With record foreclosure rates in the real estate industry now, there is fear from both homeowners and investors in the market that these foreclosures will have dramatic consequences. Foreclosure victims essentially have to restart their lives, with no realistic chance of being getting even a new car loan, and investors are viewing the disappearance of billions of dollars of wealth as home prices drop, default rates destroy their valued hedge fund investments, and the dollar continues to slide in relation to nearly every other currency in the world. The fears of each are certainly warranted, and will have long-lasting effects on individual's lives and on the economy in total, unless more homeowners are able to find a way to stop foreclosure and keep more of their wealth.

In the first place, foreclosure looks quite bad on an individual's credit report, but, to their credit, potential lenders look at the entire picture. If the mortgage was the only negative mark, then the homeowners' FICO score may not drop down so far as they believe it will. If they took out a lot of loans that they did not pay back, though, their credit will be far worse. And, if this is the case, should they be given credit again? Probably not until they have reestablished a history of being able to handle credit wisely. But this will remove many potential consumers from the credit and banking industries, as they will not have the ability to borrow money and promise to pay interest on loans. Fewer individuals who are not taking out loans will hurt the lending industry more than any other.

The FTC and every other regulatory agency will probably do nothing to protect homeowners who are facing the loss of their homes through foreclosure. As long as the economy looks like it is doing well, regardless of what the poor and middle classes are experiencing in reality, the government will do little but pay lip service to the foreclosure problem. Unfortunately, the average American has little power in the marketplace and even less power with the government at the federal level, which is ruled by the powerful lobbies and entirely insulated from the realities of real citizens. They would rather ignore a problem they were complicit in causing, or create a much larger new problem to cover up the current one.

The current foreclosure crisis will also not drastically affect the economy later, as credit has pretty much dried up for the lower classes, even as corporations are being given more and more credit to purchase other companies and consolidate their own power and position in the market. The housing credit bubble has been transferred to an equity credit bubble. In fact, the new bubble of credit was created just as the housing bubble ended, and is an attempt to keep up the appearance of progress and prosperity in the media and in the economy, even though the middle and lower classes are witnessing inflationary rates that far outpace their rises in income. Food and energy costs keep rising, causing huge increases in families' expenses, but these two factors are kept out of official inflation rates, giving the mere appearance of low inflation and rapidly rising stock prices. In fact, this it not true at all: the economy is not keeping ahead of inflation.

A further concern for homeowners facing foreclosure is the fact that higher interest rates are causing their ARM payments to skyrocket once they reset. Lower rates, they assume, would keep their mortgage payments down and help them make it through the current financial crises. However, this it also not true. Rates, controlled by the Federal Reserve, are not being lowered because, if they were lowered, the value of the dollar would fall even faster in relation to other currencies, such as the British Pound and the Euro. If interest rates were dropped, fewer governments would hold dollars as their reserve currency, and they would begin to sell their dollars. With extra dollars being sold on the market, the value decreases, and homeowners already in financial distress would see prices increase even more than they currently are. So the Fed is in a bad situation and nothing they do would make it any better for homeowners. Raising rates may prop up the dollar, but would result in even more homeowners finding themselves unable to afford their mortgages.

The only solution for the current foreclosure crisis is for a return to individual responsibility and community involvement. Individuals and communities will have to step in and make their own changes to affect the situation. Communities and private investors and small local banks can act to keep the wealth in their own neighborhoods and protect foreclosure victims, by helping homeowners in foreclosure get new loans or sell their houses. This is a much better solution than seeing large portions of the country being owned by multinational corporations, and local solutions to stop foreclosure will result in more families being able to keep their homes.

The government, by lowering rates so far after 9/11 in an effort to stimulate the economy, dug a very deep hole for homeowners. Homeowners willingly jumped into that hole, though, and used their homes as ATM machines, taking out more equity to finance unsustainable consumption. So it would be absurd to trust the government to then step in and help the same homeowners for whom they dug the hole to begin with. All that the federal government can do is shovel dirt onto all of the people in hardships now, burying them alive. Or, alternatively, they can dig an equally deep hole that every foreclosure victim in the current hole can jump into. Neither solution, though, will result in one extra homeowner being able to stop foreclosure and save their home.

In most foreclosure situations that end up going to sheriff sale, the house does not sell for as much as the homeowners owe on their mortgage. Frequently, sheriff sale prices are far below the market value and far below the total payoff amount. One reason for this, of course, is the enormous fees, interest, and charges that lenders add to the payoff. However, under certain circumstances, if the house doesn't sell at sheriff sale for the amount that is owed, the lender is able to sue the former owners for a deficiency judgment. The deficiency judgment is usually the difference between the sales prices and the amount that was owed on the loan, plus the regular costs of suing someone.

In reality, though, banks almost never sue their former clients for a deficiency judgment. In all of the time that we have been working with homeowners in foreclosure, no bank has ever sued the homeowners if they lost the house. So, in most cases, foreclosure victims who do not come up with a solution to stop foreclosure do not have anything further to worry about after the foreclosure is over. Most homeowners in this situation are preoccupied with the task of finding a new place to live and repairing their financial lives. But the lenders do not act out of compassion for the homeowners when they decide not to pursue another lawsuit.

This is because it is simply not worth the extra time and effort for the bank to sue for a deficiency judgment when they are aware of the fact that the homeowners went into foreclosure because there was a significant financial hardship that either severely decreased income or raised expenses. Having an extra judgment against homeowners who have gone through the foreclosure process will not get the mortgage company any more money, and it will only cost them more to proceed with the legal process. Foreclosure is expensive and often results in a loss to the bank, and pursuing the deficiency will only contribute to the loss, in most situations.

So the possibility of a deficiency judgment it can be a danger for homeowners living in states where such practices are allowed, but banks rarely sue for the former homeowners. The very circumstances that led them into foreclosure will act to protect them from being sued for even more money. Obviously, this is small consolation to homeowners who have faced financial ruin and are just now beginning to pick up the pieces of their lives, but at least the mortgage company that proceeded with the foreclosure will not stick the foreclosure victims with another negative mark on their credit and another bill that will eventually need to be paid.

Rich homeowners that own many assets and have a lot of cash are in danger of being sued for a deficiency judgment. However, this describes very few actual foreclosure victims, who are often dealing with job loss, medical issues, or the sudden increase in the mortgage payment. These homeowners, who have faced a serious financial hardship, will not be targeted by their mortgage company for an additional lawsuit after the foreclosure process has ended. Of course, this is only because avoiding the deficiency judgment is in the lender's interest, but most homeowners have very little to worry about from their former mortgage company in terms of being sued for the difference between what they owed on the mortgage and what the house sells for at sheriff sale.

Some homeowners, when they have run out of viable options to save their homes from foreclosure, are willing to offer the bank the deed to the house in order to stop the foreclosure process. This is called giving the bank a deed in lieu of foreclosure, and is usually one of the last efforts made by foreclosure victims to do anything possible to find a solution. A deed in lieu will even help preserve their credit slightly, even though it is a clear admission of the homeowners' inability to maintain the responsibility to pay the mortgage. The deed in lieu of foreclosure is slightly better than losing the home due to how it will look on the foreclosure victims' credit reports.

With either the deed in lieu or a full foreclosure, though, potential lenders will be able to see that the homeowners took out a loan for several tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars and then failed to meet the obligation to pay the money back on time. Obviously, this is not a positive situation for foreclosure victims, and it is exactly what creditors will not want to see when they are considering a new applicant's application for a loan. Either option shows them that these former homeowners may not be able to pay back the new loan.

However, there is one distinct advantage to using a deed in lieu. This is the fact that creditors will look at the credit report and recognize that the homeowners admitted their inability to pay the mortgage. They voluntarily gave the bank the collateral for the loan, which was the house, and made every effort to end the foreclosure process, even though it meant losing the property in the end. This is only a small advantage, of course, but it can help the foreclosure victims tremendously in beginning the process of repairing their credit after foreclosure.

Having gone through a full foreclosure, as opposed to giving the bank a deed in lieu of foreclosure, means that the mortgage company was forced to take the property through the entire legal process in order to gain the collateral back. Many creditors see this as a glaring disadvantage to extending credit to any applicant, as they know that foreclosure proceedings are lengthy and expensive. They do not want to take on the extra expenses of suing the debtors, trying to retrieve the collateral, and then repairing any damage that the foreclosure victims may have caused to the homes, as an act of spite towards the lender.

Therefore, for homeowners in foreclosure with few other options to save the house, it may be a wise move to offer the mortgage company a deed in lieu of foreclosure. The bank will have to accept the offer, but if the foreclosure victims have made every attempt to stop foreclosure before offering the deed in lieu, many mortgage companies will accept it just to be able to end the foreclosure proceedings. It is also important for the homeowners to begin working on their credit after the ordeal is over, and they may be able to qualify for a new mortgage loan at a competitive interest rate within a few years of giving the deed in lieu.

Few homeowners who face foreclosure are aware of one of the most important tools they have to save their homes from foreclosure. This tool is called the redemption period. But because they are constantly harassed by lenders looking for money and attorneys threatening to sue them, many foreclosure victims end up walking away from the house and leaving it to start a new life. The redemption period, however, is designed to give homeowners in trouble an extra chance to save their home or get a head start on repairing their financial situation

The redemption period in foreclosure situations allows the homeowners an additional period of time to stay in the house, and the mortgage company is not able to evict them or proceed with the foreclosure. The actual length of the redemption period is determined by the state foreclosure laws, the exact terms under which it is available, or its exclusion. Various states give long redemption periods to homeowners, while other states strictly limit the time frame in which the house can be saved. Many states have the redemption period after the sale, but a few give the homeowners time before the property can be sold at sheriff sale. These complex laws, combined with other complex foreclosure laws, are the very reason that homeowners should do everything they can to seek out enough foreclosure advice to be able to understand how much time they will have to stop foreclosure before they are out of options.

There are two main advantages to having a redemption period in any state. The first benefit is that homeowners are granted additional time to save their home, during which they can find several solutions to foreclosure. They may be able to save up enough money to establish a forbearance agreement, or locate a lender to provide a loan to stop foreclosure, or just decide to sell the house. If there was no redemption period, homeowners in foreclosure would find themselves running out of time, in many cases.

