Bill Moyers Takes A Close Look At The Mortgage Meltdown

Instead of pontificating on the mortgage crisis like some "journalists" do from their corporate offices, Bill Moyers show goes to the very heart of horrific situation and investigates on the ground:

So How's That Housing Market?

For the most part the media has abandoned the story of our national housing crisis, but that doesn't mean it has gone away. According to Andrew Jakabovics of the Center for American Progress, things are still dire and need to be worked on at a macro (i.e. Congressional) scale:

Another Way To Support The Troops: 4x The Nat'l Foreclosure Rate

I've said it before and I'll say it again, putting a magnetic bumper sticker made in China saying you support the troops is NOT supporting the troops. Ultimately we show true solidarity by electing leaders that will only put soldiers in harm's way if it is truly necessary and when so, to take care of them and their families. George Bush has not lived up to that, and he has shown us in his true cold-blooded spirit. He can take all the moments of silence he wants, but it does nothing for the livelihoods of those that don the uniform. It is terrible to continue to have to hear examples of how our troops are suffering in the current economic climate.

From Bloomberg:

In the midst of the worst surge in mortgage defaults in seven decades, foreclosures in U.S. towns where soldiers live are increasing at a pace almost four times the national average, according to data compiled by research firm RealtyTrac Inc. in Irvine, California. As military families like the VerSteeghs signed up for the initial lower rates and easier terms of subprime mortgages, the number of people taking out Veterans Administration loans fell to the lowest in at least 12 years.

``We've never faced a situation like this, not in the Vietnam War, World War II, or the Korean War, where so many military are in danger of losing their homes,'' said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a Washington-based advocacy group started in 2002 by Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans. ``No one asked them for their credit score when we asked them to fight for us.''

Military Foreclosures

Foreclosure filings in 10 towns and cities within 10 miles of military facilities, including Norfolk, Virginia, home of the Navy's largest base, rose by an average 217 percent from January through April from a year earlier. Nationally, the rate was 59 percent in the same period, according to RealtyTrac, which tallies bank seizures, auctions and default notices.

With the billions trillions we have and are going to spend on this war, you would think that a few spare nickels could be shaved off of Halliburton's expense account to help the military families that must cope with losing their homes. With George Bush as President, you'd be wrong.

Media Fails To Show McCain's Half-Hearted Attempt At Helping Homeowners

When John McCain came to Brooklyn this week he made it seem like he had a change of heart for homeowners who are facing foreclosure because of the subprime mortgage meltdown occurring in America. Last month he said it wasn't the government's job to do anything for the people who acted irresponsibly (something to do with the campaign perhaps?). Now he's changed his tune thanks to pressure from both sides of the aisle (including popular Florida Governor Crist, who's also a supporter of McBush). Yet reality is a little far off from how the media tries to portray him.

From TPM Cafe:

[I]t's typical Republican bamboozlement. McCain says that perhaps a few hundred thousand homeowners deserve ever so slightly more help than they're already receiving, but that millions of others should lose their homes. And it's worth pointing out that most analysts agree that the number of folks who would be helped by this plan is probably much smaller than Holtz-Eakin estimates. There's really not much difference between his initial position and his bold new plan - they both amount to inaction.

So I'd suggest that right after they note that "John McCain says he'd be happy to see our troops in Iraq for another hundred years," the Democrats would do well to add, "John McCain says that millions of Americans deserve to lose their homes." All it's going to take to beat this guy is telling the public where he stands.

It is all smoke and mirrors when it comes to the supposed straight talker. Maybe he's such a maverick because he can fool so many in the media into playing along for him while spitting on the truth in the process. Therefore it is up to the rest of us to get the facts out while many in the media sit on their asses and eat McCain's BBQ.

McCain To Subprime Mortgage Victims: Eh, So?

John McCain sat down in Los Angeles yesterday to map out what he proposes to do about the housing market fiasco going on, especially with foreclosures on a perilous rise and the industry's effect on the market as a whole. While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to help lenders who were taken advantage of to some degree, McCain has other ideas.

From The LA Times:

In a speech at a small printing business in Santa Ana, the presumptive Republican nominee said he was "committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

McCain cited the $30-billion plan by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to aid homeowners and communities threatened by foreclosures, saying that it sounded "very expensive" and that he would "like to know how it's paid for."

