Message to Senate GOP: Stop propping up the housing market; Update: Taxpayer groups line up against McConnell/Ensign/Graham mortgage entitlement
Scroll down for updates…Heritage, NTU, FreedomWorks, Club for Growth all oppose…
I am not the only one raising hell about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s moronic, multi-billion-dollar mortgage entitlement plan.
Yesterday, I printed the Heritage Foundation’s letter to the GOP leadership assailing the Big Government proposal.
Today, Ed Glaeser weighs in with a WSJ op-ed: The GOP Has a Dumb Mortgage Idea; It contradicts the ideals of Republicanism and good economics.
For that reason, it is particularly disappointing to see Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell embrace “providing government-backed, 4% fixed mortgages to any credit-worthy borrower” as his alternative to the Barack Obama/Nancy Pelosi stimulus package. Our nation needs Mr. McConnell’s leadership, but this idea is bad economics and not a real alternative to the vision of America offered by Democrats. It also stands at odds with all that is good in Republicanism.
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This massive lending program is justified as a means of boosting housing prices. But over the past 28 years, a 100 basis point reduction in the interest rate has been associated with a 4.6% increase in housing prices. Today’s mortgage rates stand at 5.35%. If Mr. McConnell’s proposal dropped rates by 135 basis points, history suggests that prices would rise by 6.2%. This bump would be barely noticeable in markets like Phoenix, Ariz., where prices have fallen by more than 40%, and it would do little to stem the wave of foreclosures.
Modest price effects are likely because in many markets prices remain above long-run equilibrium levels. Places like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami are fortunate to have few regulations that restrict housing supply. As a result, builders provide abundant affordable housing. That ensures that prices always come back to supply costs, no matter what the interest rate.
Moreover, since lenders have recovered their sanity and are once again requiring appropriate down payments, buyers are more constrained by the need to come up with 20% of the purchase price than they are by interest rates. Today’s down-payment requirements and low interest rates suggests that mortgage markets are working well and have little need for governmental “help.” Has the GOP forgotten the lesson of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Such help often does more harm than good.
They haven’t forgotten. They’re recklessly, consciously ignoring those lessons to show they are not “obstructionist.” They’re idiots.
I don’t feel much better about the temporary $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers passed last night. Like Sen. Mikulski’s car-loan stimulus, it’s gimmicky and ill-conceived.
I repeat: Spending beyond our means is what got this country into trouble in this first place. This kind of temporary political gimmickry is going to exacerbate the problem. Encouraging people to take out home loans before the end of the year when they should be saving their money instead? Artificially propping up the market and delaying a much-needed market correction? (And since Republicans are supposed to be about tax fairness, where’s the $15,000 renter’s tax credit?)
And I’ll repeat what Heritage said yesterday: “It should not be government policy to spend massive amounts of taxpayer money to subsidize those who don’t need subsidies, provide homes for those who cannot afford to keep them, and in the process destroy the private mortgage finance system. Trying to short-circuit the market’s resolution of the current housing situation will be both expensive and unlikely to succeed.”
Bad ideas all. Way to go, Senate GOP “leadership.”
***
Update: The National Taxpayers Union comes out squarely against the McConnell/Ensign/Graham mortgage entitlement.
National Taxpayers Union Vote Alert
NTU urges all Senators to vote “NO” on the Ensign “Fix Housing First” amendment to H.R. 1, the so-called economic “stimulus” package.
Language to buy up and convert mortgages to a 4% rate would exacerbate the many problems of our bloated federal government by effectively nationalizing tens of millions of loans. This policy, which repeats and worsens the problems with the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, will pile enormous expenses on the backs of already-struggling taxpayers. Though other sections of the amendment would eliminate many wasteful spending items and provide permanent tax reductions for low-income Americans, the noxious housing provisions regrettably outweigh these worthy proposals. Senators should instead vote for “cleaner” amendments proposed by Senators DeMint, Vitter, Coburn, Thune and others to provide stand-alone tax relief and spending restraint.
Congress has already enacted too many policies that distort the market and help to cause the misallocation of capital that has brought our economy to its knees. Heaping on more preferences for housing while further expanding the role of the federal government will only make our problems worse over the long term. Washington should be divesting, not enshrining, its taxpayer-backed loan portfolio.
Roll call votes on the Ensign amendment to H.R. 1 will be heavily weighted in our annual Rating of Congress.