The other advantage of having a redemption period is for foreclosure victims who are unable to save their homes and prevent the foreclosure. When this happens, the homeowners can immediately begin saving up money to create an emergency fund, pay off other credit cards or loans, and start getting their financial lives back in order after the foreclosure. This may seem like homeowners are abusing the redemption period, by staying in the house when there is no way to save it, but the laws exist for the purpose of helping the homeowners, not the banks. Becoming financially stable is one of the most important things for homeowners to do after facing foreclosure, even if their plans to stop foreclosure from taking back the house turns out to be an exercise in futility.

No matter what the eventual outcome of the foreclosure, a redemption period offers two distinct benefits to homeowners. They can use the time to come up with various methods to save their home, or they can begin to repair their credit and overall finances. In both cases, foreclosure victims should know their rights under their state's foreclosure laws, and put together a plan to keep their home or unload it, depending on the circumstances. Even if no redemption period exists in their state, homeowners need to know how much time they have to find a solution to foreclosure, and then put together a plan to deal with the problem in the most efficient manner possible to prevent a bad situation from becoming worse.

The book that is the subject of this review is A Full Service Bank, written by James Ring Adams and Douglas Frantz and published in 1993. It offers the reader an account of the rise and fall of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which resulted in the most massive bank failure in history. This account of the story of BCCI is told from a historical point of view, with the authors providing a story from beginning to end of the general history of the bank and the specific undercover operations that put the first cracks in the bank's structure.

The authors begin the account by providing the most relevant information regarding the geopolitical and historical reasons for the bank's existence, and its structure as a bank that existed everywhere but was regulated nowhere. The Pakistani founder of BCCI, Agha Hasan Abedi, after witnessing the large-scale nationalization of industries that took place in Pakistan, decided to found his new bank in countries with strict banking secrecy laws, such as Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. This dual organization called for two different auditing firms to track the courses of BCCI's financial dealings, which ensured that neither firm would have a complete picture of how the bank operated.

This secrecy and overall unaccountability assisted the bank in two of its major initiatives: laundering drug money from Central and South American countries and illegally entering the American banking industry. The former activity was neither condoned nor discouraged, while the latter was one of Abedi's goals since beginning the bank. Both of these themes are examined in the book in great depth.

Throughout the mid-1980's, as more and more banks were caught in dubious transactions, there was a push by US regulators and federal agencies to begin cracking down on money laundering. Various undercover operations were undertaken by the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Customs. The operation most involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, though, was a Customs job named C-Chase. Although it started out as a simple drug money laundering operation, with the goal of nabbing major players in the Columbian Medellin cocaine cartel, once the investigators found the trail of BCCI, they were determined to bring the bank down.

This time period coincided with some of the greatest losses the bank had sustained, due to ill-informed commodities trading decisions. With huge outflows of cash, the bank had to keep deposits coming in all over the world in order to keep its giant Ponzi scheme going. New deposits were taken to pay old customers and to cover the losses. BCCI's secrecy allowed it to maintain the appearance of a profitable bank, even as it may never had turned a profit during its entire lifetime. But as the losses had to be covered, new large depositors were not turned away, regardless of the source of their money. Into this environment the C-Chase operation crossed paths.

The main undercover agent in operation C-Chase was Bob Mazur, who, by the use of his "James Bond briefcase," was able to record numerous BCCI officials being told that the nature of Mazur's deposits was drug money. While most of the officials did not want to hear of the source of the money, they did nothing to close the accounts or send Mazur someplace else for his laundering. In fact, some of BCCI's employees even recommended new ways of laundering drug money and implicated themselves even further. The operation ended up indicting no less than eighty-four individuals involved in the drug running and money laundering. The bank ended up with a $14 million fine and the bad press shone some of the first light on the unaccountable bank.

The second event that the book looks at closely is BCCI's purchase and control of First American Bank. Because the bank could not purchase an American bank, BCCI had to maneuver around the system and gain secret control. Investors purchased First American Bank with loans given by BCCI. These loans were never intended to be repaid, and BCCI collected the collateral once the loans went into default, by gaining controlling shares of First American. In this way, BCCI came to own an American bank, in contravention of the law.

Throughout the book, the authors chart the course of BCCI's secret ownership of American banks, with First American being the primary one, due to its location in Washington, DC. The managers of First American repeatedly state to regulators and the Federal Reserve that BCCI does not have an ownership interest in the bank, even though they met repeatedly with Abedi, whom they stated was the original investors' financial adviser.

Once BCCI fell, though, its involvement as owner of First American was discovered, as well as its interests in other American banks. The catalyzing events that resulted in the bank being closed by regulators were a series of independent audits ordered by the Bank of England. These were some of the first objective looks at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and each new audit scared the regulators more and more. Secret, unrecorded transactions, hundreds of millions of dollars in loans that were never repaid, and the huge losses in commodity trading all combined to give the overall impression of a bank that may have lost several billion dollars in its existence. Even with the offer of help from Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi, the regulators decided that the bank had to be shut down, and it was on July 5, 1991.

The book also touches upon numerous other threads involving BCCI, including working relationships with terrorist Abu Nidal and Panamanian dictator Manual Noriega. Also mentioned is Senator John Kerry's investigation into narcotics and money laundering, and New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's own investigations. In this account of the bank, the authors view the C-Chase operation as being one of the most important events that led to the unveiling of BCCI's hidden, illegal dealings. The story of operation C-Chase takes up much of the account, but each event is placed within its appropriate historical context.

In contrast with another account of BCCI, The Outlaw Bank, which we reviewed previously, the authors of A Full Service Bank are not present in the story. This is a straight-forward history of BCCI and the operations that led to its downfall, using primary sources such as transcripts of Bob Mazur's taped conversations and the authors' own interviews of major players. This method of presenting the story allows the authors to take a step back with the reader and analyze the entire context of the BCCI story, without the breathless, unabated action of The Outlaw Bank. In order to understand the bank's role in the world at that time, though, a reading of both books is necessary, as the subject of this review does not go into such depth in examining the Black Network of the bank and its involvement in arms deals. However, Adams and Frantz's book should be read first, as it provides a more coherent story of BCCI, told from a third-party perspective.

A Full Service Bank is a clear, well-written account of the "Bank of Crooks and Criminals International," and its treatment of the subject manner provides the reader with a context in which the bank operated, as well as various areas of investigation that can be pursued after reading the account. It is difficult to imagine a better introduction to the bank and the events that led to its downfall, even if the treatment of the bank's dealings in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are only dealt with superficially. In essence, this book is a story of discovery, presenting the C-Chase operatives discovery of a huge money-laundering bank and international regulators' discovery of the true nature of the bank that existed everywhere but was regulated nowhere. In this aim, the book succeeds remarkably in presenting a coherent story of BCCI.

For homeowners in the dark about the foreclosure process, there is a little-known event that may affect their ability to save their homes from foreclosure. This is the issue of the redemption period, and is often overlooked by foreclosure victims who are receiving hourly calls from collectors and letters from foreclosure attorneys. Too many homeowners in this situation end up abandoning their homes and looking for a fresh start. However, the redemption period is designed to help homeowners who want to save the home and those who can not afford to stop foreclosure.

The redemption period is granted to homeowners by state law and gives them additional time to live in the property, without the danger of being evicted. The bank can not continue with the foreclosure process during this period of time. The exact terms and length of time of the redemption period is determined by the state foreclosure laws, and not all states have a redemption period. Some states give the homeowner a lengthy period in which to save the home, and other states have redemption periods of only a few days. Certain foreclosure laws place the redemption period before the sheriff sale, while most others place it after the sale but before the eviction. Homeowners need to research their state foreclosure laws and seek out additional foreclosure information, so that they understand exactly how much time they are being given. This will help them put together various plans to stop foreclosure before they run out of time.

The redemption period serves two main advantages to homeowners in foreclosure. The first advantage is the additional time in which foreclosure victims can work on various methods to solve the foreclosure problem. The extra time may be used to save up to start a repayment plan, or to refinance the loan through a foreclosure bailout, or to sell the house on the open market. Without the redemption period, the homeowners may run out of time to avoid losing the home before they run out of options they want to try.

The other benefit of the redemption period for homeowners is when there are no longer any options available to save the house from foreclosure. Homeowners ending up in this situation can switch their efforts from avoiding foreclosure to begin saving money, paying other debts to repair their credit, and getting their financial lives back on track. Some may say that this is a case of homeowners abusing the concept of the redemption period by not giving the house back to the bank, but foreclosure victims are granted the redemption period to help their own situations, not the bank's financial position. Getting their economic lives back in order is important for homeowners, even if they are unable to save their homes. In fact, financial recovery is important especially in these cases.

Regardless of the eventual end of the foreclosure process, the redemption period is designed to provide two main benefits to homeowners. The time can be used to implement various plans to stop foreclosure, or it can be used to begin the process of financial recovery. Either way, homeowners should put together a plan to come up with a solution to the foreclosure after determining their rights under the state foreclosure laws. Even in cases where the state does not have a redemption period, it is important for foreclosure victims to know exactly how little time they are being given to work out a plan to prevent from losing their home. Knowing how much time is the first step, followed by implementing a plan to avoid foreclosure.

This post is for those homeowners who have decided that they can not keep their current home and are seeking to move on, instead of trying to stop foreclosure. This may be due to a new job in another state that requires a move, a precipitous drop in income, or other circumstances. Because of their poor credit from the foreclosure, however, these homeowners may have a difficult time being able to rent an apartment. New landlords will not want to discover the fact that the homeowners are currently behind on their mortgage payments. That will indicate to them that they do not take their housing payment obligations very seriously. The foreclosure victims will have to find a way around the credit check somehow.

One way they can do that is to find a landlord that they know, or talk to someone (friends/family) in the area that they will be living in, and ask if they know of anyone that would allows apartment rentals without a credit check. The key is for the homeowners to let them know that their credit is not great at the present time, and that they are not willing to damage it even further with more inquiries, but that they want to have an opportunity to start recovering their financial situation. A lot of landlords will be reasonable if the situation is explained to them very clearly.

