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" Greenspan held interest unusually low and for a long time. It was to keep people busy and happy, so that they do not pay attention to Iraq war. Unexpectedly, war prolonged and economy got ruined. When a good number of individuals refrained from buying a house at inflated price, cannot govt agencies see the big bubble? "

" Good for you! You are the true picture of the American Dream: being debt free. Have you ever thought about writing a book? I think a lot of Americans NEED to hear your story, especially now. I would rather be debt free and renting than consumed with debt and having a mortgage. Government is NEVER the answer. People do not put enough faith in themselves; if they did, we would not be sinking in debt. Thank you for sharing! "

" Obviously you don't know who was running FANNIE MAE, they used to work in the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION and are now advising OBAMA.



We are still paying for the sins of the 90's, and now BAILING THEM OUT will make us pay for decades


BUSH SHOULD VETO THESE BILLS "

" I blame Bush. "

" THIS IS DISGUSTING.

We are now transferring more wealth to the GOVERNMENT from the taxpayers.


WHEN you break down all these BAIL-OUTS it's just another tax on us taxpayers


Here is how I got there.

There is no way these leaders could not have run the numbers and not known when they set this up it had to fail, otherwise regular banks would have been loaning to poor people for years, there would be no need for credit scores.

ANYONE that thinks it was a great business idea to lend to people that everyone knew couldn't repay the loans should be in congress.

Congress is a massive FAILURE.

Fannie Mae and FREDDIE MAC are a round about GOVERNMENT COMPANIES.

THEY MUST BE DONE AWAY WITH.

We have FmHA and nothing else is needed.

FREE THE MARKETS AND FREE YOUR MINDS.

SHEEP are being lead to SLAUGHTER. the bigger we make Government the bigger the SLAUGHTER "

" You are spewing the DEMOCRAT LINE.


First off if your credit rating is 425 and your complaining about a loan of $150,000 @ 10% interest you should consider yourself lucky to have even received the loan....


The problem is the WHACKOS in CONGRESS made this all happen, to get more poor people into homes, this was TOTALLY WRONG and the people in congress that set this up should be held responsible for there ACTIONS....When you look behind the scenes one could conclude this was setup to fail, and the big banks and other lenders were going to get bailed-out all along. Of coarse most of these morons are the same ones that have blocked DRILLING OIL for over 20 years.....


TIME TO CLEAN HOUSE AND VOTE OUT OF CONGRESS EVERY CONGRESSWOMAN OR CONGRESSMAN

"WE THE PEOPLE" doesn't mean anything anymore now it's THE CONGRESS that's in charge ripping us off "

" In 2001, the dot com bubble enriched the scamsters in the west coast (silly-con valley) who colluded with the investment bankers and brokerage houses on the east coast to rob the retirement and pensions of hardworking folks across the nation.

The housing bubble seems to have followed a similar pattern. "

" To:
" The sad truth is the government HAS TO bail out Fannie and Freddie, and other loans made to borrowers with shaky credit. If they don't we will see a depression worse than the 20's."

The 'bail out' will have little effect on the severe recession / depression coming. A complete bail out of Fannie/Freddie will undermine the credit rating of US debt / interest rates will rise anyway.

Credit is contracting and will continue to do so - this will slow the economy - and it's a positive feedback loop - slowing consumption, lower values in equities/housing, commercial real estate problems, decreasing employment, etc... And bailing them out will only lead to additional reckless behavior. Get a clue. You should realize that there are severe consequences for a bail out also. There is no easy way out of this crisis, don't kid yourself... "

" The world is not a 'fair' place and 'Bad Luck' (Hurricanes, Storms, Freezes, Heat Waves, Floods, Fires, Tornadoes, etc.) can strike anywhere and anyone. When that happens, we pull together as a community or Nation to help those who need it.

BUT...

When CORRUPTION is rife within our communities (Government or Corporations), it's our collective responsibility to stop it. We used to do that by voting - after the fact, of course. Problem is, voting is getting more and more unreliable to solve our problems - especially National problems!

In some places, voting can still work. In Freetown, MASS, for example, the electorate just voted down EVERY local government spending request! The electorate said: NO MORE! The electorate in Tomah can still say that.

That will NOT work, however, to get our Federal Gov't to enact the Public Will. The last election proved that. We're STILL mired in Iraq (to the tune of hundreds of Billions of Dollars of Federal DEBT). The Federal Gov't enacted monetary policies (the FED), which caused the 'easy money and credit' bubbles which have now exploded in our faces (throughout the country, in varying degrees) in the form of foreclosures and other financial distress for millions of Americans! - with no end, and only 'Financial Armageddon' in sight.

WHO is responsible and accountable?