His remarks came as the mortgage crisis and related economic troubles increasingly are moving to the forefront of the presidential campaign. Clinton and the Democratic front-runner, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, have criticized mortgage-lending practices and called for government intervention to provide relief to homeowners.

By contrast, McCain -- who has been trying to shore up his economic credentials -- placed some of the blame on homeowners themselves, while also scolding "complacent" lenders.

Well gee Mr. McCain, that sure is nice of you to scold those lenders. I wonder why you didn't favor legislation in the last few years to back that up, but hey, what are actions when you have words? Or is that the other way around? Oh yeah and by the way, we could come up with $30 billion dollars in less than three months, as soon as we shut off the spigot that fuels this ridiculous war that you think is going so swimmingly.

McCain Camp Tries A New Teleprompter To Make Him Look Authentic

Despite repeated attempts, getting John McCain to look like he knows something from memory is been hard work for his campaign staff. He either looks entirely too scripted, or he just doesn't know what he's talking about. Well it looks like the top brass have come up with something new, though the machine has been around awhile.

From Hotline:

In an effort to improve John McCain's big speech delivery, his campaign put in place for today's speech a large flat screen monitor and two side panel teleprompters. Campaign officials have expressed concern that McCain has looked in prior speeches like he was watching a tennis match. Today, by installing a large monitor in the back of the room, McCain is able to fix his gaze straight ahead.

The goal, of course, is to help McCain look like he's speaking more naturally to the nearly 20 cameras on hand for the AZ Sen's most extensive remarks on the housing crisis to date.

That is the goal, but what will the reality be? I doubt McCain has much to say on the Housing crisis, because if you are in bed with the people that screw the working-middle class over, generally you aren't going to say anything that might help those that are losing their homes. Though at least he won't look fake when he sides with the banking industry over the people who have been foreclosed on.

How Is The American Economy Going?

What's the biggest issue facing our economy? Center for American Progress went out and asked as many people as they could:

Did The Iraq War Cause Our Recession?

Our current economic downturn is being attributed to many different things. That includes the price of oil, the housing crisis, the sub-prime mortgage fiasco and the ridiculous amount of national and personal debt that we hold in the country. But what about Iraq. We waste billions upon billions over there, that has to account for something....something many Republicans do not want to even accept as a topic for debate. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist, does want to make it an issue. And I am willing to go out on a ledge and say that he can debate any Republican politician willing to argue the other side and it would be a cakewalk for Stiglitz.

From The Australian News:

Professor Stiglitz told the Chatham House think tank in London that the Bush White House was currently estimating the cost of the war at about $US500 billion, but that figure massively understated things such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.

The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said.

The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.

"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.

That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.

Professor Stiglitz, an academic at the Columbia Business School and a former economic adviser to president Bill Clinton, said a further $US500 billion was going to be spent on the fighting in the next two years and that could have been used more effectively to improve the security and quality of life of Americans and the rest of the world.

The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world, he said.

Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered, he said.

Well it doesn't take a Nobel Award winner to tell me that we could have paid to wipe out illiteracy or provide health insurance for underprivileged kids with that blood war money. Maybe he could get through to Bush on this....or perhaps Congress. Too bad the former doesn't care and the latter is too weak to act to help their constituents.

Its Nice To Be A Bank

Wouldn't you love to walk into a bank and get an interest rate that is agreeable to you? No fuss, warm handshakes and no car-dealership-esque treatment. Does that sound like what you expect when walking into bank x,y or z...perhaps FannieMae or CountryWide for your home? Well yeah, that doesn't happen for regular people, but it does happen for the banks themselves.

From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banks in the United States have been quietly borrowing "massive amounts" from the U.S. Federal Reserve in recent weeks, using a new measure the Fed introduced two months ago to help ease the credit crunch, according to a report on the web site of The Financial Times.

The newspaper said the use of the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF), which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wide range of their assets, saw borrowing of nearly $50 billion of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.

The Financial Times said the move has sparked unease among some analysts about the stress developing in opaque corners of the U.S. banking system and the banks' growing reliance on indirect forms of government support.

O.K. well most of us are generally looking to borrow 0.00001 percent of that for a home or add another 0 to that number for a car. Still, the fact that they get to hit our government up for cash while we can't pay for a national health care system and our treasury goes deeper into debt. It isn't right that we bailout industries that have cast tough times upon themselves through greed and illegitimate (or should be illegitimate) behavior. Perhaps after January 20th of next year raping America wholesale will be considered criminal again.