If they foreclosure victims do not know any friendly contacts in the area, though, they will have to offer the landlord an incentive to decide not to pull their credit histories. For this purpose, they can offer an extra amount as a security deposit, or offer to pay an extra 2-3 months rent up-front, in exchange for the landlord not conducting a credit check. If they need a "cover story," they can use the one in the paragraph above, or simply inform the landlord that they are very private and do not want to give out their social security number and financial information to anyone, since they have been a victim of identity theft in the past. Extra cash in the form of a security deposit or extra rent will usually help the landlord see things from the foreclosure victims' perspective.

The important point is to concentrate on the desire for personal and financial privacy, or the homeowners' intention to begin repairing their credit because of recent, unavoidable financial hardships. As well, it helps to offer the landlord a reason to trust them at their word. These tactics should take care of many of the problems for foreclosure victims attempting to rent an apartment, although they may have to speak with several different landlords who will lend an understanding ear in this situation. Money talks, though, and most landlords, for the right price, can be persuaded not to pull a credit report on applicants.

It is unfortunate that not all homeowners are able to save their homes from foreclosure, but each situation is different and needs to be dealt with in the homeowners' best interests. When there are no options left to prevent the foreclosure, or the foreclosure victims do not want not keep the property but can not unload it, adding another level of problems in trying to rent a new apartment just continues the humiliation and rejection that so define foreclosure situations. But even in these cases, with a small amount of planning and a financial incentive, the homeowners can get a fresh start and gain some control back over their financial lives.

Although nearly every expert in the foreclosure industry is aware of it, one of the best-kept secrets from homeowners facing foreclosure is the possibility of a redemption period. The constant calls from lenders and letters from attorneys are often enough to make foreclosure victims feel as if the best thing they can do is just to leave the house and abandon it for a fresh start. Utilizing a redemption period, though, can provide homeowners with a head start to repairing their financial situation, even when they are unable to stop foreclosure on their home.

A redemption period in foreclosure is a period of time in which the homeowners are allowed to continue living in the property, during which the lender can not force them out or proceed with the next step of the foreclosure process. Foreclosure state law will determine how long the redemption period lasts, or even if one is provided to the foreclosure victim. Some states, such as Alabama and Minnesota, allow for a long redemption period, while others, like New Jersey and Colorado, only give the property owners a small amount of time to save their home. Certain states, such as Illinois, have the redemption period before the sheriff sale, while many others, like Michigan, state their redemption period begins after the sale but before the eviction process. This is why all homeowners should seek out professional foreclosure advice in order to determine how much time they really have to redeem their home, or if they will have to move very shortly after the sheriff sale.

Having a redemption period can provide foreclosure victims with two main benefits. The first is the ability to save the home, even though there may not be a reasonable solution at the present moment. The redemption period allows the homeowners extra time in which to recover their finances, save up to get current on the loan and establish a repayment plan, or obtain a foreclosure refinance or sell the property. These options to stop foreclosure may not have existed if there was no extra time provided to the foreclosure victims.

The second benefit of the redemption period is for homeowners who have, for whatever reason, decided that they can not save the house from foreclosure. In these cases, the foreclosure victims can use the redemption period to begin saving up money for an emergency fund, pay down other debts, or begin the process of getting their lives back on track. Obviously, this is taking advantage of the fact that state foreclosure laws give the homeowners extra time, but if the homeowners can not redeem the property, they may be able to redeem themselves in their own eyes, if nothing else. And it is important for homeowners to take advantage of their rights under the law to put together the financial plan that they did not have that caused them to fall behind in the face of a financial hardship. They can take the first step towards financial recovery after foreclosure without worrying about a mortgage or rent payment for a few extra months.

Regardless of the outcome of any homeowners plans to stop foreclosure on their home, a redemption period offers several advantages. The extra time can be used to work out additional solutions to save the home, or it can be used by the homeowners to begin the long process of financial recovery. In either case, it is important for homeowners to understand their rights under their state's foreclosure laws, and begin to plan for how to use the time that they have, even if there is no redemption period in their state. Knowing how much time is available is the most important step, and having a plan to use that time can mean the difference between saving the home and losing it to foreclosure.

First, a couple of admissions before you read the actual review. I read this book in the space of two days of constant reading, so this may well turn out to be a hasty review based on my first impressions of the book. Also, please do not read the review if you do not want to read spoilers, as I do not want to rely on vague allusions to things that happen when discussing what actually happened. This is your fair warning: ***SPOILER ALERT***

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, recently released on July 21, 2007, is undoubtedly the most widely-anticipated book of the year, completing Harry's seven-year journey through the wizarding world to confront his nemesis Lord Voldemort, along with a host of other issues. With any finale of such a monumental and popular series, there are bound to be victories, disappointments, criticisms, and praise for nearly every plot decision made by the author. The final product, though, is a remarkable end to the Harry Potter series, and a fitting conclusion to the problems raised in the previous books.

After reading the previous book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, numerous plot lines had been developed that left me worried about J. K. Rowling's ability to wrap them all up neatly and provide a satisfying conclusion in one more book. The issue of Harry Potter finding the remaining Horcruxes in the space of one book, while it had taken the previous six to locate and destroy only two Horcruxes seemed the most pressing issue. Additionally, the fact that no one, including Harry and Dumbledore, were quite sure what the Horcruxes were and where they would be located presented an even more apparent problem. Furthermore, Rowling used the theme of the Deathly Hallows to further the plot, and spent much time examining Harry's attempts to understand such universal themes as how to deal with death and the search for truth.

Remarkably enough, although not unexpected, Harry, Ron, and Hermione manage to locate the missing locket and determine where the other Horcruxes were hidden by Voldemort, including the cup of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw's lost diadem. Even Neville plays an important role in the fall of Voldemort by taking care of the snake Nagini, and Harry eventually learns that, because of Voldemort's attack on him as a baby, he is the final Horcrux. Learning that he must sacrifice himself to Voldemort in order to end the war is one of the more dark yet touching sequences in the book, as Harry discovers that Voldemort can not be defeated unless the part of his soul trapped in Harry is destroyed. Harry bravely sacrifices himself and manages to survive Voldemort's curse, causing Voldemort to destroy the Horcrux on his own.

The theme of the Deathly Hallows themselves also play a large role in the story, as Harry learns what they are and that he already possesses two of the three Hallows. He also learns that Professor Dumbledore made it his quest to discover all three of them, although his motives were not quite as pure as Harry's. Through gradual revelations of the life of Dumbledore, Harry learns that the exalted professor had just as many flaws as any other human being, along with an irritating tendency to leave Harry in the dark about nearly everything. But Harry eventually learns some valuable truths about Dumbledore, even though they may have been unpleasant truths for him. Instead of following in Dumbledore's footsteps and pursuing the Hallows to gain enormous power to defeat Voldemort, Harry makes the more wise decision to do his best to reduce Voldemort's power.

One of the most intriguing questions of the series has been the issue of Severus Snape and whether he was "good" or "bad." It turns out that the answer to the question is a not-so-simple "a little bit of both." Harry discovers, through Snape's memories, that Snape always loved Lily Potter and had turned away from Voldemort the minute that he threatened Harry's mother. Although Snape acted out of his selfish attachment to Lily, and emphasized Harry's resemblance to James Potter who had tortured him as a youth, Snape had worked with Dumbledore to protect Harry until the very end. His last act before dying from the snake Nagini's bite, is to give Harry the last pieces of the puzzle to understanding that Snape and Dumbledore's efforts to protect him resulted in Harry ending up as master of the Deathly Hallows, as well as the destroyer of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Without Snape, selfish and mean as he was, Voldemort may have proved even more dangerous, or Harry may not have learned some important truths about Snape, Harry's mother Lily, and even Aunt Petunia.

The two major themes of death and truth run through nearly every page of the book. While feeling lost and inadequate to the task of locating and destroying Horcruxes, Harry slowly learns about Dumbledore's past actions that reflect none too well on the professor. Dumbledore comes out looking as though he made some grave mistakes in his past, even touching upon the Dark Arts and the subjugation of Muggles, as well as having manipulated Harry for much of his life in order to protect him and lead him to his eventual defeat of Voldemort. Harry realizes that Dumbledore had led him to the correct path, but that it would be up to Harry and his friends to walk the path and overcome the problems faced along the way.

Death also plays a large role in the book, with several of the supporting characters entering the clearing at the end of the path by the end of the story. Hedwig, Mad-Eye Moody, Lupin, Tonks, Dobby the house elf, and Fred Weasley are some of the casualties along the way, along with a number of Death Eaters and their supporters. The book does not skirt around the issue of mentioning the war in the wizarding world, and in war it is expected there will be casualties, many of them bitter and seemingly arbitrary. Harry learns how to deal with the death of close friends and the importance of continuing his quest even though he knows more death may come before the end, but that Voldemort must be defeated for the war to stop.

The book used the challenges facing Harry and his friends, and the introduction of new challenges as ways to keep the story moving forward and to illuminate various aspects of previous books. Much more of the history of Dumbledore, Snape, and the wizarding world at large was revealed in this book than in any other in the series. Rowling showed that Voldemort's quest for power took him from the forests of Albania to distant caves to medieval towers and even to the desecration of a grave, all in an attempt to gain one more tool to escape death and kill Harry Potter. Harry, on the other hand, followed a quest to learn the truth about his family, his strained relationship with Snape, and the vague life and teachings of Albus Dumbledore. Not surprisingly, Harry defeated Voldemort in the end by attempting to reduce Voldemort's power and understand the events that had so affected his life. Voldemort, as an aspiring immortal villain, trapped in an infinite present of gaining more power, was defeated by the simple disarming spell of a boy who understood the road he had traveled, leading from his childhood, though happiness, tragedy, and hope, on into a brighter future for the wizarding world and the Muggle world.

In many cases, homeowners facing a financial crisis have numerous problems to worry about. Getting back on track, finding some way to stop foreclosure, and figuring out a solution to pay overdue bills and credit cards are just a few of these problems. Combine these with a lack of income, and there is a real danger that homeowners could bounce a check or create an overdraft on their checking account. Sometimes, even the mortgage company will make an automatic withdrawal that the homeowners are not aware of until it is too late and their checking account has turned into another bill.