If you have any questions, please contact
NTU Government Affairs Manager Andrew Moylan at (703) 683-5700
Update: FreedomWorks comes out against the GOP mortgage entitlement…
On behalf of hundreds of thousands of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to vote “No” on Senator Ensign’s Fix Housing First amendment to H.R. 1, as promoted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Senator claims this act would “fix” the housing problem, considered to be at the root of so much of our current economic pain. However, far from fixing anything, this plan would create even more problems and rather than letting the market naturally adjust, will merely delay recovery creating bigger problems in the future.
The “Fix Housing First” amendment would offer government backed fixed mortgages at 4% to “any credit worthy” borrower either to purchase a new home or refinance. This plan, which reportedly could cost as much as $200 billion dollars, is a flagrant misuse of taxpayer funds and in essence creates a new housing entitlement fund and all for no recovery. The housing market, whose prices have long been artificially inflated, needs to find its market clearing prices. It will not recover in the long run from any amount of government prodding. In a scenario analogous to the failed TARP plan, pouring good money after bad doesn’t work. Spending our way out of debt doesn’t work. What does work is letting housing prices fall naturally to the point where more people can afford to purchase, removing the current glut of homes from the market.
Already, the U.S. massively subsidizes housing through the mortgage deduction, through the FHA, and through Fannie and Freddie – two institutions that are already suffering under a crippling load of bad debt. Another government program is not the answer to the problems we face in housing, and ripping scarce capital from the private sector only to place it into unproductive housing stock will make the broader credit crunch worse and make us all poorer in the long run.
We will count your vote on the Ensign/McConnell Amendment as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2009. The Economic Freedom Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the Jefferson Award, which recognizes members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom.
Sincerely,
Matt Kibbe
President and CEO
FreedomWorks.org
Update: Club for Growth opposes the GOP mortgage entitlement plan…
The Club for Growth urges all Senators to vote “NO” on the “Fix Housing First” amendment offered by Sen. John Ensign, Mitch McConnell, and Lamar Alexander (#353). A vote on this amendment is expected today. This key vote will be part of our 2009 Congressional Scorecard.
This amendment would set up a government program that would offer a low interest mortgage to new and existing homeowners. This, in effect, represents a large intrusion by the government into the private sector that will negatively impact economic growth.
…The foundation for this bill rests on the notion that housing prices are below appropriate levels. But it is not clear that housing prices are too low. Washington politicians certainly do not know where the correct level should be. In addition, the proposal would also hurt banks when borrowers refinance from current interest rate mortgages to the lower one produced by this program. The last thing the federal government needs to do now is diminish the earnings of the banking industry.
***
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Is there something in the water in dc that kills common sense brain cells? I know that over the term 1.35% makes a big difference to the consumer, but in addition to tampering with home values, the moral cost of bringing “credit-worthy” folks into tax/debt backed subsidies far outweighs any perceived benefits. Not to mention the cost of filtering the money through dc or the interest paid on money borrowed to pay for the program.
As Johnny Depp might say, if he were a conservative:
Are you a RepubliCAN or a RepubliCAN’T?
MM, don’t you have a clue of how unfeeling, uncompassionate and plain down cruel you sound, shouting off your high ivory tower to throw people and their children out into the streets just because they can’t pay bills and mortgages while you sashay home tonight to your snug warm million buck home? It’s attitudes like yours that’s turning them all hell-bent to socialism like lemmings into a black hole and why they lap up to tax cheaters running the IRS; I mean sure he and cronies were murderers and corrupt, but at least Mussolini kept the trains running on time!
Geese, have a heart and cut the poor slackers (with children) some slack!!
James Greenidge
Queens, New York
God morning folks.
The rush to excess government spending is beginning to look like an old sales hustle. From the beginning of this bailout fiasco, the urge to proceed quickly has been more important than the method itself. If any of you have ever been involved in sales, you’ll recognized the desperation of making the deal.
Don’t let them leave the room, they may begin to think.
The Pending Home Sales Index, from the National Association of Realtors, measures the number of sales contracts signed each month. It rose 6.3% in December to 87.7, after dropping 4% in November to a record low of 82.5.
Washington. Please leave the market alone and it will correct itself.
GEEES!
