American Politics during the Obama Presidency

While these tools are available to all politicians, the Left has perfected the arts of fear-mongering and playing on emotions in order to overcome reason and the rule of law.

Anybody who has entered into a mortgage knows that there must be something different about it than any other debt obligation one has entered into in their personal lives. The enormous amount of paper work and nauseating details about the land and the house (I. E. The asset or collateral)

Nobody entering into a mortgage, who can read and has read the documentation can deny knowing that the house is the collateral to a 'secured' loan. That is to say that the loan is secured by the house. If the borrower doesn't pay, the lender has the right, through a tried and true process to reclaim that asset and sell it in order to satisfy the loan.

A foreclosure process can only begin after you failed to make payments and a certain period of time ("cure period" and local statutes) Seizing and auctioning the house can only take place after the lender has completed foreclosure process and a judge issues and order. The foreclosure process in most states takes about 12-18 months from the first missed payment until the point where the bank can auction that home. In some states, such as Texas, it can be much shorter. There are many, many facets of this process tipped in the favor of the borrower and in most cases the borrower is able to keep the home. Historically, only about 5% of homeowners against whom a foreclosure process has been initiated cannot keep the home (if they want it)

Today, banks are doing things never heard of before in order to keep the home owner in the house and get them back on track paying the mortgage. This includes many banks (including BofA) agreeing to reduce the principal balance owed on the property. That means the bank is saying "ok you owed us $500k on the house, we'll knock 15% off of that to get things back in line, so now you owe us $425K." That is a non-taxable gift of $75K. I have heard of banks that are also willing to extend the term of the loan to 40 years and fix it at 4%. This is amazingly good for people that have found themselves on hard times.

The SEIU is a criminal organization that should be facing multiple RICO charges for organized violence and intimidation. Their protests are always politically motivated as is this one. I would be curious to see real evidence of SEIU members actually being foreclosed on and evicted.

They are trying to intimidate lenders who are doing more than ever to help and play on the emotions of people who afraid of this happening to them.

[QUOTE=Jackson]Today, SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members trespassed "en masse" on the lawn of the personal residence of the president of Bank of America specifically to protest against BoA's policy of foreclosing on the homes of SEIU members who have not paid their mortgages.

They also apparently believe that as union members they are entitled to some sort ot special exemption not available ot the rest of us.

BTW: Nobody forced these people to take the Bank's money, which leads to the obvious question: Whatever happened to personal responsibility in the USA?[/QUOTE]Good thought about a delicate issue Jackson, reminds me of several latin american countries in the 80's and 90's including Mexico's Tequila effect back in '95. Here we had people who were paying mortgages they couldn't afford at variable rates up to 85% a year. Some of them joined and formed an organization called "El Barzón", these guys turned a "social" cause into a political mess.

It wasn't unusual that they would intimidate lenders, entering their houses, break into judges' houses in daylight and destroy the property, close the courthouses by force, etc.

Banks were forced to negotiate with lots of people, some in good faith, others, well. However, the point I wish to comment is, as you said, What happened to personal responsibility? Specially in the US, years ago, when I went to your country, most people were hardworking, hard savers, some even penny pinching, but able to make a good and decent living even If their resources were limited. Now, it seems people are willing to live today and pay in installments (if they pay at all, considering the foreclosures, and the possible coming credit card debacle in the US as well as in UK and of course my country)

I can understand people who want to live beyond their means, after all, anybody who has been a student can attest to that, however, using violence to justify not paying. Gimme a break!

You know guys, I hope you don't consider this as lack of respect but lately the US reminds me too much of my country, not just for the economic mess but also the political one. Very sad, I hope we are not seeing the start of America's decline, because we would miss many good things we know in this world which we give for granted.

Exon BTW, I absolutely agree with you that Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, Obama they all had to do what they did, or things would have been worse, quite possibly significantly worse. Some may say things would have turned out fine without the bailout, but no responsible leader would have taken a wild gamble like that.

I remember the day Bush came on TV and said sternly "Congress must act". I respected him at that moment for doing the right thing.

[QUOTE=El Queso]But since when is the government in the business of telling companies that they HAVE to take risks?[/QUOTE]I'd like to know the answer to that question myself. And another - why did the banks stop making risky loans? Did the regulations change? Or did the banks make that decision themselves. If the banks made that decision, they were never FORCED in the first place. It appears your argument falls apart here.

The subprime market was all about profit, pure and simple. Nothing wrong with pursuing profits, but with increased risk should come better risk management.

And then there's an even more relevant contributor to the crisis: the shadow banking system. Investors made highly leveraged bets linked to the US real estate market, which they should have known was in a bubble and due for a correction. The crisis was arguably mostly about a run on the shadow banking system.

