Barney Frank is screwing over the poor

[penguin7]

The attempt to keep housing prices at the crazy levels they have attained will keep the prices of everything else rising.

The high prices of gasoline and food really hurt the poor. Overpriced housing doesn't help too much either.

Gasoline probably should be high to protect the environment. We should be taxing gasoline and using the money for health care or high speed rail or something useful.

But high food prices are going to really hurt those in poverty and those in the middle class and everyone else.

We can feel bad for those that stretched too much to buy an overpriced house, but is it really a good idea to destroy the dollar trying to help them?

[aquart]

1. MUCH better they be homeless, of course!

[Taverner]

2. No, he's trying to save the middle class

[DJ13]

4. No, he's trying to save the banks and the stock market

Bill to Propose Expanded U.S. Backing of Home Loans

Published: March 13, 2008

An influential congressman is expected to offer a plan on Thursday that would provide federal backing to hundreds of thousands of home loans.

The proposal would significantly expand an effort already under way to refinance onerous subprime mortgages with loans that are guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration. The plan by the congressman, Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would be more aggressive in addressing delinquent loans.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/business/13mortgage.html?_r=1&ex=1363060800&en=e81f8b89840b1651&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

[Taverner]

5. Same thing

When the stock market falls, the middle class falls. When the banks fall, the middle class falls. Likewise, when the middle class falls, the stock market and banks fall.

It's a co-dependent relationship like no other in the history of man, but the two are tied at the hip.

[Vincardog]

6. Oh please, The stock market can tank and the average middle class family would say What?

The financial markets today are Ponzi schemes run for the benefit the rich and the corrupt.

[Taverner]

7. I must quote:

It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. THAT is the natural order of things today. THAT is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature. And YOU WILL ATONE. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America, and democracy. There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars.

The world is a business, Mr. Beale; it has been since man crawled out of the slime. Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality - one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock - all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

That's not optimal, mind you. But that is what is.

[Vincardog]

10. " It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. "

What a load of unadulterated BULLSHIT.
Finance is the process of extracting value without ever doing anything productive.

[Taverner]

11. Like it or not, money is stored energy

Labor energy, that is.

This is antithetical to Marx, but fits perfectly with a Keynesian outlook.

[Vincardog]

12. That may be but the international farce that is the money exchange is not

the determinant of quality of life on the earth.

[Taverner]

14. When money moves, it stimulates personal economies

The person moving, for example, gets a cut.

That, plus the way economic health is measured: growth.

[Vincardog]

16. growth is the way any cancer is measured. Expecting growth forever without regard for the ecologic

ramifications is the prescription for disaster. Look around at the results of unrestrained capitalism.
The Housing market the "safest" of all the capital reservoirs is tanking.
The US dollar the "worlds reserve currency" is in free fall.
Unemployment is at least 10% in spite of what the Enron accounts working for the busHItler clan want you to believe.
Inflation is out of control.

And you are here arguing for a policy that advocates growth as the only measure of economic prosperity?

Brother PLEASE

[Taverner]

17. Like it or not, it is the way prosperity is measured

Look - I'm not saying what should be. I'm saying what is .

I would love a more socialist system in place - its much better for the long haul of a nation. But there isn't, and so we must work with what we have.

[Vincardog]

19. That measure has resulted in denuded forests, earth warming, rising food prices and people starving

That along with fish stocks crashing and the oceans stretched beyond their capacity to recover from it. You better rethink your definition of "Prosperity".

[Taverner]

22. This is societies definition, not mine

And you can make anything you want into prosperity as you define it - but society, the world, our governments and our leaders follow this definition. All the wishing in the world will not change that.

[Vincardog]

24. You are the one I see pushing it.

[Taverner]

25. I am just showing you reality

I could live in a dream world where prosperity is marked by the number of smiles on your face, or the number of FrootLoops you collect on a chain - but that wouldn't be correct.

Society, our governments, our banks and our businesses define prosperity as growth. They also have made currency a dynamic representation of energy in exchangeable form. By basing it on the markets, they are opening themselves up to lots of problems down the line, and growth cannot sustain itself forever. This was Marx's big problem with capitalism.

However, short of a series of Marxist revolutions worldwide, all at once, this is the way things will be. You can elect those who try to make this system work for more people (Democrats) or you can elect people to hoard all the resources (GOP) but in the end, the system is the system, and as much as you don't like it, it is.

