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See the original image at money.cnn.com

How The Housing Rescue Bill Can Help You Out

money.cnn.com — The Senate on Saturday passed a $300 billion housing rescue bill aimed at helping troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure and supporting mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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  • Fangsinmybeard, on 07/26/2008, -6/+19This will not include the 5 million homeowners that lost or will still lose their homes due to foreclosure. The is hope. Filing a challenge to foreclosure under the laws of the Truth in Lending Act can save the rest of the 5 million homeowners. Make the lenders pay for violating the law. It is held up in precedence by a Wisconsin Federal judge.
    • theJeebus, on 07/28/2008, -0/+1All those morons who got loans they couldn't afford, caused the housing market to bubble up, forcing all of us to pay too high prices for our homes. Now they get bailed out, while the rest of us just have to sit in an unsellable house with a mortgage more expensive that it otherwise would have been.
      Yeah, I hate those assholes getting ARM loans in a time of historically low interest rates, thinking it'll never go up.
  • stationwagon, on 07/26/2008, -12/+4In my parents' day lenders couldn't scam people like they can nowadays since the Reagan/Bush/Clinton Revolution freed America from the shackles that held lending institutions responsible for loaning loans to people who can't afford them.

    /sarcasm

    I hope this bill will be a start to getting back to sensible policy. I hope I'm not naive.
  • Izult, on 07/26/2008, -1/+67Ok honestly this has me pissed off. I resent the fannie/freddie bail out just as much as this one. I have, for the most part, done everything right when it comes to finances although by no means have i been perfect and now those who were either unwilling, or unable to manage their finances correctly are in essence being rewarded. Right or wrong this is how I feel about it. I had an ARM like so many, I marked the exact day on my calendar when it would adjust and calculated the exact day I would be allowed to refinance with out having to pay any prepayment penalties. I also did not take out more than i could afford in the first place and instead of going at the top of what i could afford i went for the middle ground and bought for what fit my needs, something I could manage on a single income including my other bills. No it wasn't fancy but it was home and served it's purpose until I sold it. Why I and others like me should be forced to pay for the mistakes of others is beyond me. What happened to the concept of personal responsibility?
    • jcorn1, on 07/26/2008, -13/+3Here is the problem: many, many people were urged to take on shakey loans by people (loan officers) who knew they were poor risks. Those mistakes made by buyers of homes were made with the help of people who knew better. There is something about a bank's responsibility to its clients and for good reason: a bank who does not follow solid lending practices will suffer too. We will all suffer. I got thousands of dollars back from my bank after they tried to pull a fast one on me and raise fees without warning or explanation. The legal officers of the bank agreed that it was wrong and so they gave me my money back. But I had to fight for it!
      • Izult, on 07/26/2008, -0/+17I won't argue that but strongly feel that it's the consumers responsibility to look out for their best interest because the banks and corporations sure as hell aren't AND I tend to live by the philosophy of if it sounds too good to be true than it probably is. I was "able" to get a loan up to 150k when i first applied for the loan on my condo because that's what they would loan me but i went with something that only cost me 71k. Believe me i was pressured very strongly to take out the higher loan but i didn't. Why? Because I went through the math with a fine tooth comb, took my monthly income, subtracted my current bills (excluding rent) then subtracted what the mortgage payment would be on both sizes of loan and determined that the one that left me the most money after all bills were paid was by far the better option. I don't contribute it to my "***** meter" being more in tune i contribute it to the fact that I always doubt EVERYTHING i'm told and do my own through research when it comes to major financial decisions like that. And don't get me started on banks and their ***** fees.
      • stationwagon, on 07/26/2008, -11/+3"strongly feel that it's the consumers responsibility to look out for their best interest because the banks and corporations sure as hell aren't AND I tend to live by the philosophy of if it sounds too good to be true than it probably is."

        That's wise, but when people have been scammed, they've been scammed.

