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PrintFor bailout to work, housing market needs to mend
Sat Oct 4, 2008 12:11 PM EDT
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Washington's financial bailout plan is now law. So the credit spigot will start flowing again, banks will resume lending, and an economic recovery can begin, right?
Wrong. Experts say the most important thing that needs to happen before the $700 billion bailout even has a chance of working: Home prices must stop falling. That would send a signal to banks that the worst has passed and it's safe to start doling out money again.
The problem is the lending freeze has made getting a mortgage loan tough for everyone except those with sterling credit. That means it will take several months or longer to pare down the glut of houses built when times were good — and those that have come on the market because of soaring foreclosures — before home prices start appreciating.
Housing is a critical component to the U.S. economy and by extension the availability of credit. Roughly one in eight U.S. jobs depends on housing directly or indirectly — from construction workers to bank loan officers to big brokers on Wall Street. A turnaround in housing prices would boost confidence in the wider economy and, experts hope, goad banks into lending again.
"Housing traditionally does lead the economy through a recovery. I think it's going to be critical for a sustained recovery in this cycle, too," said Gary Thayer, senior economist at Wachovia Securities.
In the meantime, people like Alicia Elliott are adjusting to a new American reality: Life without credit.
The 21-year old Morgantown, W. Va., resident just bought a used mobile home, borrowing $4,000 from friends and family because she couldn't get a bank loan.
"I tried to. Couldn't do it. It's just hard to get a loan," said Elliott, who works as a cashier at a Lowe's Cos. store.
She used to get bombarded with offers for credit cards. Now she can't even get one. "I get denied one after another after another. It doesn't matter if you have a co-signer or not," she said.
Trey Simmons, a 31-year-old barber at a Dallas hair salon, said he worries tighter lending standard will squash his goal of buying a home next year.
"Credit is a privilege everybody can't get," Simmons said. "I had credit at a young age and messed up."
He now operates on a strictly cash basis. "If I don't have it," he said, referring to cash, "I don't spend it."
The dilemma boils down to a matter of trust.
"Credit, by definition, means trust and faith, and for many reasons trust and faith have been damaged," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University, Channel Islands.
Sohn said the near certainty of a recession makes it too risky for the thousands of small and medium-sized banks across the country to lend to people like Elliot.
"Banks know the economy is getting worse, so ... they will keep being cautious," said Sohn, a former banking executive.
Still, the government hopes that by scooping up billions of dollars in bad mortgage debt and other toxic assets, banks eventually can clean up their shaky balance sheets, crack open the vaults and send money washing through the system again.
The rescue plan also raises the federally insured deposit limit from $100,000 to $250,000, a move that could boost banks' reserves and further grease the lending wheels.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the Financial Services Committee chairman and a key negotiator over the past weeks, said the measure was just the beginning of a much larger task Congress will tackle next year: overhauling housing policy and financial regulation in a legislative effort comparable to the New Deal.
In the meantime, the Treasury Department is moving swiftly to get the plan started. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday he did not wait for final approval of the measure to begin preparation. He has been lining up outside advisers as his staff works out details on a multitude of complex issues.
But several hurdles could trip up the plan. For starters, even when the Treasury starts buying bad assets, some banks may hoard the cash they receive in return until they see how the plan pans out. That has the potential to make the lending logjam worse, said Vincent R. Reinhart, former director of the Federal Reserve's monetary affairs division.
"They may sit on the sidelines and wait to see (the bailout) get some traction. The problem is if everybody sits on the sidelines, nobody gets in the game. It's a risk," he said.
It also creates a vicious cycle: No trust means no lending; tight credit means it's harder to buy a home; the more difficult it is to buy or sell a home, the further home prices will fall; and the further prices drop, the more foreclosures there will be.
U.S. home prices — down 20 percent from their peak in July 2006 — still have further to fall, and must hit bottom before demand picks up. The long-awaited bottom in prices could be a year or more away.
But Jim Gillespie, chief executive of Coldwell Banker Real Estate, said he hopes that lower prices, combined with the government's actions will jump-start stagnant demand. The federal bailout plan, he said, "will give people reassurance that mortgage money is available."
Jobs are another big concern. The stranglehold on credit has choked companies big and small that depend on regular inflows of borrowed money to pay employees and stay afloat.
The Labor Department said Friday that employers cut 159,000 jobs in September, the fastest pace of losses in more than five years. Experts say that number will grow as the effects of the credit gridlock course through the economy in coming days and weeks.
The nation's unemployment rate is now 6.1 percent, up from 4.7 percent a year ago. Over the last year, the number of unemployed people has risen by 2.2 million to 9.5 million.
The unemployment rate could rise to as high as 7.5 percent by late 2009, economists predict. If that happens, it would mark the highest since after the 1990-91 recession.
Boosting employment is critical to kick-starting lending because "if jobs are growing, then incomes are a growing, and if incomes are growing then people are consuming," Reinhart said.
Consumers and businesses have retrenched so much that some analysts fear the economy stalled or shrank in the third quarter that ended last week. The Labor Department report Friday showed wage growth for workers is slowing, meaning they'll be more hard-pressed to spend, especially for something as expensive as a home.
Many economists predict the economy will contract in the final quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of next year. That would meet the classic definition of a recession — two consecutive quarters of a shrinking economy.
One bright spot: optimism hasn't been totally squashed yet.
Morgan Cavanaugh, proprietor of Moriarty's Pub in downtown Cleveland, has been trying to sell another bar he owns to ease his workload, but the prospective buyer hasn't been able to raise the money.
Now that the bailout legislation has the green light, he's hopeful he'll get a deal done.
"It passed. Let's work something out," Cavanaugh told the man over a cell phone Friday just after the House approved the plan.
He flipped the phone shut and smiled from behind the weathered mahogany bar of his 75-year-old Irish pub.
"He's going to put the loan request in again. It's looking up," Cavanaugh said.
