Reuters:
Some Americans are swapping homes for motels as the ranks of the homeless swell during the recession, crowding out shelters and forcing cities and states across the country to find new types of housing.
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
I don't believe anyone's arm was twisted when they signed that mortgage OR "mortgages" in alot of cases!. Welcome to the world we ourselves help create
The subprime 'debacle' was only a part of the financial crisis, but even then it's absolute garbage to infer that it's the people who were approved for loans who created the economic crisis.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question: Why does everyone avoid discussions about PMI (Personal Mortgage Insurance), which protects the lenders from loss and is required on all loans with less than 20 percent down? How can there be "toxic assets" if the loans were guaranteed?
Paul Solman: Everyone avoids discussions of PMI? Not me.
Be sure to see the the discussion back in August. First, many loans skirted the insurance requirement via second mortgages, and it's only the FIRST mortgage that has to be insured if you put down less than 80 percent. Second, the private insurers are in serious trouble.
Third, from Nic Retsinas, Director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, and sometime NewsHour guest:
I would only add that private mortgage insurance is commonly associated (i.e. required in many cases) with the origination of prime loans sold to or securitized by the GSEs (Fannie and Freddie). Most subprime loans (especially the more toxic products) were packaged through private issuers and did not carry (or require) mortgage insurance.
This is the best answer to your question. Retsinas's point has huge implications for those who would blame the crisis on Fannie and Freddie. They weren't the major players in the subprime debacle.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2009/03/how-can-assets-be-toxic-if-the.html
There are a couple of things one can surmise about you.....and that is your handle reflects an outmoded system that is no longer relevant, and that you are indeed "Heartless".
excuses excuses! take some responsibility for the decisions YOU made in your life!. I'm not heartless when its due, this is not the case. I'm debt free because i chose to be, I have no home, i rent because i know at the end of my life my posessions including a house will be meaningless, so why collect material things and put yourselves at the mercy of criminals and our government?
No, but it was fraud, people just were not told in a clear manner what they were getting into. My parents still believe that a house is an asset even when they have lost 40% of the value on their two homes.
massive fraud and no policing of activity played a significant role as well
Obama feels your pain. He may cut down his date nights as an homage to displaced americans.
Republicans are practicing seditious demagoguery and insurrectionary obstructionism intended to destabilize our economy for purposes of political exploitation.
Republicans are not making a sincere effort to stop the bleeding their incompetent leadership and failed policies created. Instead, they’re using conflicting economic theories as a smokescreen to conceal their subversive agenda, which is to cause President Obama and America to fail so they can blame Democrats for the consequences of their calamitous mismanagement.
Republicans are preposterously professing that their disgraceful political wh oring had nothing to do with the banking, real estate, stock market and employment catastrophes that resulted.
Republicans are trying to hamstring Democrats to prevent them from undoing the damage caused by a Republican presidency.
I like having a President who keeps a clear head and is not straight out crazy. i suppose that if he would cry all the time or withdraw from the world in the model of the Buddha, he would have good reasons to do so. Of course, that would be depressing, and Carter is constantly mocked for diagnosing a malaise.
spires restaurant.
Swapping homes for hotels.sound like a good deal to me!.......... Oh, hotel ROOMS. Why didn't you say so.
near the end of my fathers life , he lived in a motel 6 near a norms'? restaurant. it was walking distance so i told him i envied him. i fully realize my life will never be much better...but he complained about the bumps and other room action from night to night. it was a cry for help, but i just thought he wasn't used to but humps in the night.. i hope i die b/4 i care
The recession has hit us hard with the house not being worth as much and me having to print coupons from www.slickbudget.com for a couple of hours today just to save some money. It is a pain.
God told this family to move to Texas? Hmmm..when people say God told them,etc. I've always wondered what God's voice sounds like.
I think many people refer to that still small voice (intuition) as God...we all hear it I think.A strong feeling, a persistent thought etc.
Funny how God always tells them to do what they wanted to do anyway.
Communities and government better gear up to alleviate this crisis. There are resources all around us, empty houses and buildings, USDA surely has a stockpile of food, it's all there. Inventories of "stuff" is overflowing because no one is buying. Take a leadership position and do what it takes. This is a financial Katrina, and we still have not seen the eye of the storm. We've helped the rascals that got us in this mess, now lets help the people!
It's now one slippery slope from a Holiday Inn to a Hooverville or worse...
I don't think these folks are staying in Holiday Inns. Think Budget 8 or worse.
Some cities are furnishing tents. Others maintain parking lots for people living in their cars.
This has been coming down the pipes for decades. In the 70s when people complained about jobs being shifted over seas, most people were of the mind " We're America, there's enough to go around.". In the 80s we had Big Ronnie Economics, and the rallying cry was " Train'em to do something else!" We later found out trickle down econ usually meant some one was getting peed on. 90s, NAFTA, 00s brought us a government where, hell, they paid the companies to move overseas pretty much. The USA will have to return to a manufacturing economy sooner or later because the servicing industry only needs so many peons to cater to the well to do.
