Tag: President Obama

Andrew Comments On The Post – HAMP (Home Affordability Modification Program) Disastrous!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics

The original post was “HAMP (Home Affordability Modification Program) Disastrous!”

Here are Andrew’s thoughts –

Part of the reason I didnt vote for Obama is because he is a good orator, but I dont think he understood any of what he was actually saying.

Its not the “political system”. Its the inexperience and incompetence of the president that is causing this.

I think part of the problem is that our government is so complicated that the average layman cannot take the time to fully understand how it even works. This creates a smokescreen that allows these politicians to do as they please. Its easier to snatch cookies out of the cookie jar when noone can see you, right?

The financial industry is the same way. Worse if you ask me. There is so much red tape and smoke being blown that it seems like most banks EXPECT the average working man to not have a clue as to how banks and financing work. A perfect example of this was when I applied for the mortgage on my home. The loan officer was going through the paperwork with me (she was a very nice lady, by the way). When we got to the interest rate, I stopped her and asked her “Is this number here (pointing to the sheet of paper) the nominal or effective interest rate?” She seemed utterly astonished at this! She said in the 8 years that she has been a loan officer, she has never run across anyone else, who did not work in the banking industry, who understood that distinction. That suprised me.

If the American people dont even understand the problem, then how can we effectively judge how well the administration is doing to actually fix the problem. This creates an environment so that the President can attend to his own agenda and, like you said, let good PR cover up the fact that he doesnt seem interested in actually fixing the problem.

The Vast Majority Of Foreclosures Were Done Correctly?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, White Collar Crime3 Comments

We have been told over and over again during the last few weeks that the vast majority of foreclosures were done correctly. The White House and the various cabinet departments have echoed this claim.

This is all very odd. Since, the foreclosure documents were in hundreds of thousands of cases not even looked at, how would the banks or the Obama Administration know how many were done correctly?

They can’t. It’s impossible for them to have such knowledge.

Why would they say so? I suppose it’s a matter of faith, a belief that these huge institutions are run by competent, moral people. Faith is not a good substitute for factual data.

Well, new information is coming in. I have predicted that this kind of data would be coming in and here is the first.

From the New York Daily News –

Thousands of foreclosures across the city are in question because paperwork used to justify the seizure of homes is riddled with flaws, a Daily News probe has found.

Banks have suspended some 4,450 foreclosures in all five boroughs because of paperwork problems like missing and inaccurate documents, dubious signatures and banks trying to foreclose on mortgages they don’t even own.

So, 4,450 botched mortgage foreclosures have been found in five boroughs. That hardly squares with the idea that virtually all foreclosures were done correctly.

Here’s what one of the judges said, (again from the article) – Schack told The News he expects to see more paperwork snafus. “It’s like an onion we keep peeling,” he said. “It seems to be layers and layers of problems.”

Do you believe that the vast majority of foreclosures were done correctly?

I expect much more data to come out and it will not be to the foreclosure industry’s benefit. Nor will the Obama administration escape blame for its ridiculous unsupported claims about the crisis.

James Pilant

HAMP (Home Affordability Modification Program) Disastrous!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, White Collar Crime3 Comments

What a shock!

The Administration’s signature program to help homeowners is not working.

The banks get a 700 billion dollar bailout with no questions asked and the homeowner goes through mountains of paperwork and winds up getting nailed for late payments and fees they didn’t even incur!

From the article –

The Obama administration’s signature anti-foreclosure effort, unveiled in 2009 with the promise of helping three to four million homeowners modify their mortgages, is such a failure that it now risks “generating public anger and mistrust,” according to a federal audit released Monday.

Far from helping at-risk homeowners, the Home Affordable Modification Program has actually made some homeowners worse off, according to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program — also known as the Wall Street bailout. The Treasury Department set aside $50 billion from TARP, plus another $25 billion from taxpayer-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to give mortgage servicers thousand-dollar incentives to reduce monthly mortgage payments by modifying eligible homeowners’ loans. But more people have been bounced from the program than have been helped by it.

People who apply for modifications via HAMP sometimes “end up unnecessarily depleting their dwindling savings in an ultimately futile effort to obtain the sustainable relief promised by the program guidelines,” the report notes, putting the imprimatur of the federal government on a claim long made by housing experts and homeowner advocates. “Others, who may have somehow found ways to continue to make their mortgage payments, have been drawn into failed trial modifications that have left them with more principal outstanding on their loans, less home equity (or a position further ‘underwater’), and worse credit scores.

“Perhaps worst of all,” it continues, “even in circumstances where they never missed a payment, they may face back payments, penalties, and even late fees that suddenly become due on their ‘modified’ mortgages and that they are unable to pay, thus resulting in the very loss of their homes that HAMP is meant to prevent.”

But don’t worry. The administration has a defense.

Treasury officials are adamant that not only is the program helping those homeowners who remain in it, but it also has helped those homeowners who have been bounced. In fact, those homeowners who ultimately fell out of the program benefited from the equivalent of a “free tax cut” while they were in the program because over that period, they were paying less on their mortgage than was otherwise required. And, officials say, this came without cost to the taxpayer.

That’s right. Even if it didn’t work out for you and we threw you out of the program like yesterday’s garbage (You still lose your home.), you got a “free tax cut.” That makes it all better.

