The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make
more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that
officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could
open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first
place.
President Obama’s economic advisers and outside experts
say the nation’s much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind, including young people
looking to buy their first homes and individuals with credit records weakened
by the recession.
In response, administration officials say they are working
to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of
taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing
Administration — that insure home loans against default.
Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to
provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they
will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier
borrowers who meet government standards but later default. . . .
Editor’s notes: so
goes the WashingtonPost.com article. I find
it humorous that the Post would continue the fantasy of a resurgent housing
recovery when it references an article directly from the Fed that includes
these words:
Turning
first to underwater homeowners, although the actual number of these homeowners
is unknown--plausible estimates range fairly broadly from 7 million to
14 million--it seems clear that some are unable or unwilling to sell their
homes because they lack the funds to carry out the transactions or are reluctant
to realize losses. As a result, some potential sellers have not responded to
the signs of housing market recovery by putting their properties on the market.
The number of single-family homes for sale has fallen to its lowest level in a
decade, which has likely contributed to the recent house price gains. Indeed,
cities that started 2012 with an outsized share of underwater homeowners have
seen some of the largest price increases.
What a shock. The Fed
is admitting that we do not know how many folks are “under water” as to the value of their homes versus what
they owe. That number could be 7
million, or it could be 14 million. Why not 16 million or 20 million? But,
instead of saying, “We don’t know
how bad things are,” the Post brags
about the recovery. But, more than this admission, is the fact that the housing market is not in
recovery. How could it be when housing
sales are at a 10 year low according the Washington Post article, itself ?
Worst yet, is the
fact that B Obama has not learned the lessons of the 2007-08 fiscal collapse
and the accepted reasons for that collapse.
Even the writers at the Post find
themselves admitting that these lessons are being ignored by B. Obama. Keep in mind that our article, quoted
above, has as is opening thought, the fact that “ . . . . . that skeptics say [Obama’s new
housing finance policies] could open the
door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.”
The problem with Utopian ideals is this: we simply do not live in an Utopian
world. Folks like B. Obama refuse to accept this reality and in
their refusal, are taking this country
down the toilet.
In a debate with Hillary Clinton and hosted by Charles
Gibson, the point was made by the
host, that on every occasion in which
corporate taxes were lowered , business
surged and paid taxes to the government increases. Obama’s shocking response? He didn’t care. The fact remained, according to Obama’s thinking, that such an arrangement was patently unfair
to the smaller, non-corporate taxpayer; to hell with the societal benefit of
increased Federal revenues. Obama chose “fairness”
over a real solution for no good reason whatsoever. “Fairness” does not pay the bills, and we have more than four years of evidence
to that conclusion.
Time for serious talk of impeachment. The
charge? Abject buffoonery.
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