There is a web of corruption and DECEPTION being spun across America! The spider has started to suck the blood (and money) out of hundreds of thousands (soon MILLIONS) of hapless Americans, who have been rendered comatose by the spider's poison - administered over the course of many years. The Federal Gov't and Banks (and Credit Card companies) are the blood and money 'donation' centers. Have you 'donated' today? When the Mortgage Mess Bailout Bill passes tomorrow, you WILL 'donate' - sooner or later, like it or not. $25Billion is a drop in the bucket of what American taxpayers will be required to 'donate' to bail out Fannie, Freddie and many more financial institutions which are 'critical' to our welfare - or so those Gov't 'official' criminals would like you to believe. (DON'T believe it!).

For more on the spider and related dots to be connected, visit:

http://novalight.org

Be prepared for 'Shock and Awe'! "

" No one should ever be bailed out for making bad decisions and I definitely agree with your gripes regarding that. But your argument while somewhat valid can easily be used against you, so I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

It seems like the point of this editorial is to complain how small states and locales like Wisconsin and Tomah are footing the bill for this problem. If you aren't in those areas, you don't really feel or see how significant the crisis is and the impact it's having on those locations. Believe it or not there are responsible people living in bubble states who didn't jump on the housing bandwagon and are suffering by proximity.

I don't see Wisconsin folk complaining too much that they get higher per capita federal monies in areas like homeland security than the rich states like New York and California. Think about how the richer states feel about footing the bill for low GDP states like Wisconsin. In your complaints about Texas, do you even realize how Texas' GDP is about 5 times that of Wisconsin and how their federal tax monies help you when you're in need?

You guys are sad whiners. "

" Rural areas of the country have long been subsidized by the cities. I have seen those beautiful roads in Wisconsin, telephone and electric lines for a few people, and they are not paid for by the farms. That's OK, we need each other, the urban taxpayers should fund the rural infrastructure. But to complain when the roles are reversed is hypocritical. "

" The goal of expanding lending to lower income or minority groups seemed a good one at the time. However, why were these groups asked to pay hugely excessive fees and interest rates that were more than double the rates of so-called "good" borrowers.

We need to re-regulate interest rates particularly for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards.

So-called sub-prime borrowers should be allowed to demonstrate fiscal responsibility, with their preliminary rates falling to the "standard" rate in effect at the time of loan origination, if all of their payments are on time for one year.

Of course borrowers are going bust with loans that start at 9% and then go up after adjustments.

The lack of over-sight of the TERMS of loans, the lack of usuary laws, continues to transfer the risks and costs of loans to those least capable of paying more or understanding their rights.

No one talks about the DISCRIMINATION inherent in the sub-prime lending abuses. "

" Move South. And save some dough on heating bills. Why be responsible? We bail out the banks (through tax dollas)and they use some of the money to pay the politicians to re-write the Bankruptcy laws... Pretty Interesting, when they were as much at fault!!! "

" The sad truth is the government HAS TO bail out Fannie and Freddie, and other loans made to borrowers with shaky credit. If they don't we will see a depression worse than the 20's.

It is unfortunate that irresponsble borrowers will be getting a "gift", but in the long run it will help to maintain the values of other responsible borrowers homes(including Tomah, WI).

Life is not fair-get used to it! "

" Rich states will always support poor states in federal aid.

This is just a blip.

This article makes sense but it was not very well thought out.

Think about it. "

" Will its usually the other way around most of the time with the rich states supporting all the poor states, BooHoo. "

" both the sellers of these loans, AND the buyers who FRAUDULENTLY lied about their income are CRIMINALS.

LOCK THEM ALL UP. EVERY LAST ONE.

You lied on your loan, you committed fraud, end of story. Jail time for you. "

" In 1998, the company I worked for moved to another state to avoid high business taxes. This required me to sell our house in a bad Real estate market (July 1998). I wasn't able to give my house away at the time. One year later, my company shut down permanently. Instead of whining or going on unemployment, we moved back to our old neighborhood looking for work with previous employers who knew me and my work. No one was hiring. I had planty of consumer debt and a small amount of savings, plus I had two teenagers were eating like locust. So I started looking for a job...not in my career field BUT ANY JOB. Within one month I found a minimum wage job with ZERO benefits. I was hired as an independent subcontractor---which was bad for me, and good for the boss. The contract was---I get the work assignments, YOU do the work and pay for all tools and materials out of your pocket, AND IN turn WHEN I GET PAID YOU GET PAID. It was terrible work, bujt I had to do it. Of course I didnt see my first pay for months. I was kept very busy but the lies and promises from my "employer" were too much. I learned everything I could about the "business", and with only a few hundred dollars, started my own company and started grabbing customers from the jerk who claimed "he"wasn't getting paid. We slowly paid off our consumer debts and were forced into being extremely frugal. From nice clothes and food and nice cars to rice beans and powdered milk, and thrift centers for clothing. Our income is was and is not much, but why have a good business financial plan and a lousy family financial plan? So we saved and saved. All the people we knew were cheerleading BUY A HOUSE! BUY A HOUSE NOW! ONLY LOSERS RENT. By the time we paid off the debts, house prices were too high to think about it.


