Each day hyperlinks from Cory Doctorow

2023-05-11 19:29:55

Residence possession is the American dream: not solely do you get a spot to reside, free from the high-handed dictates of a landlord, however you additionally get an asset that appreciates, constructing intergenerational wealth when you sleep – actually.

After all, you may’t have it each methods. If your own home is an asset you employ to cowl falling wages, rising well being care prices, spiraling faculty tuition and paper-thin assist for eldercare, then it may possibly’t be a spot you reside. It is gonna be an asset you promote – or on the very least, borrow so closely in opposition to that you’re in fixed threat of dropping it.

That is the contradiction on the coronary heart of the American dream: when America turned its again on organized labor as an engine for creating prosperity and embraced property hypothesis, it set itself on the street to serfdom – a world the place the roof over your head can also be your piggy financial institution, destined to be smashed open to cowl the rising prices that an organized labor motion would have fought:

https://gen.medium.com/the-rents-too-damned-high-520f958d5ec5

In the present day, we have hit the tip of the street for the post-war (inconsistently, racially segregated) shared prosperity that made it appear, briefly, that everybody may get wealthy by proudly owning a home, dwelling in it, then promoting it to everyone else. Now that the sport is ending, the winners are cashing of their chips:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom-bfad6f3b35a9

The massive con of residence possession is continuing neatly on schedule. First, you let the mark win slightly, so that they go all in on the rip-off. Then you definately take all of it again. Obama’s tolerance of financial institution sleze after the Nice Monetary Disaster kicked off the fashionable period of firms and grifters stealing People’ out from underneath them, forging deeds in robosigning mills:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-breaks-down-93-bln-robo-signing-settlement-2013-02-28

The thefts by no means stopped. In the present day on Propublica, by Anjeanette Damon, Byard Duncan and Mollie Simon carry a horrifying, brilliantly reported account of the rampant, bottomless scams of Homevestors, AKA We Purchase Ugly Homes, AKA “the #1 homebuyer within the USA”:

https://www.propublica.org/article/ugly-truth-behind-we-buy-ugly-houses

Homevestors – a military of the hedge fund Bayview Asset Administration – claims a public mission: to bail out householders sitting on unsellable homes with all-cash offers. The corporate’s franchisees – 1,150 of them in 48 states – then sprinkle pixie mud and secret sauce on these “ugly homes” and promote them at a revenue.

However Propublica’s investigation – which relied on whistleblowers, firm veterans, courtroom data and interviews with victims – tells a really completely different story. The Homevestor they found is a predator that steals homes out from underneath aged folks, disabled folks, folks battling psychological sickness and different susceptible folks. It is an organization whose brokers have a strong, well-polished playbook that stops relations from halting the transfers the corporate’s high-pressure salespeople set in movement.

Propublica reveals householders with superior dementia who signed their shaky signatures to switch their properties for a fraction of their market worth. They present how Homevestor targets neighborhoods struck by hurricanes, or whose homeowners are not too long ago divorced, or sick. One whistleblower tells of how the corporate makes use of the surveillance promoting trade to find aged individuals who’ve damaged a hip: “a 60-day countdown to loss of life — and, probably, a deal.” The corporate’s cell advertisements are geofenced to focus on folks close to hospitals and rehab hospitals, in hopes of discovering determined sellers who have to liquidate properties in order that Medicaid will cowl their medical bills.

The gross sales pitches are relentless. Considered one of Homevestor’s targets was a Texas lady whose father had not too long ago been murdered. As she grieved, they blanketed her in pitches to promote her father’s home till “checking her mail grew to become a traumatic expertise.”

Actual-estate brokers are certain by strict rules, however not home flippers like Homevestors. Likewise, salespeople who pitch different high-ticket gadgets, from securities to airplane tickets – are required to supply patrons a cooling-off interval throughout which they’ll rethink their purchases. Against this, Homevestors’ franchisees are well-versed in “muddying the title” to homes after the contract is signed, submitting paperwork that makes all of it however unimaginable for sellers to withdraw from the sale.

This produces a litany of ghastly horror-stories: householders who find yourself dwelling of their vehicles after they had been pressured right into a lowball gross sales; sellers who find yourself dying in hospital beds haunted by the trick that price them their properties. One lady who struggled with hoarding was tricked into promoting her home by false claims that town would evict her due to her hoarding. A widow was tricked into signing away the deed to her late husband’s home by the lie that she may achieve this regardless of not being on the deed. One vendor was tricked into signing a doc he believed to be a house fairness mortgage utility, solely to find he had offered his home at an enormous low cost on its market worth. An Arizona lady was tricked into promoting her lifeless mom’s home via the lie that the home must be torn down and the lot redeveloped; the Homevestor franchisee then flipped the home for five,500% of the sale-price.

The corporate vigorously denies these claims. They are saying that most individuals who do enterprise with Homevestors are pleased with the end result; in assist of this declare, they cite inner surveys of their very own clients that produce a 96% approval score.

