Greenspan Limerick Contest

Murphy's Law, 2012 edition: If Alan Greenspan can kill someone, he will.

Limerick, Ireland:

LIMERICK people are penning suicidal letters at a rate of three a week after being driven to despair by debt, it has been revealed. And a Limerick advocate who provides free advice for people with financial problems is pleading with people to seek advice rather than take drastic action. One lone parent who wrote to the Life After Debt organisation, said she has already tried to commit suicide because she has no way of paying her mortgage, making ends meet and sometimes cannot even put food on the table for herself and her child.

“We have no heat in the house, no food in the fridge and I cannot buy new shoes for my little girl. My electricity is about to be cut off again. “The money I get as a lone parent only lasts a couple of days as I’m always trying to pay bills that are in arrears and I never make any headway. I can’t cope anymore,” one Limerick city woman wrote in a letter to  Seamus Sherlock, founder of the Life after Debt organisation in the city.

I got your limerick right here.

There once was a Maestro celebrated
His ego became quite inflated
He could see no bubble
Nor sign of bank trouble
His Body Count climbs unabated!

Please submit your limericks in the comments.

Greenspan's Body Count: Norman Rousseau

Norman Rousseau and his wife Oriane bought their house at 580 Wilshire Place, Newbury Park in 2000 for $225,000 with 30% down.

According to a lawsuit filed by the Rousseaus, in 2002, 2006, and 2007, during Greenspan's bubble, they were solicited by World Savings / Wachovia, now a unit of Wells Fargo, to refinance into dangerous Pay Option ARMs. The final 2007 loan was an egregious negative-amortization, 7.2% interest, $368,000 weapon of financial mass destruction.

Read the Rousseaus' lawsuit against Wells Fargo here.

On Sunday, as foreclosure loomed just two days away, Norman Rousseau went into his garage and shot himself to death.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 213.

Greenspan's Body Count: Woodrow Wilson Hall Jr. and Barbara Ann Hall

Greenspan's Body Count today returns to the great bubble state of Florida.

Ocala:

Barbara Ann Hall, 66, was shot four times in the head with a .38 revolver by her 68-year-old husband Woodrow Wilson Hall Jr., who placed a .44 Magnum in his mouth and pulled the trigger, according to a report released Wednesday.

[...]

The couple's daughter told the detective her parents argued over finances and said her mother wanted to move closer to her in Jacksonville because she was having a child, but her father did not want to move.

The daughter and son-in-law told Diaz the couple were behind in their mortgage payments by $5,000 and that Barbara Hall had suggested that her husband sell his Corvette, which was "a hot button topic" since he loved the car.

The Halls appear to have bought the property in 1998 for $95,000.  If they'd put 20% down and got a then-prevailing 7% rate on a 30-year mortgage, they'd pay $506 a month and would now owe less than $60,000 on a house worth more than $100,000.

But it must have been pretty tempting to suck out some "home equity" when Greenspan's bubble floated that house value over $200,000.  Daddy needs a new Corvette!

I think Bernanke may get an assist on this one. Hall was a retired superintendent from Michigan schools, so he presumably had at least a modest pension in addition to his odd jobs. But Bernanke's food, gas, and utility inflation has been brutal on retired folk -- to say nothing of 0% interest on their savings.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 209.

Greenspan's Body Count: Aziz "Bob" Yazdanpanah, NaFatemah Rahmati, Nona Yazdanpanah, Ali Yazdanpanah, Mohamad Hossein Zarei, Zohreh Rahmaty, and Sara Fatemeh Zarei

Alan Greenspan gets really twisted around the holidays.

His latest massacre involved a man dressing up as Santa to kill his family among their just-opened presents on Christmas Day.

The Dallas Morning News reported the family was having financial troubles and that the mother moved into the Grapevine apartment after separating from her husband, who is still living in the family's Colleyville home just a couple of miles away.

Last year, the bank foreclosed on the home, which was tied go the father's filing for bankruptcy according to federal records, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Neighbors told News 8 that the father had been living at the house and was seen just last week cleaning up leaves in the yard. They said the family lived there for at least 12 years.

Neighbors also told News 8 they believe the father works in real estate.

