Mortgage Mess: Is Relief in Sight?

So when companies write off their debt and restructure at a lower rate
with the help of tax dollars, why don't these companies give their
customers just a few months grace to get back on their feet. After a
few months of unemployment, most creditors want all their money ASAP
even when the person gets a new job and can begin payments again.

It seems as though they don't care if they drive our country into a great
depression as long as they get theirs first. Don't they understand that a
depression will affect EVERYONE not just those suffering. Crime will
increase and those Beamer drivers might end up being killed for their car.

The wealthy and those opposed to helping anyone need to understand
they are not an island unless they live totally off the grid. They will need
customers, farmers and all the other people that make our world work.

money is the root of all evil. People need good homes and transportation no matter the cost to the individual.
Truth is no one in America should be homeless, hungry or without good mediacl care. If the federal goverment steps in and bails people out good for america meaning if my house was paid for I would buy a new car maybe two, this would spread so to speak increasing spending and of course demand on autos and other products putting people back to work and moving the economy forward. Now if the federal goverment were to impose a income tax on all working americans just for the purpose of home ownership not general funds I for one would be all for it. Homes, food nd medical care in america should be a birth right not a burden for are citizens,

If your fico score is less the 660, you only have yourself to blame and not Bush. He didn't push you into getting 12 credit cards and 2 new expensive cars on top of your home mortgage. He didn't tell you to go out and get a home equity loan to pay for vacations and plasma tvs. People with mortgage problems only have themselves to blame for not educating themselves on how things work and how not to trust a mortgage broker making money of you.

Did the bill by Bush eventually pass? How can I learn more about it?

Learn more about investing by visiting investmentsforme.com

Bush's proposal is not a taxpayer bailout. Please read the details first, rant later.

Listen UP! You're responsible for yourself in everything you choose to do. If you screw up you pay the price.

Where do you pretend to get the nerve to have taxpayer's bail your butt out!?!? Get a real thought.

The reality is that most of us cannot be helped because the program requirements are too stringent. I have an ARM - it has already re-set, I have never missed a payment, nor been late, but I cannot refinance.

I made improvements to my property, have no car loans and no credit card debt, my FICO score is higher than when I got the loan, but not good enough to refinance. And the value of the property in my neighborhood is of course, lower because of the foreclosures. So, I am stuck.

I am going to try and sell and buy another house down the street (bigger for less money). Wish me luck.

President Bush???s gesture to help homeowners is largely political. It was prompted by Republican congressmen fearing repercussions in the 2008 elections. The Byzantine eligibility requirements for mortgage relief help relatively few troubled homeowners. Most of those deemed ???eligible??? will probably reside in Republican Congressional districts. Once the election is over, those mortgage lenders who voluntary ???froze??? lending rates can easily ???unvolunteer??? and tack on a number of service and handling fees to make up the difference.
In addition, Bush???s bail out fails to address the real problem - that too few people can afford to live anywhere. For yours inspection, I???d like to offer some stats published in the December issue of PC Magazine (US Cities Tech Jobs)
City Average Household income Average home price
New York)Manhattan) 119,000 1,300,000
Los Angeles 47K 616K
Chicago 41K 339K
Baltimore/DC 53 K 470K
Seattle 88K 543K

As you can see, in many cities the cost of housing is about 8 to 10 times higher than the household income. No wonder realtors turn to ???creative??? financing schemes, such as APR???s rather than the traditional 30 year fixed. (Which requires 20% down and which the housing price is limited to no more than 4 times the household income.) Creative financing simply enables the real estate industry to jack up home prices, which in turn means fewer people can afford to buy homes.

I must add that the average household income is going down, not up. Thanks to globalization, workers in this country must accept lower wages, or their jobs will be outsourced to India or Bangla Desh. People must pay for their own health insurance. If the Republicans have their way and shut down public schools, people will have to pay for their children???s education as well. Many young people are already burdened with debt from educational loans. These economic realities do not bode well for the housing market.

Perhaps Bush???s little scheme may delay the recession, but sooner or later the entire real estate market will come tumbling down. The rich are getting richer and fewer, the poor are getting poorer and more numerous. Bush and his cronies on the Federal Reserve do not even understand that this is a problem.

And now I read that many people are in even more trouble and cannot afford their car payments. For the past few years people have been living on the edge with large credit card debts as more and more good paying jobs get out sourced and off shored. Good paying union jobs are being sqeezed out in right-to-work days (meaning union are unpopular). Someone needs to take at look at the big picture and work with corporations for the good of the whole. We are too greedy in the corporate world. In the 60's there were not 33,000 lobbyist in D.C. like there is now and CEO's did not make 400 times more than their employees. What ever happened to "ethical" practices and the words honor and integrity....they were replaced by "greed". Greed in government, corporations and religious organization. No one cares or looks at this country for the good of the whole...and now we are in this debt mess. China indeed has us over a barrel and Washington acts like it no big deal. But it iis a big deal. In eight years Bush and company managed to create a huge mess of debt, a needless war for profiteering and allowed corporations to run amoke and those in Iraq .. to waste tax payers hard earned money. When people lose their good paying jobs where is the tax base going to come from and who will have money to buy good (made in China goods). When was the last time you saw a "Made in the USA" label? Have we been out-sourced into a hopefull the river of despair?

