Divemedic

Foreclosure scams

A new chapter in the Florida foreclosure mess has opened, as real estate scammers are renting out homes that are to be foreclosed, by posing as the home’s owner. In this case, a pair of cops were arrested for the scheme. This is possible, because it takes years to foreclose a home, thanks to the criminal activity of the banks themselves.

People who are caught up in the fraudulent foreclosure system, where the banks gave loans to people that they knew couldn’t afford them, so that those people could buy homes that were selling for far more than they were worth. The banks then paid appraisers to overstate the homes’ value, and sold the loans off to investors before the first payment was due by calling them mortgage backed securities. The securities were rated as top notch investments by ratings firms, even though they were subprime loans. They created a company called “MERS” to aid in obscuring the fraud by taking mortgage transfers out of the public record and hiding them in a maze of private files.

The homebuyers soon defaulted, crashing the economy, and the entire deck of cards collapsed. The banks moved to foreclose, but had destroyed the paperwork. A savvy lawyer working in Jacksonville discovered the lack of notes and mortgages, and people began fighting the foreclosures. The banks responded by “creating” and forging paperwork. Banks were reportedly calling this the “art department.”

They got caught, and lost quite a bit of money. In February of 2012, several banks came to a settlement with the federal government, where the banks paid $25 billion for wrongfully foreclosing on people’s homes. The agreement settles state and federal investigations finding that the country’s five largest
mortgage servicers routinely signed foreclosure related documents outside the presence of a notary public and without really knowing whether the facts they contained were correct.  Both of these practices violate the law. Federal and state governments received the lion’s share of the money, and only $1.5 billion went to reimburse the people whose homes were stolen through this fraud. The politicians are bought and paid for. Of course, the homeowners are still able to pursue their own court actions.

This had the effect of slowing the foreclosure process, because in many cases, the banks cannot prove that the homeowner owes them any money. So now the other scammers move in: people are posing as the homeowner of vacant homes (sometimes the banks themselves), and are renting them out and pocketing the money. It is an added slap in the face that some of the criminals doing this are also the very police that are supposed to prevent that sort of thing.
 

By Divemedic, ago

A warning to youngsters

People signing up for EMT and Paramedic schools are at an all time high. The economy is so bad, that people are trying to gain job skills to be employable. Employers are taking advantage of this, and things are getting tight. In the peninsula of Florida, there are a few choices for EMT or Paramedic jobs:

1- Fire Department. This is a decent job with good pay, but the hours are long. You go to EMT school, and then Fire school. This takes about 7 months to complete. You take a certifying exam for both, and then start looking for work. Paramedic takes an additional year. Starting pay is $10-12 an hour for a Firefighter-EMT with no experience. Paramedics get around $13-16 an hour. Firefighters work 48-56 hours a week on average, so take home starts near $30,000 a year for EMTs, and $40,000 for Paramedics. Pensions are nor what they once were, but they are still better than most other professions. The real downside is that the competition is fierce. Even a “stepping stone” department, where many new firefighters get a job, earn experience, and them move on has a lot of applicants. Departments with a job opening are getting 200-300 applicants for each position. For that reason, there are so many unemployed people with firefighter certifications, that the state has largely shut down funding for the training of new firefighters. Unless you have experience or are a minority, getting a job as a firefighter is a long shot.

2- Hospitals, Doctor’s offices, and clinics: These usually have decent hours, good working conditions, and pay varies widely. Hospitals pay well, and you usually work the Emergency Department in 3-12 hour shifts per week. Starting pay is usually $12 for EMTs and $16-$17 for Paramedics. Again, hard to come by, but not as hard as firefighter or theme park spots. You are restricted in what you can do by many places, so the work is not very exciting or challenging.

3- Theme parks: Even more difficult to get into than a firefighting spot, but the hours are great and flexible, and the starting pay is $14-16 an hour. Benefits are outstanding, if you can get a full time spot, but those are becoming as rare as unicorn sightings.

4- So you are then left with private ambulances. In this area, all these companies do is haul non-emergency medical patients between nursing homes, hospitals, and dialysis clinics. No 911 or emergency calls. In fact, in many counties, if the patient is emergent the ambulance is REQUIRED to pull over and wait for a 911 unit from the fire department to take over the patient. Starting pay is $9-10 for EMTs, and $13-14 for paramedics. Benefits are poor. Shifts are long, normally 12-14 hours each. You do not get a station to sit in on those times where you wait for your next call. You sit in the truck and wait. No reading, eating, sleeping, watching movies on your electronic devices, no texting, no phone use, and no drinking of anything except water. (Not even coffee) These jobs are easy to get, but turnover is high, and most people don’t stay for long, using this place to get experience and move on. A person that stays at one of these places for more than 2 years becomes unemployable anywhere else, because many employers assume that you are stuck there for a reason.

One manager at a private ambulance company told me that his crews were not allowed to eat during shift, because he doesn’t pay them to eat. Another told me that patient care is secondary to keeping the customer (nursing home, hospital, etc) happy, and that the patient was just cargo, and no one cares what cargo thinks. One of my former EMT students was told by an employer when he complained about working conditions, that for every EMT that was working there, there were 7 more looking for a job, and if he didn’t like it, he could be replaced tomorrow.

Compare that to other jobs in the area: Fast food pays $8.50-9 an hour, or about as much as an EMT, and without the exposure to diseases that comes with EMT. Paramedic jobs that started at $14 an hour ten years ago are starting at $13.23 now. In comparison, my son went to nursing school after only three years as a paramedic, and his pay is now $32 an hour. Nursing school is the same length as paramedic, but more than double the pay.