What's That Panicky Crashing Sound?

Around the neighborhoods of middle and lower class America, "Wall Street" is known as being synonymous with greed. The heart of capitalism resides on that street in the minds of many of us and for the most part, it is true. World markets started tanking yesterday while ours was closed and Asia and Europe already have had bad days today. Many analysts attribute their fiscal woes to us and that the international downturn is being called a reaction to our sub-prime mortgage fiasco and credit card/national debts.

Anyways, thats what I hear around the Internets and cable news services. I'd like to add something personal to the discussion. I live in a neighborhood in Manhattan that is next to Murray Hill and is known as a semi-quiet and wealthy area of Manhattan (relatively speaking since almost all of this island is wealthy compared to the rest of the country) where many people in the financial markets live because it is close to their offices, more of which are actually in midtown as opposed to downtown. That whole 9/11 thing scared many to flee north.

So back to me. Once a week or so I meet up with some friends that I know not through politics but live in Murray Hill and we have common connections, you know, meeting people in the neighborhood, etc etc. Well this morning the market was on their minds and fear was the big thing. A few knew that this will pass eventually and tried to use that to remain calm, self-assurances and whatnot. Of course it will pass, but not before doing considerable damage to many people's pocketbooks. Then there was an older gent that mentioned he's been through many of these "corrections" and that there are opportunities in this.

And thats when it struck me, this is all about fear and greed. Yeah, yeah, common sense I know. But this morning it really hit me on how everything in our society that causes stress is based on those "seven deadly sins." Some try to act on the opposite, but it is just so easy to be greedy (especially in Manhattan) and then when you screw people with things like credit card policies and sub-prime mortgages, it can come back to haunt you.

Well it is haunting many in the financial markets right now, with the Dow Jones down two or three or four hundred points. Who knows where it will end up today. No matter what the average of those 30 blue chip stocks is at 4:30PM, the problem still remains. Greed and fear, not to mention lust, envy and the other three dominates many of us and those that have the power on "Wall Street" have the ability to inflict pain on us all.

This Is Why Sheldon Silver Needs To Go

This morning the NY Post rightly slammed the Assembly Leader for his reckless bailout for lenders and borrowers alike in the mess that is the subprime mortgage market. I generally do not agree with a lot of what the Post writes about but when it comes to this, they are right on. Giving $180,000,000.00 to the banks and institutions that lent this money is ridiculous, not only because New York is facing a budget crisis (that makes it bad enough though) but because the banks do not deserve to be given anything back. It was wrong for them to lend the money in the first place and I believe it should be criminal.

Also, the Post points out that these millions will be taken from the millions of responsible borrowers through their taxes to those that borrowed without reading the details of their mortgage agreement. Now I believe that it wasn't entirely their fault, there was a reason why the banks preyed on many of these people specifically. The people that run these programs at the banks aren't stupid, they know how to spot easy marks like any hoodlum on the street, the only difference is that they wear suits.

Another difference between the criminals on the street and the ones in the midtown and downtown banks is that the suits have friends in Albany. You would never hear a legislator talk about bailing out loan sharks and shylocks who had gamblers and druggies who defaulted on their payments, would you? Yet the banks know how to have friends like Sheldon Silver and Darryl Towns.

From The NY Post:

Most astounding about Silver's plan, though, is that it not only seeks to hold harmless those who take on more than they can handle, but it also essentially legitimizes that practice - by doing the same thing itself.

We repeat: There's no money to fund it. And when asked about this wee oversight, Silver gave the classic response of those who can't say no: The state would just have to find the money, he said, for the 50,000 households "in some state of foreclosure" - just as it does for cops and other key public servants. (That is, the financially responsible other 19 million New Yorkers will have to pony up.)

"We have to be creative," said Banking Committee Chairman Darryl Towns, in trying to close the budget gap. But "this is one of our priorities."

Their priorities are to their friends in the banks. While many borrowers are let off the hook here and will escape foreclosure, the banks are the real winners here because they still get some money back from their abysmal failure of not trying to be good stewards of money and capital.

That $180 million should have not been spent at all or at the very least be put to programs that have better use for New Yorkers. And while you are at it, why not prosecute the banks for the crap they pull, then we would have less trouble with our budget shortfall.

