Annie
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- Nov 22, 2003
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Of course they'll be the ones bailed too, at the cost of the rest of us. Is it the poor? Not so much:
THE FORECLOSURE FIVE - New York Post
THE FORECLOSURE FIVE - New York Post
THE FORECLOSURE FIVE
By ALAN REYNOLDS
February 21, 2009 --
When President Obama discusses his $275 billion mortgage bailout, he talks as if it was a national problem, caused by a national decline in home prices. "We must stem the spread of foreclosures and falling home values for all Americans," he says. But there is no national market for homes and no national price for homes. Instead, most of the United States will pay for the folly of few.
The beneficiaries of taxpayer charity will be highly concentrated in just five states - California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Michigan. That is not because the subsidized homeowners are poor (Californians with $700,000 mortgages are not poor), but because they took on too much debt, often by refinancing in risky ways to "cash out" thousands more than the original loan. Nearly all subprime loans were for refinancing, not buying a home.
It turns out that the five states with by far the highest foreclosure rates have some things in common with each other, but very little in common with most other states...