When this happens, the bank will immediately begin charging extra fees to the account, including overdraft fees, NSF (non-sufficient funds) charges, and an amount for each day that the account is behind (sometimes as much as $5.00 per day). A couple hundred dollar deficit can quickly balloon to over a thousand dollars, and the homeowners may find that their account has been closed and sent to collections. It is usually at this point that the last financial support has failed, and the homeowners are in danger of losing their home to foreclosure, being sued by creditors, having their cars repossessed, and with a huge bill where their savings account had once been.

For most homeowners in a financial hardship, this would be enough to make the situation even more desperate. However, even when the crisis is over and the house has been saved from foreclosure, or the homeowners have decided to move on, there is one last trap waiting for them, one more cruel joke that the banking industry has up its sleeve to ensure the homeowners' financial reputations are completely eradicated. They can not get a loan for the purchase of a new home, no creditor will loan them money or issue them a credit card, and nearly every bank in the country will refuse to open a new checking or savings account for them.

Yes, that's correct: the homeowners will not even be able to open a new bank account, if their previous one was closed due to an overdraft or similar reason. This is due to a nefarious reporting agency known as Chexsystes. Chexsystems is similar to the credit agencies in that member banks report to Chex which of their customers had accounts closed "for cause." When a customer does have an account closed in this matter, and then attempts to open a new account, the bank can run their names through Chexsystems, and will reject the customer if there is a record.

Chexsystems records last for five years, and consumers will find it impossible to open an account during this time. There are a few banks that will accept new accounts for customers with a record, but the vast, vast majority of banks will simply not open the new account. This puts customers on a five-year banking blacklist, forcing them to cash their payroll checks at expensive currency exchanges, purchase money orders to pay bills, use hard cash for every other purchase. Obviously, for a family that has narrowly survived a financial hardship, the extra costs associated with not having a bank account will add up very quickly.

The worst part of the system is the vindictive attitude with which it is treated. Banks will not fail to report a customer's account to Chexsystems in order to warn the rest of the industry of the problem. However, if the consumer eventually pays off the account, there is still no assurance from the bank that they will remove the Chex record or even report it as paid off. Even though Chexsystems requires that paid off accounts be reported to them, few banks comply, and consumers are kept out of the banking system far longer than they would be if the banks did not take a vengeful attitude with their former customers. It is only through much research on the process of getting off Chexsystems that consumers will learn how to deal with the bank and have the listing removed or updated.

This fourth reporting agency is often far more damaging to homeowners than any of the other credit reporting agencies. Ending up on a blacklist and being treated like an exile in one's own country designed to hurt the consumer even further is a fate that only our current banking system could have devised for dealing with the poor and downtrodden. The same banks who assault customers' senses with subliminal and overt advertising for credit cards and huge loans are the same ones who will push the customer out of the banking system completely once they have taken as much money as they can in the form of interest and expensive fees.

If any of our clients find that they are on Chexsystems, please contact us and we will email you a new form letter that is used to fight back against the original bank and against Chexsystems. It has been proven to work in the past and is designed to result in a complete deletion without resorting to legal action against the bank.

As part of their advertising campaigns, many banks offer their customers some sort of enticement or sign-on bonus for opening a new account with that particular bank. While most banks used to hand out some sort of gift, such as toasters or duffel bags or the like, some large banks are now offering new customers extra cash, as long as they keep the account open for a certain amount of time. These sound like great deals, but, as with everything else with banks, there is another side to the story.

Banks offer these enticements in order to get more customers to do business with them. With such a vast amount of competition in the banking industry, large banks are working as hard as they can to remain as large as they are, and are looking for as many customers as they can get by rewarding new customers who open accounts.

Due to the nature of the US banking system, if a customer were to deposit even $100 with the bank in the new account, the bank will be able to loan out nearly $90 of that money to other customers. If they decide to give the customer back $50, and give them an opening balance of $150, then they can loan out even more: in this case $135 of the original $100 that was deposited. So these arrangements always end up working in the bank's favor, since they can loan out more and make more money on interest that they collect from their lending activities.

This is because banks make their money on how much money that their customers have on deposit with them, since they will use those deposits to make loans and collect interest. Giving a customer an extra $50 that is created out of thin air is really very little to them, and comparable to other banks that may give their customers a $50 gift bag or toaster or some other appliance. But cash is a better enticement and works out better for the bank, as well, because the bank creates the money without having to spend it on an actual gift.

Many of these accounts, though, have strict time limits that the account needs to be open, or the bank will claim back their cash gift. There is no consequence if the customer decides to close the account after the initial period (which is usually at least 3 months), but it is important that the customers do not write bad checks or create overdrafts. Those activities can have consequences later on when they try to open another bank account with a different company. But just opening or closing a bank account doesn't impact the customer's credit, since they are not borrowing money that they have on deposit in the first place.

Our next post will look at what does happen, though, if a bank customer has a serious overdraft and is unable to cure it. In these cases, the bank will give the customers a period of time in which to come up with the extra money, but will close the account if there is no way to get back on top of the account. Having a bank account closed due to an overdraft problem is a very serious problem for consumers, and it is more common in homeowners facing foreclosure than we would like. The same financial hardships that can lead to foreclosure will often lead to charged-off credit cards, collection accounts, or closed bank accounts. The closed bank account, however, is arguably the most devastating of these events, and it is what we will examine next.

The book that is the subject of this review is The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro, written by Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith, and revised and updated by Kenn Thomas in 2004. The subject matter dealt with is the various conspiracies and secret government dealings that journalist and writer Danny Casolaro was researching before is his untimely death in 1991, supposedly just as he was about to complete his own lines of investigation. A few of these topics Casolaro and the writers of The Octopus examined are worth mentioning to give the casual observer a general overview of what this book examines.

Obviously, the strange circumstances surrounding Danny Casolaro's death are examined at length. Ostensibly ruled a suicide, there were enough odd events that point in the direction that Casolaro was murdered and made to look as if he committed suicide. Some of these aspects include the fact that Casolaro had communicated to friends and family that he was, in fact, generally happy in life and was excited at having tracked his research to its end. The police investigation after the death made mistakes and may have involved the involvement of higher government agencies than a simple local suicide would warrant. The body, furthermore, was embalmed without the family's notification, making an autopsy more difficult later on. Years after the death, the FBI reopened the investigation to determine whether the death could be ruled a suicide or murder.

Much of Casolaro's research focused on the near-legendary PROMIS (Prosecutor's Mangement Information System) computer software program, created by a company called Inslaw. The software was to be sold to the government and used primarily by US attorneys tracking criminal cases between various offices. However, the government stopped paying Inslaw, forcing the company into bankruptcy and igniting a lengthy legal battle between Inslaw and the Department of Justice, which resulted in a judge ruling that the DOJ had stolen the PROMIS software. The decision was eventually overturned on appeal due to a technicality. The software, though, has been reported to be used, modified, enhanced, and sold to foreign governments with "back door" access, allowing the US government to track virtually any data that ends up in the system.

The authors also examine a number of events, based on Casolaro's notes, that the members of the secret government have been involved in. Just a few of these worth mentioning include the failed Albanian operation at the beginning of the Cold War, the overthrow of Arbenz' government in Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy Assassination, Watergate, and the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland, among others. It does not appear that Casolaro went too deeply into each of these areas, although much of his research does not survive, but he aimed to tie together all of these events as having been manipulated by the secret team he nicknamed "The Octopus." The Octopus was identified as consisting of eight members, some widely known and others more obscure, who operated outside the boundaries of government oversight or accountability and funded by drug money.

One of the more intriguing aspects to the Octopus story, although it is not based on Casolaro's direct research, involves the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997 due to a car crash. Co-author Jim Keith researched much of the material for this section, and connects some of the dots between Dodi Al Fayed, Diana's partner, and the major players of the Octopus cabal. Ironically enough, Keith himself died of strange circumstances shortly after publishing a story stating that Diana was pregnant at the time of her death, but before his next article naming the Muslim doctor who examined Diana.

The last event that the book examines is the alleged use of the PROMIS software by Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bin Laden may have purchased the software from Russia and used it to avoid being captured after the attacks. Although it is a very short section, it points out the continuity of these conspiracies through various presidential administrations, from the original theft of PROMIS to the use of the software by the most wanted terrorist in the world. Some of the same players in the original drama have now returned to power in the Bush II administration, and the same questions remained unanswered by the same people.

In the end, the book is a good introduction to various conspiracies and some of the well-known and lesser-known participants in each of them. The two-hundred page review of Casolaro's research and related events may seem to jump around from topic to topic at times, but the various tentacles of "The Octopus" would seem to make this inevitable. Although the book may not convince many skeptics, it provides many different avenues for further research for those with an open mind. The sheer number of topics mentioned leave the reader feeling as if they have just scratched the surface of the secret dealings of Casolaro's and the authors' Octopus.

Credit is an issue that many homeowners worry about, especially when facing foreclosure. They know that numerous late payments on the mortgage or charged-off credit cards will result in the dreaded status of having "bad credit." Really, though, what is bad credit and why is it bad? And for whom is it bad? And what are the alternatives to living a life scarred with bad credit? These questions deserve some thought by all consumers, but especially by foreclosure victims who have seen their credit history destroyed by financial hardships.

A homeowner with bad credit is simply one who has been given a low score by the three major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and Transunion), based on their habitual use of credit. Low credit scores may reflect having too many open accounts, not paying the bill on time, or not paying the account at all. Other creditors will look at these habits and credit score and determine whether to loan money to a consumer and how much to charge for the money loaned. A good credit score means that someone can borrow more money and pay less interest. But what makes it necessary for so many consumers to borrow so much money to finance their lives, is the fact that so many live outside of their means and lack the discipline to save money on a consistent basis. When potential creditors notice that consumers are not acting wisely with the credit, they often turn them down for additional borrowing.

