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2008-09-30 Home Front Economy

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Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-30 16:59|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 Excellent! This is precisely what congress must do.

Posted by Besoeker 2008-09-30 17:31|| 2008-09-30 17:31|| Front Page Top

#2 Republican WHIP e-mail.

Posted by Besoeker 2008-09-30 17:37|| 2008-09-30 17:37|| Front Page Top

#3 I just forwarded this to my Senators and my Congressman.

Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-30 18:01|| 2008-09-30 18:01|| Front Page Top

#4 My Congressman John Duncan voted against the House bill.

Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-30 18:02|| 2008-09-30 18:02|| Front Page Top

#5 Congress also needs to repeal the Community Re-investment Act (Or at least the 1995 amendments).

(See the "Burning Down the House" video)

Posted by Frozen Al 2008-09-30 18:07|| 2008-09-30 18:07|| Front Page Top

#6 Insurance is the same as bailout.

Re-writing the loan provisions will do nothing unless loan balances are reduced or mortgage rates reduced to below market. The core problem in subprime is that people bought homes who couldn't afford them. After Freddie and Fannnie lending rules were loosened up home ownership rates in the U.S. went from 64% to 68%. Those last four percent of U.S. households cannot afford their homes. I don't have any problems re-writing their loans as long as the lenders bear the cost. Taxpayers shouldn't.

Eliminating the mark to market rule is good, but needs to include all mortagages. Even if mark to market is eliminatd for subprime, accounting rules (and common sense) require that they be marked down when they become delinquent. Eliminating mark to market for prime loans and non-delinquent loans is much more important because they are a bigger part of the market and their market values are being hurt by the flight to quality. Moving them back to amortized cost would restore many balance sheets and capital positions.

Waiving capital gains taxes is a good idea. That could be expanded beyond mortgages and offered to purchasers of new equity in financial firms. Many will need to be recapitalized to be able to begin lending again.

Posted by DoDo 2008-09-30 18:13|| 2008-09-30 18:13|| Front Page Top

#7 DoDo is correct. Insuring the mortgages is won't be cheap, either. At it will cost a helluvalot more than 50 billion.

Posted by Mike N. 2008-09-30 19:45|| 2008-09-30 19:45|| Front Page Top

#8 "a. Roll all back payments with no late fees or legal costs into the balance. This brings homeowners current and allows them a chance to keep their homes."

um, these would be the folks who bought homes they couldn't afford? Explain again why we need to save them from their own cupidity?

Posted by Ebbomp McGurque5198 2008-09-30 20:11|| 2008-09-30 20:11|| Front Page Top

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