When "Homeowners" are Really Just Renters

I'd like to be clear on a point that relates to my previous post.

If you put $0 down and only pay off interest on a mortgage, you are NOT a home owner. You are simply renting. The fact that you signed a 20-30 year lease with no control over what your rent is was a dumb idea.

You are not being foreclosed upon and losing your home, you simply cannot pay your increased rent and need to move somewhere that is affordable for you. You never owned a piece of that house.

That said, the bailout is an absurd concept for either its intended or actual use.

It was intended to help give free money to people that cannot afford the mortgage/rent on their "homes". Why do renters get no support for being responsible and not entering a 30 year lease they cannot afford?

The actual use of the bailout thus far is to give free money to banks who helped create this financial nightmare in the first place via predatory lending and absurd leverage rations of 30:1.
Banks of course do not deserve this money and by giving it to them, we have only set the precedent that they should be irresponsible in the future. It's a great deal, bankers profit on the way up (capitalism), and we pay on the way down (socialism).

The best part is that instead of helping the economy have enough money to qualify for legitimate loans, we gave the money to banks at a very low interest rate or for free, so they could then loan us our own tax dollars at 14% interest. So at best, we are being scammed by the government and banks for our own tax dollars, and at worse they are just keeping the money and refusing to give out loans altogether.

To review: You pay taxes --> Government gives your taxes to banks --> Banks give you back some of your own money at a high interest

Wait to go Mr. Paulson, just because you live in an outdated and failed model for the finance world, it doesn't mean that a financial TARP solution is the best way out of the current mess (it's just the only idea you could come up with).

In the future, if we really consider banks (and car companies) too big to fail, then they need to be broken up into smaller pieces before they are able to be some important. Just as we deny mergers to prevent monopolies, we must not allow banks or any other company to be so big that they cannot "fail". If the short term growth of the company and the stock markets is limited, that is a small price to pay for responsible long term management of the country and our finances.

Congress might finally pass bankruptcy court bill: Way Too Late, but Hopefully not too Little

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123144562914865337.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

There are a number of things wrong with this whole situation, but I'll just point to a couple:
1. This could (and should) have happened a long time ago and done a lot of good
2. Why the F&$k does CitiGroup have any impact on whether or not a bill passes?

The first is a big deal, but the 2nd is just so absurd, so I'll begin there.

I'm not naive, we all understand that corporate America has too much influence on Congress, but it's like everyone stopped even pretending to hide that fact. Basically, everyone in Congress knew it was a good idea, but wouldn't push the bill forward for fear of upsetting one of the banks that caused this housing nightmare in the first place? That is of course after they gave them billions of our tax dollars.

So basically, Congress gave them a ton of money and was still too afraid to just ONCE make a decision to help the actual people that voted for them? I know it takes money to get elected and that is what sucking up to banks is for, but really, don't these guys even pretend to care about Americans?

1. To summarize what this is about, basically the only thing that is not legally negotiable in bankruptcy is your primary house's mortgage. This was a not huge problem when this began because you could just go to the local bank and try renegotiate. However, with the securitized nightmare of mortgages we now have, that is impossible, even when it is better for "homeowners" and banks. (fyi, this means that rich people with multiple houses have always been free to do this, just not the people that own just the one measly house).

This could have happened months ago, even before the sub-prime crisis hit, but it was forever being blocked by republicans. Now that there is a new Senate, it has life again. I watch a lot of CSPAN and this was discussed in the House/Senate months ago with the general acceptance that it won't go anywhere because there were not enough votes (apparently, that meant that Citigroup didn't like the idea...).

Democrats have plenty of faults, but this was a good idea a long time ago and it seems everyone knew it, but as long as the guys in charge (e.g. bankers that have screwed the country over 6 ways from Sunday) disagreed, it couldn't go anywhere. Having a huge majority and a new president that isn't (I hope) owned by lobbyists and big business might allow our government to start to finally make some intelligent decisions.

Change is: Making logical decisions that ironically enough put "Country First"

That said, everyone should join and actively support Change Congress: http://change-congress.org/
because the President is a good start, but a corrupt congressional process needs to be fixed and you can help.