        Powerful lending institutions developed a campaign in which they seduced millions of hopeful and unsuspecting, low-wage Americans with dreams of home ownership, laid 15 pages of legalese and a pen in front of them, then made off like bandits when the people couldn't pay. To hold those corporations responsible for what they've done isn't the same as giving citizens a pass on their own responsibilities.
      • edstate, on 07/27/2008, -0/+16If they've been scammed, then right-o. But there are way too many people who simply played fast and loose with money they didn't have. And now we're all paying for it.
      • lowjeep, on 07/27/2008, -0/+8I have to look at it this way. Your net pay is X amount. Your total bills are -Y. Your mortgage payment is -C. What's left over is Z amount. If X - Y - C= Z your ok. If X - Y - C = -Z it's a bad idea to take out the mortgage. In the two home purchases I've made, 1 in 2002 and the other this year it was spelled out right there in front of me what my mortgage payment would be each month before I signed the loan papers. Its really hard for me to believe that this many people were scammed into thinking that -Z would be ok. Either you can afford the payments or not. If you are stupid enough to go into a 5 year A.R.M. thinking you will be able to afford it in 5 years even though you can't right now you mine as well count on hitting the lottery to cover your retirement. I feel bad for the people that were this ignorant but to make me pay for their ignorance is unacceptable.
      • cdahlkvist, on 07/27/2008, -0/+8Being "urged" to take on a loan you cannot afford is not the same as being scammed.

        These people were fools. They were not scammed. They elected to ignore the facts - they could not afford the loans in the first place.

        It's not too difficult to figure out if you make $3000/mo in salary and you have $400 in utilities, $200 in food, $200 in gas, a $250 car payment and a $2500 mortgage payment that you cannot afford the loan.

        These people are turning around and crying foul now because they can. They knew full well what they were getting into and now they are just playing dumb.

        And guess who gets to pay for it? Those of us that actually thought out our finances.
      • mcquitty, on 07/27/2008, -0/+3The other problem is simply greed. Greed on the part of the borrower.

        When I went to purchase my first house, I qualified for nearly 3x the amount of house that I wanted to afford. 3x.

        Now, I am reasonable. My first house cost less than 1.5 years salary when I bought it. My second house was about 2x my annual salary. I knew that I would want to spend money on things besides a house, like cars, toys, and other things.

        Now, I know a lot of people went to the lender and had X amount in mind. When the lender approved them, they usually got approved for Y. In many cases, X
    • edstate, on 07/27/2008, -1/+10Yeah, there's really no reason anymore for you to "do the right thing". We've certainly learned that.
    • Metasquares, on 07/27/2008, -2/+8The concept of taxation is antithetical to the concept of personal finance because it is payment to a collective.
    • Archer007, on 07/27/2008, -0/+14Until we literally stop pulling money out of thin air and end "fiat" currency, no one in government will care about how much things cost, especially when the cost can be passed on to future generations.
    • PaulOwen, on 07/27/2008, -2/+7All of America's future generations will pay for the largesse of mortgage lenders in the last few years - your taxes will go up, inflation will go up, your standard of living will go down.

      Meanwhile those that made millions from selling loans on over-inflated house prices have retired and are living on yachts.

      Good old fashioned transferral of wealth from the poor to the rich.
      • anachronaut, on 07/27/2008, -3/+5"Good old fashioned transferral of wealth from the poor to the rich."

        It doesn't just stop there, though. That's what this entire Bush administration has been about since Day 1 -- and it's what the GOP has been about for as long as I've been alive. It simply blows my mind how middle-to-low class conservatives can keep voting against their own self interests by supporting a political party which seems pretty damn determined to send this country into feudalism (lords & serfs).

        I'm not saying that the Democratic party is the solution (because it's fairly obvious the Democrats aren't the answer to any problems right now, either), but it's been pretty damn clear for quite some time now that a vote for the Republicans is a vote directly AGAINST the middle and lower classes.