Ever since this economic meltdown began six months ago the question keeps coming up, WHERE WHERE THESE PEOPLE EDUCATED? This is economics 101. Were my textbooks in college different that those at Harvard? The world markets are more involved now and they’re harder to understand, but the fundamentals are the same. It is apparent to me that this is all a result of a lack of transparence and the markets will stabilize as soon as all the data is exposed.
When did these Republicans abandon the principle of letting the markets take care of themselves. Government intervention only delays the inevitable for a season.
After an economic drunk, it’s time for the hangover. The hair of the dog that bit you isn’t going to ease to pain but make it worse.
The people in D.C seem to have no concept of basic economics. The way they are throwing wrenches into the housing and other markets is an amazing demonstration of economic incompetence.
But think of this possibility. Perhaps they do have a very good grasp of economics and are doing this on purpose. They know exactly what they are doing. I think Obama and his circle have a very good grasp of economics, of the marxist persuasion.
Just wondering.
If these folks don’t wish to be viewed as “obstructionist”, then maybe they should change their party affiliation.
These “Republicans” remind me of the priest, Altamirano, from “The Mission”: always conceding to the other side. After aiding the slave traders in destroying the missions in the country, in the attempt to curry favor with the Spaniard government, he has this conversation with one of the slave traders:
Hontar: “We must work in the world, your eminence. The world is thus.”
Altamirano: “No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world… thus have I made it.”
Hopefully these “Republicans” will realize this before going much farther down the path they’ve chosen.
Another dumb idea. The savings are really not that substantial! But the cost to taxpayers could be very high
Mortgage Chart:
http://tinyurl.com/b8u53r
The Democrats have no interest in fixing the economy in the short term. They are using the economic crisis as cover to invoke all of their wishlist social programs and a move toward a socialist form of government with a windfall of borrowed tax dollars. Tax dollars stolen from the taxpayers to fund the programs no one has wanted except for the extreme liberals.
This economic carcass of a stimulus plan, as one gets closer to it, begins to smell the rot and decay. Most normal people will cover their noses and move away from it. The only one’s who move closer are the scavengers and vultures.
On a similar note, the Obama nominations for key posts in the government are also on a fast track. Speed is required so there is little time for the conservatives to delve into their past. They’ll get no help from our recently departed journalists at the MSM in vetting these crooks.
BO’s cronies are so arrogant, that in their minds, Obama can do nothing wrong. They feel there will be no trouble pushing the nominations through.
I think they are beginning to see that Obama has chinks in his armor and doesn’t shine as brightly as they thought. Of course, because of the shallowness and the lack of character and integrity, its probably not a difficult task to find the “inconsistencies” in the nominee’s backgrounds – with or without the MSM’s help.
FamilyMan… The Powers That Be DO NOT WANT ALL THE DATA EXPOSED!
I did alittle research on the TARP money and discovered that the biggest chunks went to Banks that also belong to the Council on Foreign Relations…Citi,Bank of America,American Express. And also, the Treasury Dept. hired some companies to “Help” allocate the TARP money. Low and behold the companies Hired are ALSO members of The Council on Foreign Relations.From what I’ve read and seen…The CFR has OUR TAX DOLLARS.
Harvard and Columbia, apparently. But they are all social theorists first and economists second. Now they have the grand stage to show how much smarter than you they are. As for the GOP, their just hapless and sad.
My apologizes to jjmurphy for stealing this quote of your blog, but I thought it appropriate at this time.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill
OPPS!
WHERE
WHEREWERE THESE PEOPLE EDUCATED? They may write better than I do.Yeah its OOPS, as well. But I misused their instead of they’re. I blame on my rooster. I think he’s in cahoots with the pigs.
FamilyMan – Feel free to use anything you want from my blog. We are all in this together.
And, yes, that quote is highly relevant at this time.
Obama and the other Chicken Little hysterics need to shut their pieholes and demonstrate some form of leadership. America needs leaders now, not pants-wetting cowards. And that includes the Republicans. Memo to Washington: We need massive tax and spending cuts, not increases.
Can the American people do a class-action suit to cause a “cease and desist” on this crazy legislation, or at least file a restraining order against Congress? Why is that not possible? There are legitimate economic arguments to be made for Congress to stop this massive spending plan. People sue the Federal government all the time.
That is Econ. 101
Because it is theory, only the markets can decide. A friend of mine who immagrated from the old Soviet Union, where everything is run by theory asked me, “why are there so many detergent to chose from”? I thought it a funny question at the time, but we all know the answer.
