In the latest stunner of disclosure in what goes on just below the murky surface of the biggest scam market in the world (that would be the multi-trillion residential debt market), we learn that a Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court judge, Peter Sikora, who is facing foreclosure on his million dollar (8 room) home. But that is not what makes him unique: after all the story of your average American who buys iPads and garter belts with money that should be going into mortgage payments is all too well known by now. What is amazing, however, is that the reason for his 12 month delinquency is that according to JP Morgan, who service the loan, the only way Sikora would be eligible for loan modification would be if he were in delinquency, which is what they advised him to do. That's right - a bank formally told a client to willfully default on a mortgage. Now obviously no institution in its right mind would ever tell a counterparty to stop paying it for a service it is providing. Which begs the question: how is it that there is an opportunity cost for JP Morgan that is lower than a person paying a set mortgage, which involves both the cessation of payments and the lowering of payment rates. If there is any smoking gun that JP Morgan makes up for mortgage delinquency shortfalls by dipping in the GSE piggy bank of infinite taxpayer capital, this is it. And since in the aftermath of Ibanez ever more mortgages are about to see a freeze on their payments, it begs the question: just how profound will the Fannie and Freddie rape this year be, if the GSEs end up having to fund hundreds of billions in capital shortfall for the Too Parasitic To Fail?
We are certain that in any other banana republic, at least some answer to this rather important question would be sought. But not in this particular one...
More from Cleveland.com on the curious case of Peter Sikora.
A Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court judge faces foreclosure on his eight-bedroom, lakefront Cleveland home after falling a year behind on a nearly $1 million mortgage and property taxes.
Judge Peter Sikora said he hopes a mediation session scheduled for next month will keep him in his Edgewater Drive home, which the Cuyahoga County Auditor's Office has appraised at $844,000.
Sikora, who makes $121,350 a year as a judge, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he has the money to make his mortgage payments. What got him in trouble was following the advice of officials at JP Morgan Chase & Co., he said.
With property values in decline over the past year in Cleveland, and mortgage rates the lowest in decades, Sikora sought to refinance. But the bank, he said, declined his request.
"The bank advised me that the only way they would consider a loan modification would be if I fell behind on my payments," said Sikora, 59, a judge since 1989. "I took their advice and put the money aside."
Sikora said he was surprised when, in June, during the middle of negotiations, JP Morgan Chase filed the foreclosure lawsuit against him seeking $999,000, including $6,400 in unpaid property taxes.
"It's unfortunate that it's gotten to this situation," Sikora said. "I've been talking with them for more than a year, but the bank hasn't been responsive."
And the kicker: this judge, who voluntarily stopped making payments even though he knew full well this was against his contract, and knew he was in effect scamming the system, tried to be a Supreme Court judge on three separate occasions! Is it any wonder then that the entire judicial system is paralyzed, and is corrupt beyond comparison? After all, it is full of thousands of Peter Sikoras who would do anything in their power, even break the law, just to get on the banks' good side.
Sikora was elected in 2008 as president of the Ohio Association of Juvenile Court Judges. A Democrat, he ran unsuccessfully three times for the Ohio Supreme Court.
He acknowledged it doesn't look good for a juvenile court judge to become delinquent on property taxes, which are used to support schools and the children who appear in his court. But he said the bank is responsible for paying the taxes out of the escrow account.
What else is there to say? There are those who wish to fix the system out there, and god bless them. The problem is any attempt at fixing the system will inevitably end up in bringing the whole charade down. Which is why, as we have been claiming for just over two years now, the "scalpel" approach to cancer elimination is doomed. The cancer has metastasized long ago and the condition is terminal.
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