        Just another symptom of our complete failure of a two-party system and the continuing failure of the American voters to drown out the noise and make educated decisions.
    • ScottMitchell, on 07/27/2008, -0/+4I can relate. My wife and I have been patiently waiting for prices to return to Earth to buy a home. And while prices have fallen 30% from the peak here in San Diego, they're still out of line w/fundamentals and will continue to decrease. Unfortunately, bailouts slow or delay the necessary return to the mean. It sucks.
      • edstate, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2And you know that house "they're keeping people in"? That's your house.
      • ScottMitchell, on 07/28/2008, -0/+2@edstate: I know, I know. Hence the reason it sucks. Big time.
    • oldgal, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2Obviously it would be silly to expect executives who make millions to know better than to allow loans without credit/income checks, etc. It would also be silly to expect them to get fair appraisals and to honestly rate the loan risk. After all, they worked really hard making those millions by lobbying and getting the deregulation that allowed this to happen. I worked for a bank - policy is seriously reviewed and signed off by the execs - lending criteria are policy.
    • emptyo, on 07/30/2008, -0/+1I appreciate this sentiment, but some foreclosures have nothing to do with bad loans. You can have a family crisis, injury, death in the family, etc...all of these things can factor into someone making payments on time.

      Ask me how I know.
  • jcorn1, on 07/26/2008, -4/+4Key words - "can help you out" Will it help? Not necessarily. There are limits and stipulations. Of the millions of people in trouble, this may help (at most) 2 million, leaving millions more.
  • edstate, on 07/27/2008, -3/+27Buried for encouraging fleecing of MY tax dollars. Shame on you CNN Money.
    • BotchaMcCoola, on 07/27/2008, -0/+5Wellsaid.CNN also thinks it is not so bad that the stock market is
      down 20%and in smaller dollars besides. Won't even talk about
      the causes of the bad dollar, nor the costs of the militarism. They
      enable these slime who call themselves politicians. Somehow or some way
      these kinds ofcriminals need punished, and severely.
  • Y0tsuya, on 07/27/2008, -2/+21With the printing press running full-tilt to pay for this, get ready to pay $10 for a gallon gas.
  • dragon76, on 07/27/2008, -2/+15The government does not have the money to bail out these institutions in addition to waging an ongoing expensive war. Let's just ***** our economy gently with a chainsaw some more, shall we? Look forward to massive inflation as our dollar is worth even less.
  • kosser, on 07/27/2008, -1/+11it'll help you out by putting the nail in the coffin for the value of the dollar.
  • allthewhile, on 07/27/2008, -1/+8Oh this is the 300 billion we had laying around?

    • Archer007, on 07/27/2008, -0/+5We can always look under the couch cushions for more. In fact, the space under the couch cushions is both infinite and filled with money, so we're good.
  • bincoder, on 07/27/2008, -1/+1If I were a citizen of Beijing, yes it would help. But i'm not and it isn't.
  • Qtip42, on 07/27/2008, -1/+15Can you bail me out into a new home? I need one. I'm a little short government, gimme gimme gimme.

    This is the worst precedent ever set by the reserve. I'm not using the word federal because they're anything but.....
    • Archer007, on 07/27/2008, -3/+4The Federal Reserve is the worst precedent set in the history of international financial organizations. Listen to anything Ron Paul says and you'll begin to see it.
  • chudgoo, on 07/27/2008, -1/+2Help WHO now???
  • youareretarded, on 07/27/2008, -4/+3So I get to keep paying a high mortgage for a house that isn't worth what I paid at a rate probably higher then what they are offering, all because I can?

    I was expecting a "bail out" via a lower interest rate but not this! A lower interest rate AND they get their mortgage reduced to what their current home is worth!


    Whatever, I guess I'm just bitter:|
    • LenBaird, on 07/27/2008, -2/+1Unfortunately, we are between a rock and a hard place on interest rates. Low rates= more loans= more inflation, when it is already at 12% or more if you look at the real inflation, not the fake government numbers which don't include food or energy.
      High interest rates mean that many may not be able to afford their loans, but it is our best chance at saving our dollar's value from continuing to drop like a rock.
    • cdahlkvist, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2You are bitter but justifiably so.

      I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this "my house is no longer worth what I agreed to pay for it so I will just walk away from it." concept.

      Maybe I'm just fortunate that my house is still worth more than what I paid for it.

      In any case, your house may be worth less on today's market but in the 10, 20, 30 years it takes you to pay for it the market will have recovered and your home will end up being worth much more than it is today.
      • youareretarded, on 07/28/2008, -0/+2"my house is no longer worth what I agreed to pay for it so I will just walk away from it."