___
Associated Press writers Madlen Read in New York, Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va., Joe Milicia in Cleveland, Ryan J. Foley in Madison, Wis., Jeannine Aversa, Alan Zibel and Jim Abrams in Washington and Linda Stewart Ball in Dallas contributed to this report.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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 | Americans eye bailout, and continue cutting back | Associated Press | Sun Oct 5 | 5 |
| ALL BUSINESS: Possible profits from bailout | Associated Press | Tue Sep 30 | 0 |
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{"commentId":3309741,"authorDomain":"vmithgurther"}
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the Financial Services Committee chairman and a key negotiator over the past weeks, said the measure was just the beginning of a much larger task Congress will tackle next year: overhauling housing policy and financial regulation in a legislative effort comparable to the New Deal.
Unfortunately, it's pretty much what I figured. Realistically, the only thing this bailout bought for the average American is time for them to completely overhaul the system. I don't like it, I never did, but there wasn't any real hope for an actual solution to get through on its own so quickly right off the bat. After all, it took both parties decades to get us here and, it's going to take both parties decades to get us back out. I guess my only hope is that this time, the American people have learned their lessons: Deregulation and Supply-Side Economics need to join Marxism in that old joke: works great in theory but not in actual practice!
{"commentId":3309741,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"vmithgurther"}
- 2 votes
#1 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 1:08 PM EDT{"commentId":3311275,"authorDomain":"rickace"}
After all, it took both parties decades to get us here and, it's going to take both parties decades to get us back out.
The nation is laboring under the illusion that political parties have the power to cure economic ills in the private sector (i.e., "get us out"). Until we collectively recognize that this is not true, we will continue to make mistake after costly mistake, digging ourselves into an ever-deepening economic hole.
{"commentId":3311275,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"rickace"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":3312324,"authorDomain":"blerten"}
It's not that govt. is THE solution, or is THE problem. It's part of both! And until govt. tries to stop"acting like a business" as so many used to want, and limits its role to regulation rather than "investment"... I dunno, one person's pork is another's job/valid investment.
OK, who's for Global Internet Govt.? We all get to vote on anything/everything we care about, local to federal? Total transparency, everything online. I don't know if it'd be any better. Could it be much worse?
{"commentId":3312324,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"blerten"}
{"commentId":3312546,"authorDomain":"tylerme721"}
Barney, i beg to difer, it is the conduct of "We The People" that opened the door to greed, credit, instant gratification syndrome... Housing Alone? Without a Job- who buys a house?
We have neglected feeding the economic-horse that created an environment allowing credit. American markets rose to their Global Position on the back of New Product Invention / New Product Manufacturing. The world communities bought the electric light, telephone, automobile, aircraft, radio,television,computer, pc, ThinkPad, and NASA (Kennedy's 10 year moonwalk plan)invented decades of a continuous flow of New Product Lines. Global Credit Markets were created with The American Economy atop the horse of Manufacturing.
We may blame deregulation of these markets, lack of oversight, dereliction of duty by many, an ill-educated public, and a varied palette of sins splashed against our credit tapestry but i submit it to be a decrease in our New Product Invention and Manufacturing that yields a poor foundation upon which these errors of judgment fall.
The liquid asset drain must also lay at the feet of our American penchant to immediately satisfy a lust for things rather than save to acquire or rather than 'work' the assets held. We like having 3-5 credit cards then pay the minimum on card #1 with card #3 and add a new purchase to the third. We like the 'No Money Down' deals, the 2 years without interest offer and we have not been informed that those contracts make their way to foreign buyers, drying both credit and liquidity wells from which we freely drink. We do not read the business sections for trends but merely check on our 401k gains. We sign Mortgage Documents without seeing a fraudulent "Balloon-Payment-Clause" due prior to our own solvency or ignore an adjustable interest rate that Chinese Markets may raise prior to our own.
If The United States Government must borrow more money from China then would it not better serve the strategic interest of Global Financial Markets to use the in-place structures? That is to say:
#1 HUD knows fixed assets; buy the bad mortgage paper, turn the resultant fixed asset over to HUD for disposition
#2 SBA knows the liquidity needed by 'the base' or Small Business; deposit enough to let them cover the day-to-day credit required but denied because of the depressed/choked bank lines
#3 The FED, (and/or) The United States Treasury know(s) the larger corporate structures; deposit enough to provide a "Trust Liquidity Fund"
# 4 Provide a direct but temporary 'stimulus package' to tax-payers (with some disdain,) coupled with a severe/aggressive education campaign (and last)
#5 Set the "Let's Go To The Moon Mark" of Venture Capitalization into the next New Product Lines, re-tool abandoned factories, build and sell to the Global Marketplace - "The Horse That Wins."
Yes, I let some banks fail. Yes, I let some corporate structures fail.Yes, I ignore the Wall Street tears. This is for a nation i love more than my own well.
{"commentId":3312546,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"tylerme721"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3319799,"authorDomain":"wude121"}
First there's little talk about what got us to this point .With that the blame is on the one who got us to it.
We have very little faith in our leaders who play let me hide the wool over your faces,while forcing decisions that have no effect on our economy of small business that power this unique economy.
If we are to survive we need to do the fallowing.
1.Lower corporate taxes to a level that is competitive with world markets,where as jobs would return to our shores and our manufacturing base can return.We will be doomed if we continue as a service economy only.
2.Trim the budget in future spending increases .Government needs to go on a diet.
3. Re evaluate in the EPA standards of of set clean air standards that harm more than do good to get to the set goal.Its ridiculous for 40 different city's to have different standards.Can you say boondoggle,that the Government and Oil company's profits from the regulation increases wonder why you never heard neither complain of shortages that increase there pockets.
4.Instead of trying to revive a slowing building economy ,there's a glut of houses that's gonna take years to sell .France does nuclear power different than we do we could build the same thus helping our jobs and our energy needs.
So in the end socialism creates more socialism not jobs or a manufacturing base . Ask the former Soviet Union now called the name it had before they ended the powers of the Czar...
{"commentId":3319799,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"wude121"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3309764,"authorDomain":"rapax"}
I think its time for Americans to stop paying taxes
{"commentId":3309764,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"rapax"}
- 4 votes
#2 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 1:09 PM EDT{"commentId":3315548,"authorDomain":"samtiggerjohn"}
I agree.
