Disqus - Latest Comments for foreclosurefish

Re: The Progress on Loan Modifications Isn’t Quite What It Seems

foreclosurefish — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:26:27 -0000

The Treasury will keep spinning the program as long as it can -- its job is to make its programs look great. But you're right about reading between the lines and looking for the information that is missing from the report: namely, the foreclosure rate. Servicing companies can do all the modifications they want, but if they are not helping to reduce the foreclosure rate through modification programs, then the program will not be a success... no matter how many months of cumulative gains there are.

Re: Can the FDIC take over my bank? Please?

foreclosurefish — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:45:06 -0000

A brief moment of relative sanity by the government compared to the banking industry. Maybe if lenders had gone through with such a revolutionary concept as providing assistance to homeowners in foreclosure, they wouldn't have failed in the first place. But that assumes banks had enough business acumen that they wouldn't have made so many loans to people with no income and helped inflate the housing bubble.

Re: The American Nightmare - Extreme Makeover House Going to Foreclosure

foreclosurefish — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:03:35 -0000

I agree with your assessment of the situation here. While most people seem to be blaming the family for its squandering of the gift, I don't think this is a very realistic way of looking at it.

The family got a home for free, and used this gift to try and start a business. If they had been successful and made millions, everyone would hold them up as an example of how wonderful the market and the system work. But since they failed, they just get scorn heaped upon them for the bad decision to believe in the real estate construction industry.

If they had ended up in foreclosure because they bought too many SUVs with their loan, or were paying of tens of thousands of dollars in credit cards and then spending on them again, they may not deserve much sympathy. But they tried to provide a service, and the business simply failed. Happens all the time in America.

Re: McCain Calls for Restraint in Mortgage Crisis

foreclosurefish — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:02:08 -0000

Good post, I agree with you. I wonder if McKeating -- I mean, McCain -- would urge the Fed to show restraint on handing out hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks to save them from the foreclosure crisis. Or maybe what McCain means is that the government should step in to save multinational banks from bankruptcy, but not step in to save homeowners from foreclosure.

I don't think a McCain government would be able to afford bailouts for banks or homeowners, though, with his promises of 1,000 year wars. That would really put the Fed's money-creation machine into overdrive, taking away potential bailouts from insolvent banks. With a currency backed by bad mortgage debt, more spending of any kind will be tough.

Re: Bear Stearns goes for $2…BEHOLD…The Financial Markets

foreclosurefish — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:21:06 -0000

I agree, I think Bear was allowed to fail into the hands of JPMorgan Chase. What JPMorgan gets out of this deal is not quite clear, but Bear has a large presence in Asia, and JPMorgan is trying to expand there. Will they just lay off all the American employees and keep the Asian operation? I guess all that remains to be seen.

The panic really seems to be setting into the markets now if the Fed is lowering rates on Sunday night to avoid declines in the Asian markets being reflected in the American economy. It's hard to remember when the market was completely free, but now it's completely under the management of the Federal Reserve and other central banks. It's also going out of control, but still being managed by the same people who let it get out of control.

It looks like Lehman is next, maybe followed soon after by Citi. Will the Fed let them feel the consequences of their self-defeating practices, or bail them out or allow them to fail softly?

Re: FOX ATTACKS! Edwards and Obama

foreclosurefish — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:26:47 -0000

Good for them standing up to the bias and hypocrisy of Fox News. If I was in their shoes, I wouldn't want my presidential campaign associated with a softcore porn television station.

Now that such a large percentage of Fox viewers believe 9/11 and Saddam Hussein were related, they start associating Barack Obama with -both- Hussein and the madrassa schools. Even propaganda uses elements of truth to shape perceptions of reality; Fox just makes things up knowing people will believe it because it's "on the news."