Bill to Prevent Foreclosure Beginning to Make Sense
For some time now, I’ve been questioning just how much foreclosure assistance homeowners are going to get as a result of the federal foreclosure program that’s waiting for Congressional fine-tuning.
In my other posts, I’ve questioned a number of its elements, things that don’t quite add up to “foreclosure prevention.”
I finally saw something that made me think, “NOW I understand!”
U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, a chief architect of the Foreclosure Prevention Act made this comment about yield spread premiums: “It is time for the Congress, the Administration, and the lending industry to face up to the fact that predatory and irresponsible lending practices are creating a crisis for millions of American homeowners at a time when general economic trends are good.”
Economic trends are “good?”Hmmm… oh, right. He must be referring to:
- The falling dollar
- Skyrocketing oil costs
- The never-ending export of manufacturing jobs
- Blatant federal manipulation of the CPI, grossly understating inflation
- Blatant federal manipulation of unemployment figures
- The Fed’s decision to quit publishing M3 reports
- Was it the national deficit he was referring to?
- Or, the national debt?
I *know* he wasn’t referring to household debt levels, which have increased SEVENTY-ONE PERCENT from 1Q 2001 to 1Q 2006, according to Kevin Phillips in his book, “Bad Money.”
According to a 2006 (two years ago) article by Elizabeth Warren, fixed costs are now consuming 75% of middle class family incomes.
I see this first-hand every day. Admittedly, my view is a bit skewed, as I work predominantly with Midwesterners… we, the people of the Rust Belt, who never saw our home prices go up that far, yet now are amongst the top 10 in declines.
Many of the families I work with have very little margin for error, financially.
And despite the lingering perception that these borrowers were “irresponsible” and “reckless,” there really isn’t much room to cut expenses. The vast majority of the families I see are spending most of their money on basics.
I realize this is hard for Senator Dodd to appreciate, as most Republicans are out of touch with middle-class realities.
If only that were true… Dodd’s a Democrat… they’re supposed to be champions of the middle class.
It must be shocking to him how so many borrowers got shafted by their mortgage lender, especially when he received preferential treatment when he got his home loan.
So, it’s all starting to make sense now. If our “leaders,” who are supposed to be helping to solve our greatest problems are either that dumb- or want us to believe that they’re that dumb, then it’s clear to me why so much of this bill does so little.
I’d say we deserve better than this but the truth is, we don’t.
We, as Americans, somehow manage to mis-manage our money even worse than the federal government. American Idol and ESPN is more important to us than the fact that we’re selling our children, and our children’s children, into debt slavery.
If you are one of those families that I mentioned above… you’re grinding it out each month… “sweating it out” each month would be more accurate… you’re facing foreclosure but you want to keep your home… more importantly, you’d like to find a way out of the “rob Peter to pay Paul” game, get in touch with me and let’s talk about how we can stop foreclosure and more importantly, adjust your course a bit, so we can break you out of this vicious cycle.
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