        Maybe that's the part that's getting to me too:(

        I have no doubt my homes value will rise again but damn! let me refinance with a low interest rate and a lower mortgage!! I'll gladly take that with those terms and conditions.
  • Croireavenir, on 07/27/2008, -1/+6Who bails out the Federal Reserve when they are broke?

    Oh wait...they are.

    Print $$$ Print $$
  • tweetsa, on 07/27/2008, -1/+7this bill is a BAD idea. What the market needs is 5 million+ empty houses so the market goes back to normal. Young families need to be able to afford to get into houses and right now it's almost impossible.

    The consequences of young families not being able to buy houses will be disastrous for a lot of cities/markets.
    • oldgal, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1Although I find the idea of McMansion slums spiritually satisfying, I am nonetheless perplexed that we can have so many houses abandoned and being trashed (the foreclosers should not be allowed to let the property deteriorate) while so many folks need affordable homes. This is the biggest waste of all, but never seen as a problem. The problem is always seen as the economy.
  • chubbybubba, on 07/27/2008, -1/+9"300 billion" Thats just great. 300 billion of taxpayer money to help greedy lenders and stupid homeowners who purchased a house they coudn't afford.
    How about the family who rent a home because they used their common sense and realized that an adjustable mortgage was high risk?
    How about the family that decided to buy a smaller more affordable home because they did their homework and figured which lenders were legit and which were bs? What about them? What do they get? I know... they get less than crap, they get a 300 billion dollar tax bill?

    To the homeowners who are getting bailed out at taxpayers expense: Remember this, poor decisions now will equal poor decisions later. You may be laughing now but tommorow don't expect another handout. Printing out 300 billion more dollars out of thin air just makes the money you already have in your wallet a little (or a lot) less valuable.
    • heliox, on 07/27/2008, -2/+8Will you make that same argument for the millions of illegal aliens getting free ***** off the government?
      (btw I agree with you)
  • wonderworm, on 07/27/2008, -3/+6Something is needed to prevent the massive wave of home foreclosures and this will help, but this seems like far too much of a sweetheart deal solely for those who exercised the WORST judgement. Those who bought at the PEAK of greediness and in the highest dollar markets like Florida, California, and Vegas will stand to profit the most from this plan. So we are rewarding the greediest and most careless home buyers the most.
    As an example, let's say a guy bought a 800,000 Florida home in late 2006 via a super risky interest only pay option arm. He then lived in this sweet pad while making the bare minimum payments until his loan grew near the maximum allowed of 920,000. The home has since dropped 40% to 560,000 in market value, but he owes 920,000. So now the government bailout comes in and buys the loan for another 10% discount at 504,000 and REFINANCES THE GUY so now the guy only owes 504,000 instead of 920,000!!!!!! The bank takes the massive loss and the irresponsible, greedy homeowner (for getting himself in this mess) get's to keep the house which could very well appreciate back to $800,000 in a few years! So then, if the house climbs back to 750,000 by 2012, this person would make a profit of 246,000!!! of which he will share 60% of it with the FHA leaving a $98,400 profit to the homeowner, thus rewarding him for making stupid decisions and needing to be bailed out! So not only does the guy get his $416,000 house debt wiped clean with a new low rate and new low loan amount, he also stands to profit hugely as the home rises in value from the extreme crash levels of the coming year.
    IMO this is far too beneficial to the people who made the greedy decisions to buy overpriced homes with interest only ARM mortgages. And I didn't see how they would prevent speculators who have another homestead from taking advantage of this bailout too. This reeks of unfairness to all of us who will be paying the brunt of costs for an overly generous bailout to the undeserving.
    • luminairex, on 07/27/2008, -0/+6While I do agree with you, this idiot homeowner wouldn't qualify for refinancing - as you said, he's still making payments and foreclosure is not imminent. From the article: "total debt cannot exceed 95% of the home's appraised value at the time." These guaranteed loans also aren't just handed out to anybody who asks, as you need to have a sufficient credit score before you qualify, so ***** credit-holders need not apply.

