A 74-year-old blind woman was shocked when her daughter found a letter from the city saying a lien would be placed on her home unless she paid an overdue water bill.

The amount? 1 cent.

…The letter warned of a lien and a $48 penalty if the overdue bill is not paid by December 10. The charge was from the previous fiscal year, which ran from July 2007 to July 2008.

I’ve read this story at several news sites: CNN, Fox, Yahoo, etc. NOT ONCE was the point made that this woman was threatened with her home being taken away from her because she didn’t pay the full amount on her UTILITY BILL.

SINCE WHEN can a person’s home be taken from them because of an unpaid utility bill??? I don’t care if the amount is 1 cent or $1million dollars. This is outrageous, and I can’t believe this isn’t being screamed from the rooftops. A defaulted utility payment is warrant for the government to put a lien on a woman’s home?!?!? The woman has lived in her home since 1959. They were just itching to take her property away. Unconscionable!

And then the Attleboro government has the nerve to say that this issue was “blown out of proportion.” What happened to your guts, Massachusetts? It wasn’t even 300 years ago that you stood up to show the rest of the world what you thought of tyrants who want to take your property and liberty away.

Couldn’t believe me eyes when I woke up to see this headline at the New York Post: LOST SOVEREIGNTY: Oil-Rich Fund Eyeing Foreclosed U.S. Homes. American mortgage brokers have been shopping– shopping for foreclosed American homes– on behalf of “sovereign funds” like Abu Dhabi, Norway, Singapore, and Kuwait. Unbelievable.

There’s a new land grab starting in America.

Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate – like Barneys New York and the Chrysler Building – is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country.

One sovereign fund, said to have earmarked $29 billion to purchase foreclosed residential real estate, recently hired a West Coast mortgage broker and is starting to search for bargains, The Post has learned.

The search, which is being carried out, in part, by Field Check Group mortgage consultant Mark Hanson, who was retained by the broker, Steve Iversen, is concentrating on single- and multi-family REO (real estate owned) homes, or homes that have already been taken over by the mortgagee.

Of course the American brokers are hush-hush about who they are working for.

A sovereign fund would have two distinct advantages over other investors – the depressed value of the US dollar makes the homes a bargain, and sovereign funds have deeper pockets.

So far, prices on bulk sales of REO properties vary based on location and are selling from 60 cents to 80 cents on the dollar. Hanson started out offering 40 cents on the dollar for about $2.5 billion worth of California properties owned by IndyMac and Washington Mutual but was turned down. The banks refused to comment.

Doesn’t anyone suspect in the slightest that the economy problems we’ve been having in this country have been manipulated to occur? Who is getting rich and who is benefiting from ALL this speculation. It would be one thing if a smattering of foreclosures were occurring– lots of homes foreclose, and lots of investors snap them up (see my post How to Create a Serfdom about that). But this is a HUGE, across-the-board failure in the United States (and in a few other countries). It is a purposeful devaluation of 1) the American dollar, 2) American ownership of property, 3) high taxation, 4) ethanol which has raised food prices and oil speculation which has raised gasoline prices and everything else, 5) the inability for Americans to make ends meet and make those home payments.

And when we have a crisis like this, who gets bailed out? Not the American taxpayer! Our country is being sold out right from under us.

Hat tip to Vulcan’s Hammer for cartoon.

In what city officials believe is the first case of its kind, the city foreclosed on Tubic’s house on W. Verona Court after repeated attempts to collect the fine – which over the years had escalated to $2,600 – had failed.

“Our goal isn’t to acquire parcels,” said Jim Klajbor, special deputy city treasurer. “Our goal is to just collect taxes. . . . It is only as a last resort that we would pursue . . . foreclosure.”

I’m sorry Mr. Special Deputy City Treasurer. That might not be your INTENTION, but it certainly was your GOAL, because you DID IT.

OK, so the homeowner, a Mr. Tubic, has not paid his parking ticket. How did he get that parking ticket, anyway?

Tubic first got the fine for parking his Ford E150 with no license plates in the driveway of the home, which belonged to his parents at the time . The radiator had broken and Tubic couldn’t get his plates renewed unless the van passed an emissions test. He didn’t have the money to make the repair and had more pressing worries, he said.