There is a reason why the average EMT or paramedic spends less than 5 years in this job: injuries, poor working conditions, a lack of appreciation for hard work, and low pay all too frequently make the best and most talented leave. My advice to people that are thinking about a career in this field changed about two years ago: stay away.

By Divemedic, ago

Cooking the books

I will no longer post about the country’s national debt. That number, as reported by the treasury, is no longer accurate. According to the US treasury, the national debt has remained the same (it is actually about $700 million lower) since May 31, at $16.738 trillion. Are you telling me that the Federal government has not spent any money in the past two months?
The books are either being cooked by changing accounting methods in a way that would have a private sector accountant thrown in jail, or the government is monetizing the debt like nobody’s business, meaning that inflation, and lots of it, is on the horizon.
Either way, those figures are now meaningless.

By Divemedic, ago

Show me more money

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I think traffic tickets are a form of extortion. I talk about this enough that I have assigned the topic its own label.

The last time I got a ticket was in 2001. I paid the $184 fine. Eleven years later, I began getting letters saying that the court miscalculated the fine, and I actually owed another $32. I refused to pay it. I pointed out that the statute of limitations has passed, and they can’t do a thing about it.

So they sent me to collections. Now I get letters from a collection agency, and have been since last August. So far, I have received 22 letters. Now they are claiming that I owe $45. The letters have been increasing in frequency: from one a month last August, to one a week now. I have repeatedly told them that they can’t put it on my credit report because it is over 7 years old, they can’t do a thing about it legally, so I have no intention of paying. Since I am not going to pay it, they might as well save their money and stop contacting me.
 
Nope. Still getting the letters. Even though collection agencies are legally supposed to stop when you tell them to, in this case they are not required to, because they are collecting for the government. Another case of the government exempting themselves from the laws that the rest of us must follow.

Still not going to pay them. Still, how desperate is the government for more funding when they are reviewing cases that are a dozen years old?

By Divemedic, ago

Honest discussion

Early this morning, an Orlando police officer attempted a traffic stop on Bruton Boulevard near Chandler Street, which is near the corner of LB McLeod and John Young Parkway. He got into a gunfight with the occupants of the vehicle, and was severely injured in the exchange of gunfire. Two officers were shot, one of them fatally, on that corner 13 years ago. Some things never change.

23-year-old Demetrius Patterson was taken into custody shortly before 8
a.m. saying Patterson has been arrested 42 times prior to the shooting. Arrested 42 times by the age of 23. I looked up his arrest record at the Orange County Clerk’s office website. Some of his arrests included selling drugs, 3 arrests for burglary, brandishing a firearm, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, along with two paternity suits from two different women, and that is just his adult record in only one county.

This area is in the middle of Florida’s 5th congressional district (changed to the Tenth in 2013), a district that is staunchly Democrat (formerly Republican, before the Democrat-sponsored gerrymandering redistricting).The neighborhood where the shooting occurred is called “Richmond Heights,” and is bordered on the east by Bruton Boulevard and on the west by President Barack Obama Parkway. The area is over 80% black. It is also a high crime area. It is bordered by the Pine Hills neighborhood to the north, which locals refer to as “Crime Hills.”

Here is a youtube video that illustrates what is typical of the area:

So now you have a picture of what is going on.

The black community is filled with young males who are stealing, robbing, killing, dealing drugs, and breaking the law. The nuclear family has all but ceased to exist in the black community. These young criminals are then getting women pregnant, and the cycle starts all over.

Before accusing me or anyone else of racism and blaming us for the problem, why not start where the problem lies?

By Divemedic, ago

Who knows?

George Zimmerman is back in the news. This time, it is because he is a wannabe paramedic. Apparently, he rescued a family from their overturned vehicle on Thursday. This makes it appear to me that he is a genuinely good person, who actually wants to help people. The kind of person that I want to have as a neighbor. If Mr. Zimmerman were to move in next to me, I would invite him to dinner.
Conspicuously absent from any of the stories of this event is a description of the family he rescued, or their names. Could it be because they were not of a skin shade that supports the current narrative in the press? I have posted on this before: the press never notes race in a story, unless it makes whites look bad, then it is reported whether it needs to be or not.

By Divemedic, ago

Attitude changes

Last week, I was doing some online research for a Zimmerman post, and I ran across an interesting set of comments on an article about attempts to repeal Stand Your Ground and other self defense laws. There were commenters who were saying that they learned an important lesson from the Zimmerman case:

First commenter: Listening to tv/radio interviews, these uninformed people keep saying they want stand your ground repealed!!
Don’t
the ignorant idiots know that SYG was NOT used in this case??? It has
absolutely nothing to do with the Zimmerman trial???
And why does the
media keep reporting on this when they SHOULD know SYG has nothing to
do with the case??? Why don’t they tell these idiots that when
interviewing them???

Second Commenter: Whether the law is repealed or not I don’t intend to wind up the victim
of a thug. I’ll shoot first and take my chances in court.

Third Commenter:  just make sure it’s in the dark and don’t call 911, because obviously ,
calling 911 is a mistake, just pop the thug and leave the trash on the
curb.

and after that, there were a bunch of comments agreeing with the third comment.  The Zimmerman case has done much to undermine the people’s perception of law and law enforcement on both sides of the issue. Instead of describing the law and educating people on the truth and the law, the powers that be instead jumped on the bandwagon and, together with the media, have inflamed tensions.

Now no one trusts the law as much as they did before. Law is useless without the compliance of the people.

By Divemedic, ago