      I've been saving my money for a couple of years towards a down payment on a home, and lately I've been looking forward to purchasing a foreclosed home in a market that's flooded with them at low prices. Now there are going to be a lot less of them and prices are going to go up again, all while my tax dollars continue to force me to rent.
    • elhutcho, on 07/27/2008, -1/+1It's the banks' fault, too, for lending to people who can't afford their homes. People who were able to afford their over-priced homes that have since lost value do not qualify for government help here because they would not be at risk of defaulting unless their financial situation has changed dramatically. If the banks had only lent to qualified borrowers, this mess wouldn't be what it is today, so it stands to reason that they should take a few hits for their greedy and irresponsible practices.

      Also, the government stands to take a big chunk of the profits over principal (100% of profits if sold in the first year, 90% the next, and no less than 50% ever) when the house is resold, plus a 3% fee. So the homeowners really can't expect to make too much money on this, and if they do, the government will be making back their share to pay off their expenses associated with this legislation.
  • martoq, on 07/27/2008, -0/+14This is *****. I am sorry but I have been fiscally responsible and doing the best I can to get by. WTF should my taxes go to toward helping people who weren't? I am understand some people are being hit with the hard times. Trust me, my own family is one of them. The economy is in the crapper, but they didn't allow themselves to get in over their heads. Sorry but there comes a time when a child (and some make it well into adulthood) needs to be told.....NO.
  • Topherstein, on 07/27/2008, -0/+5This is why the dollar is continuing fall, we're making more money that we don't have.
  • StopTheLie, on 07/27/2008, -0/+6Ah, the "Bailout." Some things never change. (Especially those that benefit the few at the expense of the many) http://joeplummer.com/chapter_3_the_bailout.html

  • MasterChi, on 07/27/2008, -1/+12I bought my first house in Jan of '08 at 20 yrs old. I got a great job right out of high school and made correct finacial decisions to enable me to get this far and have plenty of emergency funds to cover me for a couple of years incase things do hit the fan......i've done this all on my own. I didn't waste money buying a brand new car (which loses 26% value once it leaves the lot), buying a flat screen TV, buying an expensive cell phone (4 years old and still works though its a brick), not even a simple magazine subscription(travel to barnes and nobles once a month to read the mags i like).

    WTF, a 20 yr old high school degree kid has more financial responsibility then these mortgage companies, banks, majority of people, and even the government.

    I watched Suze Orman today for the first time and a lady wanted to buy a $700 purse and she had 4k in Credit Card debt and $25k in Savings......PAY OFF THE DEBT YOU IDIOT. WTF is wrong with people. Just let the idiots dig themselves deeper and eventually they'll bury themselves and we can forget about them.
    • heliox, on 07/27/2008, -6/+1"WTF, a 20 yr old high school degree kid has more financial responsibility then these mortgage companies, banks, majority of people, and even the government."

      I doubt that. Things fell into place. Many of the mortgage companies gambled, got greedy and lost.
      • Archer007, on 07/27/2008, -1/+2His point was that someone - anyone - should have seen it coming. Especially those institutions.
      • PureForm, on 07/27/2008, -1/+1Mortgage companies didn't lose. I thought it was clear that American tax payers are the ones who lost. They just stumbled into a market with no risk because the government -- I mean, American tax payer -- will bail them out from now on when they make bad decisions.

        Oh yeah, shame on you, Congress.
      • edstate, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1Correction: personal responsibility lost.
    • cim303, on 07/27/2008, -1/+2If you really had such superior financial responsibility, you would have waited longer to buy a home since renting is the better bargain in just about any market at the moment.
  • norman619, on 07/27/2008, -0/+10Sorry but people who bought more house than they could realistically afford should not be bailed out. Are they next going to help people who bought more car than they could afford? This is ridiculous and wrong.
    • luminairex, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2Credit card debt rescue bill. Sooner or later these same people are going to realize that they can't get out of CC debt without refinancing. I wonder when Congress will step in to bail out the credit lenders, since obviously the country can't function without them.