{"commentId":3315548,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"samtiggerjohn"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3319995,"authorDomain":"cyan412000"}
yep done...they only give that out to aid to foriegn countries that support terrorism anyway
{"commentId":3319995,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"cyan412000"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3333146,"authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
Yep, our taxes go to foreign countries that support terrorism, and to Wall Street Billionaires.
We wouldn't want improved American schools, roads, or health care, naturally.
{"commentId":3333146,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3309778,"authorDomain":"fdbryant3"}
The problem is the lending freeze has made getting a mortgage loan tough for everyone except those with sterling credit.
What a load of bull. I know some people who took out mortgage with a recently filed bankruptacy on their reports. This month they took out a loan for a new car. Don't get me wrong - they have decent credit and they are not a credit risk. They don't have sterling credit though.
{"commentId":3309778,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"fdbryant3"}
- 2 votes
#3 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 1:11 PM EDT{"commentId":3310205,"authorDomain":"lakeworthguy"}
Do you know if they get a loan from a credit union or other, local small bank that doesn't sell it's loans to other institutions?
{"commentId":3310205,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"lakeworthguy"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":3310992,"authorDomain":"luckydog"}
There is no "lending freeze". That was a talking point to get people to go along with the giant handout to corporations and give cover to politicians. If Bush can't get them tax breaks this is even better from the neo-con point of view.
{"commentId":3310992,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"luckydog"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":3325860,"authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
Amen.
There is no "lending freeze" and there never ever was a "lending freeze". Total bull.
Scare tactics from Washington DC, as usual. First the war, then the economy.
It's disgusting.
{"commentId":3325860,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3309779,"authorDomain":"MSinfo"}
I don’t think most of you bloggers understand what the effect would have been if we had failed to pass the bailout plan. No more car loans, no more car-dealer jobs. Our last few car factories closing for good. No more food in your stores that you can just drop by to pick up for dinner on the way home , and no more gas to fill up on to drive home. No more using your ATM or credit card to pay the cashier at the checkout counter, so no more beer, wine, imported vegetables, meats, and dairy products to buy at the supermarket. No more cool clothing for your kids to buy in the malls that would soon to be deserted of all activity, so no more movies, restaurants, or shoe stores.
No internet purchases, no more cell phones, no TV on demand. No MP3 downloads, no ringtones, no test messages. No cash at the banks, no paychecks, no unemployment checks. Just block-long lines of people waiting hours to get a few dollars to pay for gas to get to work, only to be told next Friday that your employer has no funds for payroll this week. No money for milk, no ice cream, no chocolate for your kids this week.
Water and flour become the new national diet. Garbage pickups are halted by local governments who can’t make payrolls. Hospitals are unable to get medications that are now all made overseas, although desperately needed to treat the new illnesses borne from unsanitary living conditions caused by a lack of janitors who have all been laid off by building managers who are no longer getting paid rent by the businesses that are closing at alarming rates due to cash flow shortages.
Do any of you recall what happened to the USSR in the 90's after their national economy collapsed? (before they hit the oil boom and got a hold of a lot of our national wealth) Commodity shortages were the norm because they had no hard cash to pay for imports of essential food and energy supplies!
All of our country's wealth now resides in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Kuwait, UAE, and China. They hold the key to our survival, as they alone now have the cash to lend back to us to fuel our engines of consumption. If we don’t shore up our debt load with guarantees sufficient to induce them to invest in our debt, we will run out of cash almost overnight.
On the bigger issue of what got us into this mess, it’s not greedy Wall Street Tycoons! It’s our own personal greed and voracious appetites for consumer goods that we can't afford and are either too lazy or too impatient to work extra hard to pay for with earnings and savings.
SAVINGS - what's that? Instead of investing and saving, we have consumed and borrowed.
In a myopic rush to buy more stuff at lower prices, we allowed our domestic consumer production industries to be shut down and sent overseas where cheaper labor would produce cheaper goods for us to buy on credit and shove into our fat bellies, leaving our country with nothing to produce in trade for oil imports, except consumer debt paper!
We are left with one last skill that we can perform better than all others on this earth. Greedy teet sucking consumption. Obesity is our hallmark, and gluttony our mantra. These are all traits of an empire in the last throws of a death march.
The coming years are bound to reveal the true moral values underpinning the "me first" society we have created. Gun toting RV drivers murdering others to get the last fill up at the local gas station. Robbers invading the elderly in their homes, killing indiscriminately to get the next meal. MAD MAX is us! Mayhem at the supermarkets as the last loaf of bread is sold with hundreds of hungry people turned away, inciting food shortage riots that erupt in every major city.
These are normal human reactions to the shock of cash starvation, and this is destined to arrive all the more quickly without a shoring up of the consumer debt industry that we euphemistically refer to as the banking industry in this country. We have long ago gutted our savings accounts and now live hand to mouth nationwide, on borrowed wealth that is no longer ours to collect.
God save us from what is undoubtedly ahead, bailout or not. And George Bush told us after 9/11 to go out and shop at the Malls! Reminds me of Marie Antoinette...”Let them eat cake!” The French, for whom we have recently expressed such disdain over Iraq , lived this first hand in the late 1700's. Their food riots eventually led to a bloody coup d’etat followed by years of economic depression and famine. We are destined to repeat their history out of a total addiction to the scourge of immediate gratification that has in no small measure enabled an unparalleled centralization of wealth in the hands of our "ruling class", who have now quietly retreated with their hordes of cash to safe havens such as Dubai and Abu Dabi - well out of harm’s way - as the rest of us learn the hard way what it feels like to slowly starve.
{"commentId":3309779,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"MSinfo"}
- 3 votes
#4 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 1:11 PM EDT{"commentId":3310222,"authorDomain":"lakeworthguy"}
I don’t think most of you bloggers understand what the effect would have been if we had failed to pass the bailout plan.
What are you basing that doomsday scenario on?
