Your Homes Is Belong To Us

From an executive branch that is showing increasing irresponsibility comes the threat of a veto to keep homeowners from rescue like that given Bear Stearns, paid for out of those homeowners' taxes. The housing crisis has come about because of the lax regulations, and non-enforcement of regulations, as well as by buyers' unwise choices. Yet it is against the prospect of bailing out a few grifters along with those who were set up by a wildly aggressive loan industry that the worst administration ever has balked.

The Barney Frank bill, which he has worked out with the other party and passed out of the congress, will save whole neighborhoods and city finances (through property tax) - but its benefits to the public are setting off alarm bells inside the bubble at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The public is being served, that can't go without a battle.

Democrats in Congress are at odds with Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration over efforts to stem foreclosures amid the worst housing slump in a quarter century. The White House favors a voluntary, industry-led program to modify loan terms and this week issued a veto threat against Frank's bill.
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Frank's FHA proposal would cost $2.7 billion and help about 500,000 homeowners, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke indicated support for the plan during a May 5 speech without explicitly endorsing it.

The Democrats' housing package also would expand the FHA's role in insuring mortgages and strengthen oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-chartered companies that are the biggest sources of money for U.S. mortgages. It includes a provision that would shield loan-servicing companies that modify mortgages from investor lawsuits.

Frank said the bill does ``to some extent'' represent a bailout for borrowers who made mistakes and got in over their heads.

``Some people make bad job choices -- we give them unemployment compensation,'' Frank said yesterday in a Bloomberg Television interview after the vote. ``We are in an interconnected economy.''

The legislation didn't get the two-thirds majority vote necessary to override a presidential veto, he said.

The usual 'voluntary' plan from the occupied White House,to work out business interests in the face of public needs, would face an insurmountable obstacle. Industry would lose money by saving homeowners from loss of their homes.

In Washington, Congress is debating a massive rescue aimed at 500,000 people.

And all of the efforts to keep people in their homes run through the mortgage servicers, who are responsible for deciding which troubled borrowers will get more affordable mortgages.

The problem is that servicers are being overrun by the foreclosure crisis: They were set up to process payments, not do loan workouts on a massive scale. As such, they lack the financial incentive to help homeowners workout new loans.
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In fact, servicers have financial reasons for not helping homeowners who fall behind. As middlemen, they are paid a small percentage - usually 0.25% - of the principal of each loan they administer (0.5% for subprime loans). That's about $250 for every $100,000 borrowed, about $21 a month. But when borrowers fall behind, late fees alone can be $25 or more and exceed what a servicer may be paid to maintain an up-to-date loan.

And they get to keep much of the profits from these fees. In fact, some servicers have even been accused of pushing borrowers toward delinquency - by delaying the posting of checks until past their due date even, for example - so they could collect the extra charges.

Porter, who has testified before Congress on mortgage lending issues, said more than half of 1,700 foreclosures she has studied involved questionable servicer fees. (Emphasis added.)

Asked to voluntarily take away money from their own pockets, there is little doubt that servicers will be unwilling to give the homeowners the break they - and the whole economy - need. A veto from the executive branch indicates a basic unwillingness to salvage our economy. Homeowners who were taken advantage of losing their shirts is the prospect that the cretin in chief chooses.

More than enough time for the present cabal to show its colors has gone under the bridges in this country, as they are left to tumble. Voters have learned where their interests lie. Another veto is a blow to America and to the economy, but those are not the cabal's interests. Count on another example of how the executive branch shows hate for America.

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In the category of Shout Out Praise, there is a discovery which wouldoy bring a lot of joy. Anyone who has seen the rapid, horrible, attack of meningitis that kids can experience, will want to share this great news.

The annual scourge of deaths and severe illness caused by meningitis could be consigned to the history books after scientists announced startling results from trials of a potential vaccine.

In the most significant advance in a decade, researchers say they have obtained powerful immune responses in 150 British infants on whom the vaccine was tested, suggesting it would be protective against the group B type of the disease.

An effective vaccine against meningitis B is the holy grail of meningitis research and could virtually eliminate the devastating bacterial infection from Britain and other European countries. Vaccines against group C meningitis, which was introduced in 1999, and Hib meningitis in 1992, have reduced these causes of the disease by more than 90 per cent.

The dreadful disease could be eliminated, and a lot of nightmares be prevented from happening to healthy, rambunctious kids. That's wonderful news.