When confronted with the specifics, the corporate blamed rogue franchisees. However Propublica obtained coaching supplies and different inner paperwork that present that the issue is widespread and endemic to Homevestors’ enterprise. Propublica found that a minimum of eight franchisees who engaged in conduct the corporate mentioned it “did not tolerate” had been awarded prizes by the corporate for his or her enterprise acumen.

Franchisees are on the hook for large recurring charges and face fixed strain from company auditors to shut gross sales. To make these gross sales, franchisees flip to Homevana’s coaching supplies, that are rife with predatory techniques. One doc counsels franchisees that “ache is all the time a type of motivation.” What sort of ache? Misplaced jobs, looming foreclosures or a toddler in want of surgical procedure.

A former franchisee defined how that is put into follow within the discipline: he encountered a vendor who wanted to promote rapidly so he may be part of his dying mom who had simply entered a hospice 1,400 miles away. The vendor did not need to promote the home; they needed to “get to Colorado to see their dying mom.”

These identical coaching supplies warn franchisees that they need to not take care of sellers who’re “topic to a guardianship or has a psychological capability that’s diminished to the purpose that the individual doesn’t perceive the worth of the property,” however Propublica’s investigation found “a sample of disregard” for this rule. For instance, there was the 2020 incident during which a 78-year-old Atlanta man offered his home to a Homevestors franchisee for half its sale value. The vendor was later proven to be “unable to write down a sentence or title the yr, season, date or month.”

The corporate tried to pin the blame for all this on dangerous eggs amongst its franchisees. However Propublica discovered that a number of the firm’s most egregious offenders had been celebrated and tolerated earlier than and after they had been convicted of felonies associated to their conduct on behalf of the corporate. For instance, Hello-Land Properties is a five-time winner of Homevestors’ Nationwide Franchise of the 12 months prize. The proprietor was praised by the CEO as “loyal, hardworking franchisee who has effectively represented our nationwide model, greatest practices and values.”

This identical franchisee had “filed two dozen breach of contract lawsuits since 2016 and clouded titles on greater than 300 properties by recording notices of a gross sales contract.” Hello-Land “sued an aged man so incapacitated by sickness he couldn’t depart his home.”

One other franchisee, Patriot Holdings, makes use of the courts aggressively to cease households of susceptible folks from canceling offers their relations signed. Patriot Holdings’ co-owner, Cory Evans, ultimately pleaded responsible to to 2 felonies, tried grand theft of actual property. He needed to drop his lawsuits in opposition to patrons, and make restitution.

In accordance with Homevestors’ inner insurance policies, Patriot’s franchise ought to have been canceled. However Homevestors allowed Patriot to remain in enterprise after Cory Evans took his title off the enterprise, leaving his brothers and different companions to run it. Nominally, Cory Evans was out of the image, however effectively after that date, inner Homevestors included Evans in an award it gave to Patriot, commemorating its gross sales (Homevestors claims this was an error).

Propublica’s reporters sought remark from Homevestors and its franchisees about this story. The corporate employed “a former FBI spokesperson who makes a speciality of ‘disaster and particular conditions’ and ‘status administration’ and funnelled future questions via him.”

Internally, firm management scrambled to regulate the information. The corporate convened a webinar in April with all 1,150 franchisees to put out its technique. Firm CEO David Hicks defined the corporate’s plan to “bury” the Propublica article with “‘strategic advert buys on social and net pages’ and ‘search engine marketing content material to attenuate visibility.'”

https://www.propublica.org/article/homevestors-aims-to-bury-propublica-reporting

Franchisees had been warned to not click on hyperlinks to the story as a result of they “would possibly enhance its web search rating.”

At the same time as the corporate sought to “bury” the story and stonewalled Propublica, they cleaned home, instituting new procedures and taking motion in opposition to franchisees recognized in Propublica’s article. “Clouding titles” is now prohibited. Suing sellers for breach of contract is “discouraged.” Offers with seniors “ought to all the time contain household, attorneys or different guardians.”

Through the webinar, franchisees “pushed again on the modifications, claiming they may damage enterprise.”

In case you’ve had expertise with hard-sell house-flippers, Propublica needs to know: “In case you’ve had expertise with an organization or purchaser promising quick money for properties, our reporting workforce needs to listen to about it.”

(Picture: Homevestors, fair use)

#20yrsago Mendacity, plagiarising NYT author outed, ousted https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/times-reporter-who-resigned-leaves-long-trail-of-deception.html

#20yrsago COGECO’s Phrases of Service: Assholes or idiots? https://memex.craphound.com/2003/05/11/cogecos-terms-of-service-assholes-or-idiots/

#10yrsago My Re:publica discuss: “It’s not a fax machine linked to a waffle iron” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWqx_1tDyqE

#10yrsago What makes a undertaking remixable? https://mako.cc/academic/hill_monroy-remixing_dilemma-DRAFT.pdf

#10yrsago Bike lanes led to 49% enhance in retail gross sales https://web.archive.org/web/20130315222708/https://www.americabikes.org/nyc_study_finds_protected_bicycle_lanes_boost_local_business

#5yrsago FanFlick Editor: an entry in EFF’s Catalog of Lacking Gadgets https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/fanflick-editor-entry-catalog-missing-devices-eff-supporter