{"commentId":3310222,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"lakeworthguy"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3311260,"authorDomain":"sal1967"}
Michael:
Well said. I do believe that the behavior of Wall St does contribute. This type of behavior is ingrained to our society. We don't event stop for 9-11, a war, Katrina. Oh, we give, and then get back to oblivion.
{"commentId":3311260,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"sal1967"}
{"commentId":3310037,"authorDomain":"JoulesBeef"}
Home prices must stop falling. That would send a signal to banks that the worst has passed and it's safe to start doling out money again.ok so home prices that are still too high for the median american to afford.. need to stop correcting itself.. so that the market can resume selling homes for more than theya are worth.hey want home prices to stop dropping? make sure people get paid a propper wage. IF the median income in the us was enough to buy a median income home.. prices woudl rise again.
AS the GOP woudl say.. it is classic supply and deamdn adn deamnd is really really low cause peopel cant afford the houses. We artificially increased demand by lending to those that could not afford the houses by as bush put it "creatively packaging loans". This caused the home prices to go up, which in turn made it harder for those people that could not afford their homes anyway to keep making payments. The problem is demand doesnt need to be raised artifically. it needs to be raised in reality.
your really only have two ways to do this. destroy empty homes.. reducing supply.. or pay people a median income that can afford a median priced home. SImple supply and demand folks.
simply supply and demand.
{"commentId":3310037,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"JoulesBeef"}
- 2 votes
#5 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 1:31 PM EDT{"commentId":3312650,"authorDomain":"dburn1970"}
Good basic principle - supply and demand. It doesn't take into account that real estate prices in our country are over-inflated. A drop in prices was over due. If a similar situation happens on Wall Street, it's called a correction.
The problem is complicated and many people are to balme including bankers, real estate investors, fund managers, and homeowners who live in their homes. We've all paid too much for real estate that is over-inflated. Many people played a game with ridiculous loans (ARM's, and other subprimes) after purchasing more real estate than they could afford. They didn't "flip" their purchases (investors) or arrange their finances in time (homeowners) before their payments went up on their already over valued properties. These people bought more than they could afford and the banks were happy to loan them money betting that the housing prices would continue to climb. Someone should have realized that the prices were going to go down at some point.
Groups of investors realized real estate prices would drop and that financial stocks would suffer. They traded the financial stocks in a manner that essentially "bet" that the financials would fail (naked short trades) and profitted on everyone elses loss. The greed of many hedge fund managers hurt us all.
Career politicians can't fix these problems. Stop pointing to this party or that party or blaming political candidates. They're not magicians, and they rarely even do what they say they'll do when they campaign. Stop relying on them to fix your problems.
People in our country need to use common sense. Don't buy more than you can afford (this will help to keep the prices where they should be). It will take a long time for us to recover from this - (with or without the politicians shifting around our tax dollars) but we will recover. Hopefully we'll all learn a valuable lesson.
{"commentId":3312650,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"dburn1970"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3310844,"authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
I will say this once again . If the government gave the money to the PEOPLE this would work . Look the major problem is that home loans are not getting payed , This is because the average home owner is strapped for cash , have a higher interest and got a bad deal . If homes are being foreclosed and the people are given a foreclosure on there credit record then tell me one thing how in the hell are they ever going to get a loan again ? This so called bail out has nothing to do with any one at all except for the banks and that is going to be the down fall of each and every American Tax payer . The government has it all wrong once again and we the PEOPLE have no say and no rights at all . The facts are still there the people are the ones that need money so we can pay off the loans , credit and bad debt we have in order to restart the economy . This is not going to work nor are we the tax payer going to reap any benefit for this Bail Out at all . So with this said and done now we are still going to find it hard to get a loan get a home ( which would drive the prices up again ) and we will still be finding our debt increasing and we will still be in the hole . This is a bad Bill and I just wounder why the government doesn't look at this from a logical perspective EVER !
{"commentId":3310844,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
#6 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 2:43 PM EDT{"commentId":3322803,"authorDomain":"luckydog"}
What you are talking about is really a temporary redistribution of wealth which is good as far as it goes but it doesn't go far enough. To "fix" this economy we need more living wage jobs for all Americans and not just the ones that have advanced training or knowledge or degrees. Higher taxes on the wealthy financing infrastructure repair and creation would be a start in the right direction.
{"commentId":3322803,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"luckydog"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":3310934,"authorDomain":"sblake"}
Wake up people this is the worst thing that could have happened. Bail out Wall Street, that's a joke. The reason why were in this mess is because of Wall Street and their faulty lending practices. Our Government let it continue by adjusting the finance rates. Houses old and new are over priced. This was a way to build equity and continue lending. Food, gas, electricity and every day luxuries are also over priced. What about some relief for the American people losing their jobs due to inflation? Businesses are closing at an alarming rate. Let them inject money on us in the form of higher wages or lower cost. The minum wage is a joke. How can you expect a family to live off of that, it's not enough for one.
By extending credit to people who could not afford it is wrong. Whoever thought up the adjustable Rate Mortgage was smart when it came to maximizing profits. It did what it was supposed to do. Tell me how this can be right. You sell a 175,000 dollar house to a 65 year old on a fixed income. They receive a 4.2 ARM how do expect them to pay when the rate goes higher. This is deceptive lending and these practices were happening on a large scale.
Instead of bailing out Wall Street and big business, help the people who are responsible building this country. Let the market fail maybe then things will get back in line with wages.
{"commentId":3310934,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"sblake"}
- 1 vote
#7 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 2:52 PM EDT{"commentId":3311070,"authorDomain":"fdbryant3"}
You sell a 175,000 dollar house to a 65 year old on a fixed income. They receive a 4.2 ARM how do expect them to pay when the rate goes higher. This is deceptive lending and these practices were happening on a large scale.
Where is the responsibility of the lendee? If I was the lendee on a fixed income I certainly wouldn't have signed a mortgage that involved the words Adjustable Rate.
ARM's are not bad things. There are circumstances where it makes sense to sign an ARM. The problem is that many people agreed to them when they were not prepared for the rates to go up. No, businesses shouldn't have made the loans to people who had bad credit and now way to pay it if it goes up, but at the same time there are two signatures on that contract.
