut down, costing 89 employees their jobs.
The Steven J. Baum P.C. law firm, which has offices in Amherst, N.Y., and Westbury, N.Y., has filed papers with government agencies notifying them that it plans to close. It made the filings under a federal law requiring employers to provide notice before mass layoffs.
“Disrupting the livelihoods of so many dedicated and hardworking people is extremely painful, but the loss of so much business left us no choice but to file these notices,” said Mr. Baum in a statement issued on Monday. A firm spokesman said it would have no further comment beyond the release. Mr. Baum and his colleagues have come under fire for their foreclosure-related legal work. They are one of numerous firms across the country that represent banks and services in trying to foreclose on the millions of homeowners who have defaulted on their loans. Some of these firms’ aggressive, and, in some cases, duplicitous practices, have earned them the moniker “foreclosure mills.”
The Baum firm’s tactics, which included the “robo-signing” of documents, has been among the most criticized. Last year, a state court judge in Brooklyn called one foreclosure filing from the Baum firm “incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous.” But despite its settlement with the federal government, the firm’s fortunes worsened this month after The New York Times published photos of a Halloween party at the Baum firm showing employees wearing costumes mocking people who had lost their homes.After those photos surfaced, the mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae cut off the Baum firm, forbidding servicers of their mortgages from using Mr. Baum and his colleagues. That effectively served as the firm’s death knell.
On Saturday, Joe Nocera, The Times columnist who originally wrote about the firm’s Halloween party, published another column about the controversy. In it, he quoted an e-mail that Mr. Baum had sent him last week.
“Mr. Nocera — You have destroyed everything and everyone related to Steven J. Baum PC,” said the letter. “It took 40 years to build this firm and three weeks to tear down.”
“I think that’s what they call shooting the messenger,” Mr. Nocera wrote.
I have a stock tip for the Baum employees …….Kraft Mac n’ Cheese. Get used to it. And BTW…what the hell were you thinking?!?!.
Once 99% of the jobs are gone, what will the rich do?
http://nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/estee-lauder-heirs-tax-strategies-typify-advantages-for-wealthy.html?_r=1
@What? – Once 99% of the jobs are gone, the rich will start exploiting whomever is brought down to Chinese standards of living and survives starvation. Meanwhile their investments are safe in China.
Basically, this is what the rich want.
They want all of us to be so poor that we will do absolutely anything to earn income. You think the rich care about making MORE money? All they want is leverage over the rest of us to turn us into a slave class.
They pretty much already have. The tea party movement is the finale. How better to end it than to have the poor to give their approval.
Unfortunately, even with OWS and popular opinion on the side of the good, I believe they have bested us. The elections are rigged and the politicians are bought.
It will take a REAL revolution to cause the change we need.
In your “REAL revolution,” will we be forced to wear discount Che t-shirts and Guy Fawkes “V for Vendetta” masks licensed by Big Hollywood Companies and made in Chinese sweatshops?
Lou, Lou, you gotta give up trying to be a 1%er. If you’re writing on a blog, you’re never going to be a 1%er.
The 1%ers are the millionaire politicians and the corporate overlords who toil for the industrial nobility, (the 12,400 individuals identified by the IRS as having vast wealth and vast sources of income, while paying almost no taxes on those sources.)
The millionaire rich have people to do their information gathering and summarizing so, no, they don’t browse and surf the internet…
The billionaires have entirely different relationships with the merchant class, being entirely private and on a different level from what the millionaires and certainly from what me and thee can afford.
They have people to shop for them, but these people shop in entirely different establishments than even the millionaire 1%ers have to shop at.
They shop for things like living human organs, entire companies and the like.
Lou pretending to be a 1% ‘er is a natural response to make clear he’s not a tent dweller. Also, Xmas party invites are comming up.
“The 1%ers are the millionaire politicians and the corporate overlords who toil for the industrial nobility”
In other words, Democrats.
I’m definitely not one of the 1%, but i had a friend in high school who was.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in his family’s position where they spoke casually about buying and selling entire companies at breakfast.
If I thought real revolution meant the OWS movement, I wouldn’t have minimalized it.
Real revolution means someone is going to die. Most likely, the ones throwing stones at the people with guns.
What is happening in Cairo. That needs to happen in the US. I want to see the people go out in force and swarm the streets. I want people putting their lives on the line.
That’s a movement I can get behind. There are enough people in this country who are barely making it, people like you and me don’t deserve our comfortable beds or the safety we feel.
It’s about time something REAL happens.
Face facts everyone wants to be “behind” the ones risking their lifes. Now who wants to be the ones risking? Till things get much worse for many many more no one will be to that point. Choice eat out of a trash can (and feed your kids that way) or throw rocks at the guys with guns (getting killed and leaving orphans unless ofcourse they end up as colateral damage)
When there is no more profit to be made, the rich move on. The great thing about the world is there’s always a 3rd world somewhere to exploit.
The reason for all our economic woes can be traced back to our inability to enforce the laws that have been crafted and honed since the Great Depression. The greed that has run rampant for at least 10 years is codified in our legal system now and shows up this way. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to chuck the whole system here and simply give cash to homeowners or forgive the debt completely, instead of paying over-educated pinheads to process other people’s misery?
