Overkill

Greetings good citizen,

Seems as though I’ve turned into quite the ‘contrarian’ as things go flying off the rails during this slow motion train wreck. It seems as though there is nothing the status quo can do that isn’t related to preserving their own interests, while being paraded for us in the media as ‘government benevolence’.

Which is to ask if this isn’t an ‘agenda within an agenda’? The people are already hopping mad and ready to march on Washington (but won’t…yet) because they don’t want to be perceived/portrayed by the media as (Whacko) ‘Tea Partiers’.

(And you KNOW that is precisely who will be ‘credited’ with the next massive protest, especially if it turns violent!)

The latest ‘assault’ on our battered and bruised consciousness is the most recent plan in the government’s ceaseless efforts (not to ‘save’ homeowners) but to save the (banking industry’s cash cow) ‘housing market’.

Understand good citizen, buying houses and furnishing them with the latest toys IS what passes for the US economy. Without this ‘business model’ our banking sector will collapse.

How ‘bizarre’ is this? The $23 trillion dollars spent by the government ALREADY in bank bailouts and guarantees is almost entirely centered on the domestic Real Estate market, which is valued at roughly $7 trillion.

Are these numbers disturbing? They should be.

Somebody is getting it stuffed up their backside…and I think we all know who ‘somebody’ is. Don’t have a mirror handy by any chance, do ya?

U.S. Plans Big Expansion in Effort to Aid Homeowners
By DAVID STREITFELD
Published: March 25, 2010

The Obama administration on Friday will announce broad new initiatives to help troubled bankers homeowners, potentially refinancing several million of them into fresh government-backed mortgages with lower payments.

Another element of the new program is meant to temporarily reduce the payments of borrowers who are unemployed and seeking a job. Additionally, the government will encourage lenders [with oodles of cash] to write down the value of loans held by borrowers in modification programs. [The only ones getting soaked here will be…where’s that mirror again?]

The escalation in aid comes as the administration is under rising pressure from banker owned Congress to resolve the foreclosure crisis, which is straining the economy and putting millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes. [Which would ‘sink’ the economy] But the new initiatives could well spur protests among those who have kept up their payments and are not in trouble. [Protest all you want, it doesn’t change a thing!]

The administration’s earlier efforts to stem foreclosures have largely been directed at borrowers who were experiencing financial hardship. But the biggest new initiative, which is also likely to be the most controversial, will involve the government, through the Federal Housing Administration, refinancing loans for borrowers who simply owe more than their houses are worth. [Wait a minute Slim! Hasn’t the taxpayer had more than their share of this debt dropped into their lap? We’re already ‘on the hook’ for many times the full value of the nation’s entire housing stock! How many more times do we have to buy every house in the nation?]

About 11 million households, or a fifth of those with mortgages, are in this position, known as being underwater. Some of these borrowers refinanced their houses during the boom and took cash out, leaving them vulnerable when prices declined. Others simply had the misfortune to buy at the peak. [Understand good citizen, it’s not that people re-financed ‘irresponsibly’, for time out of mind (and even today) the ‘bankers’ controlled this game. These ‘reckless’ loans are not the ‘borrower’s fault’.]

Many of these loans have been bundled together and sold to investors. Under the new program, the investors would have to swallow losses, but would probably be assured of getting more in the long run than if the borrowers went into foreclosure. The F.H.A. would insure the new loans against the risk of default. The borrower would once again have a reason to make payments instead of walking away from a property. [Read this paragraph again…it doesn’t make any sense. Sadly, re-reading it doesn’t make it any more comprehensible. The ‘more in the long run’ statement assumes (and there’s that word again) that housing prices would recover BEFORE all existing structures rot and return to nature! WTF!]

Many details of the administration’s plan remained unclear Thursday night, including the precise scope of the new program and the number of homeowners who might be likely to qualify.

One administration official cautioned that the investors might not be willing to volunteer any loans from borrowers that seemed solvent. That could set up a battle between borrowers and investors. [This ‘battle’ could be coming anyway, people are tired of getting ‘ripped off’ for ‘money pits’ that are never paid for (because of the constant need for repairs/updates.)]

This much was clear, however: the plan, if successful, could put taxpayers at increased risk. If many additional borrowers move into F.H.A. loans, a renewed downturn in the housing market could send that government agency into the red. [How did this, er, ‘consumer alert bulletin’ slip in here? You don’t suppose this was the whole point behind publishing this article, do you?]

The F.H.A. has already expanded its mortgage-guarantee program substantially in the last three years as the housing crisis deepened. [And the MBS market vaporized] It now insures more than six million borrowers, many of whom made minimal down payments and are now underwater.