{"commentId":3311070,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"fdbryant3"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3311236,"authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
Yes but the lender is the last to agree and has the full knowledge of the payers ability to pay and therefor IMHO the lender is the one that should be blamed . When you know some one can not pay for a car you have for sale do you sell it to them ? when you go to the store and know that you do not have enough money to buy a stake does the store let you buy it any way ? The blame is not the people but the lender that allowed this to happen with out taking into consideration all the fundamental implications of what they were doing .
{"commentId":3311236,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
{"commentId":3311519,"authorDomain":"sblake"}
It's foolish to think that anybody would go into to anything as complicated as a mortgage and think they would know everything about a mortgage. That's why we rely on the integrity and the honesty of the lender. 70% of the Arm mortgages were not justified. These people qualified for traditional mortgages but were lied to and put in ARM's instead. If business loaned money to unqualified people then business knowingly violated lending regulations. Oh wait, deregulation took care of the regulation. This was all done purely for profit. It was designed to make the most money over the shortest period of time. It had nothing to do with helping people achieve the American dream of home ownership. So why are rewarding Wall Street for greed, cheating, lies and failure?
{"commentId":3311519,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"sblake"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":3310975,"authorDomain":"Lilith40"}
The housing market needs to mend, huh? I'm not sure the bail out will accomplish that. Even for those of us with careers that pay okay and did not go for homes that they couldn't afford, more than 1/2 of my monthly income has always been rent and it hasn't gotten better. All other bills have been essentials:food, gas, electrical bills, and lot of medical bills for sure. There is nothing left over for anything else and it's been that way for quite a few years.
I'm not the only one either; my colleagues that don't have my medical problems are having trouble paying for their homes and we are all RNs.
And, yes, I still work in spite of my medical problems. This whole thing just doesn't bode well in my opinion.
{"commentId":3310975,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"Lilith40"}
- 1 vote
#8 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 2:55 PM EDT{"commentId":3334588,"authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
Lilith, exactly. Housing, TODAY, is still too expensive.
We have a long way to go before we hit bottom.
{"commentId":3334588,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
{"commentId":3311067,"authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
I will say this once again . If the government gave the money to the PEOPLE this would work . Look the major problem is that home loans are not getting payed , This is because the average home owner is strapped for cash , have a higher interest and got a bad deal . If homes are being foreclosed and the people are given a foreclosure on there credit record then tell me one thing how in the hell are they ever going to get a loan again ? This so called bail out has nothing to do with any one at all except for the banks and that is going to be the down fall of each and every American Tax payer . The government has it all wrong once again and we the PEOPLE have no say and no rights at all . The facts are still there the people are the ones that need money so we can pay off the loans , credit and bad debt we have in order to restart the economy . This is not going to work nor are we the tax payer going to reap any benefit for this Bail Out at all . So with this said and done now we are still going to find it hard to get a loan get a home ( which would drive the prices up again ) and we will still be finding our debt increasing and we will still be in the hole . This is a bad Bill and I just wounder why the government doesn't look at this from a logical perspective EVER !
{"commentId":3311067,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
- 1 vote
#9 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 3:02 PM EDT{"commentId":3311177,"authorDomain":"Rixar13"}
Home prices won't stop falling for quite awhile but couldn't help but notice the Guiness Beer in the picture, good beer and maybe we need to start drinking more..? If McCain is elected I am going to start drinking again, can't take 4 more years of this.
{"commentId":3311177,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"Rixar13"}
- 2 votes
#10 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 3:09 PM EDT{"commentId":3311337,"authorDomain":"sal1967"}
Oh that would solve all, the world could burn around you and you just sleep it off.
{"commentId":3311337,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"sal1967"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3325883,"authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
I'm not a fan of Guiness, as I like a little more flavor.
That said, home prices won't stop falling until the next big buying season, probably summer of 09. Just my opinion.
{"commentId":3325883,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
{"commentId":3311388,"authorDomain":"ejronin"}
I really wish this had not passed. $700B is enough money to give the citizens roughly a quarter million dollars to dissolve their own debt and then some. At the same time, NOT passing the bailout would directly force lenders to rethink previous strategies that helped produce these negative results. I'm not blaming the situation on Wall Street, Democrats, or Republicans alone - our economy is so complex that it took enormous cooperation between many things to @!$%# up this bad and this bailout seems like a temporary fix to a long term problem; a problem that has no set price tag and no real way to pay the citizens who are going to be effected by the idiocy and greed of the upper crust corporations. I just can't rationalize giving a 'loan' to a group of people who's annual salary is somewhere around the tens of millions of dollars a year, while doing nothing to help people who barely make 20,000 a year.
I mean, yes, the people who got loans are responsible for their debt and paying it off. I get that, but if the government HAS to give ridiculous amounts of money to cover the debt, give it to the people so that they can pay it off instead of corporations to cover their ass and still make the people pay it off.
{"commentId":3311388,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ejronin"}
- 1 vote
#11 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 3:28 PM EDT{"commentId":3311441,"authorDomain":"thenuckels"}
This bill is a 'top-down' instead of a 'bottom-up' approach, and IMHO won't work. 'Main Street' businesses can't stay in business without having customers who can afford to buy their products and services - PERIOD! There is next to nothing in this bill that will assist homeowners to restructure their loans, improve wages, or create the jobs to build the infrastructure that is so desperately needed. You can keep pouring all the water you want in a glass with a hole in the bottom and never get the glass full and that is what this bill tries to do. We hear a great deal about the confidence that this bill will produce to expand credit and make everything better. My first response is 'confidence' as in 'con-game' is more like it! The expansion of credit is what got us here in the first place! There may be some small, temporary improvement in availability of credit but it will be short lived and things will sink lower - possibly very quickly. The long-term outlook (from many different expert perspectives) is for a 7-12 year period of very difficult economic times.
As usual, taxpayers will foot the bill and pay the costs while the high-flying gamblers on Wall Street take off with the cash. All the while continuing to pray to their 'free market' god and hold on to their failed ideology as long as the rest of us continue to foot the bill.