[Vincardog]

27. Who made "showing me reality" your job? WTF do you have to say to any of the points I raised?

[earth mom]

9. Bingo. Congress doesn't give a damn about the middle class & they've proved it over & over again.

All Congress is trying to do is save their rich cronies and the status quo. That's it.

[NashVegas]

20. Delaying The Inevitable

The housing market is going to drop no matter what happens, as all ponzi schemes eventually collapse when they run out of takers. There are only so many people who earn enough to buy a (minimum priced) $200k home with payments that are 25-30% of their net income, and we're running out of people who are willing enough to buy a place where they'd have to spend %50 of their income for the monthly payment.

[Donnachaidh]

3. PLEASE post a link? n/t

[KharmaTrain]

8. Throwing Billions Away Each Day In Iraq Sure Doesn't Help

Something has to be done about the housing market before even more people end up homeless and neighborhoods are ruined as homes either deteriorate or squatters move in and ruin the places...really messing up whatever's left in the equity in a home. Stabilizing the housing and lending market will keep things from sliding further...and keep people off the streets. There's a silent depression going on as millions face total bankruptcy...between the collapse of the dollar and savings, the rise in gas and other basic expenses and ever growing debt. This bubble has long needed to be burst, and it's gonna be painful, but it may just be the best thing that happened to this country as it will force large corporations into collapse and open up new opportunities.

As long as we squander money in Iraq, the defecit will grow, the dollar will continue to fall, oil prices will continue to rise as will food prices and the pain will be felt on the middle and lower classes. Less money means less jobs...not that many people had full employment in the first place...one income will have to replace two. I wish I could say thing will get better, but the excesses of the 80s, 90's and the boooosh years are now coming home to roost.

What this country does need is a new works program...rebuilding the infrastructure, developing alternative energy on a massive scale, improving education and health care. We've seen what "privitizing" has done to screw up this country...now it's time to fix it like back in the 1930s with some good old socialism. That should scare the shit out of the wingnuts.

[Breeze54]

13. What are you talking about? - Link, please. n/t

[El Pinko]

15. Couldn't agree more.

I was in a position to take a liar loan and buy a house but could not afford in 2005, but I KNEW I would not be able to afford it so I kept renting. If everyone with my kind of income in CA and FL had done likewise, there WOULD HAVE BEEN NO BUBBLE. I don't blame this entirely on borrowers - there were a lot of guys with MBAs sweet-talking them into these gimmicks, but I'm sorry, if you make $40K, you should have the sense to understand that you simply cannot afford a $400k house. Now those borrowers are to be rewarded for their irresponsibility, and I get screwed at the pump and the supermarket because the dollar is worthless.

To hell with any sort of bailout for these people. It's just going to prolong and worsen the inevitable anyway.

[taught_me_patience]

18. I'm in the exact same position

and feel the same way. You're all over this housing bubble. I worked for CFC (subprime marketing) in 2003-2004 and can say that I personally saw the most heinous loans being made.

[TahitiNut]

23. "if you make $40K ... you simply cannot afford a $400k house"? Wrong.

If you only make $40K, you cannot afford a $400k MORTGAGE. There are plenty of people in circumstances where they're in houses with a $400K market value and their incomes are at or around $40K. Some trade up from homes in which both sweat and inflation have created equity. Some get a big down payment from parents. It's the indebtedness, not the market value of the home.

The old rule-of-thumb is that one's mortgage should not exceed three times one's gross annual income.

[bobbolink]

21. Try for some consistency.

"Gasoline probably should be high to protect the environment."

You complain about a law-maker who was trying to get the National Housing Trust Fund Act passed, but then you push your own version of a regressive tax that hurt poor people much more than it hurts you!

Before recommending actions that hurt poor people, how about doing some actual research on how effective it is?

Studies show that higher gas taxes DO NOT reduce the amount of usage.

So, why are you recommending this?!

Do you care about how many poor people lose jobs from even one cent of tax?

Think. It only hurts for a short while.

[napi21]

26. Actually, I think it's more the fault of the devaluation of the Dollar!

I heard someone on "Your Money" today saying that the US made a deal with OPEC many years ago that oil will be bought & sold in US Dollars. Since the dollar has dropped so much compared to all the other monies, that alone boosts the price of oil. When we buy all the imports including food, the value of the dollar hits them hard too! I sure can't blame the value of the USD on Barney Frank!