Hawaii's Legal Aid's packed house reflects congestion at bankruptcy court

The Honolulu Star Advertiser, April 2, 2011 reports:

Hawaii's Legal Aid's packed house reflects congestion at bankruptcy... By Alan Yonan Jr. 

Bankruptcy filings in Hawaii continued to stabilize in March, but the volume of cases remained relatively high by historical standards, according to data released yesterday by U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

There were 358 cases filed last month compared with 357 in March 2010, the court reported. For the first three months of the year, bankruptcy filings have averaged 297 per month, down from an average of 330 per month in 2010.

Financial hardship fueled by the recession caused bankruptcy filings to increase steadily in recent years after averaging just 80 cases per month in 2006.  [ MORE... ]

Comment:

State workers are on furloughs because the state of Hawaii made $1.1 Billion in bad Wall Street securities investments with pension and trust funds. So did Maui County ($44 million) who is suing Merrill Lynch for selling them questionable securities in 2008 - well after the market collapsed... go figure that bright idea!? They were duped, just like the homeowners, at our expense.

Our own Legislature however, decided to side with the Wall Street banks and took the foreclosure moratorium off the table in the new SB651 bill. It was rumored that a Maui County House Rep received a threatening phone call from the mainland bank that either he take the moratorium out of the bill or they would foreclose 1000 homes just to send a message (BTW they did anyway and ramped up their evictions in your district). Bank of America walked the hall of the legislature last month and gave them special phone numbers to help them and their families with foreclosure issues. Sounds like bribery to me.

People are filing bankruptcy and Federal Court lawsuits in order to force some protection of their homes. The economy is not going to get any better until the government (we the people - including the judges) stop the banks. Leading financial analysts say, "there is not enough money in the banking system to fund our nation's housing stock". The banks are foreclosing because without the property assets it appears they are basically insolvent. They wrote more deals than they have assets to hold - and the American public is paying dearly for it. 

This is a non-partisan issue, unless you work in an executive position of a bank. This affects EVERYBODY - whether you rent or you own. Republicans and Democrats are in foreclosure and bankruptcy. There are people who have been making their mortgage payments on time every month and are being foreclosed on - that could be your landlord... and in 45 days you could be ejected from your home - so wake up Hawaii and get united. Put your political differences aside and realize we have to work together to combat this destruction. We are the one state that still helps their neighbors.

And this is why the states should takeover the loans from 2003-2008 and reconstruct to current market value with the homeowners – collect the income and split it with the counties and investors if they haven’t already been paid by TARP or insurance.

Oh, and BTW - know who owns Merrill Lynch?  Right, Bank of America.