From a personal perspective, I would suggest that we all take a new look at how we think about and how we manage our money and our lives. We have to stop being 'enablers'. Not everyone has to own a house - renting is no sin! Buying what you need with CASH and saving for the larger purchases you may want should be expected and seen as a virtue. Credit cards should be used, sparingly, and if you can't pay the entire bill in full every month then using a credit card should be viewed as a failure to manage.
Unfortunately, those who have 401K's and other investments better get ready for a rough ride, and hope that they have enough time 10-20 years to recoup their losses. Everyone better be prepared to cope with the high probability of job loss and have a rainy day fund to keep groceries on the table and a roof over their heads. On the up side, maybe this will be an awakening to the recognition of what real 'values' are. Maybe we can all get past what someone is or is not doing in their bedrooms and start to once again value how we treat and care for others.
{"commentId":3311441,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"thenuckels"}
#12 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 3:32 PM EDT{"commentId":3311520,"authorDomain":"sal1967"}
I don't know if giving money to the people is the answer.
The truth is people are not capable of making wise decisions with it.
Anyone remember Chris Rock discuss the difference between wealth and rich. Wealth is something that can be grown upon. Rich is a momentary windfall.
How many times have you heard of people blowing through their money.
Michael Strong said that we have become a greedy society. Well that did not happen overnight and it is going to take more than a bail out to help.
1. Children need to be taught the value of the bill, and what it takes to earn what you want. They should also be taught the value of saving.
2. Our elected officials: It is not just that after 9-11, Bush said continue to shop (and remain unaware of what was going on in Iraq), our economy is based on buy and sell
We shop, use, then discard, then shop again, then discard.
Can't we make a better washing machine, toaster, hair dryer?
Well if we did, then why would stores need to hire. And retail is pretty much the only jobs out there.... and fast food (thus our fat booties).
The truth is I am at a loss on what a REAL solution would be other than a complete overhaul of our society.....
and we are still trying to get people to help the environment. You know, reusable bags for the store, separating garbage. My job requires me to print reports for a company.
Just trying to get people to switch to computer usage has been hard. I have not seen quantity of paper use decrease, but increase
How do you make people change????
And remember all, we live in a free society.
{"commentId":3311520,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"sal1967"}
- 1 vote
#13 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 3:39 PM EDT{"commentId":3311594,"authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
Really ? People are not wise enough to Handel money ? Are you for real ? We are the very thing that makes an economy work and we do not know what we are doing ? greed did this nothing more and now we are rewarding wall street with even more cash of ours ! Why would you even say such a thing ? seems to me you really need to educate yourself some on economics just like the government but you and every one in the world will soon get a crash course in that !
{"commentId":3311594,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3312109,"authorDomain":"thenuckels"}
DragonWoman - People only change when they have to and the economic crisis like the one we now face just may be the impetus for that necessary change. There is nothing sacrosanct about our 'American way of life'! We don't have to continue to do the same things that we've been doing over the last few decades, but unless something forces a change it is just easier to keep doing the same old things regardless of how destructive. IMHO, real and dramatic change is not only needed, but it will happen. The only question is how will it be manifest and will we adapt in a positive or negative way?
{"commentId":3312109,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"thenuckels"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3314067,"authorDomain":"ejronin"}
Well if we did, then why would stores need to hire. And retail is pretty much the only jobs out there.... and fast food (thus our fat booties).
Not true. What you named isn't lack of jobs, it's lack of drive. There are a lot of jobs, but many people aren't willing to look for them. I have a couple of degrees (AA), yet I'm a landscape architect by trade - by education has absolutely NOTHING to do with my job, but I have that job and I love the hell out of it. This also tells me that people don't worry about their happiness and love of a job but they worry about their love of money. What I want to know is not when the American Dream because one of living in debt, but why we allowed that dream to replace the original, much better one.
Aside from that, retail stores hire people to sell goods and it is not based on the quality of items, unless you consider that a store selling low quality items wouldn't have the money to hire people.
The difference between whore and sluts are that whores get paid. Now we're @!$%#ed and broke, when we could have only been @!$%#ed. Thanks, I'm glad I and my family have been reduced to corporate sluts.
Can't we make a better washing machine, toaster, hair dryer?
We made better microprocessors and cars. It's not that we can't make better ones , but that making too big a leap in technology that is available to the public decreases the profit margin, but that's also our own 'slutty' fault.
And remember all, we live in a free society
Really, I don't recall being given the personal option to give my money to Wall Street pimps, and I don't know about anyone else, but $700 billion dollars is a long par 5 from free.
Just trying to get people to switch to computer usage has been hard. I have not seen quantity of paper use decrease, but increase
That is becuase business requires hardcopies of transactions and so on. Honestly, I print out my tax papers once they're turned in because if I kept a PDF of it and in 3 years my HD fails or fries, it's hard trying to explain that "I did file taxes, but... I can't prove it cuase my HD fried"... somehow I think the IRS wouldn't give a crap.
{"commentId":3314067,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ejronin"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":3311619,"authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
I will say this once again . If the government gave the money to the PEOPLE this would work . Look the major problem is that home loans are not getting payed , This is because the average home owner is strapped for cash , have a higher interest and got a bad deal . If homes are being foreclosed and the people are given a foreclosure on there credit record then tell me one thing how in the hell are they ever going to get a loan again ? This so called bail out has nothing to do with any one at all except for the banks and that is going to be the down fall of each and every American Tax payer . The government has it all wrong once again and we the PEOPLE have no say and no rights at all . The facts are still there the people are the ones that need money so we can pay off the loans , credit and bad debt we have in order to restart the economy . This is not going to work nor are we the tax payer going to reap any benefit for this Bail Out at all . So with this said and done now we are still going to find it hard to get a loan get a home ( which would drive the prices up again ) and we will still be finding our debt increasing and we will still be in the hole . This is a bad Bill and I just wounder why the government doesn't look at this from a logical perspective EVER !
{"commentId":3311619,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
#14 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 3:47 PM EDT{"commentId":3312428,"authorDomain":"peter-b-johnson"}
Yeah, sort of a trickle-up theory. That's what Kucinich advocated the other night on TV.
