“A Difficult Situation”
That’s how George Bush describes what’s happening south of the border, the people who live in this Los Angeles shanty town probably describe it somewhat differently.
Another little piece of the Bush legacy falls into place.
That’s how George Bush describes what’s happening south of the border, the people who live in this Los Angeles shanty town probably describe it somewhat differently.
Another little piece of the Bush legacy falls into place.
Designed by Gabfire slightly modified by stageleft
I haven’t heard a single mention of this little piece of legislation that Bush passed a few years ago: http://tinyurl.com/yrze5e.
I wonder what impact it must have had on so many Americans facing foreclosure and bankruptcy. Thousands of people made bad choices in re-financing, sure, but the secondary lending industry was completely out of control and as usual it was the people who could least afford it are paying the price. People were duped into credit arrangements that they could not afford.
I heard quite a bit of discussion on cable news last night that revolved around the Bush administration, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department, all working like super heroes to haul Bear Stearn’s arse out of the fire before Asian markets opened and further fear of US economic woes were evidenced in the world markets.
Generally it was along the lines of ‘why is the Bush administration helping big business when the common family is being evicted’. Obviously the government needed to act to prevent this institution from failing because of the consequences of that failure; runs on banks are scary things for any economy, but when you’ve lost your job, and your house, and you literally have no money to run to the bank and withdraw that’s little comfort isn’t it?
Possibly the Bush administration could take a look at the musings of a guy named Maslov and take some concrete action to deal with what he finds there, when people don’t have the basics the “big picture” means nothing.
There are apparently still not enough laws regulating banking. This whole scenario happened in the 80s with the S & Ls. I hoped we had regulated that. Apparently not. Back in the 80s, the problem was with “negative amortization loans”. Look it up. Scary shit. What they’ve done this time around is basically the same thing, with a different name – sub-prime loans.
It seems to me that the BBC clip tries to attribute the homelessness to the current sub-prime debacle but the people who are interviewed are just unemployed or under-employed. So, it might well be that best way to limit the number of people who lose there job and then their home is to limit the impact on the economy.
While there are some people who probably got duped or were preyed upon I think the vast majority were capable enough to make their own informed decisions. If you buy a home you can’t pay for and you lose it because you can’t pay for it then it seems to me you are primarily responsible for your own troubles.
If you lose your job and then your house because of the fall-out from unethical business practices then, arguably, you are not the architect of your problems.
Normally, I would agree with you, Kevin. But the problem is that the banks were telling people they COULD afford the home/loan. With some “creative” financing, the payments were kept down. If a banker told you you could afford the home, and you were not all that savvy about finance, would you believe it? Most people are not very hip to things like income/debt ratio, PMI, inflation, appreciation/depreciation, or even what the cost of taxes & insurance do to a mortgage. You take for granted that John Q knows as much as you do, or can look it up on the net, but it ain’t so.