Sources said the agency would use $14 billion in funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, some of which it could dangle in front of financial institutions as incentives to participate. [Um, excuse me but didn’t we just spend $23 Trillion (with a ‘T’) dollars bailing these criminal fuckers out? (Of their bad Real Estate bets) Why do our politicians think their ‘bankster overlords’ need to be ‘enticed’? Which is to ask, good citizen, just how ‘far gone’ is our political system? Put a fork in it?]

Another major element of the program, according to several people who described it, will be to encourage lenders to write down the value of loans for borrowers in modification programs. Until now, the government’s modification efforts have focused on lowering interest rates. [Um, if you make a bad business decision, you ‘eat’ the end result. You make a bad life decision, same thing. Which begs the question that has been busting everybody’s balls since this bullshit began, why aren’t these fuckers being FORCED to accept their losses? (Rather than being made whole at the taxpayer’s expense?) Hold on to that question mark, we’ll return to it later.]

Lenders began offering principal forgiveness last year on loans they held in their own portfolios. In the fourth quarter, however, this process abruptly reversed itself, for reasons that are unclear. The number of modifications that included principal reduction fell by half.

Bank of America, the country’s biggest bank, announced this week that it would forgive principal balances over a period of years on an initial 45,000 troubled loans. [45k out of 11 million? Um, this is like a hundredth of a freaking percent! Is the comeback here “Hey, it’s better than nuthin’? How about it’s as good as (nuthin)]

Another element of the White House’s housing program will require lenders to offer unemployed borrowers a reduction in their payments for a minimum of three months. [Whose hat do you suppose they picked THAT ridiculous time period out of given how many of the long term unemployed are going into their SECOND YEAR of benefits?]

An administration official declined to speak on the record about the new programs but said they would “better assist responsible homeowners who have been affected by the economic crisis through no fault of their own.” [Are you wondering what I’m wondering, just who gets to make THAT judgement call?]

The new initiatives would expand the government’s current mortgage modification plan, announced a year ago with great fanfare. It has resulted in fewer than 200,000 people getting permanent new loans. As many as seven million borrowers are seriously delinquent on their loans and at risk of foreclosure.

While fewer people are beginning default, the number of borrowers who are seriously distressed is rising. [They made a similar ‘idiotic statement’ like this last month!] In the fourth quarter, the number of households at least 90 days past due on their mortgages swelled by 270,000, according to a report issued Thursday by the comptroller of the currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

“The government is seeking to persuade people to stay in their homes by aligning the mortgage debt with the asset value, which is the only viable path to real housing stability,” said one person who was briefed on the government’s plans. [Um, there’s a term for this and it’s called ‘putting a floor’ under the market…the bad news is nobody knows where that floor actually is. Worse, it is not a function of what the property is worth, it is what a buyer can afford to pay…and in this job market, that ain’t much!]

The number of foreclosures in the fourth quarter rose 9 percent, to 128,859. An additional 38,000 owners disposed of their homes in short sales, where the lender agreed to accept less than it was owed. [Freaking ‘lenders’ have been made whole on ALL of the properties they hold mortgages on several times over. So a ‘short sale’ isn’t an accurate term to describe this transaction, is it?]

A person briefed on the new plan said the number of underwater borrowers who qualified for the plan could be in the millions. The government is not planning to solicit loans for the program, stressing that it is voluntary. [Which tells us what? That the banks, using our money, reserve the right to dangle the ‘debtor’ out the window, shaking them down for every cent they can squeeze out of them, before agreeing to accept terms only somewhat more favorable to the borrower. Isn’t the current ‘re-default rate’ still over the 70% mark?]

The administration recognizes that some people’s finances have deteriorated so far that they are beyond help, the person said. People in that situation simply cannot afford the houses they are living in, the person said, even if the mortgages were reduced. [Which tells us what good citizen? It tells us how predatory these mortgages really were! It wasn’t about matching homeowners with homes, but about bundling mortgages for bonuses! Friggin’ thieves!]

“All these programs are geared toward people for whom it makes sense, for whom it’s workable when all is said and done,” the person said. “Some people are too far gone.”

And not all of those people who have ‘gone too far’ were borrowers! Lenders sure as hell have ‘crossed the line’ too but we don’t see any prosecutions pending, two years after the fact.

And perhaps this is the most disturbing part as far as this article is concerned. Here we are, two years later and people are still losing their homes (because lenders stiffed them!)

Um, like I said, why is this happening is a question that needs to be revisited. How many times does the public need to pay the banksters for the nation’s housing stock? Did this massive public debt that was handed over to ‘private investors’ bring about the current crisis in Social Security?

It is highly unlikely that ‘A’ is not directly related to ‘B’. Not that ‘privatizing’ Social Security would have altered this outcome.

Is it the ‘social Darwinist’s’ plan to insure that Social Security fails? (If only to justify their own ideology?) Which poses an even more frightening proposition…just how much control DO these ‘Social Darwinist’s’ have?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner