15 comments

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  Thurman Senn

  9 months ago

  I am posting this Comment. I'm also staying up late sending this same message to as many Congressmen and women as I could.
  
  First, I’m mad as **** that Congress is even having to consider such legislation. What did my tax dollars pay for when it was paying the salaries of all of the regulators at the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and SEC that allowed the problem to get this bad? Why should my tax dollars bail out all the idiots and/or crooks that have gotten themselves into this mess? I have a mortgage that I pay for every month. My father doesn’t have a mortgage. It's unfair for us to pay for all this.
  
  Second, I strongly urge everyone to oppose the proposal until we get some clear answers to some fundamental questions.
  
  1. Where did the $700 billion number come from? What data supports this number? How exactly does our economy get destroyed if we don't do this?
  
  2. What exactly will the federal government be buying – prime mortgages, second lien mortgages, subprime mortgages, “stated income” (liar loan) mortgages, etc.?
  
  3. What price is being paid? How and who is determining the price? Using what criteria?
  
  4. Who exactly will be the sellers? Who decides?
  
  5. What is the government going to do with whatever it buys? If the government isn’t going to do it (e.g., service the mortgages) who’s going to get hired and at what price? What standards measure performance? If loans are going to be restructured, who decides what the revised mortgage loan terms are going to be? Will everyone get the same deal or will there be "favorites" getting better deals than others?
  
  6. What can the selle’s do with the money they receive? Since they’ve already bungled the money they had, what’s to prevent them from making poor investments the second time?
  
  None of these questions are being answered to my satisfaction in the news reports.
  
  Also, I noted that the proposed bill from Treasury allowed for purchases of commercial mortgages. What??! Why are we (the taxpayer) buying commercial mortgages?
  
  $700 billion!!! Legislators fight like a dog over a few million. I expect all voters and citizens to demand answers and hold people accountable. I certainly will be the next time I have to vote.
  
  Thurman Senn
  Louisville, Kentucky
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  CopperheadKid

  9 months ago

  Mr. Thurmann Senn,
  
  You have listed excellent questions that require answers in your Comment. If we ever get the answers, which I doubt, we then should base our decision on open and fair market principles that most of us try to live by in maintaining ethical business relationships. Next, before rendering a decision we should defer to the Constitution of the the United States to look for a foundational principle to justify this bailout.
  
  Oh... wait a second, we have a decision!
  
  If any legislator or elected government office holder supports a taxpayer bailout of a private commercial business he/she has just violated his/her oath of office. Period. That was easy; too bad no one is considering that on Capital Hill.
  
  Dems and Repubs have acted like our foundational document that gave rise to the free and open market system we have enjoyed can be ignored or dismissed. Adherence to the Constitution would have kept us out of this mess and made many problems the US suffers from concurrently non-issues.
  
  NO BAILOUT EVER!
  
  The free and open market sytem will adjust to the temporary lack of credit due to the overwhelming "lack of credibility". And we will survive. Hopefully the central bankers, their masters, minions and pawns will not.
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  HansBader

  9 months ago

  It's unclear exactly how many give-aways at taxpayer expense are being added to the already costly bailout bill to appease liberal lawmakers.
  
  On Monday, Barney Frank, who earlier claimed that the "Bush Administration had agreed to additional aid for homeowners facing foreclosure," "backtracked, saying he had overstated the agreement," after "Treasury Department officials later in the day rejected the details of the Democratic additions to the bill." See Susan Ferrechio, "Re-Election Worries May Hinder Fast Passage of Bailout," Washington Examiner, Sept. 23, 2008, at pg. 16.
  
  Today, however, as noted above, the Los Angeles Times claims that the Bush Administration has now capitulated to Frank's demands to bailout such homeowners.
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  HansBader

  9 months ago

  The Republican Study Committee today called on policymakers to reform federal accounting regulations to "Suspend the mark-to-market regulatory rules for long-term assets. These rules require financial firms to mark assets at current levels, even where no market exists and any immediate transactions would result in fire-sale prices. Instead of allowing firms to mark these assets to their true economic value, these rules contribute to a downward spiral as firms have to evaluate their assets not on the basis of their long-term investment but rather on a short-term mania."
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  HansBader

  9 months ago

  Regulators and government officials contributed to the mortgage crisis in many ways. Recently, John Lott, Jonah Goldberg, and the Wall Street Journal explained how redlining regulations, federal affordable housing mandates, and the Community Reinvestment Act encouraged lenders to make risky loans to irresponsible people who never saved any money and now are defaulting. Financial expert John Steele Gordon described how the government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spawned the mortgage crisis, in the New York Times.
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  HansBader

