A TRUE PERSPECTIVE ON THE HOUSING CRISIS
A video clip of a 9/24/08 Fox News story by Britt Hume and Bret Bajer, clearly shows President George W. Bush (you know, the guy who gets blamed for everything by the Obama Administration), Senator John (I’m not always a RINO) McCain, Treasury Secretary John Snow and Fed Chief Alan Greenspan, all warned the Congress that unbridled expansion and power within the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae mortgage industries would lead to the housing crisis and meltdown disaster that America has been -- and continues -- living through.
We have been told that this video has been REMOVED from the United States version of YouTube as if we Americans were no better than the Chinese when the government needs to shut people up. At this point we do have the clip from a Canadian source and it is here for you to look at and digest.
One concept that I have yet to see discussed on any major network -- Fox or otherwise -- is just why people like Barney Frank and Chuck Shumer were so interested in promoting this financial nightmare. I have suggested from time to time that other than the usual Democratic Party approach of making more people dependent -- or at least more beholding -- to the government, are these rather simple facts of life in America.
(1) Government funds that are easily earmarked for certain geographical areas help build politically defined demographic regions of the country where Democrats have their strongest base, so why not expand or repopulate those neighborhoods?
(2) Americans don’t actually own any real estate. We have a Feudalistic system where -- with the exception of churches, schools and a some non-profits, EVERYONE must pay taxes to live on or in their own property. If we do not pay, we are evicted and our property is seized. In reality WE MERELY RENT from the government.
(3) Real estate taxes are the number one source of income for local municipalities and if that revenue stream was not in place, cities and towns would have to look to state and federal coffers for funds.
The bottom line for Barney and Chuck could be easily explained. The more people we get into houses, the more we can overcome that nasty little problem where half the people in the United States don’t pay income taxes. Tah, dah! More money for government to spend.
Take a look at the video and copy the link from your browser and share it with your friends.
Showing posts with label mortgage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mortgage. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Monday, August 10, 2009
BRACE YOURSELF. THE WORST IS YET TO COME
This past weekend I had an opportunity to speak with a retired Vet who is struggling with a very guilty conscious.
No, his concerns are not because of anything he might have done while wearing his uniform and serving his country. He told me he is now fully retired from regular employment because he made a conscious decision back in 2006 while working in the home mortgage industry.
He and everyone around him was making money hand-over-fist, writing home mortgages. He knew it couldn't last so he set a goal for himself. "I decided to make a million dollars (or more) in as short a time as possible and then retire."
"I wrote as many Adjustable Rate Mortgages with one per cent down, that I possibly could. They always went through so it was just a case of finding more and more people who wanted to own a home, even though I knew many of them could not possibly afford the purchase."
What he is feeling very uncomfortable about now -- even after witnessing the "collapse" both banks and Americans in general have seen over the past ten months -- is that he knows those ARM's issued are about to "reset" after three years. The time table is the Spring of 2010. We're about to see the bulk of the "option arm-risky loans" written by the banks, re-adjust from a Fixed-- "Teaser-rate" -- to a Variable rate.
Home owners will go from a 4.25-4.5% interest rate, to 8-10% (Libor rates). People will no longer afford their mortgage payment! Foreclosures will skyrocket!He openly admitted that 2010 will make 2009 look like a minor blip and yes, this will be reflected in the current sucker's rally now on Wall Street. In other words, 2010 will see thousands of home owners "walking away" from their homes and their mortgage obligations because the value of their property will be much lower than the obligation of their loan. WITH INTEREST RATES GOING UP SUBSTANTIALLY on the resets, a $1000 a month home mortgage payment may jump to $1,500, $2,000 or more! As an added bonus, there are tens of thousands of "balloon payment" mortgages that will come due in 2010 and beyond. That reflects a full-fledged, nationwide mess.
On top of that disaster he said associates who still work in the mortgage industry quietly tell him that many major banks and mortgage holders have created "shadow foreclosures" that they are hiding from the government and the American people. Thousands of properties have gone belly-up already but the mortgage holders are not putting them back into MLS or open real estate listings. They are holding them back to create the illusion that home prices are stabilizing and that inventories are falling -- making NOW the time to buy.
RealtyTrac, an Irvine, CA-based foreclosure listing firm, reports that up to 700,000 foreclosed homes are not included in the multiple listing service (MLS). The housing inventory is currently pegged at 3.8 million properties, or close to 10 months of waiting at the present sales pace. With this shadow supply, however, selling is expected to take a lot longer, causing a further drop in prices.