Bad credit, therefore, is seemingly only detrimental to banks and lending institutions. Not being able to borrow outrageous sums of money for unnecessary items can give consumers the financial discipline that is so often talked about and so often lacking. Retreating away from the desire to buy another car or another toy sounds wonderful in theory, but is always much more difficult for any consumer who has a few thousand dollars' worth of borrowing capacity in his or her wallet. In fact, buying that $2,000 flatscreen TV may even seem like a prudent use of money, especially if the consumers passed on the $4,000 model even though they had the ability to borrow it.

Lacking this ability to incur endless amounts of credit, consumers are forced to live within their means and creditors receive no interest payments. Bad credit is good for the consumer and bad for the bank, although this is exactly the opposite of what is expounded over and over again. Of course, not using credit at all is even better than having bad credit, but the ease of obtaining credit is a serious obstacle to overcome, even for the most wary consumer. Facing a hardship, falling behind, and realizing the emotionally destructive power of credit is a lesson that many consumers simply have to learn the hard way.

Once a consumer begins borrowing, he or she immediately precludes or diminishes their ability to save money. Money that could have been saved is instead spent on paying interest on previous borrowing. As is apparent, this quickly becomes a vicious cycle, with consumers borrowing more to pay back what they previously borrowed and unable to adequately save money to get out of debt or even to respond to a temporary financial hardship. Unfortunately, life happens, and every family will face financial difficulties sometime; for consumers trapped in the credit cycle, this can lead to bankruptcy, foreclosure, or repossession of the valued assets that they never owned but came to rely upon for their own economic stability.

The solution, although obvious, is admittedly very difficult to achieve. It is also counterintuitive to conventional wisdom, although it makes logical sense in the context of reality for most individuals. Consumers need to establish a history of saving before they even consider beginning a credit history. Instead of high school graduates and college students being sent countless credit card applications and the lure of a brand new car with low financing rates, these young people, through their jobs, should stay as far away from credit as possible before they have built up a significant savings account. Young people just entering the market through entry-level jobs can not expect financial success or even stability later in life by chaining themselves to debt slavery for the foreseeable future.

Using credit is a habit for far too many individuals. Even as their income increases, these same youths who latched onto credit to increase their self-esteem, will further increase their use of credit to "keep up" with their new status as managers or executives. Unfortunately, executives who rely on borrowing money at the expense of saving are just as vulnerable to a loss of job or medical emergency as a factory worker or cashier. More income, coupled with increasing use of credit, results in the consumers playing a higher-stakes game, but it is the same gamble. Borrowing money precludes savings, which is the insurance policy that every household should have in place to weather any financial difficulty.

Depending on what certain homeowners do to save their homes from foreclosure, there may be a large tax liability or none at all. This post looks at some of the scenarios in which homeowners may have to pay extra taxes at the end of the year, and other scenarios in which there would be no extra liability at all.

When a house is completely foreclosed and sold at sheriff sale, the property generally sells for less than what the homeowners originally owed on the loan, including fees, courts costs, and interest. In this instance, there would be no tax liability because the homeowners realize no gain from the sheriff sale. In fact, they lose money, and they can not pay taxes on money that they have lost.

In short sale situations, though, where the mortgage company takes a lower payoff amount in order to allow the homeowners to sell the house and stop foreclosure, there will be a tax liability. The bank is considered to have forgiven a portion the original debt, and the IRS treats this as income to the homeowners. They will have to pay taxes on the difference between what they owed on the loan and the actual amount that the mortgage company agreed to take.

So, whatever their yearly tax rate is, they will have to add the additional amount to their income and be taxed at that rate. Of course, the actual tax rate the foreclosure victims pay depends on how much money they make, so it is important for them to contact the IRS or a tax professional to determine their actual marginal tax rate. At low incomes, they may pay only 10% of their income as taxes, but at higher rates, nearly 30% can be owed as taxes. The amount forgiven in the short sale may be taxed at the lower rates or the highest rates, but this will depend on how much overall income the homeowners receive.

Again, though, any tax liability comes into play only if the homeowners complete a short sale on the property, with the bank forgiving a portion of the original debt owed. In cases where the house sells for less that the amount owed, such as at a sheriff sale in many cases, there is no income to the foreclosure victims, and no tax liability. The property is merely foreclosed and sold to the highest bidder with the foreclosure victims realizing no gain from the situation.

Many homeowners in foreclosure feel lost and completely uneducated about how the foreclosure process works and how they can save their homes. Receiving enough foreclosure advice to fully understand the situation should be their first step, even before they are formally served with foreclosure papers. It is only when foreclosure victims know what to expect that they can avoid the various scams operating in the industry and find a real solution to avoid losing their homes.

Far too many of these foreclosure scam operators trick homeowners into sending them hundreds of dollars at a time in exchange for vague promises of "foreclosure help services," or "loss mitigation options." These companies collect all of their fee before doing any work for the foreclosure victims, and then provide absolutely no services to their clients, only to recommend that they file bankruptcy to stop foreclosure at the last minute. This is usually done when the sheriff sale date is coming up very shortly. When they are turned down at the last minute, the homeowners may have no other options to prevent the sheriff sale from taking their home.

This is one of the main reasons that homeowners should educate themselves about the basics of the foreclosure process and what methods can be used to prevent foreclosure. They should not trust anyone just to provide them with this information in exchange for nothing, so it is important for homeowners to research whatever they can on their own. Remaining ignorant of the foreclosure process puts the foreclosure victims in much greater danger of falling prey to a foreclosure scam who may leave them even worse off than when they started, in addition to wasting valuable time and money that could be used in the pursuit of a legitimate way to avoid foreclosure.

Every homeowner facing the possibility of foreclosure needs to gather as much foreclosure information as possible and evaluate what options are available for saving their home. Then they can make every attempt to remove themselves from the foreclosure process. Foreclosure victims can educate themselves on how to put together a forbearance agreement, how to qualify for a foreclosure loan, and every other option. The banks will not provide the homeowners with this information, so it is wise for homeowners themselves to gain the education needed to stop foreclosure.

Missing a scheduled mortgage payment is a huge deal for homeowners: they will receive collection calls incessantly, foreclosure scammers will crawl out of the woodwork offering magical potions, and the situation can spiral downward from there. Homeowners, though, can take back control of the situation and end their reliance on receiving help from everyone else besides themselves. The best way for any homeowner to stop foreclosure is simply to learn how foreclosure works and what solutions are available, and then work on a solution until the house is saved or there are no options left.

As a long-time fan of the Harry Potter book series, it is always with trepidation that I approach a new Harry Potter movie. With the recent release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I felt even more uneasy than usual. As the longest book in the series to date, it was almost painful thinking of all the potential cuts that would be made to package an 800+ page book into a two-and-a-half hour movie. After my relative disappointment with the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I admit I was quite worried about the new Harry Potter movie.

Thankfully, though, the movie met nearly every expecation I had. Everything in the book had been culled except for the main thrust of the plot and all of the action, but this resulted in the most action-packed, breathless Harry Potter movie thus far, from the dementor attack, to Harry's first kiss with Cho, to the final battle between Dumbledore and Voldemort. The only drawback to this approach is that major themes were presented as simple one-time occurrences and some of the continuity of the book was lost in the movie.

One main theme where this was apparent was Harry's detention punishments by Professor Umbridge. The book focused much more on the physical torture being inflicted on Harry and his resilience in the face of the unfair, brutal detention sentence. Another theme only briefly mentioned in the movie is the interaction of the adult members of the Order of the Phoenix and their desire to shield the children from its meetings and actions. The students, on the other hand, do their best to penetrate the secrets and learn what they can about the Order. The movie only glosses over these interactions, which make up significant portions of the book.

However, in such a short movie, it was amazing that so many themes were hit upon. Although it is in more of a "Greatest Hits" type of format, there are really only a few scenes or themes that did not make it into the movie. One of the more powerful scenes in the book that I found missing from the movie was the students' visit to Ron Weasley's father in the hospital after the snake attack, where they were also introduced to Neville Longbottom's parents, who had been tortured into madness by the Death Eater, Voldemort follower Bellatrix Lestrange. This visit provided some valuable insight into both the main characters as well as Neville, in an emotionally powerful scene. Although it was not central to the book, it was a scene well worth seeing in the movie.

Arguably, the character of Dolores Umbridge is the most irritating professor to have graced the halls of Hogwarts during Harry's years there. The movie does a remarkable job of bringing out the most unlikeable traits of the Professor Umbridge. From her irritating cough, "Hem, hem," to the use of Ministry of Magic Educational Decrees to take away the students' rights and privileges and take over control of Hogwarts, to the arrogant attitude that results in her eventual downfall late in the story, it is hard to imagine a more grating character. The actress who plays Umbridge does so masterfully.

The special effects in the movie, as in all of the Harry Potter movies, are great, and the acting is believable. While it could not have been easy paring down a book of this size into a more manageable movie, the end result is a wonderful revisitation of Harry's world and the best summary of the book that could be expected. For anyone who has not read the books or seen any of the other movies, all this talk of "He Who Must Not Be Named," Muggles, and wizards wearing black masks of death will seem absurd and confusing, but for those of us Harry Potter fans, the movie only makes the week-long wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that much slower. In fact, in my case, the movie did exactly what I am sure it was designed to do: when I got home, I pre-ordered the book on Amazon.com and will be eagerly reading in when it gets here on Saturday.

One of the most common feelings that homeowners in foreclosure experience is an overwhelming sense of bewilderment in regards to the entire foreclosure process and what solutions are available. Searching out the most relevant foreclosure information is one of the best ways for homeowners to get started saving their homes, and should be done as soon as they know they will miss a mortgage payment. By knowing what to expect and how the process works, foreclosure victims can put together a real plan to save their homes and avoid any possible scams.

Some of the most prevalent foreclosure scam tricks is for certain companies to convince the homeowners to send them hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for a vague promise of "foreclosure consulting services" or "loss mitigation solutions." The worst of these companies collect money from the foreclosure victims up front and then provide no services that will help the homeowners stop foreclosure on their homes. At the last minute, they will recommend the homeowners file bankruptcy to save their homes and stop the sheriff sale, which is usually scheduled very close in the future. When this happens, the foreclosure victims may have no other options left to prevent from losing the home to foreclosure.

