Nonlocal news round-up - December 6th
Posted By Chad Jones in Square Pegs on December 6, 2007
State: In a speech today at College Station, Texas, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tried to explain why Mormonism is pretty cool and should not freak you out.
Outside the bubble:
UN officials in Sudan plan to discuss Darfur peacekeeping force. Iraqi villagers protest near Baghdad against attacks by al-Qaeda in Iraq. General Petraeus says violence in Iraq has decreased 60% in the past six months. The U.S. House of Reps passed a bill saying that anyone who offers a Wi-Fi connection must report illegal images, including obscene cartoons. Meanwhile, the Senate passed a bill to set caps on greenhouse gas emissions. New York's Roman Catholic Church has published an informative pedophilic coloringbook.
And you can rest easy now; Irish police have caught the Guinness bandits.
Scott Doyle says:
Let us not forget Bush's <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0135696720071206">ri-freakin-diculous sympathy</a> for people with no accountability whatsoever.
*"There's no perfect solution and the homeowners deserve our help," Bush said.*
How in the hell do they deserve anything but a hefty payment when their rates inevitably increase? I think I might snap if this goes into effect. Am I the only person who's furious that this is even being considered? <b>Listen to yourselves</b>:
Borrowers would be eligible if they can show that they are a reasonable credit risk, could not afford their homes with higher rates and live in their homes, an effort to weed out investors who took speculative risks.
This is the biggest investment of almost every person's life, and they just get bailed out after they willingly gamble on their <i>homes</i>? Living within your means for a fixed rate is just too damn much to ask?? I can't begin to explain the feeling I have at the moment. Must...vent....frustration!
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CastleHills says:
Scott, look at the big picture. Most people out there have no financial education or knowledge at all. Let's say they make $6000 a month. Here comes Countrywide Mortgage, saying "look, here's a loan for a big house..and your payment is only $2500 a month!" Then Countrywide mumbles under their breath, "ohyeahpaymentswillincreaseto$4000amonthifinterestratesgoupor in7yearswhichevercomesfirst, signhere."
Home buyer Joe Smith says, "uh, yeah, OK" and signs on the line. He has no idea what he is signing up for. Then, interest rates go up, and he finds out, to his shock, what he really signed up for when he bought the big house.
Yes it's Joe's fault, but it's also partly the fault of the lender for making Joe believe he can afford the big house.
I'm not in favor of an ongoing bailout. But it seems that in a perfect storm like we have now--property values down, country all f'd up, a criminal for president who has gotten almost 4000 of the mortgage-payors killed in an unjust war and shipped the jobs of the ones still alive off to India---that extraordinary measures are needed to keep the lower- and middle-classes from starting a revolution.
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Scott Doyle says:
Castle, they're just passing the buck. They don't have financial knowledge b/c they don't try to obtain it, not b/c it's difficult to grasp or find. And you don't really need a financial education to know that adjustable means it'll change.
At the end of the day, it's the lender's interest to suck you into the biggest loan you can possibly pay for month-to-month...and they commence front-loading the interest b/c of the default risk that they're well aware of. Blaming them for Joe Smith's laziness and ignorance is juvenile at best.
It's a free market for a reason - it should be allowed to correct itself.
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