One of the many nice things about Newsweek's decent and honorable practice of permitting these comments is the tremendous magnification and analysis that each article receives from the reading public. I cannot help but think that it must help journalists focus on writing truthful and thought -provoking articles. This can only be a good thing. Even better, since I find the posts left by the vast majority of Newsweek readers are also thought-provoking and truthful expressions of honest opinion, each Newsweek article that is of interest to me becomes something of a feast of voices that matter to me. So thanks to all and Newsweek.

With regard to this feast, I've read pretty much every single comment. As I said, so many are terrific and uplifting reminders of our still vibrant democractic tradition. However, as comforting as this truth is, the sad equally truthful reality is that our government has become a bastion for an elite minority of corporate kingpins and purchased politicians. With the great help of Concerned4490's 12/6 9:55pm post, in which he does such a great service in peeling back the cover on the Bush Bailout, I've come to believe that - while this plan can help some in dire straits - it is really a bailout for the banks. Just consider what Concerned4490 has disclosed: only those with 3% equity at the time of home purchase will qualify. With home prices down, that means that the banks are upside down in those homes since the homeowner has so little equity. Instead, it's the bank that's holding the bag. Bush is paid to prevent the banks from this unpleasant reality. So they got together and figured a way to keep those loans from hurting the banks and their lobbyists. Of course, the public disclosures suggest a kind and gentle rescue of vulnerable homeowners. Yet, as the public is slowly realizing, that rhetoric is - like so much government speech - a pretext that masks the real government intent, which is to protect the elite minority. Two homeowners with identical houses in the same town on the same street with the exact same ARM will be treated differently if one put a 20% downpayment and the other put no money down. The latter will get the help - a five year interest rate freeze - since the bank is holding the bag on his house. The guy who saved to put 20% down gets nothing because the bank has his hard earned equity cushion to rely upon. He gets sacked with the usurious interest rate resets and foreclosuring on this house is not so unseemly for the bank since they can get their pound of flesh out of the collateral. As house prices decline, the banks can rest assured that the homeowner's equity gets bruised first. If housing prices drop by more that 20%, you can anticipate another Bush Bailout for even those who put 20% down so the banks can remain whole. What a scam, and what a disgrace this president is. He is absolutely anathema for America.

The purpose of credit is to allow expenditure based on future income. If as one commenter put it, we only bought what we could afford if we lost our job, no-one would buy anything ever except with cash. This may sound like a great idea, but isn't very practical for things like houses and cars.

The lenders who granted these sub-prime mortgages to people who they knew should not have gotten them are the real issue here. Everyting after that is just fodder for discussion, but does nothing to address the real problem. Yes people should be educated with regard to lending, but ultimately if your financial institution/lender tells you that you qualify, most people will trust that and these lenders know it.

This administration has primarily been propping up the economy based on credit for short term political gain, instead of taking less 'newsworthy' steps to ensure the economy would stay strong. Now that there is a 'credit crunch' everyone is scrambling trying figure out how this could have happened? Give me a break!

The lenders knew they should not be doing sub-prime lending and so did the regulating powers, and did it anyway to avoid negative political repercussions for the current administration. It really is a shame that there was an opportunity for this administration to do great things from the first day they took office and they have essentially accomplished squat, except of course kill off a few thousands loyal american soldiers.

I admire my mother, born in 1930, a child of the depression. Likewise, my father, of blessed memory, whose own father had the foresight to sell out the stock market in 1929 before it crashed. What I learned from each of them was to live within our means. In my mother's case it was well within our means, without ostentation.

They became, in Tom Brokaw's words, members of the greatest generation. While that tag is due in very great measure to the fighting done in WWII and Korea, it goes without saying that the basic values refined in the crucible of the Depression form the basis of this designation.

Perhaps America needs a gut check again.

charlesw3: "Seriously, dude - do you really understand what you just said. If we had that we could actually allow the liberals (who are frequently, just as foolishly wrong as conservatives) to NOT fund out military or our prisons. Both of which I cheerfully fund knowing that they are decisions made BY all of us and FOR all of us."

Funding the military protects us all and I happily fund it as well. The point is: if only a few benefit - it's not a candidate for Federal money. Most prisons are state institutions and are funded accordingly so my NC tax dollars aren't paying for a prison in Montana which isn't doing me any good. Federal prisons, again, I would happily fund.

NC's market never inflated like other states and has been largely unaffected - home prices and sales are certainly lower than during the boom but commensurate with (if not actually better than) pre-boom levels. The neighborhood in which I live doesn't have a slew of foreclosures so my tax dollars bailing you out is a complete loss to me. I would rather see another federal prison, an additional F-22 or funding for stem cell research (wishful thinking).

The right thing is not to cry to the "gubmint" - the right thing is to be an adult and suck it up. Sorry you're in a neighborhood that's affected but as my dad used to say - sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.

You bought a house and took a gamble with its value - like we all did. Just because your payout looks bleak doesn't make it my problem or the problem of any other taxpayer in this country.

Who is he really trying to help? and what good does it do in the long run. Not many and not much.