Scams like this and others are the most important reason that foreclosure victims need to gain an awareness of how the foreclosure process works and what can be done to stop it. Blindly trusting someone they have never met to help them will only ensure that the homeowners are taken advantage of somewhere along the line, and may end up in a worse situation than ever before. They will be in greater danger of losing their money and their home after being taken advantage of by a foreclosure scam company. And the amount of time that is wasted can never be recovered and used to pursue a legitimate solution to foreclosure.

Every family in danger of losing their house to foreclosure should seek out as much foreclosure advice as they reasonably can and research what options can be used to save their home. Once they understand the process, they can put together a plan to end it. Just a few solutions that may apply in various situations are loan modifications and hard money loans, among others. Homeowners also should not trust their banks to make them aware of these various options to stop foreclosure, as many mortgage company representatives do not know about these solutions themselves.

When homeowners miss their first mortgage payment, the proverbial Rubicon has been crossed: they will begin to receive hourly phone calls from the mortgage company, foreclosure scams will target them for their snake oil solutions, and the financial situation can get out of control very quickly. Foreclosure victims can reassert their control, though, and educate themselves to prevent from being taken advantage of. The best method for any homeowner to stop foreclosure is to learn more about how the foreclosure process works and what can be done to solve the problem, and then pursue a number of reasonable solutions until the house is either saved, or they have decided that they can not save the house.

Many homeowners in foreclosure feel lost and completely uneducated about how the foreclosure process works and how they can save their homes. Receiving enough foreclosure advice to fully understand the situation should be their first step, even before they are formally served with foreclosure papers. It is only when foreclosure victims know what to expect that they can avoid the various scams operating in the industry and find a real solution to avoid losing their homes.

Far too many of these foreclosure scam operators trick homeowners into sending them hundreds of dollars at a time in exchange for vague promises of "foreclosure help services," or "loss mitigation options." These companies collect all of their fee before doing any work for the foreclosure victims, and then provide absolutely no services to their clients, only to recommend that they file bankruptcy to stop foreclosure at the last minute. This is usually done when the sheriff sale date is coming up very shortly. When they are turned down at the last minute, the homeowners may have no other options to prevent the sheriff sale from taking their home.

This is one of the main reasons that homeowners should educate themselves about the basics of the foreclosure process and what methods can be used to prevent foreclosure. They should not trust anyone just to provide them with this information in exchange for nothing, so it is important for homeowners to research whatever they can on their own. Remaining ignorant of the foreclosure process puts the foreclosure victims in much greater danger of falling prey to a foreclosure scam who may leave them even worse off than when they started, in addition to wasting valuable time and money that could be used in the pursuit of a legitimate way to avoid foreclosure.

Every homeowner facing the possibility of foreclosure needs to gather as much foreclosure information as possible and evaluate what options are available for saving their home. Then they can make every attempt to remove themselves from the foreclosure process. Foreclosure victims can educate themselves on how to put together a forbearance agreement, how to qualify for a foreclosure loan, and every other option. The banks will not provide the homeowners with this information, so it is wise for homeowners themselves to gain the education needed to stop foreclosure.

Missing a scheduled mortgage payment is a huge deal for homeowners: they will receive collection calls incessantly, foreclosure scammers will crawl out of the woodwork offering magical potions, and the situation can spiral downward from there. Homeowners, though, can take back control of the situation and end their reliance on receiving help from everyone else besides themselves. The best way for any homeowner to stop foreclosure is simply to learn how foreclosure works and what solutions are available, and then work on a solution until the house is saved or there are no options left.

The Underground History of American Education is the third book by John Taylor Gatto that we have reviewed (Dumbing Us Down was reviewed here and A Different Kind of Teacher was reviewed here ). This book is by far the longest and most in-depth of the three books and represents a well-researched and acutely-argued contribution to the debate about modern compulsory schooling.

Instead of being merely an overview of some of the ideas that have made their way into the school system, Gatto's 400+ page, textbook sized book begins with a look at ancient philosophies, such as the Egyptians and Greeks, and also examines the educational backgrounds of the founding fathers of America. He sees our current school system as Egyptian in nature, with a predetermined place for every citizen and learning geared towards that position. Future factory workers will be given only as much education as they need to listen to superiors without asking questions, future elites will be encouraged to understand every side of an argument so they can persuade others. Very few, if any, students will be able to rise above their place in life. The founding fathers of our country had little or no "school," as Gatto explains, but each gained a remarkable education from learning on their own.

The focus of Gatto's research and arguments, though, center on the period beginning in the mid-1800's through the early 1900's. There is also much analysis of the history of schooling in the mid-to-late 1900's and early 21st century, but the real groundwork was laid in the critical periods of the mid-1800's and early 1900's. In particular, 1852 was the first year that a law was effected making school mandatory for children in Massachusetts. Although this law, and similar ones passed around the same time, had little teeth, it was an important step in the process of designing a well schooled citizenry, as opposed to a well educated one.

The school system as we have it today is the product of several different philosophies, including scientific management, behaviorism, Fabianism, all kinds of social and evolutionary racism, and the lure that the most prominent social engineers faced to create a utopia. Once great numbers of undesirable immigrants (Celts, Slavs, and those of European Latin descent) were coming to America, a great cry was sent up to "Americanize" these new immigrants and force them to become as much like the rest of Americans as everyone else. Little regard was paid to the fact that this was blatantly racist, and that few Americans up to that point had ever been "Americanized." Yet, school was seen as the great social engine that could Americanize the new immigrants.

The most powerful idea to make its way into modern schooling, though, was a school system based on the Prussian version. Children in Prussian schools were forced to go to school and were taught as little as possible, making them children for life with a near-total dependence on the state and superiors to make their decisions for them. This is one contributing factor of the great military might of the Prussians, and their system was emulated heavily in America.

All of these ideas were funded, for the most part, by the foundations set up by the great trusts and businesses of the late 1800's, such as Rockefeller's General Education Board, the Ford Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation, as well as the Morgan banking interests. All of these businesses knew that, in order to dissuade people from becoming entrepreneurs and being able to think critically about being treated shabbily and forced to crawl through coal mines for pennies, children would have to be trained to become totally dependent on someone telling them what to do. The compulsory school laws were given the enforcement they needed and parents were forced to send their children to factories that would mass produce employees.

Several more concepts found their way into the school system to effect an even more powerful ability to manage masses of children. A dumbing down of material took away the chance for children to develop the habit of reading deeply and thinking critically. With the laws becoming compulsory, there was a purposeful injection into the school system of vast numbers of children who did not want to be there, causing a further dumbing down of education. Textbooks suddenly stopped discussing topics such as death or evil, and faith in religion was replaced by faith in science. Strict teacher licensing requirements precluded anyone with anything useful to teach students from teaching them, unless the were willing to become licensed.

Numerous layers of bureaucracy were added to school system, along with untold numbers of administrative positions, bloating the budgets of schools and creating more busy work for these grownup children. Teachers would get their curriculum from administrators, who got it from the state, who got it from the federal government, who got it from numerous foundations, think tanks, and colleges. Thus, school has come to serve two purposes much more important to the economy than the actual education of children. The first was to create a jobs project, creating useless administrative positions and necessitating more teachers to teach kids who did not want to go to school and would not learn. Second, modern schools provide a useful testing ground for new ideas that are brainstormed in the colleges, foundations, and think tanks.

According to Gatto, what all this adds up to is a broken school system that works remarkably like it should. Few students ever learn in spite of school how to think critically about themselves and the world they live in. Most people who have been schooled end up working jobs that hold no joy for them as they take more busy work orders from a superior who knows even less than they do about the world, constantly avoiding any pain-inducing situation that would cause them to grow, and consuming everything they possibly can, completely at the whims of various marketers and television commercials. Docile, unhappy consumers are exactly what an economic system based on monopolistic capitalist ideas needs to function, and this is exactly the result that has been engineered. No solution to the problem of school can be long-term as long as this type of economy exists.

To conclude, though, The Underground History of American Education is an exhausting yet intimate look into the modern schooling system. Even a review of this length can only begin to scratch the surface of this book, and after reading it, it is amazing that any family would trust their children to get a quality education from a group of strangers being given orders by other strangers they are not even themselves aware of. For the vast numbers of people who are products of the school system and look back on it with the realization that they learned very little and had their entire youths wasted, Gatto writes, "School can't be that bad, you say. You survived it, didn't you? Or did you? ...Has it made a crucial difference for good in your life? Don't answer. I know it hasn't. You surrendered twelve years of your life because you had no choice. You paid your dues, I paid mine But who collected those dues?"

Saving a home from foreclosure is not easy in any situation. It never has been. It is work, plain and simple, and usually very hard work. Too many homeowners are just not aware of how much work it will take to prevent from losing their homes, and they make common mistakes like trusting that someone else will take care of their problems, or waiting until the last minute in order to get anything done.

Part of the problem may lie in the fact that the process to purchase a home and apply for a mortgage require very little work by the homeowners, who simply fill out some paperwork, sign their names a few times, and wait on the real estate agent and mortgage broker for the approval. In contrast, foreclosure situations are dealt with solely between the mortgage company and the foreclosure victims, with no one to represent the homeowners. The relative ease of buying a home quickly turns into a situation where the homeowners are left completely on their own to deal with a problem of which they have little knowledge.

Why do so few homeowners appreciate the large task that is put in front of them when facing foreclosure? Most likely, it is due to the widely-held perception that everything in life should be easy, and work is something to be avoided, rather than viewed as a tool of personal and intellectual growth. Homeowners who have grown accustomed to having all of their thinking done for them by their boss or the television may find it very difficult to put enough thought into coming up with a solution to foreclosure. They either procrastinate looking for options, or blindly trust in another company to help them stop foreclosure on their homes.

Ironically, committing either of these mistakes will only create more work for the foreclosure victims in the end, as they will be scrambling around to find some way to save the house, or become the victim of a foreclosure scam company. There really is no reasonable way that homeowners can avoid the work that it takes to work with their bank to get out of the foreclosure process. Putting off the effort will only require that even more effort be expended later on, and the chances of success will fall dramatically as time goes on.

