Not so long ago, a billion dollars was a lot of money. Now? Not so much. This morning, news on the wire says Obama is setting aside $75 billion to slow foreclosures. First of all, where did that $75 billion come from that he’s setting aside? Oh yeah: “committing $75 billion of taxpayer money to back the initiative.” Tax payer money. Right. Yours and mine. Helping slow down foreclosures.
Second, what’s the plan gonna look like?
“The plan I’m announcing focuses on rescuing families who have played by the rules and acted responsibly: by refinancing loans for millions of families in traditional mortgages who are underwater or close to it; by modifying loans for families stuck in sub-prime mortgages they can’t afford as a result of skyrocketing interest rates or personal misfortune; and by taking broader steps to keep mortgage rates low so that families can secure loans with affordable monthly payments,” President Barack Obama said in prepared remarks.
That sounds awesome. It’s a plan for people who played by the rules and acted responsibly. Anyone could support that, right? Oh wait a minute. “Refinancing loans for millions of families in traditional mortgages who are underwater or close to it”? Why would we do that? If they are in traditional mortgages, their payments aren’t going up and they aren’t at risk for foreclosure. They just happen to have an asset that is worth less than they paid for it. Why in God’s name would we try to artificially support the price of those assets? All that part of the plan will do is tempt normal people to try and get in on the government teat for a little milky goodnesss.
What about this part? “by modifying loans for families stuck in sub-prime mortgages they can’t afford as a result of skyrocketing interest rates or personal misfortune;” Hold it right there. Those people didn’t play by the damn rules. They bought too much house and they should be foreclosed on. They didn’t act responsibly. They acted irresponsibly. We’re rewarding people for being stupid which will only serve to encourage people to act stupidly in the future. Our government is like anti-evolution.
And that last sentence? “and by taking broader steps to keep mortgage rates low so that families can secure loans with affordable monthly payments,” In the name of all that is holy, that is the dumbest thing I have ever seen written in public. A) Mortgage rates are at AN ALL TIME LOW! Is the man so empty that he doesn’t know that? Or is he just counting on the fact that the American populace has become so numb and stupid to the entire fiasco that nothing will happen when he says something so stupid? On top of that, we don’t need broad steps to secure loans with affordable monthly payments. Throughout time immemorial, people had affordable monthly payments without 75 bill-ya-fucking-dollars worth of taxpayer money. They did that by BUYING HOMES THEY COULD AFFORD.
Here’s what we’re doing. We have a damn crisis that was caused by greed, stupidity and a whole wad of cheap money courtesy of Alan Greenspan. We’re fixing the crisis by giving stupid people more money instead of looking at them in the eye and saying, you are a stupid fool and you need to learn from this mistake. I cannot believe that people aren’t rioting in the streets over things like this. What scares me is that some day they will be. But it will be because the government has finally turned off the spigot and people, who by that time will have become surgically attached to the government largesse, will riot because they think they deserve a free ride.
I hope I live in Belize by then.