Barack Obama Responds to Bush on Lending. Says Bush's plan doesn't go far enough.

[flpoljunkie]

For six years, the President and Congress have allowed lending industry lobbyists to block sensible regulations that could have prevented this crisis in the first place. Now, after many Americans have seen their homes, their credit histories, and their financial well-being jeopardized the President is finally offering a proposal that helps a small fraction of homeowners. These are welcome steps, but the President’s proposal does not go far enough. I have called for a plan that will help far more struggling borrowers avoid foreclosure, crack down on unscrupulous lenders with new penalties and disclosure requirements, and reduce the influence of lobbyists so that we will not face a crisis like this ever again. -Barack Obama

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/Ccj5

[TwilightGardener]

1. Here's where I disagree with my beloved Obama (and Dems in general)--

No bailouts for bad investments.

[flpoljunkie]

3. Bush's plan will help only 80,000 of the 2 million homeowners whose adj. rate mtgs. will soon reset

to a higher rate. Of those 2 million loans, the FHA estimates 50,000 could go into foreclosure.

I agree no bailout for the hedge funds, banks, and housing speculators who gamed the system looking for the quick buck!

[TwilightGardener]

5. No bailouts for anybody who participated in this fiasco. Sometimes

you just have to suffer the consquences of a bad investment. Hey, if my car payment got a little too steep (my seasonal work has slowed down, for example), can I expect the government/taxpayers to kick in a little toward my car payment? You'd say, sell the car, or let it be repossessed, right? Because if I can't afford it over the long term, what good does it do to help me keep it in the short term? I'm not entitled to keep my car if I can't make the payments on my own, so why should I be entitled to stay in my house because I can't make the payments on a mortgage loan, because of interest terms that I agreed to?

[kurth]

2. Some people have no business buying a home

and most of them KNEW the risks going in. The lenders certainly knew too.

[TwilightGardener]

4. Agree. These ARM/jumbo/No-Money-Down loans were created

specifically to tap the untapped market of people with no money and bad credit who still wanted to buy a home--these folks used to be weeded out. No surprise that they're foreclosing and the subprime industry is collapsing. I say, let fiscal Darwinism kick in--it's houses, NOT life and death. Won't kill them to go back to renting, and the industry that assumed the risk of lending to these folks shouldn't be bailed out when the risk proves real.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Some of them were not "buying homes"

they were re-financing what they'd got to release equity to pay off other debts. problem was that they'd didn't nedessarily have the means to service the new mortgage when the "new" funds ran out.

Actually encouraging home owners to do that is a kinda scam that can only operate in a rising property market. Bubble has now burst and to certain extent equity release will have gone out the window.

Situation is continuing to go down hill and I guess may continue to do so for years to come. Oddly enough the main beneficiaries will be first time buyers who can genuinely afford mortgages on what will become more realistically lower priced properties.