And politics lags far behind what is happening with The People. Income levels don't keep up with inflationary pressures, either, and neither do programs based on poverty levels. If you're making $25K a year these days you're ineliglble for most programs and you could easily become homeless unless you're willing to settle for living in a hovel. $200/wk for a cheap, roach infested motel is $10K a year, easily half your pay after deductions.
We need THE FAIR..or FLAT TAX
You are correct....Lowering of Corporate Taxes,and the abashment of EPA regulations that apply to America only are the culprits...Our government drives the work away
Please define what in the living daylights you mean by "abashment"?
It's not the regulations that are to blame - of the top 15 countries the U.S. trades with, including China, we are in a trade DEFICIT. Yes, in every single one. And when we allow their goods to come into this country when they are violating human rights, money manipulation and are polluters, we invite them to continue that behavior. And when Bush refused to sign onto the accords to participate in controlling pollution, we did nothing to set an example.
There are levers that could be pulled, but we refuse to do it, because everyone wants cheap goods. Well, we got 'em. And now we can think about what it's cost us. Our jobs, our economy and possibly our country. And in return we got crap products that kill dogs, poison our children and don't last. Some deal we got, huh?
Right! It drives the jobs to China where there are compulsory unions.
Aside from deliberate policies like federal subsidies for foreign expansion, the US dollar may be over valued, a vestige from the Roosevelt administration, the Britton Woods system, and our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Paper based on the trading of more paper is mere salesmanship in the brokerages. At the last, the dollar will only have a value if it can be traded for items of actual value like food, shelter, education, health care and toys, toys , toys. Without manufacturing, agriculture and construction we can expect our paper to lose regard no matter how nicely we manage it when all real investments are losers.
THE LARGEST AMERICAN CORPORATIONS HAVE NOt PAID ANY TAXES IN OVER THREE YEARS,
AIG was just recently trying to get back sum tax money it paid years ago based on mis stated earnings,
and abolsih Environmental standards, are you crazy, i do not want our water as bad as that in third world countries, we already have too much chlorine in it anyway, what do you want to be drinking brown water, or do you feel your neighborhood would not be affected,
I've posted 3 times--they show up, then nothing. I'll bet half of posts don't even make it.
The Matrix has you.
Try hitting refresh. That sometimes causes posts to reappear.
you must be speaking truth...are you a republican..or do you disagree with Obama
and yet here you are.
Where is the country I once knew so long ago. Where the motto was: help your fellow man. Now it's "everyone for themselves" and that's the mentality I hear alot of.
Everyone helping themselves is what makes the money to help the poor....You create wealth..you don't share it..it wont work
How can you "create wealth" when the bastards you're working for take it all?
Why don't you go somewhere else and leave the adult conversation to we adults, you adult monster. Trickle on down the road and hopefully your pantleg as well. buh bye loser.
Let's racism, greed....what's next? Pride, envy, anger, lust, sloth...
is there a problem with you finding your own private "Galt-ville" or something? Try boarding up all your windows or using duct tape...
Okay, now I am certain you don't understand how logic works.
Let's try this - "everyone helping themselves is what makes the money to help the poor." Okay that's fine. People who make money, help the poor. Good, good. Makes sense to me.
But, then you say, "You create wealth..you don't share it..." Now this is where the logic goes right down the drain. If you "don't share it," how does "making money to help the poor" work?
Oh...I get it "it won't work" because...wait for it...you don't share it, even though "everyone helping themselves is what makes the money to help the poor."
Tell me, were you home schooled?
It all began in the 60's with the "me me me" generation. They grew up and they've been in control for 30 years. If you do a little research into your family history, you'll find neighbors helping neighbors and moving together in support groups to new parts of the country as it was being settled. Men in the county were assigned the task of road building - no one was paid - it was a community service. Courts paid people to help the orphaned and infirm. I did like the part, however, where if you went to jail for a crime, you had to pay your jailer to keep you. They let you out to work your fields during the day and you were locked up at night. Of course, if you got caught stealing, you'd have you ear nailed to a post. Ouch!
There are still people who help other people, but there will always be the selfish miser's who think it's okay to build their wealth on the backs of others and carry it their graves. And they still have the nerve to call themselves Christians. I'm guessing they also talk to God to get permission.
Tell me when did we fail so badly not just america but in the uk don't assume a welfare state stops people and families falling into poverty and homelessness, its just hidden better it is still there just not so near the surface.
go out with a homeless charity or group on any given night in new york alone there are up to thirty five thousand men women and children registered as homeless who are being forced to stay with family , couch surfing for the want of a better phrase because the city's government seems to think out of sight out of mind.
