I WANT a national bank. You bet I do. Do it now.

[Waiting For Everyman]

That's my reaction to several tv comments I've heard that "this could be the end of the private banking system", if we don't bail them out.

So? :shrug:

Put a national bank in place alongside the private ones, and let them stand or fall as they may. Those on the righthand side of the spectrum who hate the Federal Reserve (justifiably) might even be willing to join us in that effort.

I see no big advantage in having a Federal Reserve, or in jacking up interest rates with private profit for middlemen - especially when that profit is nowhere in the realm of justifiable. THEY are the risk, not our homeowners. I'd start with a Home Owners' Loan Corp. as Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, and many noteworthy economists suggest, refinacing mortgages out of this problem and bundling them for sale in UNTRANCHED pools... tranching and derivatives ARE the problem.

Refinancing them out would give banks "relief" the right way, and there is no other way to modify mortgages. It can't be done any other way except by refinancing them - which the banks refuse to do. No matter what lawmakers say, or what they believe, or expect from their talks with bankers, "modifying" mortgages in a tranched pool can NOT be done. The bankers (including Paulson and Bernanke) are lying to them about modifying mortgages to give homeowners relief. It won't happen. It can't. It's nothing but empty wishful thinking on Congress' part, believing that from the bankers. It's a lie. There is no other way out of this foreclosure crisis. And the longer it continues, the WORSE it will get - 10,000 foreclosures per day. The banks have homeowners locked into these unpayable mortgages, and they want it that way, and they can't be changed except by refinancing them. That's the truth which no one is saying, and very few know.

But none of these banks have been doing refinances for months now, and they won't start unless it's again at SKY HIGH RATES (and tranched once again!). What in the heck does that solve? Homeowners already have predatory loans, what do we need with more of the same?

We NEED a New Deal style mortgage program. It needs to be @2% over the cost of money, and there's no reason it shouldn't be, if the government is backing them and if we aren't paying private middlement to play "risk games". "Risk" by their definition isn't the point anymore. Risk has already happened and we're beyond risk already, into crisis - the point is stopping the crisis. Refinances can be done in an orderly way by the government without unreasonable defaults, as it always used to be. (Then we would know what we're buying, and we'd have the collateral. Under these other bailouts, we have zero collateral because we won't get the mortgages notes.) This is not the time to overcharge people who are overcharged already, and the bankers have no intention of doing anything but that.

I'm not a banker, but I was a real estate agent back when banking was done with some common sense, so I may not know everything but I do know something about this, and what a lending system that worked was like. Also I know the banks aren't doing refinances b/c I've been looking for one since Spring. A very few are happening but nowhere near normal levels and nowhere near enough to stop this crisis - and nobody in the industry expects the non-lending to change no matter what law is passed.

These banks will have to be ordered to do refinances in this law or some other one, and at reasonable rates, or it won't happen! I guarantee they won't do it voluntarily at reasonable rates, they'll scream "risk" and jack them up to cover more of their looting - AGAIN. Otherwise just as it is now, they'll continue sitting on all the liquidity they get, it will not go where it needs to go, the right way.

I say the hell with them, it's time to have a National Bank of the United States. And I think we'd have some allies on the other side for that. This is an opportunity to get that friggin' albatross off our backs once and for all. "Smaller government" should begin by cutting ALL subsidies for private banks... including letting the Federal Reserve control our money supply.

Our currency is already effectively backed by our mortgages as it is now anyway - that's not what I say, that's what the macro-level industry says. We'd damn well better protect them then, and quickly. And our economy is 40% dependent on real estate. This isn't optional, it's a must.

The banks have been intentionally killing our economy and our homeowners and other borrowers just to feed their infinite greed, and even in the face of this disaster they have no intention of changing that - just as their Repub proponents have no intention of changing their tune either. If we expect anything but more of what they've already done, we're beyond stupid. They will never participate in being part of the solution. They ARE the problem.

[eridani]

1. Send this to your congresscritters. Reformat for an LTE or guest editorial

Snail mail will have to do--I think it's too long for email.

[Hekate]

2. 10th Rec. Send this on to the morning crowd.

:kick:

Hekate

[Demeter]

3. This Argument Goes Back to Andrew Jackson

and based on the last 100 years (almost) of the Fed Reserve, the problem isn't the banking system so much as the lack of regulation that the GOP inflicted on the machinery. It's no surprise that without the safety switches engaged, the banking system is shaking itself apart, like a steam engine without the governor.

It is profoundly annoying that the Fed didn't bother to impose regulations when Congress was gleefully repealing all theirs.

[FreakinDJ]

4. I would settle for an end to Reagenomics Trickle Down Theory

Bring back the regulations that kept our markets safe and fair

[femmedem]

5. Thank you. My mortgage rate can rise to up to 14% in the next few years.

For three years we've been able to make our payments at 7.25%, but beginning in December it will rise 2% every six months.

When our mortgage broker initially told me the rate he'd found for us, he never mentioned that it was adjustable. We were closing on the house very fast--the seller was leaving the country. I didn't receive the mortgage papers until the day before the closing. After I read them, I called the broker in a panic. (I had not known such bad terms even existed.) He said, "Don't worry. In three years you'll just refinance." We didn't want to lose the house and we didn't want to cause huge problems for the seller. So here we are.

I would be upset with a plan that allowed banks to keep doing this, and which didn't have provisions for people like me to renegotiate their mortgages to fair terms.

[jtrockville]

6. Nationalism is an appropriate response to MARKET FAILURE

[InkAddict]

7. Outsourcing, job loss, and medical expenses have made

many, past (within the last 8 years) and present, homeowners unable to qualify for a refinanced/restructured mortgage, even if they may still be able to "afford" their homes. In spite of the revised bankruptcy bill, many were forced to go that route just to eat, making huge sacrifices along the way in a desperate attempt to save their living arrangements.

Why should only those that made it through to the present be the only recipients of a "rescue" should Congress include assistance at the lower end? Indeed, in the face of a far-reaching threat of job loss/change, how will lender(s) ascertain who has enough income/reserve/stability to qualify for home ownership?

Will bankers and their corporate carpetbaggers be bothered to maintain the volume of homes on the market until whole neighborhoods of persons quality to own or will these previously homeowned neighborhoods be turned into rental communities owned by a single slum landlord corporation who takes little interest in their properties that will still need season-to-season and long-term maintenance and upgrades for, say, things like energy efficiency, outdoor paint, crumbling driveways?

I'd like to see the 7-10 year punitive penalties on credit scores "forgiven" or the total elimination of the FICO scores that were used to universally flush participants or make things like car insurance/home insurance/lease eligibility next to impossible to be reissued or maintained. Knowing now that this was not the fault of the worker, our leaders need to address how persons can get back on their feet in the face of such punitive measures following foreclosures and bankruptcies.

The bankers did bad, bad, business and someone(s), perhaps the CEOs, reaped the fruits of our labors (that's theft by organized crime). I'm in no mood to hand over more taxpayer funds so they can feel comfortable stealing still more.