Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Fix


I do not understand the housing and mortgage crisis. In the news today CBS is reporting states are on the verge of a foreclosure fix that will help the slumping housing market in the U.S. How can this fix help people buy more houses? This is an industry fix. They are fixing the banks that sold dubious mortgages to people who could not afford them in the first place. It's like placating a bully with a free membership to kickboxing. And on top of that they are trying to fix the housing industry by building more homes. It sounds like an artificial solution to boost an industry that is broken.
And if the people buying the homes are still struggling in one of the worst debt crisis since the great depression, where are they going to get the money to pay for these new homes. Is anybody asking what happens to all the foreclosed homes? Not only do the same devious banks that sold these people dubious mortgages end up becoming one of the country's biggest landlords they also get millions in government assistance at the same time. All this with little or no impact on the people who lost their homes in the first place!
When news broke of Obama's Robin Hood effort to stave off more foreclosures, the image that came to mind was homeowners finally getting the help required to keep their homes. The grim reality is that most of that money went directly to the banks without even assisting homeowners.
I have a hard time understanding or even believing the fix will help the economy. So once again another industry got the fix but not the people. The Fix. If governments put that money to good use then maybe the U.S. could get out of this damn depression. It's a Goliath and Goliath world.

 

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