Remember this? Gates Foundation profited from the sub-prime mortgage biz

[Hannah Bell]

When the telemarketing call came from Ameriquest Mortgage, Jeff and Cheryl Busby were intrigued...
The Busbys couldn't make the payments and were forced to sell. The bungalow had been in Cheryl's family since 1935. It was where she had grown up and where her parents had died. It was 100 percent of the Busbys' retirement nest egg...

Since 1998, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded the nonprofit grants totaling $1.2 million. Yet at the end of 2006, the foundation had more than $2 million invested in securities from Ameriquest.

The conflict is one of many that a Los Angeles Times investigation has found between the Gates Foundation's investments and its good works. The foundation reaps vast profits every year from companies whose actions contradict its mission of improving society in the United States and around the world, particularly people afflicted by poverty and disease.

The Gates Foundation had major investments in:

• Mortgage companies that were accused in lawsuits or by government officials of making it easier for thousands of people to lose their homes.

• A health-care firm that has agreed to pay more than $1.5 billion to settle lawsuits accusing it of medical lapses and fraud going back a decade...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003514469_gates08.html


Ameriquest was one of the United States's leading wholesale lenders. Ameriquest was founded in 1979, in Orange County, California, as a bank, Long Beach Savings & Loan. The bank moved to Orange County in 1991 and was converted to a pure mortgage lender in 1994...

In 1996, the company agreed to pay $3 million into an "educational fund" to settle a Justice Department lawsuit accusing it of gouging and predatory lending practices against older, female, and minority borrowers....

In 2001, after being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission, the company settled a dispute with ACORN, a national organization of community groups, promising to offer $360 million in low-cost loans...

In February 2005, reporters Michael Hudson (reporter) and Scott Reckard broke a story in the Los Angeles Times about “boiler room” sales tactics at Ameriquest. Their investigation found evidence that the lender had in various questionable practices, including “deceiving borrowers about the terms of their loans, forging documents, falsifying appraisals and fabricating borrowers' income to qualify them for loans they couldn't afford..."

On 1 August 2005, Ameriquest announced that it would set aside $325 million to settle attorney-general investigations in 30 states to settle allegations that it had preyed on borrowers with hidden fees and balloon payments...

Former employees from Ameriquest, which was United States's leading wholesale lender,<6> described a system in which they were pushed to falsify documents on bad mortgages and then sell them to Wall Street banks eager to make fast profits.<6> There is growing evidence that such mortgage fraud may be at the heart of the Financial crisis of 2007–2010.<6>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameriquest_Mortgage


giving away "his" money. lol.

[Angry Dragon]

1. Why are not some of these bankers not in jail??

They pay fines and go about their dirty business
throw them in jail and it will slow down or maybe even stop

[pottersvilleusa]

2. Gates is polishing his image

After years of damaging the country through his politics, donations, and workplace policies.

[Hannah Bell]

3. interestingly, ameriquest later became part of citibank, & citibank is the

inheritor of national city bank, rockefeller territory, where gates' great-grandpa made his fortune, setting up and presidenting the first seattle branch.

[Hannah Bell]

4. k

[Hannah Bell]

5. k

[KansasVoter]

6. You are pathtic, bumping your own post because no one cares?

[Hannah Bell]

7. you cared enough to call me "pathtic". thanks for the kick.

if no one cares that the great "philanthropist" profited from the fraud during the mortgage bubble, so much the worse for them.

your regular attacks on critics of gates are duly noted.

[leftstreet]

8. Actually, I consider it polite. Many of us miss posts that drop

And it's not always easy to surf through the myriad Palin - Vaccine - Japanese Men & SEX !!111 stuff to find them

[lonestarnot]

9. I care buzz off!

lightyear.

[Starry Messenger]

10. I care, I'm glad she kicks these.

The forum moves fast and is often full of crap that fills the front page, pushing off good stuff like this.

[Starry Messenger]

11. kick

[Poboy]

13. What is 'pathetic' is typing poorly constructed sentence fragments and submitting it for all to see.

[JackRiddler]

16. You have no manners and no clue.

People bump their own threads all the time and there is no shame in it. People post what they believe in and want readers, so they push it. Good for them. Different sets of readers are here at different times.

Hannah Bell happens to be very popular for her hard work in presenting well-researched threads and for her uncompromising stance for truth over propaganda. She recently received a tribute thread with many responses. If this thread didn't get responses initially, you can be certain it's because people didn't see it yet. I'm grateful she bumped it, otherwise I wouldn't have seen it.

Now apologize if you have any respect for self and others. We don't need childish flame responses like your own.

[JackRiddler]

19. & Here's my path-tick kick for more readers!

[MichiganVote]

20. Somebody sure seems to need a Kick--could it be you?

[Generic Other]

21. kick for Hannah's work exposing the rot at the root

Gates crashes.

[blindpig]

12. k&r

[dionysus]

14. you have some kind of wierd obsession with bill gates, don't you?

[Poboy]

15. argumentum ad hominem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

[JackRiddler]

18. You see fit to give such a response, what does that say about you?

If it's only Hannah's weird obsession, you're wasting your time.

However, my bet is you don't like it when people criticize the Holy Gates. So either you can defend him, or shut up, but this kind of empty sneer reflects only on you.

[AlabamaLibrul]

17. The Gates are our friends! They wanna fix schools and do good things.

:scared:

[Scruffy1]

23. This is is just economic royalism.

It's mostly about tax avoidance and like some posters point out first you have to redistribute the wealth to yourself and then you can choose how it is spent. Pet projects for the rich neighborhood, opera houses and anything else goes. Having just paid for a bunch of overpriced MS textbooks I know where the dough comes from, but now Bill Gates can decide what's best for us which seems like the ultimate in monarchy. Take from the poor, give to the rich and screw anybody that has another plan. If the government had the 45% or so taxes on these trust we could accomplish much with the money and a true consensus.

[OhioChick]

22. K&R n/t

[JackRiddler]

24. Next day kick -- this is how it's done for worthy threads.

[JackRiddler]

25. And another totally shameless kick for readers!