It's almost four years since the economy cratered, yet 11 million homes—accounting for 23 percent of all outstanding mortgages— remain underwater. The Obama administration's efforts to shore up the housing market by offering incentives for refinancing, rather than the government directly purchasing loans, has been an utter failure; countless homeowners have been left desperately negotiating with their lenders to modify the terms of their loan and more often than not, being tossed onto the street by mortgage servicers.
Job creators, job creators, job creators. That's all you hear from Mitt Romney and Congressional Republicans these days. For the most part, Republicans trot out the job creator (a figure spoken about with great veneration, but in fact a term coined and crowd-tested by GOP talking-point guru Frank Luntz) whenever large discussions on government spending or tax cuts come into play. But a quiet little hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill showed that this veneration trickles down to the most minute details of policymaking.
Mitt Romney's old ski lodge, aglow with the warm light of taxpayer subsidy.
Like a good liberal, I feel a tiny pang of guilt when I do my taxes every year and see how much the government is subsidizing my choice to buy a home. Not that I'm going to turn it down as long as it's in place, but the mortgage interest deduction is not easy to justify. Even if there are reasons to believe that homeownership is a good thing, that doesn't necessarily mean that the government should pay you thousands of dollars to do it, particularly when you were probably going to do it anyway.
We’re entering the 99 percent spring, with escalating actions starting across the country next Tuesday targeting America’s biggest tax dodgers. On April 24, shareholder actions will begin at General Electric, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and dozens of other corporations. Americans are renewing the fight to fix our economy and to hold the big banks accountable for the misdeeds that have left millions out of work and out of homes.
As winter fades, the Occupy Wall Street movement is heating up again. But don’t expect the same focus on physical encampments and rowdy protests. While the blood of the 99 percent is still boiling at the injustice of growing inequality, in organizing meetings and workgroups, cooler heads are prevailing. This is Occupy 2.0—the mainstreaming of momentum.
From my conversations with Occupy organizers and supporters, my sense is that the main thrust of organizing energy and attention will go toward Occupy Our Homes— a coalition of Occupy activists joining with existing grassroots groups to support families that are facing foreclosure or have been evicted by big banks. Prioritizing Occupy Our Homes is great choice for two reasons.
In the end, as at the start, Thursday’s deal between five big banks, the Department of Justice, and the attorneys general of 49 states came down to New York, the center of mortgage securitization and securities misrepresentation, and California, the center of mortgage mis-origination. Those states’ attorneys general—New York’s Eric Schneiderman and California’s Kamala Harris, both progressive Democrats elected in 2010—weren’t about the give the banks a pass. Which is why it wasn’t until two a.m. Thursday that the deal was finalized.
The long-awaited mortgage deal between the federal government, 49 state attorneys general, and five big banks that was announced Thursday is pretty thin gruel, but it could have been a lot worse.
Under the deal, the banks will provide relief to homeowners in a deal variously described as ranging from $25 billion to more than $40 billion. But a look at the fine print suggests that only about $5 billion cash will actually change hands. Some $1.5 billion will go directly to homeowners who went through foreclosure, with each receiving about $2,000. Other cash will go to states to help distressed homeowners.
After a year of talks and little action, government officials have worked out a potential $26 billion settlement with the nation's top five banks, the New York Times reported. The agreement could provide relief for up to two million Americans who have had their homes foreclosed on since September 2008; it totals up to $1,500 to $2,000 per borrower. The five banks involved—Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo—collectively handle 27 million mortgages. Although this move is a good way to help hurting homeowners, bigger problems with the process need fixing. “If you don’t do something to help the foreclosure process, it’s not going to help the housing market,” said Christopher J.
The SEC Doing Wall Street’s Bidding Robert Kuttner
In the right-wing revisionism of what caused the financial collapse, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are leading villains with the federal Community Reinvestment Act in a supporting role. Supposedly, Fannie and Freddie lowered their standards, purchased lots of subprime mortgages, and were major contributors to the housing bubble and crash. In this fable, government pressured banks to make unsound mortgage loans to meet the goals of CRA.
I happened to be flying on American Airlines the morning after the company declared bankruptcy. Exactly nothing bad happened to my flight. Nobody passed the hat to buy aviation fuel. The flight attendants offered the same dismal snacks. It was business as usual.
American will get to stiff its creditors, its employees, its pensioners, and sail happily onward, not even required to replace its managers. Chapter 11 filings are standard operating procedure when necessary in corporate America. In its full-page ads promising no disruption of service, American managed to avoid even the word "bankruptcy."
Lavine and his colleagues designed an online survey and got responses from a sample of about 800 citizens, including many who expressed sympathy for the Tea Party and many who did not. The survey asked about programs designed to help people who can’t keep up with their mortgage payments stay in their homes…
This week featured a vision of two different paths Occupy Wall Street could take after being evicted from public parks across the country. In Washington, D.C., activists from labor, Occupy, and elsewhere held a “99% in DC” event that began with a day of visits to congressional offices to demand jobs legislation. Occupiers then followed up by shutting down intersections on K Street, which is known for the number of lobbying organizations headquartered there.
With declining unemployment numbers, rising corporate profits and a growing GDP, many analysts say we’ve reached a turning point in the recovery. The Dow Jones is up 86% from its March 2009 low, private sector jobs are multiplying and export levels are approaching an all-time high. With statistics like these, you could almost believe the Republican argument that trimming billions from the federal budget won’t hurt a recovery.