  9 months ago

  How federal affordable housing mandates caused the mortgage meltdown is explained here: John R. Lott, "Analysis: Reckless Mortgages Brought Financial Market to Its Knees," Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008, available at http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/FoxNewsMortg...
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  HansBader

  9 months ago

  Paulson has a serious conflict of interest when it comes to bailing out Wall Street at taxpayer expense. As news reporters have noted, Paulson himself is a wealthy former Wall Street executive whose firm stands to benefit from taxpayers, rather than Wall Street, picking up the tab for bad loans. Paulson was the CEO of Goldman, Sachs from 1999-2006. See, e.g., Kevin G. Hall, "Paulson and Bailout: Conflicts of Interest?" McClatchy Newspapers, Sept. 22, 2008.
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  HansBader

  9 months ago

  How federal affordable housing mandates caused the mortgage crisis:
  John R. Lott, "Analysis: Reckless Mortgages Brought Financial Market to Its Knees," Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008, available at http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/FoxNewsMortg....
  
  How redlining regulations contributed to the crisis: Jonah Goldberg, "Wall Street Fat Cats Aren't at Fault This Time," National Review, Sept. 19, 2008, available at http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=M2Qw...
  
  How the Community Reinvestment Act contributed: Wall Street Journal, Editorial, "A Mortgage Fable," Sep. 22, 2008 (quoting Robert Litan, a Brookings Institution scholar and former Clinton Administration official), available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122204078161261...
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  HansBader

  9 months ago

  The bailout rips off people who lived within their means to pay their debts. I can pay my mortgage, because I was frugal, and bought a little two-bedroom house on a fixed rate mortgage. But reckless people in my region can’t pay their mortgage, because they bought big houses on adjustable interest-rate loans with low teaser rates. Now that their introductory low rates have expired, they can’t afford their payments. The government is going to bail them out, at our expense. While many defaulting borrowers have been living it up, buying fancy Lexus cars and eating expensive restaurant meals, I’ve been going through recycling bins on weekends searching for coupons. (For example, I recently found $100 in baby food coupons that way).
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  richard

  9 months ago

  the govt got us into this mess and we are just supposed to trust them,b.s
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  ryan

  9 months ago

  Let's see... No WMDs... Umm... I think a week or so ago the administration said.. "the Economy is doing well.."
  Why in the first place would we even give them a chance now?
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  Kay Henson

  9 months ago

  It sounds to me like the people who are stating their comments on this site, are people who have worked their tails off to get where they are today and have not enjoyed any help from anyone, especially the government. My husband and I have had to start over 3 times in our lives because of mismanagement, or thieft, of money by the government or big corp. business. I have sympathy for the people who signed the loans that have ruined their lives, but it is not my responsibility to bail them out. And, it is certainly not by responsibility to bail out greedy corporations that are consumed with how much money they can scam from the people. Our politicians are a joke, but I for one, am not laughing. I am sick of the Socialist Dems, and the Cowardly Reps.
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  a conservative with some sense

  9 months ago

  Why is it that you recommend a filibuster for any bill that reduces interest rates or cuts balances on mortgages for homeowners? Writing mortgages for customers who should not have got them and/or for amounts that should not have been granted is the very reason we had these "false markets" in places like Tampa, and other places across the country, which led to the perceived need for such a bailout. Now, while the homeowners who got these pushing-the-envelope mortgages are also responsible, why should they not benefit from the same safety net as the companies who profited off of them? And those companies profited not solely because they made money off one or two bad loans, but because those loans all added up to creating a false market, which raised home prices, which put homeowners in a situation where they owe 500K on a house worth 350K.
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  Billiesue

  9 months ago

  I have heard it said that this will help Wall Street, but will hurt main street.
  
  My question is, if this bail out is going to bring the value of the dollar down, then guess what, that means that the price of oil and gas will go up, and people who are staggering to keep those homes with even fixed morages, are going to really struggle. What really flusters me, is people who, in good faith, bought a home doing everything right, will be hurt even more. Monies will go only so far, and then there are people who borrow on their home so they can get buy because the cost of living is rediculously rising. They are borrowing against their home just to live, especially if there is a medical crisis. I have seen people who had a good savings but when an unexpected medical emergancy happens, everything is wiped out., sometimes people resort to borrowing against their home. It's those people who will be hurting.
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  Sherman Edgar Montgomery

  9 months ago

  Underlying all of this scheme is the fact that no attention is directed toward establishing market value of the mortgaged properties at a level at or above 80% of the amount achieved in 2007. If this is not achieved foreclosures will increase beyond anyone's ability to stop the total collapse of the economy. And I mean NOW! I am unable to search all of the info that might be available. If you know something exists, please email me.
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