Aziz Yazdanpanah is listed at 5406 Sycamore Court in Colleyville, TX, which was purchased pre-bubble in 1999, so he almost certainly took out a big home equity loan to get in trouble.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 207.

Greenspan's Body Count: Andre L. Turner, Henry Serrano, Robert Scott Lindsay

Another workplace shooting, and -- surprise! -- the killer was deeply underwater on his house.

UPI:

An employee who killed two people at a Southern California Edison office before taking his own life targeted his victims, a witness said.

The shooter was identified Saturday as Andre Turner, 48, of Norco, the Los Angeles Times reported. He shot four co-workers at the company's information and technology office in Irwin Friday afternoon, including two who were critically injured.

Let's go to the real estate records. Turner was listed at 1495 Andalusian Drive in Norco in California's Inland Empire, ranke the #2 worst place in America.

Turner bought the McMansion in 2004 for $711,000, reportedly put a lot more money into it, and was trying to short-sell it for $590,000.

Workplace disputes rarely end in violence. The psychological impact of severe financial distress caused by Greenspan's bubbles cannot be underestimated. It is what pushes a few, like Andre Turner, over the edge.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 200.

Greenspan's Body Count: Cheryl Regazzi and Robert Regazzi

Serial killer Alan Greenspan is known to commit multiple murders in the same area in a short span of time. Earlier this year, he was very active around San Diego.

Now, it seems, Greenspan is haunting New Jersey. Just days after the murder of Kimberly Allen in Red Bank, Greenspan went to Clifton:

A man apparently shot and killed his mother at their Gillies Street house before deliberately overdosing on drugs sometime over the holiday weekend, authorities said Sunday.

Police were called to the two-story, single-family home around 4:30 p.m. Saturday after a family friend reported finding the bodies inside, said Detective Sgt. Robert Bracken of the Clifton police.

Bracken identified the victims as Cheryl Regazzi, 53, and her son, Robert Regazzi, 20.

[...]

Neighbors said they believed that Cheryl Regazzi was having financial problems, but they could not be specific.

A for-sale sign was posted outside the four-bedroom, colonial-style house on Sunday.Regazzi's next-door neighbor, Gloria Kirwin, said the house has been on the market since early this year. Trulia, a real estate website, says the house had been listed for 140 days, and real estate listings show the most recent asking price as $239,000.

Kirwin, 69, said Regazzi recently told her she could no longer afford the house.

"She was trying to sell the home but she had no luck," Kirwin said.

A public records search indicates that Cheryl Regazzi refinanced the mortgage on the house at least three times since 2003, with the mortgage amount rising from nearly $61,000 that year to $105,000 in 2008.

Real estate records show that Regazzi and her husband, Jacques, bought the house in 1992 for $110,000.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 197.

Greenspan's Body Count: Kimberly Allen

Greenspan's Body Count goes to the Jersey Shore! In Red Bank / Middletown / Lincroft, New Jersey:

Patrick F. Allen, 44, accused of killing his wife, Kimberly, on Nov. 19, remained in the Monmouth County jail in Freehold Township Friday in lieu of $1.5 million bail with no options to post 10 percent to secure his release, as set by state Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mellaci Jr.

[...]

“Patrick Allen killed his wife of 20 years during a financial dispute. He was the only person at home with her and he is the only person who could have killed her,” [prosecutor Marc] LeMieux said in court.

[...]

A check of financial records show that Patrick and Kimberly Allen held two mortgages totaling $625,000 on their home on West Front Street, and that Patrick Allen individually owed nearly $25,000 in credit card debt that was being levied against his property and a bank account following three court judgments handed down earlier this year.

Records held at the Monmouth County Clerk’s Office reveal the Allens financed $352,800 when they initially purchased the lot upon which they built a 3,184-square-foot home. They also show that by 2006, the Allens had refinanced the mortgage on the home three different times, taking out increasing amounts until the final $455,000 mortgage was obtained in 2006.

In addition to the mortgages, three additional home equity lines of credit were taken out during a six-year period beginning with a $45,000 secondary loan the Allens secured 18 months after the initial purchase, up to the outstanding $160,000 in the form of a 15-year second mortgage was obtained in 2005.

The two mortgages put the couple into debt totaling $615,000, but a source said the couple was also about $19,000 behind in their mortgage payments.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 195.