#5yrsago Listed here are the official lyrics to the Mr Softee jingle https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/mister-softee-jingle-has-lyrics-who-knew

#5yrsago Chew-Sized Linux: a zine accumulating superior *nix tutorial webtoons https://wizardzines.gumroad.com/l/ltywT

#5yrsago West Virginia Senator laughed at the concept hating on academics would chew him within the ass – then he misplaced his job https://theintercept.com/2018/05/11/west-virginia-primary-teacher-strikes/

#5yrsago Pentagon sucks as much as Trump by censoring mentions of local weather change in its world dangers evaluation https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/05/10/pentagon-revised-obama-era-report-to-remove-risks-from-climate-change/

#5yrsago Teenagers are cyberbullying themselves as a type of self-harm https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/04/21/604073315/when-teens-cyberbully-themselves

#5yrsago Indigenous Canadians sue the Canadian authorities over many years of secret, involuntary, inhumane medical experiments https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/11/canada-indigenous-people-medical-experiments-lawsuit

#5yrsago Particular person FBI brokers might be sued for blackmailing potential informants with no-fly checklist threats https://www.techdirt.com/2018/05/11/court-fbi-agents-can-be-held-accountable-tossing-immigrants-no-fly-list-because-they-refused-to-be-informants/

#1yrago The (billionaires’) case in opposition to billionaires https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/11/a-dent-in-the-universe/#eminently-guillotineable

In the present day’s prime sources:

At the moment writing:

A Little Brother brief story about DIY insulin PLANNING
Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller concerning the heroic period of the PC. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE, WAITING FOR EDITORIAL REVIEW
The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel concerning the prison-tech trade. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE, WAITING FOR EDITORIAL REVIEW
Vigilant, Little Brother brief story about distant invigilation. ON SUBMISSION
Ethical Hazard, a brief story for MIT Tech Overview’s 12 Tomorrows. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE, ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION
Spill, a Little Brother brief story about pipeline protests. ON SUBMISSION

Newest podcast: How To Make a Youngster-Protected TikTok https://craphound.com/news/2023/04/17/how-to-make-a-child-safe-tiktok/

Upcoming appearances:

Wordfest (Calgary), Could 11
https://wordfest.com/2023/event/wordfest-presents-cory-doctorow/
Gaithersburg E book Pageant, Could 20
https://www.gaithersburgbookfestival.org/featured_author/cory-doctorow/
Public Data Rising Tech keynote (DC), Could 22
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/emerging-tech-tickets-600582126307
WEPFest with Ron Diebert, Dave Bidini and Nancy Olivieri (Toronto), Could 23
https://www.westendphoenix.com/shop/wepfest-spring-fundraiser
HowTheLightGetsIn (Hay), Could 28
https://howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-ai-enigma-12147
HowTheLightGetsIn (Hay), Could 29
https://howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-danger-and-desire-of-the-frontier-12246
Purple Workforce Blues occasion with Tim Harford (Oxford), Could 29
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctorow-red-team-blues-with-tim-harford-tickets-574673793787
Purple Workforce Blues occasion with Christian Reilly (Nottingham), Could 30
https://www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/nottingham
Purple Workforce Blues occasion with Ian Forrester (Manchester), Could 31
https://www.waterstones.com/events/in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow/manchester-deansgate
UCL Peter Kirstein Lecture, Jun 1 (London):
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirstein-lecture-2023-featuring-cory-doctorow-registration-539205788027
Cymera Pageant, Jun 3 (Edinburgh)
https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/cymera23-events/2023/4/4/connection-interrupted-with-nina-allan-cory-doctorow-and-ian-mcdonald
Purple Workforce Blues with Martha Lane Fox on the British Library, Jun 5 (London):
https://www.bl.uk/events/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-techno-thriller
Re:publica keynote, Jun 7 (Berlin)
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp23-keynote-von-cory-doctorow-rebecca-giblin-kreative-arbeitsmaerkte-und-monopole

Latest appearances:

Newest books:

“Purple Workforce Blues”: “A grabby, compulsive thriller that may depart you realizing extra about how the world works than you probably did earlier than.” Tor Books http://redteamblues.com
“Chokepoint Capitalism: Beat Massive Tech, Tame Massive Content material, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin”, on the way to unrig the markets for artistic labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
“Assault Floor”: The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Put up referred to as it “a political cyberthriller, vigorous, daring and savvy concerning the limits of revolution and resistance.” Order signed, customized copies from Darkish Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
” Destroy Surveillance Capitalism”: an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing an answer. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59 (print version: https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)
“Little Brother/Homeland”: A reissue omnibus version with a brand new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; customized/signed copies right here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html
“Poesy the Monster Slayer” an image e book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order right here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a customized, signed copy right here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

Upcoming books:

The Web Con: A nonfiction e book about interoperability and Massive Tech, Verso, September 2023
The Misplaced Trigger: a post-Inexperienced New Deal eco-topian novel about reality and reconciliation with white nationalist militias, Tor Books, November 2023

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