If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
"Saving the housing market by keeping families in their homes on the southwest side of Chicago is critical for the long-term prosperity of the city, the region and ultimately, the country."
Obama has declared income inequality to be "the defining issue of our time." I agree, but I am terrified that the most recent news related to the housing settlement is not the definition the president intends.
The $26 billion settlement between state attorneys general, the federal government and five of the nation's largest banks offers a cautionary tale and some real opportunities for communities grappling with the foreclosure crisis.
Could the crisis have been averted if our financial regulators were more plugged into the communities that were hit first and hardest?
Washington's favorite "solution," refinancing into lower interest rates mortgages, will make it cheaper to feed the beast, but it won't stop the bleeding.
The foreclosure crisis is indeed a storm, but it is completely man-made. Millions of people are loosing their homes because of greed. That is the forbidden truth about the housing crisis.
Banks agreed to change their behavior as part of the robo-mortgage settlement announced last week. The announcement, however, left open critical quest...
There are doors in this deal -- doors that lead to a better deal for homeowners and a chance at restoring justice. Progressives need to recognize that these doors exist, and then demand that our elected officials use them.
The robo-signing settlement is the latest -- and potentially the largest -- piece in the U.S. housing policy puzzle. Even though it's partly punishment for banks' wrongdoing, it is also another answer by the government to the question of how it can help the housing market.
It's like saying rather than drowning in a lake 50 feet deep, you get to drown in a lake that is only 30 feet deep. And, people are taking victory laps? You don't believe any of that and still think what the politicians said about punishing the banks was true?
We need a solution at the scale of the problem, so that families can get back on their feet, the economy can get working, and people can reach for their American dreams again instead of watching them drown.
While the settlement is unprecedented, it's not enough to help those who have already lost their homes, but it's a step in the right direction for homeowners who have become a victim of the housing crisis and the wrongdoings of these lenders that contributed to it.
What kind of America do those who advocate debt forgiveness envision? Unless you believe that Gingrich's moon colonies will vastly increase supply in the coming years, you must believe that our collective future is rather bleak.
The banks engaged in a years' long pattern of what can only be described as fraudulent if not criminal conduct that would put anyone else in prison for years if not decades, yet banks get to buy off the cops with some money to help just a few of the victims they created.
We'll win some but we'll lose some, and some of the time we will do both at the same time. That is the story of the robo-signing settlement that has finally become a done deal after many long months of struggle over it.