Jesse To March On Wall St

The subprime mortgage disaster has been picking up speed in the press...as well as it is beginning to hurt the large banks. Thanks to people like Jesse Jackson, the crisis will also remind us that the worst effects are on the people who have had to foreclose on their homes, and those that might have to in the future. Jesse plans to march on Wall Street and bring the spotlight to the industry that has helped bring about this crisis.

From The Daily Politics:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson came to City Hall today to tout his Dec. 10 march/rally on Wall Street in hopes of pressuring big lenders to focus on, as he puts it, “restructuring, not repossession,” in hopes of staving off massive foreclosure crisis he believes could send the national into another Great Depression.

Jackson also announced support of Council resolution 1112 which “denounces” foreclosures precipitated by subprime and predatory lending and in support of federal and state legislation that regulates lenders and assists borrowers.

Denouncing the practice of foreclosing is not enough. We need real change and real regulation to prevent Wall Street from doing so much damage to middle class homeowners here in New York and across the country. With the $38 billion in Christmas bonuses that the industry is receiving this year, it is time to give those billions back and reimburse the all of their victims...at least those that have been foreclosed on.

If you have time on December 10th, put those marching boots on and stand against the corporate banking giants.

Subprime Criminals

Coming back to how Corporate America royally screws ordinary citizens, one of the lowest "professions" in recent memory is the practice of giving subprime mortgages to people in lower income brackets. Recently Senator Schumer (D-NY) has come out to decry the practice, although not until the market started to feel the effects of tens of thousands of foreclosures. Now State Senator Jeff Klein is highlighting the worst of the worst banks that swooped into New York to entice homeowners with their predatory lending practices.

From The Daily News:

State Sen. Jeffrey Klein released a list of the 10 lending institutions with the highest number of foreclosures in the city and Westchester Sunday, costing thousands of homeowners their savings, their homes and their hopes for the future.

"These, in many cases, are the originators of these subprime loans ... which got people into all the problems," Klein (D-Bronx, Westchester) said at a news conference on Wall St.

Topping Klein's list is Fremont Bank, a California-based company that saw 330 foreclosure filings on loans it approved in the city and Westchester between July 1, 2006, and July 31, 2007.

During that 13-month period, 14,561 foreclosures related to the subprime crisis have been filed in the city, Klein said.

It is great to see local politicians shine light on the worst offenders. These banks should be at minimum fined and bank officers definitely prosecuted to the full extent of the law for their deceptive practices. Of course, we need to see federal laws that would make an impact on these crooks and perhaps Schumer can start to make that happen.

Subprime Mortgage Crisis Will Have Dramatic Effect On NYC

In what is shaping up to be the largest fiscal crisis of the new millennium and even worse than the S & L Loan scandal in the early 90s, the sub-prime mortgage crisis is going to hurt our economy on a large scale. New York City is also expected to be walloped by the situation. Overall, the city is looking at over 15,000 foreclosures and now some in the Senate are looking to act.

From The Daily News:

Schumer called for federal action against the lending practices of "really slimy mortgage brokers," which were detailed last Sunday in a special Daily News "I-Team" report.

In a 32-page study, the committee said that nationwide foreclosures were looming on 2 million homes with subprime mortgages, which are granted to borrowers whose credit histories don't rate a conventional mortgage.

The foreclosures and the spinoff effects will cost states more than $103 billion in lost property values - $9.5 billion for New York - and more than $917million in lost property taxes - more than $102 million for New York.

In the city, the borough hit hardest by the subprime crisis was Queens, where foreclosures were started on 2,478 homes through this year and another 3,561 were expected next year for a total of 6,039, the committee report said.

This national crisis will affect millions and because of the impact on the economy, everyone will eventually suffer the consequences. Why the problem was not looked into while the lending was taking place is something that should also be investigated. Of course, the Congress did not conduct any type of oversight while the Republicans were in control, whether it was regarding Iraq or our economy.

It might have been a matter of ignorance, but the fact remains that our government did nothing to stop massive predatory lending practices while interest rates were low a few years back because those mortgages being set up boosted economic figures. That economic "growth" was used by the Bush Administration to show that the economy was strong even though it was all an illusion.

And now we are going to have to pay for that mistake, as we are paying for all of Bush's mistakes.