The work required to stop foreclosure on a home is often challenging, but homeowners can not expect anyone else to do the work for them. Waiting too long to begin a plan is just as bad of an idea, as foreclosure costs, interest, and late fees continue to rise with each day that the homeowners are unable to pay their mortgage. The rewards may only be getting back on top of their financial situation and back on track, but the experience of facing foreclosure can help homeowners deal with other hardships they face, as well as help neighbors and family members in similar situations. Learning from foreclosure may be difficult, but it is not as difficult as losing a home to foreclosure.

Many homeowners, when facing the possibility of foreclosure, feel that their financial situation has gotten completely out of control, and that there is no place to turn for help. While most of our website is designed to help homeowners stop foreclosure on their own, there are situations where the presence of outside, third-party help can provide foreclosure victims with the extra help they need to save their homes.

The most common area that homeowners can receive foreclosure help in is the area of loss mitigation, whereby the homeowners work with their bank to put together a plan that will get them out of foreclosure and back on track with their mortgage. Often, though, the bank will not offer the homeowners the most affordable repayment plan that is available, trying to get as much money as possible from the foreclosure victims. When homeowners have attempted working with the bank to stop foreclosure and have been turned down for the basic repayment plan, a loss mitigation company can step in and attempt to work with the homeowners and the mortgage company to come to a common understanding.

Loss mitigation companies are often able to take the homeowners' financial information and put together the most plausible scenario that the bank will accept to give the homeowners another chance. These plans may involve standard forbearance agreements or loan modifications, in most cases, but the mitigation company will do whatever possible to make sure the foreclosure victims are given the best possible solution. Unfortunately, the main problem arises when the bank is not willing to work with the homeowners, or will not approve a repayment plan without a significant amount of money up front, or a monthly payment that is unmanageable. At this point, it is usually up to the homeowners to decide what their next step will be: either turning down the loss mitigation solution or doing their best to complete it and get the mortgage back on track. This is often not a very easy decision to make.

Obviously, the quality of the loss mitigation company is very important, to ensure that the homeowners have a professional team working on their situation. There are enough stories of foreclosure victims being taken advantage of by various loss mitigators, so it is wise for any homeowner to get as much foreclosure advice as possible, before committing to a particular company. However, the homeowners' relationship with their own mortgage company is potentially the most important factor. If there is no trust or willingness to work together between the homeowner and the bank, there is very little that the loss mitigation company will be able to accomplish.

This is why homeowners need to attempt working with their bank first, and make the case that they are seriously interested in finding an option that will stop foreclosure. If negotiations break down, then a third party may be brought in to help come to some common ground, but foreclosure victims simply can not rely on anyone else to begin the process of saving their home. There are good loss mitigation companies and bad, good mortgage companies and bad, and good relationships between banks and their clients and bad ones. When attempting to work out a solution to foreclosure, it is necessary for homeowners to have a good relationship with their bank, which makes it much more reasonable that the mortgage company will act reasonable towards the loss mitigation company. Then it is a simple matter of the homeowners finding a reputable loss mitigation company to work with and putting together an affordable plan to save their homes.

Schooling is possibly one of the most difficult topics on which to write an objective article. How the current foreclosure crisis stems from the purpose of school is even more difficult to analyze. Experts, specialists, and professionals of every field are in abundance to comment on the pros and cons of our modern school experiment, but it is doubtful that any of them can provide any more insight to the argument of schooling's usefulness than the millions of people who have spent over a decade of their natural lives compelled to go to school each day. Anyone who spends thirteen or more years engaged in a certain activity, whether it be school, helping homeowners stop foreclosure, or operating a forklift, can be considered an expert in his or her field, confident enough to speak about the subject and inform others of the intricacies of the activity.

Why, then, do so few people seem able to think critically about the function of school in our modern society and realize how this system contributes to nearly every financial crisis we face, including the current foreclosure rates? Some of the answers to this question lie in the idea of compulsory schooling and the mass production global economy.

Until it became a forced activity for the entire child population, school was considered important for those who wanted to go. For the children to did not want to sit in a classroom, being instructed by a teacher, there were simply other ways of learning. This may have involved working in the family business, becoming an apprentice of a local craft worker, or children, such as Benjamin Franklin, simply learning on their own. Most times, education in lieu of schooling involved young people asking questions of the world around them and going to work to find the answers. School was one route to understanding the world, but it was not considered the only viable solution.

Nowhere but in America in its earliest decades of independence was such a large majority of ordinary people educated, literate, and able to understand complex concepts. This led to the vast majority of families and communities operating independently, relying on one another for support, whether it be financial or emotional. Local banks and private lenders were in far great abundance and generally more willing to work with homeowners if a problem existed. Contrast this to homeowners today trying to save their homes from foreclosure who spend upwards of a half an hour on the phone with a multinational corporation who they have never met. Community problems are not solved by faceless companies.

It was this widespread literacy and ability to think critically, however, that caused such concern for the early modern economists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. People who were able to think for themselves and could persuade others presented a valid threat to the idea that people should risk their lives crawling through dirty coal mines, working for pennies in dangerous textile mills, or even spend a meaningless life answering phones in an office.

Workers who were aware of the destitution of their lives were much more likely to rise up and demand fair treatment, rather than proceed indifferently with their empty lives and unhappy existences. People who could think through problems and solve them would not be an easy target for banks who wanted to abuse customers by taking a substantial amount of their loan payments and, eventually, targeting the home itself.

Thus, a project had to be created to keep children from learning about themselves and their world, and would instead teach them to conform to a superior and look at everything in life with the same indifference that they were later to use when examining their jobs. The obvious solution was a mass schooling experiment that compelled parents to send their children away until they had been molded into efficient workers and half-completed human beings. The very fact that school is a forced activity should explain nearly everything about the institution that is necessary to understand. The modern tools of the modern schools, as well, give some indication as to their purposes in controlling and directing the development of other people's children

School children are grouped by their age, thereby ensuring they learn nothing from those who have come before them, and making sure they are themselves able to teach nothing to those younger than them. Standardized tests take away from the teacher any spontaneity in educating young minds, as a too large proportion of students failing to perform on these tests is seen as a sign of failure. The minds of children are to be standardized the same way half-gallon milk bottles are standardized in shape, texture, size, and even labeling (not to mention content).

Even the compulsion of schooling itself represents a deliberate injection of children into the system that simply do not want to be there. The argument for schooling goes that "everyone needs to learn reading/writing/arithmetic," but there is compelling reason to believe that forcing anyone, even a child, to learn is possibly the best guarantee that the child does not learn. In fact, it may guarantee that that necessary learning never happens, as school children come to equate education with school, and reject both.

People of all ages voluntarily submit themselves to school when they find a topic they believe to be worth studying. In these cases, teachers can provide the guidance and mentoring that allows students to take the subject and grow with it. Furthermore, independent study by people goes on all the time, through reading of books, watching of documentaries, self-reflection, and even the writing of articles (such as this one) to continue an intellectual discussion. Arguments may not ever be solved, truth may not be found, and understanding of another's position may not be reached, but voluntary education attempts to bridge these gaps for the individuals taking part.

Forced schooling only guarantees that some former students will harbor such dislike of school that they decide never to read another book, confining themselves for the rest of their lives to the surrogate schooling of television. Others may develop such dependency on the school system, spending their young years chasing A's, gold stars, and smiley faces, that they are simply unable to educate themselves or create new experiences and develop new ideas. They will always look to the teacher, the manager, or the government, to tell them exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to be there to do it, as well as to take care of them and reward them when they perform adequately. School sets up all of these dependencies, indifferences, and frustrations by forcing children to go and then by forcing their conformity to a predetermined set of procedures and rewards for compliant behavior.

It is up to everyone to educate himself or herself on what it means to be an individual and live a life of self-determination and reflection, rather than the life of an actor, pretending to be happy in life and work, all the while living vicariously on the edge of financial, personal, and spiritual ruin. Is it any wonder that, when recently homeowners realized they had been given too much ability to borrow, they face foreclosure in record numbers, and call on the government to solve the problem for them? A life of being taught to consume (bored people buy more), work for a corporation that may downsize at any moment (critical thinking breeds entrepreneurs and widespread competition, a danger in an economy praising huge business), and respond to every advertisement (buy a new car and get $1,000 cash back and a smiley face on your loan application) came to its inevitable conclusion: these same overgrown children complained that the bullies had forced them to the point of constant instant gratification.

In a sense, they are right: ripped away from family and community, given countless stimulus-response type activities in school, there was no other option for many than to continue looking to advertisers to reward their good buying behavior. The loan application became the new standardized test, but consumers did not realize that failure awaited either result of the test. Any current foreclosure crisis, credit crisis, or business crisis can be traced back to a school system that teaches people exactly how to respond to the messages of the engineers of these crises. It is up to every person who has been schooled to obtain the real education of being able to live his or her own life and create new ideas, rather than responding to the ideas of the newest marketing campaign.

A great number of homeowners are simply unable to stop foreclosure on their homes by the time of the sheriff sale of the property. When they are unable to find some way to postpone the foreclosure auction, state foreclosure law will take over to determine the next steps in the foreclosure process and how much longer the foreclosure victims have to stay in their homes. In some cases they will have to be out of the home within a few weeks, while other states allow for a period of time in which they can put together the funds to pay off the house, thereby redeeming it and maintaining the right of ownership of the property.

When the the sheriff sale occurs, the homeowners will no longer be the owners of the house that has been foreclosed. The winning bidder at auction becomes the new owner and will be able to proceed with the eviction, once the sale is confirmed. Confirming a sale can take from just a few days up to a few weeks, depending on state foreclosure law. But the confirmation process merely determines if the sale took place fairly and was in compliance with all other rules and regulations. Unless there are any major problems, the sale will be confirmed and the foreclosure process completed. The next step will be the eviction process for many homes.

The eviction process begins when the new owners of the property demonstrate to the courts that they are now the owners and have the right of possession of the property. The county court will typically grant the owner possession and order the county sheriff at some date in the near future to evict the former owners and remove all of the property currently in the house.