The stories of people living in motels in one of our time, when the bankers and institutions are bailed out and the rest of us are left to rot or pick up the bill.
a civil society we are not
The actual most recent homeless numbers which are from 2007 before the huge crash, showed that the number of homeless in New York City alone were over 75,000. Washington DC came in at 38,000. Those numbers have certainly inflated since then. Los Angeles has over 78,000 homeless. I live in Arlington, 5 minutes from downtown DC and every major bridge and overpass now has shopping carts and lean to cloth or cardboard makeshift shelters with varying numbers of homeless on any given day. Sometimes 1, sometimes many more. We can do better than this here in America, we can do better than this!! This all started with Reagan and has been rolling faster and faster with each successive republican't administration since.
I presume that they've already eaten their imported clothing, electronics and car.
That is just so sad that people have to be forced into situations like that.
The veneer has worn thin and we are in a deficit in the civility department.
I never saw behavior, such as is very common today, exhibited by my deceased relatives.
My elderly but very spry and sharp Father, a survivor of the social holocaust is ever dismayed in seeing society fraying. I can't seem to comfort him sometimes. Tonight we're having dinner, in 15 minutes, and watching a baseball game on TV in the shaded part of his backyard. Here's to the elderly, the ancients, the survivors in their knowing better.
I cannot read you at all. Most of your posts point to you being a complete unfeeling uncaring jerk off. So which is it? Empathy or Condemnation? Please do tell me..
When I was a teenager, I was one of these families. Mom was not hooking either. We were homeless, due to mental illness and bad luck. It was not fun.
Life for me is much better now, but I don't forget.
I am glad you survived. We must take notice and correct this, and then never forget. At this point this problem is crossing more socio-economic lines than since the Great Depression. Bless you.
mrytlejune, "it benefits the people as well". Do you really believe the Repugs want this to happen?
I am glad that you all were able to overcome the adversity. Best wishes for the rest of your long life.
do I believe that at least a sub-set of reptuglicans not only DO wish for these conditions and actively helped create these conditions? why yes, it was clearly part of the voodoo economics and dismantling of protections for workers begun by Rummy Ronnie and boosh the smellier and continued by his misbegotten son george the vacationer. and a lot of it was stated and codified by PNAC. pretty hard to defend any of those actions either in ideology or in terms of there effectivness in any thing except their poisonous effects on our country.
Yes, it all began with Saint Ronnie declaring "welfare queens running around in a Cadillac." It gave the GOP all the excuses they needed to blame everything on the poor who they convinced the American public (and still are) that the poor were lazy bums stealing their tax dollars. They're still using that same mantra and their constituents are still believing it.
I've even heard some of them (Joe, the plumber comes to mind) talk about having been on welfare, yet rail about it. I guess it doesn't count, if they have to use the tax payer dollar to get help for themselves. It's just all those "other" lazy bums out there...AKA black people.
After Katrina I heard a woman at the Houston airport complaining she was "so TIRED of taking CARE of THOSE people!!!" This is the mentality. And I hope EVERY ONE of them loses their jobs and their health care. THEY deserve it. I hope they need welfare. They need to see what it's all about...but as Joe confirms, they won't.
Prostitution is on-the-rise in the burgs where some of the lesser of these establishments are located. A friend of mine in law enforcement states that his department needn't run any sort of sting operation to corral as many as one dozen streetwalkers daily/nightly and that this activity is not limited to the nighttime.
Those having to seek refuge in these types of 'hoe tels' are either undocumented aliens (with families) or families, primarily Section 8 single mothers with 2 to 5 children in tow. A formula for disaster if ever there was one.
Send more jobs overseas, import more work-visa holding individuals and turn a blind-eye to illegal immigration and this is what happens people.
You are very out of touch and sadly mistaken about your ASSUMPTIONS. There are many more of what I guess you would term upright citizens that are having to rely on these types of situation. I get the impression you are just another heartless "compASSsionate convervative!"
If you mean a connoisseur of wh*res, then no.
You've never heard of prostitution, drugs or other illicit activity occurring in teeming, overcrowded projects?
Whole families are in these hotels mang, a section 8 mom can get a rental house or apt, usually, only too many jobs lost are adding to this previously overgrown population...
Not just prostitutes, these blanket statements break my heart, because they are so wrong,
no ne deserves this, I worked my butt off and am so close tot his edge, after playing life so close to the cuff and straight tot he bone, honey ethical, paying the bill with my last dime to be sure my credit stayed straight and blame, a lay off and it takes a decade to rebuild it all.......if not longer
but yeah it is my fault for believing that honesty and hard work were their own reward even when the crooks were minding the store...........I feel like such a dummy, believing all this crap and still catching it on the chin.........
Loading comments…
First Posted: 07-11-09 11:49 AM | Updated: 07-11-09 12:07 PM