His father was suffering from dementia. His mother was battling cancer, and he was their live-in caretaker. He needed to shop, cook, clean, maintain the house and tend to his parents’ needs.

The van repair could wait, he thought.

Then a man from the city showed up and told him otherwise. It was February 2004. Tubic would have to move the van or get license plates for it within 30 days, per city zoning codes, the man said. Somebody had complained.

His van was without license plates and was parked in his driveway?! That’s it?! Where else is he going to park his own van until he fixes it? The city park? So now it’s illegal to park your own vehicle on your own property unless your vehicle meets government “emissions” guidelines and is registered by the government?? Argh!

Tubic is a 62-year old disabled man, on Social Security and “has been diagnosed with psychological disorders that limit his ‘ability to understand, remember and carry out detailed instructions,’ according to documents from the administration.” He has degenerative diseases of the knees and spine, and other ailments. The guy is in poor shape and is an emotional disaster. The poor guy! I really have compassion in him.

HOWEVER– even if the guy was a 250-pound, muscular and wealthy socialite with a Hitler-like moustache, NO ONE’S HOME SHOULD EVER BE CONFISCATED LIKE THIS! It makes me so angry! I don’t want to rehash all the other posts I’ve written about this subject– you can read more about it on my post, How To Create a Serfdom, which is exactly what the government and their fascist corporations are doing to us. These tyrants are just DROOLING, waiting for the moment when they can seize our properties, aren’t they?? Couldn’t they have taken the guy’s CAR, since it was a parking ticket? Couldn’t they have revoked his license, or something? P.S. Tubic did continue to pay his property taxes.

Just remember what Thomas Jefferson said would happen to us if we continue to allow these bullies to keep this up:

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Thomas Jefferson

I was at the gym a week or two ago and saw the most appalling “infomercial” I have ever seen in my life. (No, it wasn’t for maternity clothes or acne treatments!) It was John Beck’s “Free & Clear Real Estate System.” I’m not going to complain about what bunk the “system” is and how it’s a rip-off– I’m going to bellow at the top of my lungs the absolute tyrannical immorality of the governmental system that John Beck is using. I am still so angry about something like this!

Here’s what happens: a homeowner gets into financial trouble, for whatever reason. The homeowner cannot pay his property taxes. The homeowner may be keeping up with his mortgage payments, but not the property tax payments. In such a case, the government (usually the city or county) can confiscate the ENTIRE property and auction it off for tax default. Any capital the homeowner has gained from paying years and years of mortgage and tax payments disappears. The homeowner is evicted from the home and the government sells it. Usually, the property sells for a very low price, because all the government wants is the back taxes that are due.

This is absolutely unconscionable. I am outraged– apoplectic- that this can happen! What happened to property rights in this country? In all essence, there are NO property rights. If you do not pay your taxes, the government can take your hard-earned property and turn around and sell it to a speculator. (That’s where John Beck’s “system” comes in– he snaps up those properties and resells them at market value.)

The infomercial feeds on the greedy “small-business” American speculator. But no one stops to ask– Is this justice in America? And what old lady or impoverished family is being evicted, so that I can buy my new house real cheap? And a lot of times, it’s the government or banks that snap up the foreclosed property. It happens right here in Utica, NY. The government forecloses, owns the property, and sells it for a hefty profit. Criminal!

This tyrannical confiscation of property is not American. It is socialist/fascist. Let’s not pretend here– it’s the government that really owns all the property. If you don’t pay the “rent” in the form of their high property taxes, then you are thrown out into the streets (or jailed or fined, or both) and you lose EVERYTHING you have built on up to then. What kind of system is this? This is more akin to serfdom- slavery– where the lord is the government and we are the tenant farmer serfs. And the government works hand in hand with the banks and credit card companies to do this. And what’s worse is that the property tax is after the income tax and the sales tax, and all the billions of little taxes on top of that! There are so many taxes in this country that we lost the concept of what it means to be free. We are slaves to the taxation departments, the government, and the banks. What a hateful system.

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson.