$838 billion stimulus bill passes Senate

[Balta1701]

And if someone in your position got laid off, you'd be right there with the others having trouble making payments.

You should have known better than to get a job with a company that might lay you off or to buy a house when the value could go down and you could lose the job. You should be cowering in a cave somewhere. I promise, the bankers will take care of you.

[kapkomet]

I still say (and I'm beginning to think that this isn't Kaperbole ™ anymore) Balta, you should just give me 50% of your paycheck since you're all against free markets. If you're all into this "spreading the wealth", just give me your check because I'm certainly in the "needy" group now. Seeing as how you hate the system, you just need to comform to what I'm proposing.

 

 

 

[southsider2k5]

So basically you're saying that it allows the zombie bank to get some collateral back for the terrible loan it wrote and therefore it can stay quasi-alive as a zombie bank longer because of how long the foreclosure process takes.

 

I've explained this stuff every single way I know how. I have broken it down from a technical angle, even getting into capital ratios, and the affect that SOX has on those. I really don't know how else to explain it to you.

 

The fun part of this that everyone is totally missing is the effect this will have on corporate taxes. You can only carry a single loss so many years in accounting and taxes. If a bank writes off an asset, their window for using that as a write down is small. By forcing them to take a continual loss for years, maybe decades in many cases. I can't wait to see the assault in 5 to 10 years on companies for not paying their fair share of taxes, when it will be a governmental action, as usual, causing the problem.

[southsider2k5]

You should have known better than to get a job with a company that might lay you off or to buy a house when the value could go down and you could lose the job. You should be cowering in a cave somewhere. I promise, the bankers will take care of you.

 

This problem started long before the layoffs did. Also the value of a house going down has nothing to do with the payment you agreed to make being out of your budget. Plus if a person is unemployed, what housepayment are they going to be able to afford?

[StrangeSox]

This problem started long before the layoffs did. Also the value of a house going down has nothing to do with the payment you agreed to make being out of your budget. Plus if a person is unemployed, what housepayment are they going to be able to afford?

 

Hopefully they've planned for such circumstances and have 6-12 months worth of expenses saved up so that in the event that they are unemployed, they aren't missing payments after only a month or two.

Edited February 23, 2009 by StrangeSox

[southsider2k5]

Hopefully they've planned for such circumstances and have 6-12 months worth of expenses saved up so that in the event that they are unemployed, they aren't missing payments after only a month or two.

 

This is America, the home of the 1% savings rate. That isn't realistic at all.

[NorthSideSox72]

Hopefully they've planned for such circumstances and have 6-12 months worth of expenses saved up so that in the event that they are unemployed, they aren't missing payments after only a month or two.

Yes, having at least 6 months of money in cash or easily-liquidated assets for emergencies is essential. Of course, the flip side, is people of very low incomes often can't do this. But should those people even be able to purchase a house and get a mortgage?

 

I don't think the percentage of people who are in mortgage trouble who fit the conservative-painted target of a reckless over-leveraged speculator is very high. But neither is the percentage of people who had jobs and savings and at least 20% equity, but have somehow gotten in the hole by some pile of bizarre circumstance, or been deceived by the evil banks. I think those are the outliers. Most people are in between - stretched a little bit to get the house, lost a job or are now underemployed, didn't save quite enough, or maybe got hit with some unexpected event. So you've got a full spectrum in there.

 

Any mortgage saving bill should exclude speculators as much as possible, as a start. But no matter how you do it, I think it needs to be a painful process for those going through it. I know that sounds bad, but, you can't make this easy, or people will go right back to making the same mistakes. So, give them an out, but make sure its an uncomfortable out, so that they and everyone they know sees how painful it is to get in over their heads.

 

[Balta1701]

Any mortgage saving bill should exclude speculators as much as possible, as a start. But no matter how you do it, I think it needs to be a painful process for those going through it. I know that sounds bad, but, you can't make this easy, or people will go right back to making the same mistakes. So, give them an out, but make sure its an uncomfortable out, so that they and everyone they know sees how painful it is to get in over their heads.

So, if say, the only one who had the authority to forcibly rewrite a mortgage was a bankruptcy judge, such that things have already gotten so bad for you that you're already in bankruptcy and the only question now is whether or not you can keep your house, is that uncomfortable enough for you?

[NorthSideSox72]

So, if say, the only one who had the authority to forcibly rewrite a mortgage was a bankruptcy judge, such that things have already gotten so bad for you that you're already in bankruptcy and the only question now is whether or not you can keep your house, is that uncomfortable enough for you?

Yes, but, I think that will flood the system. I think it might be better to set up a mediation procedure within the courts for this purpose specifically. People looking for relief still need to do all the legwork and prepare a case, banks still need to work with the system, etc.

 

[Rex Kickass]

Even if the value of the home goes down to where they are backwards, they should be able to pay their mortgage. If they can't they either had some very unfortunate circumstances happen or they shouldn't have signed the note to begin with. I'd guess that the latter applies to the majority of those in default.

 

I don't disagree with you, but defaulting on the loan essentially means that the bank has 0 chance to recoup losses on a loan because the collateral is worth considerably less than it was when the loan was issued, no? So if the homeowner who might be in danger of default (but a helping hand could keep him on track), wouldn't that same helping hand in turn help the banks as well?

[Balta1701]

I don't disagree with you, but defaulting on the loan essentially means that the bank has 0 chance to recoup losses on a loan because the collateral is worth considerably less than it was when the loan was issued, no? So if the homeowner who might be in danger of default (but a helping hand could keep him on track), wouldn't that same helping hand in turn help the banks as well?

The claim that 2k5 is making is, as far as I understand it, no, because the bank that owned the loan would then have to take the write down, and the banks have made so many of these crappy loans that most of them don't have the money to cover the write down. But if the bank forecloses on it, then sells the house off to another bidder, instead of still having the loan on its books, the bank now has the actual funds from selling off that home on its books, and thus the zombie bank is kept alive for a while because it gets extra funds in to its system, while another, better-shape bank takes on the new loan. The overall loss to the whole system and to the economy may be greater, but to that specific, zombie bank, the extra funds could be more important.

[lostfan]

This problem started long before the layoffs did. Also the value of a house going down has nothing to do with the payment you agreed to make being out of your budget. Plus if a person is unemployed, what housepayment are they going to be able to afford?

That isn't really why I brought that up, though. I was just making a point.

[Iwritecode]

(to say nothing of the people who are losing their jobs and losing their homes as a by-product of all this).

 

What's sad is that those are the people that need the most help and aren't going to get it.

[kapkomet]

What's sad is that those are the people that need the most help and aren't going to get it.

*waves*

 

[HuskyCaucasian]

Emblems to Stamp Projects Funded by the Stimulus Package

President Obama announced today that his administration will begin stamping an emblem on projects funded by the economic stimulus package so that people can easily recognize the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

 

All projects will be stamped with the ARRA logo (short for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and lists the recovery.gov website on the emblem.

[southsider2k5]

Emblems to Stamp Projects Funded by the Stimulus Package

 

 

[StrangeSox]

 

 

I'm going to be honest, that's what came to mind for me, too.

[mr_genius]

 

[kapkomet]

This is one time I will give Nancy "Botox" Pelosi credit.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090312/pl_nm/...stimulus_pelosi

 

Pelosi dampens idea of second stimulus

 

By Jeremy Pelofsky Jeremy Pelofsky – 1 hr 50 mins ago

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi poured cold water on the idea of another economic stimulus package on Thursday amid suggestions that some Democrats had already begun work on one.

 

The top House Democrat said she first wanted to see how the $787 billion stimulus would help the ailing economy, and that additional legislation like the newly enacted $410 billion spending bill and other advancing measures would also help.

 

"I really would like to focus on the first one," Pelosi told reporters. "I think it's important that the American people and the Congress of the United States have confidence in the recovery package that we have passed."

 

Democrats heard diverging opinions from economists this week on whether another massive injection of federal dollars would be needed to pull the U.S. economy out of its downward spiral.

 

Speculation built when House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told CNN he was beginning to work on a package.

 

President Barack Obama has forecast that the stimulus package would create or save some 3.5 million jobs over two years, when a large majority of the package would be spent, although some economists have questioned that figure.

 

Pelosi left the door open to a second stimulus package.

 

"I don't think you ever close the door to being prepared for what eventuality may come, but I think that is not a near, near thing," she said. "It's just not something that, right now, is in the cards."

 

Republicans have pounced on the idea of a second stimulus, saying there has already been too much government spending in the first weeks of the Obama administration.

 

"My members are highly skeptical that we can spend our way out of this particular problem," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday.

 

But some others disagree. C. Fred Bergsten, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury, said there was a consensus that all major countries should undertake fiscal stimulus programs equal to 2 percent of GDP for each of the next two years, but "That's not enough."

 

"That goal was set several months ago ... and the global outlook is much worse than we thought at that time," he told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on trade.

 

Bergsten proposed that the G20 summit of industrialized and developing countries in London in two weeks commit to adopt fiscal stimulus programs, equal to about 3 percent each of their GDP for each of the next 2 years.

 

"That would require additional stimulus measures, even here in the U.S. and China, which have so far taken the lead," he said, adding that it would also require "lots more" stimulus in Europe and emerging markets.

 

"But without that we are not going to get anything like the needed recovery," Bergsten

 

This is probably a head fake, but at least it's out there.