The former owners, who may still be occupying the property at this point, will be given a certain amount of time (usually a few days to a few weeks) to move out of the property and avoid being forcefully evicted. At this point, there is very little that they can to to stop foreclosure from taking the home from them, unless they are able to purchase the property from the new owners. This is always a possibility, of course, but it is very difficult for very recent foreclosure victims to obtain a new loan to purchase a house.

In cases where the state foreclosure laws allow for a redemption period, the homeowners are granted more time after the sale to pay back the defaulted mortgage and retain ownership of the property. Usually, this means having to pay off the entire amount of the mortgage, either through saving up enough cash or qualifying for a new mortgage. Again, these are very rare possibilities, and many homeowners will not be able to come up with the money to keep the home after the sheriff sale, unless they have substantial assets or there is a lot of equity in the property. But the redemption period will give them a chance to pursue these options or sell the property. If nothing else, the redemption period can be used by homeowners to save up money that can be used for moving expenses, setting up an emergency fund, or paying back other high-interest credit cards and other loans.

Unfortunately, when a family is unable to stop foreclosure and end up seeing their home auctioned off at the sheriff sale, the chances for saving the home drop dramatically. Banks may be willing to postpone sheriff sales or give the homeowners a break by accepting a short sale, but once the foreclosure process is over and the eviction process commences, homeowners are living on borrowed time with few options to keep the house. In states where redemption periods apply, there are more chances to save the home, but the recent foreclosure will make it very difficult for foreclosure victims to qualify for many of the options that may have saved their home even a few weeks before.

The fact that the sheriff sale can mean the end of the line for many homeowners is an important reason that every family falling behind on their bills should seek out as much foreclosure advice as possible, even if they have only missed a couple of mortgage payments. Having a plan to stop foreclosure before it happens means that foreclosure victims will be able to save their homes long before the sheriff sale is conducted, rather than scrambling around to find a place to live after their home has been auctioned off.

Credit. Is there any word that brings up such simultaneous feelings among consumers of dread, worry, and despair, mingled with hope and that unique feeling that one can simply ask for and receive anything on the planet? Few other concepts can bring forth such strong, opposing emotions as the ability to borrow untold sums of money with the simple swipe of a credit card, or a meaningless signature on an equally meaningless piece of paper. For many, though, this pleasurable godsend soon becomes a necessity for consumers, much like water and shelter.

In fact, it is when when one begins using credit to pay for such basic necessities as food, water, and shelter, that credit rears its uglier head and slowly begins to drown the consumer in higher and higher mounds of interest. Homeowners may use high-interest credit cards to pay back their high-interest mortgage, or finance a month of groceries on their credit cards, or may even borrow money to pay for the gas they use to get to work. Once this happens on a continual basis, consumers can find themselves in serious financial trouble. And getting back on top of the situation becomes more and more remote a possibility.

In this situation, all that is needed to push the consumers into bankruptcy, foreclosure, or worse is one financial hardship. A loss of job, unexpected medical expense, or major necessary home improvement can make the difference between the homeowners falling further into the danger zone and simply falling right over the edge into ruin.

Usually, by the time the financial hardship occurs, the consumers have begun falling behind on one bill or another, using credit to pay back credit, or attempting to open new lines of credit to sustain their unsustainable consumption. They know it can not last, and that they are toeing the line between bad decision and financial devastation, but they continue their spending/borrowing cycle until their creditors finally pull the plug on the free money machine. Rather than using logic and common sense, in order to keep their expenses as low as possible, while understanding that borrowing money makes them slaves to the creditor, these consumers procrastinate facing reality until they are at the grocery store and find out that none of their colorful credit cards will any longer be exchanged for real goods and services.

Of course, this is not all the consumers' fault, although they bear nearly all of the responsibility for their own lives and financial decisions. Consumers, though, are bred and trained to conform to the culture of consumption. From a school system which teaches children to be bored unless a superior gives them something to do and discourages critical thinking, to a television which tells people to purchase the newest thing and borrow money if they can not afford it, to a culture of glorified instant millionaires who did nothing of substance to earn their wealth, the average person is simply overwhelmed with a lack of choices.

Either consume or be left behind. Get version 1.5.7.987 instead of 1.5.7.986 or else you will be out of date and unable to keep up with everyone else. Increase your ability to borrow by 2,000% and finance a new car with a piece of plastic. Treat your home and everything else you own as an ATM and just keep borrowing forever.

Through this Hegelian gauntlet of credit and financial woes, it would be expected that people long ago would have learned from the horrific stories of others. But with the prevailing attitude of consumers and message of advertisers being "Bad things can't happen to me -- I'm going to be a millionaire by the middle of next week," it is little wonder that so few learn that credit can be the most dangerous trap of all, creating wage slaves for life. And to think -- none of the credit even existed until the consumers agreed that they would pay it back. Credit is an mirage powerful enough to make willing slaves of people. What else has that power?

Bankruptcy to stop foreclosure is possibly the least-understood and least-desired option for most homeowners, although it can provide them with the last chance they need to be able to save their homes. The drawbacks to bankruptcy are widely discussed and raise serious concerns for foreclosure victims who want to preserve as much of their credit as possible, but this option can also provide homeowners with a last chance that is not present in other solutions to foreclosure.

Bankruptcy can be used to set up a repayment plan that allows the homeowners to repair their credit and get back on track with their debts. Although it is usually an expensive payment plan, homeowners who have repaired their financial situations may be willing to pay more every month to fulfill their mortgage obligations. And once the bankruptcy is completed, homeowners can go back to paying their regular monthly payment without the threat of foreclosure hanging over their heads any longer.

In foreclosure situations, filing bankruptcy will put the entire foreclosure process on hold, which is very important for homeowners when the situation is getting out of control and they are running out of options at the last minutes. When a foreclosure auction is approaching, and there is no other way to stop the sheriff sale, filing bankruptcy will immediately put everything on hold, including putting off the sale of the property. In certain situations, this is the most important aspect of bankruptcy, as it just allows the homeowners to gain a little more time to put together or complete a more reasonable plan to save their homes.

However, there are also valid reasons why homeowners may want to consider bankruptcy to stop foreclosure as a last resort, rather than as their first line of defense. There are numerous methods that are available to stop foreclosure, and working with an attorney to file bankruptcy may not be the most appropriate solution in every case. Foreclosure situations are always unique, and deserve a serious evaluation to determine the best way to save the home.

Filing bankruptcy can be a complex process that is expensive and may not bring about the desired results, in addition to harming the homeowners' credit. When the homeowners' finances have not sufficiently improved to the point of being able to afford the repayment plan, the bankruptcy is doomed to failure from the very beginning. Foreclosure victims should not agree to a repayment plan that they know will be unmanageable in the long run, because missing a payment in bankruptcy means that the foreclosure process will start back up.

There is also the possibility of running across an unscrupulous bankruptcy attorney who does not act in the best interest of the foreclosure victims. Horror stories abound of homeowners who paid for the bankruptcy to be filed and the attorney simply did nothing with it, resulting in the loss of the home to foreclosure. Other attorneys have been known to advise clients to continually switch from a Chapter 13 to a Chapter 7 and back and forth over and over again, in an effort to have the clients pay substantially more in fees for each new filing. Although the vast majority of attorneys will act in the best interests of their clients, it is important that homeowners be aware of potential scams, even among bankruptcy lawyers.

Thus, bankruptcy is a solution to foreclosure that most homeowners should examine with a reputable attorney, even if it is just to have a last-ditch effort to stop foreclosure on their homes. Foreclosure victims need to be aware of the implications of filing bankruptcy, and do their best to avoid being taken advantage of by a scam, but this option should not be ruled out entirely. Despite its complexity, drawbacks, and potential pitfalls, filing bankruptcy to stop foreclosure may give homeowners that one last chance to put the foreclosure process on hold for just long enough to find a more reasonable solution.

There are no easy answers for homeowners and families facing foreclosure. The threat of losing a home, combined with the specific hardship the family faced that caused them to fall behind on their bills, can lead to even more stressful situations and prolong the financial recovery for many homeowners. Unfortunately, the financial system that is in place in America encourages this type of hopelessness and alienation at the expense of homeowners who would otherwise be able to take strength and support from their local communities and families.

Banks and mortgage companies are often faceless entities that collect payments from homeowners but do little else. If they do anything beyond collecting money, it is usually to pass around the right to collect the homeowners' money, as loans are packaged, sold, transferred, bought, sold again, unpackaged, transferred again, ad nauseum. The homeowners who have these mortgages often do not know anything about the companies that service these loans, and do not know what their payments are being used for. Very often, mortgage payments end up in the accounts of the same banks that finance the companies that outsource American jobs overseas, thereby creating the situations that cause many other homeowners to face foreclosure. In effect, some homeowners finance their own destruction and unhappiness.

The entire financial and social system is predicated on the alienation of people from those they do business with, their neighbors, and even their families. Banks know they will not keep loans, so there is virtually no reason to provide service to the loan applicants after the mortgage has been closed. They also know that they can take the wealth out of their clients' communities by providing mortgages in states where none of the payments they collect will be reinvested (except, perhaps, for advertising). This adds nothing to the local community except the injection of a parasite that sucks the wealth from the homeowners and gives it to large banks that care far less for their clients than they do for their shareholders and the media coverage they receive.

In situations such as foreclosure, it is active community involvement that can solve the problem, rather than one family begging a multi-national corporation for pity. Homeowners will be able to stop foreclosure, if they can find a reasonable solution, but these solutions often involve furthering their dependence on this wealth-destroying financial system. Foreclosure victims may agree to pay outrageous amounts of interest on their defaulted payments through a forbearance agreement, or they may get another loan to stop foreclosure through another mortgage company, often at a higher interest rate. It is important for homeowners to address the immediate problem and save their homes, but the foreclosure situations should also give these same families a much-needed incentive to do some critical thinking about the circumstances that led them into foreclosure.

Without a real plan to stop foreclosure and voluntary financial and emotional support, homeowners will continue to lose their homes in record numbers. Communities, local banks, local investors, and families should have a stake in the wealth that they are bringing into a given community. No matter how wealthy the individuals in a community are, if there is a massive sending out of money to banks that will provide no local investment in return, then everyone will get poorer, foreclosures will continue to increase, and banks will be able to take even more from the wealth and property of families.