Lehman was pretty much the main reason the bailout happened. Could someone explain how the government was responsible for Lehman's demise?

Face it, the financial sector phucked up. It was like the "Wild West". Yes the government allowed them to with inadequate regulation and oversight, and for that they share the blame. But to downplay the actions of the private sector and blame it mainly on the government is just a giant cop-out. And laughable. Fortunately, most Americans recognize the role the financial industry played in the economic downturn and the need for financial reform.

[QUOTE=Esten]Exon BTW, I absolutely agree with you that Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, Obama they all had to do what they did, or things would have been worse, quite possibly significantly worse. Some may say things would have turned out fine without the bailout, but no responsible leader would have taken a wild gamble like that.

I remember the day Bush came on TV and said sternly "Congress must act". I respected him at that moment for doing the right thing.[/QUOTE]See Esten,

I take back everything I said!

Welcome Back from the "Dark Side".

Exon

So far 2010 has been a pretty good year for Obama. The is the President who gets up in the morning and goes to work solving the nation's problems while his opponents rant and rave and the Republicans try every trick in the book to block him and yet fail to do so!

Half the American people consistently give him favorable job approval ratings. Those numbers are amazing given the fact that the economy is still in tough shape and the sixteen months of unending blubbering and baldfaced lies coming from his adversaries.

Both Clinton and Reagan who faced nothing like we do now were in worse shape as far as public support at this time in their first terms. W, of course, in the post 9/11 period was supported by patriotic citizens until he screwed the pooch.

The public respects Obama's calm, confident, reasoned approach to issues. They know how we got in the mess and don't buy the bullshit attempts to shift the blame by the 35% of people stuck with Bush even as the barn was burning down.

Tuesday's election results gave no sign of a Republican resurgence in November. They lost a seat they should have won in Pennsylvania. The day he won, the Tea Party guy from Kentucky stepped on his own dick, implying he thought restaurant owners maybe should be free to refuse to serve blacks. (Yea the Tea Party isn't racist!

Of course the whole world may well be fucked no matter what the US Fed and the Obama economic team does because the entire world went debt crazy for thirty years and the bills are still coming due.

And no Walleye, Alamo and Jackson our perilous circumstances have nothing to do with the Community Reinvestment Act, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Freddie, Fannie, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd or Acorn - but have a shit load to do with an international financial system - encouraged by the conservative free market theologians and politicians around the world who were on the take one way or another - that threw fiduciary responsibility out the window and turned international markets into casinos where the house marked the cards and loaded the dice.

During the recent real estate bubble not all banks followed the governments advice and wrote fiscally irresponsible mortgages based on the government's idea that banks have a social obligation to put everybody, regardless of their ability to pay, into homes.

The banks that did not follow the governments advice are the fiscally solid banks that are now buying the toxic banks the FDIC is closing each week.

And the new government regulations, simply put, are an admission by the government that the government was wrong I. E. an admission that banks do not have a social obligation to put put everybody, regardless of their ability pay, into homes.

And, of course, the most egregious violator of sound lending practices was the government itself i.e. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who had a couple of political clowns as CEO´s who were found to have the mathmatical skills of a 7 year old (they couldn't even count to ten, and addition, subtraction, division or multiplication were light years beyond their grasp)

Good summary from USA Today:

"The historic legislation is an emphatic response to Wall Street practices that fueled the housing bubble and a historic economic downturn. Financial firms packaged questionable mortgages into complex securities that plunged in value as housing prices fell, nearly bankrupting the firms, freezing credit markets and forcing taxpayers to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail them out."

abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-guts-financial-reform/story?id=10706839

Good to see Scott Brown representing his state by voting with Dems. Not surprisingly, some people were posting on Brown's Facebook page calling him a "pig" and saying his days in DC will soon be over.

Do Repubs really think their opposition to this bill and their success in killing some parts of it are going to help them in November? I can easily see their apparent protection of Wall Street hurting them.

The resolution of the House and Senate bills will be interesting to watch as the lobbying continues.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye]The 'stimulus' package was complete bullsh-t from the start, it hasn't been implemented (I. E. Those funds have not gone into the economy) and therefore has had absolutely nothing to do with any recovery (if there is one)[/QUOTE]Walleye I'm curious. Why post such obvious misinformation? There are many things you could blow smoke about that would be difficult to verify, but the stimulus spending is not one of them. There are tons of articles, reports and first hand accounts (myself included) that attest that stimulus money is being spent.

So again I ask, why the deliberate misinformation?