      This Congress needs to go.
  • elhutcho, on 07/27/2008, -3/+2I am not the biggest fan of this plan, but you have to realize that the $300 billion isn't being sinked. It is even possible that this bill can earn the government back money on top of the $300 billion, though admittedly not too likely looking at the market. The Fannie/Freddie stuff sucks, and we shouldn't have to be bailing them out, but they own almost half of all mortgages in the US, which means they probably own many of yours, so if they aren't kept afloat then a lot of people are going to be suffering the consequences as these mortgages are left in limbo. The government needs to start prosecuting for fraud and not teaching that if you're going to commit fraud, make it big so we'll bail you out. But that aside, this bill is an ugly necessity to keep a lot of people from being royally *****, and we can just hope that lessons end up being learned from all of it.
    • luminairex, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2300 billion isn't being sunk, but the government decided to take a big risk with money that doesn't belong to them, and is subsequently making it harder for those of us with a decent financial sense to purchase an affordable home.
  • LenBaird, on 07/27/2008, -0/+6This bill will help you by allowing you to take the loss for banks who operated in a manner that was doomed from the start, yet incredibly profitable to the banks.
    It will help you by allowing the IRS to track all of your purchases made by credit card. Are you starting to feel like property yet?
    And this article attempts to convince you it is a good thing. Shame.
  • backbyter, on 07/27/2008, -1/+2Like others, I bought a home I can afford.

    What should be done: Lender and borrower should attempt to work out a refinancing. If they cannot reach a new deal, and there have been no major lifestyle changes for the borrower, the borrower loses the home and is on the hook for all losses to the lender. A criminal investigation into the loan for that borrower should be started and people sent to jail. (This includes the borrower if they lied on the application.)

    Will we have a lot of foreclosures? Yes. Not as many, but still a lot.
  • YodaJones, on 07/27/2008, -0/+9Yeah, let's save the asses of people who bought homes they could not afford and at the same time save the asses of the idiot's who gave them the loans in the first place.
  • Zarmao, on 07/27/2008, -1/+4This plan, like most everything the feds do these days, just shuffles the cost of things from a favored group to an unfavored group. The favored group would be the banks who made all these ***** loans. They are the ones actually getting bailed out. The unfavored group, the ones getting the ***** end of the stick, are us, the taxpayers.
  • rootnik, on 07/27/2008, -1/+2I bet if all of the banks put the money together that they make off of over draft fees, they could come up with $300,000,000,000 pretty quickly.

  • objektivone, on 07/27/2008, -2/+0Maybe ***** people shouldn't rent houses they can't afford.
    So yes lets pass a bill to help all the irresponsible ***** in this country out.
  • smovement, on 07/27/2008, -0/+3Devolution - Help the fools, ***** the responsible
  • rxbudian, on 07/27/2008, -0/+5The title should be:"How The Housing Rescue Bill Will Screw The Rest Of You Over"
  • Bloodwine, on 07/27/2008, -0/+4It's a shame this bill will go through.
    At the very least it needs a few tweaks:
    1) put all predatory lenders in jail
    2) ruin the credit of homeowners who take advantage of this bill for at least 7 years.

    Seriously, what ever happened to people's credit being ruined for real? As in most lenders and businesses wouldn't touch you with a 10 ft. pole until your credit cleared up.

    We need to penalize people to at least make them stop and think about their bad decisions. Bring back consequences.
  • CHANNELOCK, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1Millions of McMansions in Riverside,Vegas,Miami and other cheaply built plywood and drywall boxes in between wont go dark this Christmas.
    How special.
    They will still owe the bank 70% of the income for ***** homes located in furnace hot wastlands and humid plowed over swamps.
  • 223Sniper, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1the country is *****. this is their logic "Hey guys, lets print more money!" "sure, because it doesn't matter anyways, we are going to be fired in 6 months anyways"
  • bmph8ter, on 07/27/2008, -0/+3Why can't all the people who made money of Fannie & Freddies stock when it was booming help bail them out? Why does it have to be me?

    I bought a house I knew I could afford when all this ***** was happening. How come I'm not getting a reward?
    • JrtD, on 07/27/2008, -0/+0If you want to sell your home for any reason in the next few years, odds are that you'll benefit from this bill indirectly. Without some infusion of cash for homebuyers, house values would keep sliding -- even for those of us who have been responsible.