The simplest and quickest solution to this mess is to dissolve Congress for two years and then bring it back with severe budget restrictions.
America’s enemies have no better ally than our own federal government. The Communists and the Jihadis could not have cooked up a more devious plan to destroy America than has the US Congress.
I can’t believe Dear Leader is still recycling this line … or maybe I can believe it – we are, after all talking about Democrats here. But are there still people out there who believe this tripe?
They used this line when discussing the bank bailout. Officially known as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. We were told: “If we don’t act promptly and effectively, then many people are going to lose their jobs.”
Fast forward to today Fox is reporting that the “Initial Jobless Claims Surge More Than Expected to 626,000.
I know when I am being sold a bill of goods!
The recession will linger for years because of Washington’s meddling. What’s the definition of insanity again?
Whoops, RedDog beat me to it.
Albert Einstein said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
jamesgreenidge:
Michelle Malkin is not throwing any children onto the street. Do you really want to live in a country where the government gets to decide who lives where???
Sad.
Got a great quote for ya:
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams
Seems to apply to so much that is ocurring on a daily basis now.
I’m 63 years old but that’s what’s gets me up in the morning.
Great quote JJ
What’s happened to our young citizens?
Failure is something government never does. Well at least until recently.
Failure is something government always does. The more they do, the more they fail. If your argument is about the size of failure, then we’re headed to failure on a massive scale. If you are alluding to Bush, then you are a failure on a massive scale and don’t understand conservatism.
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but see nowhere else to make this comment.
Just wondering…
Michelle, I heard I think it was on the Today Show? or Fox and Friends that they added an addition to the stimulus about increasing a tax credit for home buyers (short term) to $15,000? Could you perhaps blog about what that means? Cause as a non home owner myself, I don’t understand how a House that you buy, would be taxed in the first place.
As a current Homeowner where’s my $15,000.00? So what if I bought my house 20 years ago!
My Point Mac, is that this is another thing, that just convolutes understanding the bill as it is. I’m not sure whether it is a bad or good provision, I couldn’t understand what the anchors were even saying about it.
BTW it probably won’t change my decision to keep renting until we’ve pulled out of this economic slump.
Which fits this situation perfectly.
TEN MINUTES AGO
Dow 7,852.00 -104.66 (-1.32%)
S&P 500 820.13 -12.10 (-1.45%)
Nasdaq 1,496.60 -18.45 (-1.22%)
The markets aren’t buying this trash coming out of Washington.
I got out of this market 12 moths ago.
I got out of the pacific rim stocks 6 months before they crashed.
I got out of tech market 6 moths before it crashed.
I’m just an average guy folks, but if I can read the markets that well, why can’t the morons running our country see it?
Senate GOP: Stop could be the header for dozens of columns I am sad to say: all to many of them are bowing at Obamican’s feet and going down like whores.
It appears my own Senator Kyl has gone John McCain on us and voted to confirm Eric Holder. These GOP Senators know full well the Mitch McConnell Plan would further damage the housing market, credit market and honest enterprise in general but being scarred of the Obama roll they are chanting Me Too!
It does remind me of that tape of the Iraqi Baath Party meeting where Hussein was having one member after another taken out and shot. By the end of the meeting the delegates where screaming accolades to Saddam hoping they would not be next.
Good bye Senator Kyl, I did not really know you.
PHOENIX OFFICE
2200 East Camelback, Suite 120
Phoenix, Arizona 85016-3455
Phone: (602) 840-1891
Fax: (602) 957-6838
—
That every man be armed-you too ladies.
Where’s my bailout?
My 2008 model year vehicle is paid off, as well as my home. I’m refitting my business because people are selling machinery and inventory at fire sales prices.
Actually, I dont need a bailout, I need Congress to stop interfering, I’m making a killing!
FamilyMan: In my 401k, my best return is actualy the loan I took out to pay medical bills.
Now I wish I could have borrowed 100%, I would have been better off.
The bottom line is not about socializing programs for we the people.
Unfortunately, the bottom line is about nationalizing the economy and when they can accomplish that, they own us lock, stock and barrel and you may be well advised to keep a couple of barrels hidden away … just my opinion though.