[QUOTE=Jackson]Today, SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members trespassed "en masse" on the lawn of the personal residence of the president of Bank of America specifically to protest against BoA's policy of foreclosing on the homes of SEIU members who have not paid their mortgages.

BTW: Nobody forced these people to take the Bank's money, which leads to the obvious question: Whatever happened to personal responsibility in the USA?[/QUOTE]"Personal responsibility? Whuzzat? You gotta be kidding, right?"

For many people in the USA, from union hacks to legislators, "responsibility" has been reduced to a euphemism for "blame"; and of course, the people who use it that way do not, [i]do not, [b]DO NOT[/b][/i] blame [u]themselves[/u]. Especially when there's someone in the neighborhood, with enough business acumen and personal responsibility to run a bank, to "hold responsible."

These bums see it as "His bank gots all the money, they must have stole it from us, he must have stole it from us. It's our money that bought him that big fancy house and all. We oughta lynch him and take the money, it should be ours."

Here is a March 2010 article which outlines the TARP expenditures to date. 65% of this money went to AIG and the Auto manufacturers. The total to date is $109 Billion.

[url]http://www.cfr.org/publication/21694/report_on_the_troubled_asset_relief_program_march_2010.html[/url]

Here is another article in Dec 2009 that tries to summarize the whole plan. Lots of money allocated, a lot of it not spent. And, if you weren't a large corporation in need, you saw a very small percentage of the $700 Billion. Tons of "commitments" and "pledges," next to nothing actually spent on individuals citizens.

[url]http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/12/10/2009-12-10_where_has_the_us_bailout_money_actually_gone_.html?page=1[/url]

If there are other facts out there please provide links.

Sysco

It never seizes to amaze me just how "Dumb" and "Cheap" you Monger CockSuckers really are! "Rude & Stupid" too.

The problem goes back 30 years to Ronald Regain and his deregulation the government controls. The subprime toxic mortgage melt down was just the final straw that broke the camels back in 2008.

Here's the real reason, "Derivatives", a 500 "Trillion Dollar" market thats gone on "Unchecked & Unregulated" for 30 years all over the world.

[url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid[/url]

Words of Wisdom.

By.

Exon

[QUOTE=Esten]Good summary from USA Today:

"The historic legislation is an emphatic response to Wall Street practices that fueled the housing bubble and a historic economic downturn. Financial firms packaged questionable mortgages into complex securities that plunged in value as housing prices fell, nearly bankrupting the firms, freezing credit markets and forcing taxpayers to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail them out."

Abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-guts-financial-reform/story? Id=10706839

Good to see Scott Brown representing his state by voting with Dems. Not surprisingly, some people were posting on Brown's Facebook page calling him a "pig" and saying his days in DC will soon be over.

Do Repubs really think their opposition to this bill and their success in killing some parts of it are going to help them in November? I can easily see their apparent protection of Wall Street hurting them.

The resolution of the House and Senate bills will be interesting to watch as the lobbying continues.[/QUOTE]This bill is a piece of shit. It does nothing to address [b]the[/b] problem - TBTF. Instead of encouraging prudent risk taking without involving government largess, it institutionalizes bailouts for all time. The big megabanks are cackling. The taxpayers are the ones who lose.

About 15% of this bill is useful. 70% is downright terrible, and the balance makes no difference.

[QUOTE=Hunt99]This bill is a piece of shit. It does nothing to address [b]the[/b] problem - TBTF. Instead of encouraging prudent risk taking without involving government largess, it institutionalizes bailouts for all time. The big megabanks are cackling. The taxpayers are the ones who lose.

About 15% of this bill is useful. 70% is downright terrible, and the balance makes no difference.[/QUOTE]Its all about "Derivatives" if anyone takes the time to watch the Frontline video I posted below.

Any dough here it is in todays news.

[url]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100523/ap_on_bi_ge/us_financial_overhaul_loopholes_1[/url]

Exon

[QUOTE=Exon123]It never seizes to amaze me just how "Dumb" and "Cheap" you Monger CockSuckers really are! "Rude & Stupid" too.

The problem goes back 30 years to Ronald Regain and his deregulation the government controls. The subprime toxic mortgage melt down was just the final straw that broke the camels back in 2008.

Here's the real reason, "Derivatives", a 500 "Trillion Dollar" market thats gone on "Unchecked & Unregulated" for 30 years all over the world.

[url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid[/url]

Words of Wisdom.

By.

Exon[/QUOTE][size=+2][b]It's Ronald Regain's fault![/b][/size]

I knew it!

At least I'm not one of those "Dumb" and "Cheap" Monger CockSuckers that can't spell.