{"commentId":3312428,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"peter-b-johnson"}
{"commentId":3313292,"authorDomain":"blerten"}
Thomas, you keep cutting-pasting-posting the SAME comment over and over in the SAME THREAD. Repeating yourself diminishes the value of what you say, not increasing it!
{"commentId":3313292,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"blerten"}
{"commentId":3320634,"authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
Why the government does this and you as a drone eat it up , So I don't have this right ? Some times the only way to get you drones to listen is to repeat it .
{"commentId":3320634,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
{"commentId":3322747,"authorDomain":"blerten"}
Personal attacks violate CoH but you go ahead and violate all the rules. People will ignore everything you say, so you're NOT "getting us to listen," just satisfying your cut-and-paste whims...
{"commentId":3322747,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"blerten"}
{"commentId":3312013,"authorDomain":"peter-b-johnson"}
The reason why the bailout didn't work is that it couldn't fix the cause of the housing foreclosure problem. The root cause is the loss of American jobs to slave labor markets in the Orient and the importing of millions of legal and illegal aliens to replace American workers who were making decent salaries (enough to pay their taxes, their social security, and their mortgages). We are reaping what the greedy CEOs of formerly American corporations and our corrupted government officials have sewn.
Economics 101a: For a market to work there have to be sellers with products and buyers with money. We have plenty of cheap products of slave labor for sale but Americans who have lost their jobs don't have the money to buy.
Economics 101b: When your outgo exceeds your income you will be broke when the credit runs out. We have a trillion dollar a year trade deficit and the credit is running out.
The Republicans think cheap goods will bring prosperity. The Democrats think we are one tax away from prosperity. Both of them and Libertarians think globalism will bring prosperity. All of them are dead wrong. Good paying jobs bring prosperity. It's as simple as that.
Regards, The Old Prospector
{"commentId":3312013,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"peter-b-johnson"}
#15 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 4:24 PM EDT{"commentId":3312299,"authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
And there is one way to fix it , Not all would agree but really we have to have the money in our hands to do it . Right now jobs are gone , people have less cash to buy products with and the housing market is a bust . So instead of giving tax payers an economic relief package in an amount that would finally wipe there debt out (mortgages , credit cards and student loans ) The government decided to give wall street all the money , But we all know darn good and well this will not work , WHY ? people that have been foreclosed upon have this on there credit record , people that can no long pay for there credit cards and car loans ( due to job looses ) have now been given bad credit and can no longer get a loan let alone pay for the ones they have . If the people do not have a job they have no way to pay there debt this in turn gives them a bad credit history and banks will not loan you any money and since banks no longer give loans out and can not collect on the current loans then it all falls apart . Now no one has the funds to buy any of the goods we once were buying up , factories close , Jobs are lost and the hole economic structure is at a stand still . to free this up there has to be a relief package given to the consumer once the consumer has the money to pay off debt and home loans and car loan and credit cards the banks are now free to give as they have the money to do now . the people should be given this bail out . give each tax payer 1.5 million dollars ! Once we have the money we will spend it and once we start to buy things again pay off bad credit debt and the such the economy frees up once again the fat cats get fatter the job market increases and every one is happy . Why is this so hard for the government to see? this is just basic economics nothing is going to change unless the people have the means to change it and this is the only real means to do the change that is needed ! so what if every one is a millionaire ? It will only be for a very short time say 1-2 months then the jobs start to roll in the banks are free to lend once again and people can get the car they want school loans homes and all will be far better then . If only they would start to see this then we would not have to go through what is going to happen and that is the complete crash of wall street and the world market . Open your eyes and you will see I am right .
{"commentId":3312299,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
{"commentId":3312513,"authorDomain":"rncostarica"}
Ron Paul RoN PaUl ROn PAul ron paul rOn pAUl. I think what I'm trying to say is RON PAUL,,,and don't forget to shake up the house and senate. There is a posting above of how they voted. And I'm sure we can google a pork list and vote them out too. Leys quit ranting and start doing. Really want change...take a chance,,,step out...how do you think our forefathers established this country. (I'm sure they are rolling over in their graves.) Again...George Washington was an independent.
{"commentId":3312513,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"rncostarica"}
- 1 vote
#16 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 5:12 PM EDT{"commentId":3312556,"authorDomain":"sblake"}
Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before change happens. Not only is our economy struggling so are other others around the world. When we realize that our economy comes first maybe we can solve his mess. We need to stop sending jobs to other countries and give incentives to start jobs here. We have had continual job loss over the past nine months. People don't have the money to keep our economy going. We always had American workers willing and able to do a job. But businesses that are greedy and cheep are using illegal immigrants to cut cost. These are jobs that hard working Americans deserve. Businesses need to be heavily penalized for these practices.
{"commentId":3312556,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"sblake"}
- 1 vote
#17 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 5:16 PM EDT{"commentId":3312767,"authorDomain":"pbcraven"}
{"commentId":3312840,"authorDomain":"proscribe"}
In some countries there is such a thing as "Debtors Prison", if you go in debt, don't pay, off you go. Now, I'd like to see a similar law in America...EXCEPT, those that allowed all of this to happen, bankers, CEO's of Fannie and Freddie, several "good ol' boy" politicians that had their palms greased, etc. etc. -- all of them should be hauled off to prison work camps where they will work off the debts and refund the monies to the people.
{"commentId":3312840,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"proscribe"}
- 1 vote
#19 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 5:43 PM EDT{"commentId":3313274,"authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
10 trillion and climbing !
Check out zfacts.com !
