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Subscribe to RSSPresident Obama is set to unveil new measures intended to help more homeowners refinance their mortgages. Nationwide, 15.3 million homes are upside down, and could use help qualifying for lower interest rates that could save them hundreds of dollars every month.
So who drew the best cartoon - Mike Keefe of the Denver Post, or Jeff Parker of Florida Today?
Mike Keefe / Denver Post
Jeff Parker / Florida Today
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Neither. How about one featuring this administration's "too little, too late" laissez faire attitude towards the affected homeowners and deference to the banks who were the enablers?
Oh, that's right, it's MSNBC ...
No one forces you to come here...
Kenobi, it's called slumming with the 99 percenters.
It's that vicarious thrill the rich get when they see the excitement of how the poorer 99% live. I don't mind being lived through vicariously, but where's the happy ending?
Dont worry, the "free market" will rise all boats, right? If not then I guess "socialism" will once again bail out the "free market".
Of course it lifts all the boats. But for the rest of us "dirty peasants" that don't have a yacht, well, we just get to drown.
Riiiiight rewd1.....it's all the banks fault. The banks made everyone lose their jobs....I get it now. Thanks for clarifying. Or would it really matter what kind of loan program a borrower was on if they lost their job? Chew on that.
OMG BV...what a thought! So it was the working poor, those who were trying to get into "the American Dream", who caused the Great Recession! Of course! So how do you reconcile that BS thinking with the facts of Credit Default Swaps? None of those home owners knew their mortgages were going to be bundled and sold on the casino we know as Wall Street! Are you kidding? Which planet you live on? How on earth is ANYONE blaming those who got screwed (and continue to be) by those who have made billions on the market crash??? Get informed, or stop watching CNBC or Fox "news"......
No one ever lost their house because of a credit default swap or securitized mortgages (which are admittedly bad things for society in general.) Foreclosures happen because people cannot make the payments they promised to make. There can be many reasons for this - adjustable rates went up, impossible balloon payments when refi was no longer available, income and savings vanished due to loss of jobs and unexpected medical expense, too much credit card debt, multiple mortgages and equity loans, and other disasters that may or may not be under the borrowers' control.
The facts of life - if you make payments and pay the insurance/taxes/utilities, you can stay in your underwater house for the rest of your life. It doesn't matter how the market values the property, as long as you hold clear title. Pay it down, and eventually there will be some positive equity again. If forced to move, you may not be able to sell, but you might be able to rent it out.
Both cartoons are dumb. Markets go up, markets go down. If the government would get out of the way, they might settle.
.com bubble, .com bust -> fed lowers interest rates, amount of debt people could service on same income (low inflation) suddenly went up, mortgage market made people feel rich, Greenspan says market showing "a little froth" -> bought mcmansions, ATV's for the kids -> "flip this house," speculators, real-estate bubble, mortgage fraud, robosigners -> saturated debt market, speculators fled to OIL -> high gas prices, no disposable income, not buying *stuff*, layoffs, cannot pay mortgages, debt crisis.
Robo-signers committed fraud and perjury. That should be prosecuted. no/few prosecutions. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/18/us-foreclosure-banks-idUSTRE76H5XX20110718
The whole time, international companies have been keeping profits overseas because the 1st time $'s come home, any taxes on profits come due (deferred tax); these companies hiring overseas, making overseas, selling overseas, investing overseas -- growth markets. US isn't a growth market.
Deferred taxes are a "compromise" between liberals who insist income be taxed, and corporate interests represented by republicans who said the US is just about the only country double taxing (requiring companies pay foreign AND homeland taxes). The compromise is the worst possible construction they could have come up with.
It was a campaign issue in 2008: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2008-03-20-corporate-tax-offshoring_N.htm
White House has been blowing smoke about it since 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/LEVELING-THE-PLAYING-FIELD-CURBING-TAX-HAVENS-AND-REMOVING-TAX-INCENTIVES-FOR-SHIFTING-JOBS-OVERSEAS/
Nice summary: http://caps.fool.com/blogs/deferred-tax-liability-a/615741
It took me 25 years to buy a house and as soon as i paid down on it and moved in the market droped 60.000.00 my american dream turned into a night mare. Lost Job. Lost House, Happy Halween.