Mortgage Bailout

Christian Graus

Actually, it is. The people who pay taxes, should have a say in how they are spent. The point of taxes is that they are spent to benefit those who pay them

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Chris Austin

Are you lining up for your welfare/mortgage check?

Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --?

Chris Austin

Almost makes me wish I went out and bought a huge house with an arm or interest only loan just so I can beg for money now. And, I don't see how this fixes the real problems in places like Cali. where the housing market is detached from reality in terms of affordability. This is just going to artificially prop up home prices and drag out the eventual market capitulation.

Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --?

Chris Austin

bulg wrote:

If you give the government your money, it is not your money anymore!

One does not "give" the government money. If you don't believe me try not giving your taxes and see what happens.

Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --?

Mike Gaskey

Christian Graus wrote:

It's my opinion that people who bought houses they could not afford, deserve to lose them.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Mike - typical white guy. The USA does have universal healthcare, but you have to pay for it. D'oh. Thomas Mann - "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.

Oakman

Christian Graus wrote:

It's my opinion that people who bought houses they could not afford

It's not always that easy. I read of one case where a woman put down 30% on her home but, because the money was in sub-prime mortages, the mortgage broker set her up with an adjustable ARM that kicked in after two years and jumped every six months. Now, even though she's got a job; even though she could easily make payments on the fixed rate mortgage she should have gotten, she's been foreclosed. Okay, she obviously wasn't the brightest bulb on the block. But the first time you buy a home, you want, very badly, to trust the person who is putting together your mortgage. And, of course, she could be the only person who was served badly by these mortgage brokers - some of whom had been pizza delivery guys not too long before (I'm not kidding, someone who was a highup in Countrywide said that)- and everyone else who is being foreclosed upon is the scum of the earth. But I wouldn't put too much money on it.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

Oakman

Chris Austin wrote:

Cali. where the housing market is detached from reality in terms of affordability

Is that still the case? I mean I know those folks on the left coast are divorced from reality but hasn't supply and demand kicked in yet?

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

Oakman

Marc Clifton wrote:

the cost of the subsidies would be paid by the American TAXPAYER!!!

You're right. But it's my understanding that these subsidies help more than just the potential defaulters. All of the homes on the same block are in danger of losing their value if one or two homes there are foreclosed on - and then suddenly people who have been doing everything right find themselves upside-down on their loans.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

Ed Gadziemski

It's my opinion that human decency requires us to not lump everyone into one category and I believe we should not be the first to cast stones. Somebody said that once. Some people bought houses they could perfectly well afford and then were laid off. Others developed health or family problems such as divorce that ate up their cash reserves and income. Quite a few took adjustable rate mortgages in anticipation of increased equity and got slammed when the interest rate readjusted. About 10% bought houses they could never afford and should not have been granted mortgages.

Ed Gadziemski

No. Are you? Do you live in one of the welfare states that sucks in more in Federal spending than they pay in Federal taxes? Federal Taxes Paid vs. Federal Spending Received by State, 1981-2005[^]

Ed Gadziemski

Christian Graus wrote:

The people who pay taxes, should have a say in how they are spent

Agree 100%. I say my taxes should be spent on correcting mortgage problems for ordinary Americans instead of this:

The Independent reported that US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction inspectors believe misuse may account for over $50 billion, exceeding the scope of Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme and making it potentially the "greatest fraud in US history."[^]

Ed Gadziemski

Plus, we could have saved about $10 trillion if we had simply addressed mortgages, the alleged root of the problem, instead of trying to trickle-down from Wall Street.

Stan Shannon

Christian Graus wrote:

The point of taxes is that they are spent to benefit those who pay them

The sad thing is that you actually seem to believe that. Taxes are spent to keep government in power by producing the illusion in enough people that they are benefiting at some one else's expense.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Oakman

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

Plus, we could have saved about $10 trillion if we had simply addressed mortgages, the alleged root of the problem, instead of trying to trickle-down from Wall Street.

It's my understand that we could have paid off every mortgage in the country - which should have ended the cry sis.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

leckey 0

I think that shows that just because you have money, you have to do your research. My sister in law wanted to an ARM and hubby (her brother) and I finally talked her out of it. She's a PhD candidate in MATH and she could not figure out this one.

Back in the blog beatch! http://CraptasticNation.blogspot.com/[^]

leckey 0

Can you site some sources on those stats? The info I have read puts the "can't afford" rate much higher. Thanks! :)

Back in the blog beatch! http://CraptasticNation.blogspot.com/[^]

Christian Graus

Oakman wrote:

Okay, she obviously wasn't the brightest bulb on the block

Yes, I'm sure a lot of people got pushed into things they could not afford. I'm not saying these are bad people. I'm saying they are probably mostly pretty dumb, and dumb is still not something that other people should have to pay for.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Christian Graus

Which is why I said it should not be the *only* criteria, not that no bail out at all is reasonable.

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

Others developed health or family problems such as divorce that ate up their cash reserves and income.

Well, that's sad ( seriously ), but that happens to people all the time, this lot should get bailed out because of the timing of when it happened to them ?

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Christian Graus

Stan Shannon wrote:

The sad thing is that you actually seem to believe that

Who pays your police, your army ? Who pays for your schools ? You do, via taxes. Without taxes, none of these things would exist. Do you also get robbed ? Yes, but, in THEORY, you should be able to have a say, at the ballot box, to control the problem.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Lost User

Wow! That would be sucha cool way to kick start things! If every mortgage were paid off, then everyone would suddenly have more disposable income (well, not everyone - some lucky people who have paid off their mortgages would gripe that it's just 'not fair') Is that seriously how much money you're talking about in the US? Enough to pay off all the mortgages!?

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