Let’s be clear. There is no amount of evidence, no lack of effectiveness or intelligence, that the current administration does not believe cannot be washed away by good public relations.

I don’t get it. Why even bother to create this program? It’s about ten percent of what the banks got. So, already you knew immediately, average Americans are at best an afterthought.

I supposed it’s better to demonstrate over time you generally loath the American people, than to tell them immediately?

“Oh, you say,” James, “You’re overreacting, the President is constrained from helping these people. It’s the political system.”

No, it’s not. These people are the real victims of an orgy of speculation and they only thing they’ve been getting for two years, is a continuous, mile thick, wall of lectures on personal responsibility.

The President has within in his authority, dozens, hundreds of actions he could take to help these people out, and those things are not being done. At the very least, the mortgage industry could have been held to the simple legal procedures necessary for a proper foreclosure and this administration was not only unable to do that, they see no crisis now.

Where are out political choices?

James Pilant

White House Refuses To Act! Administration Will Not Call For Foreclosure Freeze!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, White Collar Crime2 Comments

What a shock! The White House siding with the banks! Who would have thought it? Well, me. I was shocked the President pocket vetoed the legislation that would have retroactively made the banks false affidavits a non problem, but I needn’t have worried this meant a change of policy.

The banks will be protected. Homeowners are not that big a deal, but banks, no matter what they’re doing (unethical, illegal, cruel, vicious, incompetent- those things), will be protected.

Well, the President figured he’d stand firm, conduct a cursory investigation, which would be kept well in hand, and it would all go away.

Wrong, the crisis keeps rolling and keeps getting bigger.

Now, listen up, this is not the fault of Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, or the Fed. The President of the United States is making these decisions. There is only one guy in charge at the White House and unless they’re holding his family hostage, he is the architect of his own decisions.

The President once said, “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” How about, “and the law, and justice and accountability?”

I think those ought to be in there too.

Well, the crisis continues. This is Jill Schlesinger from CBS’ Moneywatch –

Banks are against the moratorium because it could call into question larger documentation issues, which could in turn put the nation’s biggest financial institutions on the hook for breaches of representations and warranties made to buyers of mortgage-backed securities. If there were a breach, the buyers of the loans in question could “put back” the loans to the banks, forcing the banks to repurchase them for face value or to make the owner of the mortgage whole for the losses incurred. Some analysts have estimated the potential cost of putbacks to banks to be over $100 billion.

Let’s talk about this “putback” thing a little bit. Soon, you may hear about little else in the news!

You see the banks unloaded all these nasty securities packages on pensions funds, etc., selling them as if they were good values without disclosing their inherent flaws because the purchasers were “knowledgeable investors,” a legal status that is essentially a license for investment banks to lie to them. If the banks misrepresented these loans, the pension funds, etc. can demand their money back. What terrible thing could the bank have lied about that would get them in trouble? Well, they might have told the buyer that they owned the mortgages when they didn’t have the actual documents of ownership. Whoops! One hundred billion dollars! That a lot of money.

Remember that phrase, “putback.”

James Pilant

White House Has Supernatural Powers!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, White Collar Crime

“White House doubts need to stop all home foreclosures” reads the headline. David Axelrod spinning the story like a top explains… well, let’s just let him tell us – from Yahoo News –

A top White House adviser questioned the need Sunday for a blanket stoppage of all home foreclosures, even as pressure grows on the Obama administration to do something about mounting evidence that banks have used inaccurate documents to evict homeowners.

“It is a serious problem,” said David Axelrod, who contended that the flawed paperwork is hurting the nation’s housing market as well as lending institutions. But he added, “I’m not sure about a national moratorium because there are in fact valid foreclosures that probably should go forward” because their documents are accurate.

Axelrod said the administration is pressing lenders to accelerate their reviews of foreclosures to determine which ones have flawed documentation.

“It’s a serious problem.” he says. I get that. So, since the story broke in the middle of last week you are dismissing a moratorium based on virtually no real information? Unless you, kind reader, think a giant national crisis, has run its course and everything is out on the table in the seven days since the story broke. If you don’t, you are with me in the disbelief column. Apparently the White House can see into the future and knows that no information will come out meriting action. I don’t know whether Axelrod has the “sight.” Perhaps, the White House has the super deluxe, limited edition, one of kind, ultimate ouija board. I hear it’s got a presidential seal on it.

But don’t worry, the White House has a plan. Let me run that line past you again – Axelrod said the administration is pressing lenders to accelerate their reviews of foreclosures to determine which ones have flawed documentation That’s right. They are going to go to the guys who lied to the court system roughly one million plus times and ask them to check their numbers. The people who have profited billions of dollars by cutting out those inconvenient legal requirements are gonna’ fix everything.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. – Maybe someone should send that in to our President?

“Hey, Mr. President, a massive wrong has been done to the American people. Send out the Attorney General! Mobilize the federal government, your regulators, your advisers, every friend you can muster! Let justice fall from Heaven like rain!”

“Oh? You can’t do that, Mr. President? Wouldn’t be prudent? Might upset the financial markets? That justice thing overrated anyway? Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t understand the burdens of your office. I’m sorry to bother you. Thanks for the engraved napkin.”

Yeah, everything going just fine.

James Pilant