Mortgage Bailout

[Christian Graus]

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

elping a targeted group of people

My original statement was that I don't agree with just helping everyone who bought a house they cannot afford. I meant to imply that the sort of targetting you're talking about would be needed, instead of a payday for every person who bought a house and is close to defaulting.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

[BoneSoft]

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

human decency requires us to not lump everyone into one category and I believe we should not be the first to cast stones.

I agree completely. I also believe we should not be the first to cast wads of cash at them either.

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

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.

All true, all sad stories, all deserving of sympathy. But life sucks, and you have to be responsible for yourself and your actions. Live and learn. However, there was some good old fashioned government supplied injustice dealt to these people, for which they should not be held accountable for. Jimmy Carter, Billy Clinton, ACORN, Frank Reins, Jimmy Johnson, Maxine Waters, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank should be held accountable for that portion. How to determine what that portion is will be difficult though. The tax payer is the one and only group in this country that isn't to blame and shouldn't be held responsible.

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[Ed Gadziemski]

Christian Graus wrote:

My original statement was that I don't agree with just helping everyone who bought a house they cannot afford

My bad then. I thought you were criticizing the Obama plan specifically like the OP was. The new plan is targeted and has a means test to make sure the homeowner can afford the mortgage after rate and/or monthly payment adjustments are applied.

[Ed Gadziemski]

BoneSoft wrote:

Ouch, liberal math gives me a headache.

As it should.

BoneSoft wrote:

Cuz two wrongs don't make a right!

However, one right can help correct a wrong.

[BoneSoft]

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

I'd rather spend $500 billion to solve the problem, even knowing that some people will reap undeserved benefits, than continue to spend trillions to line the pockets of so-called financial wizards while not solving the problem.

Now that makes sense. I can get behind that. IF we could know for sure that that would fix the problem.

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

It's nice to stand on priciple, Christian, and piss on people worse off than yourself, and please, continue to do so if it makes you feel superior

I followed you right up to "piss on people worse off than yourself...". There's nothing wrong with standing on principal, and in fact principal is something this country is seriously lacking these days. I understand the depth of your concern here, but please don't vilify those who choice to stand on principal. You have enough good arguments to justify not taking that road.

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Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.

[Ed Gadziemski]

BoneSoft wrote:

The tax payer is the one and only group in this country that isn't to blame and shouldn't be held responsible.

Are you saying that none of the homeowners going into foreclosure ever held jobs and paid taxes? They never worked, never paid income tax, never contributed in any way? Golly, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

[Ed Gadziemski]

Thanks. Point taken.

[BoneSoft]

Please read the modification I just posted. And please don't misinterperate my stance. My interest in not in seeing these people get screwed. It's important to me that principal isn't ignored. But I'm all for helping these people, a lot of which aren't completely responsible for their situations. Still most share a good portion of the responsibility for their situations. Reading through this thread, there are several good suggestions, some from you in fact. If Obama can honestly say that those who get help actually deserve it, then it will be the first thing he's done right in my eyes. And God would I love to see that start happening.

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Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.

[BoneSoft]

If I'd given it voluntarily, I'd agree with you. But I didn't.

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Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.

[BoneSoft]

No. But I'll bet few payed enough in taxes to cover their mortgage. Tax payer in general, the collective pot that everybody's money went. Did that really deserve a 1?

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Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.

[Chris Austin]

Oakman wrote:

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

You would think so and in all honesty the prices are creeping down since they are ground-zero for foreclosures. But, homes are still expensive compared to even AZ and NV.

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]

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

No. Are you?

No. But I should be. It seems that those of us who lived within our means will be punished. It pisses me off to no end that I (and my son) will be paying for the guy next door's house that is bigger and fancier than mine yet they have always made less than us and bragged about their credit card debt. It's not right.

Ed Gadziemski wrote:

o 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[^]

I pay taxes in six states and what does it have to do with the price of tea in china?

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]

Oakman wrote:

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.

Not to turn this into another rant in it's own. But, if people could just understand what they can afford versus having someone else tell them what they could afford we'd be much better off.

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]

There is some comedian out there, I forget his name, that famously said: "You can't fix stupid.".

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]

leckey wrote:

She's a PhD candidate in MATH and she could not figure out this one.

I don't mean to say you are embellishing the truth but I find that really hard to believe. The equations and indices that are used to calculate these payments and rates are not that complicated and pretty easy to find via google. My guess is that she was just emotional about it.

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]

This is something we can agree on. I would have preferred to see the government just send every citizen a 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. --?

[73Zeppelin]

Yeah, I don't buy that either. If an MBA can understand it....

[73Zeppelin]

If you're going to sign something like a mortgage, you would think one would understand what one was signing. You would think they would be most interested in the fine print. I mean, you put your signature on there and it's binding. For that reason, I too have no sympathy for these people.

[73Zeppelin]

I'm sorry Ed, but this doesn't quite wash with me. I worked in the industry that securitized these loans. I agree that the banking system is partly to blame for marketing unsecure products as AAA rated. However, this is securitization after the fact. That means that in order to securitize these products, the mortgages had to exist. That means Mr. Smith and his wife signed the dotted line on their mortgage agreement. By signing that agreement, they agreed to all terms and conditions contained therein. Ignorance isn't a defense in this case, and it's really easy to want to pin the blame on a third party. That's just a convenient way to absolve the mortgage holder from any responsibility. If you want to look for the root of the problem, then the chain of causality doesn't start with securitized mortgage products.

[Ilion]

Chris Austin wrote:

Not to turn this into another rant in it's own. But, if people could just understand what they can afford versus having someone else tell them what they could afford we'd be much better off.

People understand quote well what they can and cannot afford ... but people also love to engage in magical thinking.