Suckle at the Teat of the Government Housing Bailout.... Online!
"About Making Home Affordable"
"The Obama Administration has introduced a comprehensive Financial Stability Plan to address the key problems at the heart of the current crisis and get our economy back on track. A critical piece of that effort is Making Home Affordable, a plan to stabilize our housing market and help up to 7 to 9 million Americans reduce their monthly mortgage payments to more affordable levels.
The Home Affordable Refinance Program gives up to 4 to 5 million homeowners with loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac an opportunity to refinance into more affordable monthly payments. The Home Affordable Modification Program commits $75 billion to keep up to 3 to 4 million Americans in their homes by preventing avoidable foreclosures."
MakingHomeAffordable.Gov link below:
Figure Out Whether The Government Will Pay Your Mortgage Through the Magic of the Interweb
Warning: Insensitive Attempt at Humor Ahead
If a person can not pay their mortgage and is genuinely interested in preventing foreclosure, should that person really have a computer and be paying for internet access? Maybe the internet has become one of life's necessities in America like food, water, shelter, cable TV, an Ipod, a DVD player, Netflix, the Shamwow and fancy jeans that you have to iron before you can wear them. I guess you could take advantage of your employer by applying for assistance at work, but what if you can't pay your mortgage because you lost your job? I guess there is always the public library. But that seems so... needy.
Categories: Housing Stabilization Proposals, Depression Humor
lol, I find your humor really witty. It isn't THAT bad, is it? I know the Making Home Affordable program won't be able to help every single one who needs a housing bailout, but at least it's an attempt to address the housing crisis instead of nothing at all.
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Thank you for the complement. Most people find my attempts at levity to be insensitive or marginally insane. You obviously have an extremely sophisticated sense of humor!
I understand that most people favor “doing something” about the economic downturn. Americans have empathy for others experiencing financial pain. But just because the intent behind an idea is altruistic does not mean the impact of its implementation won’t be negative.
I also understand that politicians will always favor “doing something” about any problem real or imagined. Policy makers can not claim responsibility for the benefits created by free markets. They can only claim credit when they have “done something”. Given our current political environment and the reality of job losses, foreclosures and declining retirement accounts, most politicians believe it would be career suicide not to “do something”. Maybe they are right.
The problem with "doing something" is the assumption that we will do the right thing. Worse still is the naïve belief that the Government will do the right thing. Government’s rarely do the right thing because it is generally not in the best interest of politicians to do so.
In order to do the right thing and craft an effective solution, one must understand the problem at hand. The policy makers and politicians implementing our response to the Depression have consistently demonstrated a lack of understanding as to the underlying causes of the Housing/Consumer Spending/Credit Bubbles and the inevitable result of their deflation.
I am sure that some individual’s life will be positively impacted by the “Making Home Affordable” program. But I believe that the full continuum of policies implemented, supposedly to solve our economic problem, will result in the Affordable Mortgage Depression being longer and deeper than it would otherwise have been. This is the primary reason that I began to offer up my perspective online.
For the record, I expect my published thoughts to have about as much impact on public policy as I believe “Making Home Affordable” will have on the foreclosure problem, so I anticipate many more Government initiatives designed to reward bad behavior or prevent the markets from clearing.
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