Rather than using the 401K, you may want to check out the FPVUL or Flexible Premium Variable Universal Life policy. There are no penalties for accessing your cash other than the stabilization of your death benefit and whatever fees. We can “thank” (17 Million Dollar Man) Dan Rostenkowski [sp] for that one but it works nonetheless.
It’s easy to say after the fact, but ANYONE who was around the mortgage business from the 80s until today – if honest – will tell you the same thing. Beginning in the mid 80s something drastic occurred. The business went from Savings and Loan to any damn fool who could talk their way into a correspondent relationship with a wholesaler. The formerly respectable business with Standards devolved rapidly into Anything Goes. The joke used to be that instead of qualified loan officers reviewing and underwriting files, it became a guy on a street corner in a trench coat going Pssst! Hey, buddy (flashes coat open) Need a mortgage?
You had to be there, and you had to be honest and not one of these criminals who fed at the trough to really understand that the intentional killing of the S&Ls was to enable banks and Wall Street firms to radically alter the loan process. Instead of proper underwriting in proper setting, conducted by qualified people, the new plan was to set this process loose into the hands of tens of thousands of mortgage broker store fronts. Suddenly anyone could be a ‘mortgage broker’, and let me tell you damn near everyone was in certain markets like Atlanta. That, or they were a ‘contractor’.
This, to me, all gets laid at the doorstep of Daddy Bush’s administration and their criminal take down of the Savings and Loan. THAT was the start of the hellish breakdown we face today. It all flows from there.
Another example … anyone remember the RTC? The Resolution Trust Corporation? Suddenly, and for inexplicable reasons S&Ls were going under right and left and Congress created a gigantic fund to buy the troubled assets of these failing institutions. Remember? I was in a perfect position to work with the RTC as an independent because I had scores of portfolios under management that wanted to bid for the ‘troubled assets’ of being taken over by the RTC. But could I get anywhere, even with Congressional help? Make me laugh. It took me a while to understand, but I finally got that all the public hooraw over the S&Ls and bidding for RTC assets was just hot air. Those assets had been examined, cherry picked and sold BEFORE THE S&Ls WERE DRIVEN TO INSOLVENCY. That was the whole point.
Then came the new breed of locust set loose – the mortgage broker, and anyone in that business who is honest can tell you 1,000s stories of fraud, criminal underwriting and general mayhem to package and move upline as many loans as possible as fast as possible for the fee income EVERYONE was getting. And I do mean thousands of stories. Trying to get the attention of regulators, internal auditors or anyone in a position to say Halt! was futility itself, as if the secret decoder ring had issued orders to damn the Law, full speed ahead, we’ve got a green light from Washington.
Really, this has been the most astounding criminal feeding frenzy in the history of our nation. And brother, it was CONDONED. It was ENCOURAGED. Attempts to do loans correctly were SQUASHED. It was a two decade firehose of booking as much bad business as possible, AND EVERYONE KNEW IT.
Find an underwriter from 1990, and ask her.
Wonder how many jobs would have been created by those domestic oil leases the Dear Leader shut down?
It is beginning to look like the Republican leadership has been completely neutered and are not worthy of our attention and support.
Fret not American citizens! After reading many reports on the economy, consumer spending represents 2/3rds of our economy. We have them by the balls. Just keep it up. If this gov’t wants to kick start the economy, they need to dump cash on every tax payer in this country. Not that measly $500 to $1000, but some serious cash. Do not give the corporate/banking, wall street bastards, who got us in trouble in the first place, any more money. Pay half of my mortgage off or give us 20 to 30 thousand so we can spend it. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I thought maybe Obama was going to heal our problems. I think he is making the racial problem worse. Oh be careful about the proposed concentration camps bill or the gun registration bill. The Commies are coming! The commies are coming ! Don’t sit back and let them take our country. Especially that so called American in commie clothing.
Imus had his brother on this morning who used to like Obama, he has some problems with the New President including this stimulus.
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2009/02/fred-imus-proves-radio-is-still.html
What’s particularly infuriating is that McConnell’s ideas are not only bad economics, they’re not even good politics. Turn on CNN or read the local paper. Republicans are already being “blamed” for obstructing the stimulus, and McConnell’s appeasement tactics are not earning him any brownie points. So he might as well fight like a Republican.
If he doesn’t, then for once I think the Left’s favorite epithet “Repug-lican” applies here.
Great posts BlackFlag55
Keep feeding us this material.
