Five States Causing 50 Problems?

[catzmeow]

As a Floridian who has spent the last ten years here living within my means (even with the drop in home prices, I have twice as much equity in my home as I owe), I don't WANT federal dollars being spent on people who lived above their means. I live in a nice area, but not THE NICEST area in town. And, in driving through those really upscale areas, it's amazing how many homes are for sale because people couldn't afford to keep them. This isn't JUST about poor folks who couldn't afford a house. It is also about a lot of upper income folks who got greedy.

 

[garyd]

Of the five at least two are in a shambles from following the precise formulations Obama has laid out,large scale government large scale government spending ever higher taxes ever more regulations.

 

[Chris]

Let's get this straight....

Derivatives destroyed the world economy.

Warren Buffet called them "instruments of financial mass destruction" in 2003.

Click the link below to read about it...

BBC NEWS | Business | Buffett warns on investment 'time bomb'

 

[Annie]

As a Floridian who has spent the last ten years here living within my means (even with the drop in home prices, I have twice as much equity in my home as I owe), I don't WANT federal dollars being spent on people who lived above their means. I live in a nice area, but not THE NICEST area in town. And, in driving through those really upscale areas, it's amazing how many homes are for sale because people couldn't afford to keep them. This isn't JUST about poor folks who couldn't afford a house. It is also about a lot of upper income folks who got greedy.

Just the observation I was making about my own area. The McMansions are up for sale, with 'Price Reduced' signs on them. In the more modest areas, many fewer signs. In my own modest townhome area, the units are selling within weeks to a month for the most part. Seems some people are creating a demand for more affordable housing?

 

[garyd]

And without the almost wholly misunderstood housing crisis their are no derivitives blaming a symptom for the problem is assinine and derivitives which have been around for decades weren't the problem the value of those derivatives and the way in which they were used became a problem but only because the housing market itself had become horribly skewed.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

And without the almost wholly misunderstood housing crisis their are no derivitives blaming a symptom for the problem is assinine and derivitives which have been around for decades weren't the problem the value of those derivatives and the way in which they were used became a problem but only because the housing market itself had become horribly skewed.

You will learn trying to have a reasoned discussion with Chris is a waste of time.

 

[DiveCon]

And without the almost wholly misunderstood housing crisis their are no derivitives blaming a symptom for the problem is assinine and derivitives which have been around for decades weren't the problem the value of those derivatives and the way in which they were used became a problem but only because the housing market itself had become horribly skewed.

You will learn trying to have a reasoned discussion with Chris is a waste of time.

yup chris is a moron

 

[Chris]

And without the almost wholly misunderstood housing crisis their are no derivitives blaming a symptom for the problem is assinine and derivitives which have been around for decades weren't the problem the value of those derivatives and the way in which they were used became a problem but only because the housing market itself had become horribly skewed.

The problem was the leverged buying of stocks through the use of derivatives. This is exactly what brought about the crash in 1929.

Derivatives grew into a massive bubble, from about $100 trillion to $516 trillion by 2007.

Let me repeat that....

$516 TRILLION DOLLARS.

To put that in perspective the total GDP of all nations is $50 trillion.

You can read about it at the following link....

Derivatives are the new ticking time bomb - MarketWatch

 

[Vel]

If the state economies of those five states are in complete ruins, do you really think the rest of the nation won't also go into recievership?

We're all in this mess together.

That's why we're called the UNITED States of America.

Then we need to look at the policies that led those state economies to ruin. My guesss is distinctly unfriendly business policies and catering to large illegal alien populations thereby driving up their welfare, medical and educational costs.

 

[alan1]

As a Floridian who has spent the last ten years here living within my means (even with the drop in home prices, I have twice as much equity in my home as I owe), I don't WANT federal dollars being spent on people who lived above their means. I live in a nice area, but not THE NICEST area in town. And, in driving through those really upscale areas, it's amazing how many homes are for sale because people couldn't afford to keep them. This isn't JUST about poor folks who couldn't afford a house. It is also about a lot of upper income folks who got greedy.

Since you were responsible and took care of your obligations without going overboard, your reward will now be to pay for the irresponsible behavior of others.

 

[garyd]

No Chris it wasn't. Evrything from zoning boards to neighborhood rules limiting the minimum size of house you can build has driven the size of housing ot such heights that the average Americn under the old mortgage rules simply can't qualify to buy a knew home which in many states exceeds 300k in value.

The median income before the collapse was around 44k it is likely less now. That means more than half the population would be paying almost 3/4 of their income in mortgage payments every month under the old rules leaving damn little to pay for upkeep groceries and utilities.

 

[Newby]

Check out this story that was published in the New York Times in 1999, while Clinton was in the Whitehouse. Very telling....

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

 

[cbi0090]

This was what started it but no one, except McCain that is, protested for it to stop very loudly or, at least, loudly enough to stop it. That's the problem with our government and it doesn't matter what party it is. They aren't technicians manipulating the controls for us makeing sure we stay on solid ground, their surfers riding the wave of public opinion to where ever it takes them and if it's good, their freaking genius's, and if it's bad, it's always the other guys fault.