Banks cannot let go of these properties in one go, as it could drastically reduce prices in the most hard-hit communities. Home prices have already dropped as much as 30% in some communities, and experts say they can fall even further. Some areas may need to drop another 30%, says, Barrack, just to get back to normal levels from 1998. (see link below)
His final comment was that the average American home is worth $125,000 (maybe $135,000) but definitely NOT the $250,000 to $350 or $400,000 many are imagining or hoping for. That level of "recovery" in pricing is many years away (if ever). With the ever rising tax obligations governments are placing on people and the Obama Administration's ongoing efforts to redistribute wealth, it is very, very doubtful that American citizens will be financially healthy enough for any future housing "boom".
Another personal note on housing from this weekend. An associate of mine purchased a three bedroom home in Florida Saturday. He put $1,000 down with a sale price of $41,000. The current owner "just wanted out!" and was feed up with trying to stay in the home.
Maybe it's time to buy stock in any manufacturer or distributor of tents because it certainly appears that's where many people are going to end up living.
Send your "Thanks" to Barney Franks in D.C.
*SHADOW: http://www.cdloanmod.com/loss-mitigation-news.php?a=shadow-foreclosures-may-slow-down-housing-recovery
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Wake Up America
If you don't stand up a cheer about this article then you simply have no idea what's going on in Washington DC.
Wake Up America
by Pam Geller
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like and how people react to it... Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about 10 - 15 years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demand and then codified into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we know could never pay back? Why?
We learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money; yours and mine. And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.
Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "We the People," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not!
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
We have intentionally ‘dumbed' down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, and school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic; and to what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, and Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 times 10.
And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him,
drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No?
Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important.)
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change... Why?
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now. This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was
associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully them into submission.
And then he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world.
He did it with a compliant media - Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and... "Change"! And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he
was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.
Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years - a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency - it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course; the road to Hell is paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.
Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe - and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong. But, I do not think I am.
IN GOD WE TRUST
Most of you know by now that the Senate version (at least) of the "stimulus" bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens. The author of this part of the bill, former senator and tax evader, Tom Daschle was credited by Bloomberg with the following statement.
Bloomberg: "Daschle says health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."
If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that Senators and Congressmen have their own healthcare plan that is first dollar or very low co-pay which they are guaranteed the remainder of their lives and are not subject to this new law if it passes.
Please use the power of the Internet to get this message out. Talk it up at the grassroots level. We have an election coming up in one year and nine months. We have the ability to address and reverse the dangerous direction the Obama administration and it allies have begun and in the interim, we can make our voices heard!
Let's do it!
Wake Up America
by Pam Geller
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like and how people react to it... Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about 10 - 15 years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demand and then codified into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we know could never pay back? Why?
We learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money; yours and mine. And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.
Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "We the People," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not!
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
We have intentionally ‘dumbed' down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, and school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic; and to what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, and Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 times 10.
And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him,
drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No?
Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important.)
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change... Why?
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now. This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was
associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully them into submission.
And then he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world.
He did it with a compliant media - Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and... "Change"! And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he
was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.
Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years - a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency - it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course; the road to Hell is paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.
Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe - and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong. But, I do not think I am.
IN GOD WE TRUST
Most of you know by now that the Senate version (at least) of the "stimulus" bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens. The author of this part of the bill, former senator and tax evader, Tom Daschle was credited by Bloomberg with the following statement.
Bloomberg: "Daschle says health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."
If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that Senators and Congressmen have their own healthcare plan that is first dollar or very low co-pay which they are guaranteed the remainder of their lives and are not subject to this new law if it passes.
Please use the power of the Internet to get this message out. Talk it up at the grassroots level. We have an election coming up in one year and nine months. We have the ability to address and reverse the dangerous direction the Obama administration and it allies have begun and in the interim, we can make our voices heard!
Let's do it!
*******************
Select from over 100 slogans so you can "Speak your mind all the time" at http://www.SatireWorks.com. Bumper stickers, T-shirts, buttons, hats and more.
About the author via Google...
Pamela "Atlas" Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child but remained involved in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School.
After 9/11, Atlas had the veil of oblivion violently lifted from her consciousness and immersed herself in the education and understanding of geopolitics, Islam, terror, foreign affairs and imminent threats the mainstream media and the government wouldn't cover or discuss.
Pamela "Atlas" Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child but remained involved in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School.
After 9/11, Atlas had the veil of oblivion violently lifted from her consciousness and immersed herself in the education and understanding of geopolitics, Islam, terror, foreign affairs and imminent threats the mainstream media and the government wouldn't cover or discuss.
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