  • axiomnow, on 07/27/2008, -0/+3With this bill, thank god the IRS can keep track of all my credit card purchases, maybe I can just have them send me the statement.
    • edstate, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1You are so right... it never made much sense to me why I should pay CPA to tell me how much I owe THEM... just send the ***** bill, you leeches!
  • radiofrequency, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2All these housing rescue bills are retarded ideas by our elected politicos basically representing someone other than the taxpayer and are bad for America. Foreclosures occurring now are on housing that was purchased 3-5 years ago at prices that are, in many areas, 40-60% of asking prices today. By propping up inflated prices, the federal government is simply assuring more price inflation and a longer cycle of foreclosures. If Americans are foreclosing in record amounts on prices roughly half of those today, it doesn't make sense that 2004 prices - let alone those passing as "reasonable" today - are sustainable. Bottom line is that cheap housing = good. Inflating real estate is making most Americans poorer, not richer, as they take on longer and longer loans to repay the mortgage.
  • redmonkey, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1This is good reading about some reasons of crisis.

    http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/20 ...
  • gemlarin, on 07/27/2008, -1/+2I said it before, and I will say it again. The tax dollars of financially responsible citizens should not be spent to bail out financially irresponsible people.
  • joeanon, on 07/27/2008, -1/+2300 Billion !! That's like 1/10 of our yearly budget for some dumb ass rich people owned banking firm.

    The government should just take the houses and give them to the homeowners and let them pay as they can like we did during the Great Depression.

    It's simple, clean and effective and it doesn't reward the already super wealthy rather it keeps people off the streets and vandals from stripping the house.

    300 billion is FAR too much for the US to spend on companies that have only conspired to make as much money as they possible can at our expenses. They work with the real estate and appraisers to push home values up so you will borrow more money.. and now it's all deflating.

    Plenty of people got rich.. now somebody has to get poor. It's us or them. 300 billion in money we don't have isn't going to slow inflation.. it's going to further it along as we dig ourselves further and further into debt.

    It's a lose lose situation. We hand them over 300 billion and get NOTHING with no hope of a
    return on out investment.

    Can you even imagine how far 300 billion in renewable energy investments would push us out of the energy crisis. AND.. those are salable, exportable, American job making technologies.

    Is this 300 billion going to land you a job in the banking sector ? Doing what.. moving money from one rich guys pocket to another.

    That's not even a real job.. moving money.. is not a tangle job. American's are too content with making money in theory without a tangible product or reward.

    Invest foreign, rake in the cash... buy in bulk.. sell in bulk. That's not a profession.. it's just some assholes making quick money and keeping their money from ever being useful to the nation.

    AND.. on top of that.. we give them tax breaks.. ***** the GOP and their tax breaks for the wealthy trickle down *****. There is no trickle down economy... there is a huge wealth gap that's growing bigger everyday.

  • gradient01, on 07/27/2008, -1/+1I know everyone is pissed here, but perhaps you are jumping to conclusions. The bill does allow the banks to convert a loan to something that is FHA insured, but the _bank_ has to refinance the house at 90% (or even 80%) of its _current_ value and then write down the difference. The bank is going to take a huge loss to do this ... I honestly don't see why a bank would even consider this as an option. So, this bill is most likely just election year pandering.
    • luminairex, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1...because if they don't, they lose 100% of the principle instead of 40%?

      Lenders get the ***** end of the stick in this deal. When idiot homeowner refinances with the government, he splits the proceeds of the sale with the government after he sells the home that's likely to have appreciated after a few years. The lender doesn't get a cent for his loss. Even if the homeowner gets 10%, it's still a greater amount than the $0 and the ruined credit score he would have gotten if the government had just butted out.
  • robertmules, on 07/28/2008, -1/+0Verizon (NYSE:VZ) reported earnings of $1.88 billion, or $0.66 per share for the Q2, up 12%, on revenue of $24.1 billion. Expectations were for earnings of $0.65 on revenue of $24.3 billion.Get more stock alerts at http://www.weturl.com/996/ .
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