“over-educated pinheads”
Those people are not over educated. They are not even well educated. Their education is extremely narrow. They do not know any science or mathematics beyond basic arithmetic, reading and writing.
They have servants to do more than that for them.
Que jingle (say it with me): “DOUCHEBAG(S)!”
“The reason for all our economic woes can be traced back to our inability to enforce the laws that have been crafted and honed since the Great Depression.”
Those laws are not being enforced as big business now runs the government, in other words, the inmates run the asylum.
Welcome to the United States of Corporate America.
The very definition of fascism, innit?
What goes around comes around.
The mortgage companies are still putting pressure on their loan writers to put people in houses they can’t afford. As for the scumbag sluts in that picture, you will get what you deserve, Karma is a bitch.
Wait, I thought the talking point was “The Gub’ment is *forcing* banks to make loans people cant afford”
Go ask Rush and Fox and get back to me.
SURVIVAL: HOW TO COOK A 1% THIGH
– Preheat trash can to 325°
– Make sure that the fire is about half way up the can
– Place shopping cart grill over can
– Meanwhile prepare meat by removing most of the excess fat
– This will leave you with about 10% very tender meat that has not experienced manual labor or excessive stress
– Be sure to rub paprika, garlic powder and salt all over the leg
lightly brush on oil. Vegetable oil is preferred.
– Use the foot as a handle to 1/4 turn the leg every 3-5 minutes
– The leg is done when you stick a fork in it and the juices run clear.
I have some gruesome pictures of people hacking off a piece of Belgian long pork in preparation to using that very recipe after a Congolese massacre.
FYI: You can’t use feet as a handle as legs have knees. That’s why the feet are discarded or made into soup and the legs are cut at the knees.
So it wasn’t my imagination…
Lesson learned by banks. Even for the dirty work you gotta pick your henchmen carefully.
Its a small victory but those bitches are never going to work again.
Nobody’s going to want anything to do with them.
I hope they like sucking dick cause that’s what the future holds for them; being $5 whores ($20 if they swallow…)
Agree. BTW, the steep price premium on swallowing is a mystery. Must be a straight thing.
“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to chuck the whole system here and simply give cash to homeowners or forgive the debt completely…”
And then what? Can you imagine the fire storm this would create?
Short of going back in time and stopping the wrong-doings in the first place (by ALL parties involved), you can’t find a justifable, equitable, or simple way to unscramble this mess.
The big question: Who’s watching out for the next mess? The freedom to create complexity needs to be repealed. It is our common enemy.
This is just fart in the wind in regards to a win for the slave class. Corporate whores are everywhere, and they multiply faster than bacteria these days.
Explain this, JCD!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-reform-author-barney-frank-160618626.html
Market Watch does not care to give Barney Frank his due as architect of the housing debacle?
A new low in pro-DNC cocksuckery.
Keep on repeating “The Big Lie”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/barney-frank-didnt-cause-the-housing-crisis/2011/11/28/gIQANqLH5N_blog.html
From that link:
“Frank was one of those favored lawmakers — between 1989 and 2008 he received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. Frank even helped get a former boyfriend a job at Fannie Mae. And yet, for the bulk of this period, Democrats in Congress were in the minority. ”
1) Have you ever asked yourself what exactly he did to get that money?
2) Have you ever asked yourself what he did in exchange for his Fannie Mae supported butt-boy?
3) Have you ever asked yourself how being in the minority absolves you of moral responsibility?
Was that the same “boy friend” that ran the Pedo-Bear operation out of Frank’s apartment?
I’m glad Frank is out of there but I’m worried that he’s running for cover because the sh1t is about to hit the fan.
“Like most policymakers, Frank didn’t appear to see the housing bubble or looming subprime crisis before it was too late. But he didn’t cause them, either.”
He was PAID to not see it.
No, and I suppose that the TSA agent I pay to get my smack though the airport is – technically – not a smuggler.
The rest of the exculpatory arguments are mere sophistry.
1. If that’s your threshold of proof, then every politician is “on the take” for every campaign donor. I’d like less corrupting money in politics too and abhor Citizens United. How does that *cause* the housing bubble?
2. Strongly loaded words youre using there. You seem more offended by his homosexuality than his possible corruption. What was your argument again? Did he cause the recession or is he just a fag?
3. Its really hard to push an agenda through congress when you have nearly a super majority, as we’ve seen recently. If you lay the blame at the feet of this one man, what about all of his colleagues who didn’t vote against whatever you claim is the problem?
4. Those are some strong allegation to make against a sitting member of Congress. I suggest you take your evidence to the FBI
You claim the arguments are sophistry but you don’t bother to argue against them. Weak.
I agree. It’s the usual Fox News shit but entertaining.
Fox Holiday “Fruit” cake:
> Take a lie
> Wrap it with homosexuality
> Baste in bad news few understand
> Bake and let simmer for 2 weeks
> Advertise in black and white
> Add grain and shadows
> Feed to the sheeple
Yeah its pretty much impossible to do anything if you are in the minority party. The GOP ran every committee from 194-2006 so the Democrats were pretty much powerless to enact any laws or push through any pieces of paper in committee.
Somehow though, in a Fox Jazeera believers head, the democrats are to blame for everything that happened.
Another son of gerrymandering bites the dust. Good riddance!
Whoops, wrong article.
Gets an NoAgendaShow.com, douchebag call out!