***BANKS ASKING FOR GOVERNMENT BAILOUT!!!***

Banks need to fail if they screw up and the people who run them (some of them anyway) should be arrested.

I've attached the following editorial for you.
I've written before about how many Americans feel entitled to a comfortable ride through life and then rush to dole out the blame when things get bumpy.

Now this entitlement culture is on display again with the mortgage crisis. Some elected officials, particularly those on the presidential campaign trail, are promising to bail out lenders and borrowers, freeze interest rates and stop home foreclosures.

Consider the recent installment of CBS' “60 Minutes,” which offered a critical look at the wave of foreclosures sweeping across much of the country. What bothered me were profiles of young couples who, once they could no longer afford the mortgage payments and discovered they couldn't refinance because they owed more than the house was worth, simply abandoned their homes, skipping out on their agreement with the loan company.

Never mind that they signed a contract. Never mind that no one ever promised them that their home would continue to go up in value or they'd be off the hook if that was no longer true. Never mind that someone – namely, their parents – should have taught them that when you borrow money, you pay it back.

Not that we don't have an interest in keeping people in their homes. We do. If many Americans are “house poor” because they're struggling to keep up with payments that have grown by as much as 50 percent in recent years and they're locked into subprime loans, then that means they'll have less money to spend on groceries, clothing or auto repairs. That means less money going into the pockets of merchants and others. And if people lose their homes, they'll wreck their credit, and that's bad for them but also bad for the rest of us. It'll make it harder for them to buy, for instance, a car on credit in a few years, which isn't good news for people who sell cars or those who sell things to people who sell cars.

It's one of those societal problems with no easy and pain-free solutions being pushed along by an angry public that wants easy and pain-free solutions.

The Democratic presidential candidates are eager to please. One offers a bandage: Hillary Clinton wants to impose a moratorium on foreclosures for 90 days and freeze mortgage interest rates for five years. The other offers a bailout: Barack Obama proposes a $10 billion home foreclosure prevention fund “to bridge lender and borrower” so that people can stay in their homes.

When asked about the issue during last week's CNN Republican presidential debate near Simi Valley, John McCain took a somewhat saner approach. He said lenders must “return to the principle that you don't lend money (to people) who can't pay it back.” McCain said there are “some greedy people on Wall Street who perhaps need to be punished” and urged that there be more transparency. He also said that, ideally, a mortgage “should be one page . . . (with) big letters at the bottom that says, 'I understand this document.' ” Lastly, McCain implied that any bailout should be limited to “people who were eligible for better terms but were somehow convinced to accept the mortgages which were more onerous on them.”

McCain is on the right track – especially about this part: The only people who deserve assistance are those who should have qualified for a better deal than they got. And, even then, the most government should do is freeze or readjust mortgage rates. It shouldn't pay out a dime. Those who had bad credit and had to turn to the subprime market to purchase a home should never have been buying in the first place. And if you bail them out, what are the chances that they'll wind up in a similar scrape down the road?

Thanks to unscrupulous lending practices where a lot of people made a lot of money by preying on others, and where many of those predators most certainly belong in jail, we now have a situation where many homeowners can't afford to stay in their homes. But make no mistake. We can't afford a wholesale bailout – not just because of the cost to government, but because of the cost to our society and the principles that hold it together.

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Navarrette can be reached via e-mail at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

This is the kind of thinking of socialists. To those of us who have lived within our means, paid back our loans. and sacrificed the nice things in life..and not kept up with the Joneses, this is a true slap in the face. Meanwhile because of the loose Fed policies prices of everything kept rising keeping us further from financial freedom. (That's their real goal) Remember, one of George Bush's early goals was to increase home ownership in America. This is in a lot of ways his fault. He asked for this.

If you continue to reward bad behavior you get more of it. Converting subprime mortgages to FHA backed ones does nothing but guarantee taxpayers will be on the hook for people who can't manage their finances. All it does is shift the risk from the idiot bankers to the taxpayer. Hell No. Better write your congressmen and senators today. I will.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173

Congress needs to repeal the anti-modification provision of 11. U.S.C. §1322(b)(2). In English, this would mean allowing people who file Chapter 13 bankruptcy to "cram-down" (modify) their mortgages to pay the creditor under different terms than those contained in the original contract. One would be able to modify the interest rate to the Till rate (based on a U.S. Supreme Court case Till v. SCS Credit Corp.) which is the Wall Street Journal prime rate plus 150 basis points (currently 7.5%). If one is upside down in their mortgage, one would be able to strip the lien to extent the claim exceeds the value of the property. Currently, §1322 prevents this. This one change would allow an orderly procedure for anyone who truly needs the relief to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy and get the relief.

John A. Flynn

That's true hyperinflated dollars will pay off a house real quick, the problem is that you have to have them first. Most of them are in the hands of foreign Central banks. China, Japan, Brazil, ect.... So the houses will probably be bought, but not by Americans, the neighborhood will soon be speaking Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian, ect.... Probably making great deals now with the houses falling in value. And the best part of all this is they can bring money back into the country and don't have to pay taxes on the money nor business taxes for X number of years if they invest in a business. Saudi Arabian citizens and others have been taking advantage of this loophole for years. Buy a business and don't pay taxes on it for 10 years, then sell it to your cousin for another ten, then to an Aunt ect..............
America for sale, bring your parents and we'll put them on welfare to boot, not!