{"commentId":3313274,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"ericksontom33"}
#20 - Sat Oct 4, 2008 6:20 PM EDT{"commentId":3319365,"authorDomain":"bohdansz"}
America is on the crossroads where monumental decisions need to be urgently made. Single issue voting is not about one issue, but about all the issues cared for by God! Catholics and non-Catholics should always keep this in mind! There are myriads of issues which clamor for attention. The most urgent may be the appreciation of real estate, as was done at one time in Japan. But there are other vital questions that remain unsolved. Here I mention just one: the dismal stupidity of the ruling Party having a monopoly on all winning ideas! If for instance a Democrat comes up with an idea that may save the Nation, he or she cannot implement the idea if Republicans are in power, and vice versa. To wait until the Party is elected with Nation-saving ideas is criminal and irresponsible in the highest degree! Now to abortion. Abortion is the greatest of offenses to the Heavenly Father, hence its importance as a voting leading decider. But God also cares about unemployment and crime! Providing employment to the family bread-winners is an eminently Catholic issue, as is stemming immorality! Employment is critical to kick-starting lending and being able to deal with mortgage payments. If jobs are growing, then incomes are a growing, and if incomes are growing then people are consuming and paying their bills"! Immorality and permissiveness in families is also God-issue! Broken families are breeders of future criminals, and if prisons are filled to the brim, local economies stumble! All this point to the fact that a wise voter should stick with God, and never vote against God! This is why I believe that anti-abortionists are being falsely branded as "single-issue voters."
This article was backed up at 11:43:47 am.
{"commentId":3319365,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"bohdansz"}
#21 - Sun Oct 5, 2008 5:47 AM EDT{"commentId":3320104,"authorDomain":"cyan412000"}
If either canidate keeps paulson as treasury sec. they should be impeached and removed from office .
This clown cannot control this money..but i bet they purchase all the bad assets of goldman before elections.
{"commentId":3320104,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"cyan412000"}
#22 - Sun Oct 5, 2008 9:06 AM EDT{"commentId":3323660,"authorDomain":"pmpondnp"}
Obama worked as a Lawyer for Acorn, Acorn forced banks to give risky loans to uncreditworthy people with no money down, ie no vested interest. People with no real vested interest buy property increasing the price of real estate creating the housing bubble, and while artifially inflating the value of real estate which also increased your property tax. The republicans fought over and over for more regulation and oversight, but Andrew Mozillo, Countrywide/ Raines & Johnson of Fannie Mae along with their Counterparts and reciepients of the largest campaign contributions who are supposed to work for you the people not Fannie Mae, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, in fact all the Democratic Memebers of Congress voted against it. So Fannie sells these worthless mortgages to the Stock market and now we have a Crisis. The bad loans that should not have been made are being forclosed on and those foreclosures have now driven down the value of your property. Who wins Jim Johnson/Franklin Raines who made millions from Fannie Mae & The recipients of campaign contribushions , Dodd , Obama, Frank, Angelo Mozilo owner of Countrywide who did his bailout by selling his stock before things really got bad THEY SHOULD ALL BE IN PRISON. Who are the losers, You the American Taxpayer who has to pay for the Bailout that the Dems not only rushed to push through, (Jeez they wanted to help a Lame Duck Republican President) .We can blame it on Wall Street Greed like any one who buys an investment they bought it in droves because they were led to believe it was sound and insured . And now your Retirement Fund your 401K is not worth S***, So when you open your earnings report and go to vote in Nov. remember who got you into this mess. Loosers Americant Taxpayers who elected theses idiots.
{"commentId":3323660,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"pmpondnp"}
#23 - Sun Oct 5, 2008 3:05 PM EDT{"commentId":3326404,"authorDomain":"luckydog"}
Thanks Peggy-543212 for your comments about Acorn. Just knowing that there are organizations out there that get under the skin of Rush Limbaugh's listeners makes me want to write out a check right now to support this fine group.
The causes of the financial crisis are by this time well known and they have little to do with Acorn or the CRA. Fannie and Freddie were privatized and deregulation and the strangulation of what regulation there was left took care of the rest. Trying to blame this on the Democrats is on a par with trying to blame them for the Iraq war because they didn't stop Bush from invading Iraq.
{"commentId":3326404,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"luckydog"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":3325630,"authorDomain":"blerten"}
How can someone calling other people "idiots" have SO many typos in their typing? Is it because you're so shaking with anger and vitriol or going so fast you can't hit the right keys, Peggy? It does get in the way of taking in your message...
{"commentId":3325630,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"blerten"}
- 1 vote
#24 - Sun Oct 5, 2008 6:17 PM EDT{"commentId":3435084,"authorDomain":"pmpondnp"}
Oh sorry about the Typos, since I work in the Title Industry I have had first hand experience seeing the loans given to people who should never have received them. The speculators who bought houses that they never intended to occupy or improve. The rise in housing costs and its affect on people who honestly wanted a home. And the promotion of Liar loans by the likes of Countrywide backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I believe when you force banks to make loans to people who should not have recieved them as criminal. So if I seem a little angry well its because I am.
{"commentId":3435084,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"pmpondnp"}
{"commentId":3437189,"authorDomain":"luckydog"}
I believe when you force banks to make loans to people who should not have recieved them as criminal.
Well Peggy I worked in the real estate industry for a long time and helped many people from all walks of life buy and sell homes and you know what? I NEVER ONCE saw a lender make a loan they didn't want to make. Absolutely never.
{"commentId":3437189,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"luckydog"}
{"commentId":3333163,"authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
But residential real estate is still overpriced. Even today. If it goes back up, then that's because people who can't afford houses are buying...but wasn't that the problem to start with?
{"commentId":3333163,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"gregziglar"}
#25 - Mon Oct 6, 2008 7:12 AM EDT{"commentId":3437303,"authorDomain":"luckydog"}
But residential real estate is still overpriced. Even today. If it goes back up, then that's because people who can't afford houses are buying...but wasn't that the problem to start with?
Greg, the people that got us into this mess would like you to believe that is the reason (because they need a convenient scapegoat that everybody can focus their anger on) but the truth is, there are a host of reasons from the sudden insane rise in gas prices, food prices and general inflation to lenders creating loans that produced tidy profits for themselves and promptly selling them without worry about such things as default rates. Throw into the mix the fact that people are having to struggle more and more to make ends meet with rising health care and education costs, the disappearance of living wage jobs and you have a recipe for a profound recession.
{"commentId":3437303,"threadId":"378845","contentId":"1953881","authorDomain":"luckydog"}
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