It’s not “leadership” …
It’s “Bleedership” …
They won’t stop until they bleed us dry from the non-stop hemorrhaging they are forcing on the public …
Great post, I hired a guy two years ago who got out of the mortgage broker business. He told me that he was sick of the fraudulent way business was done and could no longer continue. He told me many tales of blatant fraud going on in the mortgage business and like you, he said that what drove this was the need for procuring loans no matter that they could be repaid, it was more revenue that could be passed up the line, with no comeback if the loan went bad. Shame there wasn’t more ethical people like my employee.
I would add also that this latest idea from the Republicans will only lead to more of the same, until we get back to responsible lending practices, there will be no end to this.
Obama is now talking telling us “it’s time to move forward, not back”. Sheesh. Is it also time to move up not down? And “twirling, always twirling!”
“We don’t have time to discuss the details of this spending plan. It is too important to waste our time explaining things we don’t understand ourselves to stupid nosy busybodies like you.”
This is your government ladies and gentlemen. The best that global corporate interests can buy.
And flmom, good point. This entire pork bill is about spending money and does not fix anything. Now it is being reported that Paul Volker is being obstructed from his own economic commission because he wants to break up the banks. “Too big to succeed.”
If ever there was a time to simply stop and calm down, this is it. Everybody just stop. We need to pause and take a breath. Our government is leading us over that bipartisan cliff.
Rumor is that the Mark to Market rule will be suspended by the SEC. I think we will see that NO stimulus is NEEDED. What is needed is the change of this rule as Newt suggested. Just go with 3 year averaging to determine the VALUE of homes.
Ironically, gold could keep the feds from going insolvent:
http://mises.org/story/3281
The gov doesn’t care if we are able to keep our homes or not. It’s all about collecting the property taxes. I doubt the banks are forking over any money to pay property taxes on foreclosed homes.
RE: #6 FamilyMan:
Michelle’s citations sum it up: all these clowns went to Harvard, Yale or Columbia, or have served somewhere in their stables.
They don’t do Econ 101 at socialist universities. The textbook (no doubt written by a hivemind of Ivy League socialist/marxist hippies) is too short to sustain a hardcover edition.
Here it is in its entirety:
“All animals are created equal. Some animals are more equal than others. Open your wallet and pay the pigs.”
Yes. Yours were in Econ and Finance, theirs were Law and Poli Sci. Not even close.
OT: Socialism Alert
Obama’s new Presidential Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships head is Joshua DuBois who is being portrayed primarily as a former mainstream pastor. (Actually an ‘associate pastor’ in a ‘tiny’ church while he was in college.
However, Mr. DuBois is nothing more than an Ayers’ style agitator and a young version of Rev Wright.
He received a degree in Political Science in 2003 and a masters in public affairs in 2005. Since then, he worked in politics – for Charlie Rangel and Obama as a Senate aide.
He worked for several years for Sojourners, a ‘Communist’ black liberation theology community organizing group.
Sojourners is part of the Presidential Advisory Council.
Mister P: the mark-to-market was supposed to have been removed under the first $700 bill bailout panic–or so they said. What it actually said was that the Treas Secy would look at the mark-to market history and effect then write a recommendation. IF he wanted to he could take it out, change it or leave it. Pontiff Paulson never gave it a thought.
Now we have DPYTUYHT (dont pay your taxes until you have to) Geithner, who has yet to utter the words “mark to market” much less read the legislation.
It should be the first thing to happen and then the “fix” will happen miraculously overnight–because the messiah does it–and they can stop the bleeding.
The whole thing is just plain stupid and my fingers are sore from writing and dialing congress to stop the stupid, deal with their own jobs and get the hell out of my wallet!!!!
ByChoice:
Definitely good fodder for conspiracy theorists. Devalue homes, create toxic mortgages, then take over the banks, then change the rules to make the homes worth more. One would think it was all part of a fix
He worked for several years for Sojourners, a ‘Communist’ black liberation theology community organizing group.
Sojourners is part of the Presidential Advisory Council
Everyone is trying to equate the Obamanation with past presidencies. Everyone knows Obama is a Marxist. Its not going to seem right, logical or rational because everyone is trying to compare Obama to the way it was. Wake up people. This man has an agenda to destroy the USA. The economy bailout is gonna fail and he knows it. Once our wealth is gone communism will step in. I just can’t believe this nation got hoodwinded by a commie. They always said we would fall from within.