Subject: File No. S7-12-11
From: Larry Porter

May 30, 2011

I’m writing because my family and I were affected by the economic collapse of 2008, and we don’t want it to happen again.

We lost significant income due to lack of work at the Port of Seattle from September 2008 through June 2010.  We requested Mortgage Mitigation from WAMU in 2008 and then Chase when WAMU went bankrupt.  We were run around and made to jump through hoops over and over again.  I have over two filled manila folders of copied documents requested by those banks.  Often the same documents because the originals were misplaced at the mortgage mitigation office even though each page has name and acct # written on them to keep that from happening.  After over 18 months and six submissions (from our local bank branch by a bank representative using a bank fax machine) of the same documents, I was told I had to resend the same documents with updated information, because it was after April 15th.  That's when they broke me down and I submitted to the overwhelming authority of the banking elite by ending the process in writing.  Fortunately, we were only 45 days late twice and have been able to recover our income and pay down other debts so we are up to date now, but when Bank of America decided to begin a monthly fee just for holding their credit card, I terminated that account.  I realize this may adversely affect our future credit, but I will not pay fees for the "privilege" of holding a card.  They already increased my interest rate by 10% and reduced my line of credit, so we are moving all our accounts to local credit unions.  That seems to be the only defense that working families that exist week to week have in this day of the top 2% holding 70% of the wealth.  We need referees if the game is to be played fairly, and the regulators must have subpoena power with the firm backing of the Department of Justice willing to prosecute and incarcerate white collar miscreants.

One way to change the incentives so Wall Street doesn’t collapse our economy again would be for regulators to set up a way for shareholders to grab back ill-gotten gains.

If it turns out that the profits in a given year were built on shoddy practices that become clear in the out-years, those bonus payments should be forfeited.

Thank you for considering my comment,

Larry Porter

Vashon, WA