This is what REALLY happened--If we can do it ANYONE CAN DO IT. We saved everything that we brought in. As long as the "IN-GO" is greater than the "Out-Go" and you aren't paying interest you are on the road out of debt hell.


well, our goals was NOT to amass a large amount of money. Our goals is to have liquidity, for emergencies and to never be BROKE again, never have to rely on an employer again. So we don't have lots of investments--we tried, but caught our finacial planner CHEATING. I actually went through four of them--all certified -- and all liars and cheats. We learned that if someone gets a commission---THEY ARE THEIR NUMBER ONE CLIENT. Realtors, loan officers, salesmen and financial planners are all in this system of income extraction.

WE are still looking to buy a house---AND We can not afford it--AND STILL HAVE MONEY FOR A RAINY DAY.

But in these last ten years we have saved MORE money then we ever could have imagined. WE learned that BANKS AND THE GOVERNMENT HATES savers. We have not had ANY DEBT for at least 7 years. We have NO CREDIT---NO FICO SCORE---Evewn though we have "paid as agreed", "NO LATE PAYS" for four houses over the years and 15 credit cards.1 HERE IS SCAM NUMBER ONE. A credit SCORE does not care about "how well you do---BUT HOW BAD YOU DO and how much debt you have. WE PAID off all debt 7 years ago---NOW NO ONE WANTS US---we are not debtors.


Do you want to know what we saved? Over $500,000 CASH. We own the money and PAID OUR TAXES ON IT. It is NOT FROM INVESTMENTS. FOR FUN, WE TRAVELLED TO EUROPE TWICE and still drive our old 1992 car. TODAY, we can buy any house we are interested in. BUT PRICES ARE STILL TOO HIGH.

WE DONT need a mortgage we can pay cash---but that my lesson to all of you. WHEN ITS YOUR CASH---momney you have paid taxes on---its not "OTHER PEOPLES MONEY" and there is NO INTEREST squeezing the life blood out of you.


We have learned the enemies of financial freedom can be controlled BY NOT SPENDING MONEY AND MOST IMPORTANTLY NOT PAYING INTEREST and bogus miscellaneous fees. We pay rent IN ADVANCE---UTILITY BILLS IN ADVANCE. WE put our money NOT IN BANKS---since they use your money to take more money from you. We put it in small amounts in insured deposits OF CREDIT UNIONS--THAT DO NOT MAKE MORTGAGE LOANS.


WE ARE WAITING for the next economic depresssion AND WE ARE FREE of debt, FREE OF PAYING BANKERS. THIS IS REALLY TRUE FREEDOM. "

" Each of these comments is accurate. But there is MORE carnage TODAY. I mean this hour and minute 11PM July 21 2008. Today, it is still possible to get "no money down" loans through the federal government. But this carnage is a TWO EDGED SWORD. One one side is the NO MONEY DOWN STUPIDITY and the other side is a government handout to sellers to promote a minimum 3% increase in the selling price of a house. Under the conventional loan system, you needed a minimum 20% down to finance a mortgage. This discouraged flipping houses and wild speculation, since if the houseing prices declined, the buyer faced a large loss in equity. With no money down loans, the buyer has virtually no risk, especially in California, except for credit reporting. Most mortgages in California are "purchase money" mortgages, where the buyer is renting the money to buy the house.


This is the link to the FHA program. It makes me sick enough talking about it. So if you are interested follow the link. Its called the NEHEMIAH program. It is run by a self-appointed big shot who pays himself high salary and benefits to "on paper" appear to be GIVING "FREE" money to a religious charity to help the buyer with the down payment. What is really does is extract more money from all of us, by artificially keeping house prices overpriced by a minimum of 3%, it also encourages UNQUALIFIED people to go into debt that they can't afford (thats why the program) for a depreciating asset ( a house) AND pay annual interest (mortgage) on the depreciating asset. Here is the LINK:
PLEASE READ ALL ABOUT IT---and than scream.

www.nehemiahcorp.org


This program should be shut down immediately for the FRAUD that it represents. Its high paid attorneys are busy LOBBYING YOUR representatives TODAY. "

" YOU ARE CORRECT.

But lets not forget that the consumer rights groups and the minority advocates heavily lobbied in the 90's to create this problem

In the 90's many many groups lobbied congress to open up lending MORE to minorities, and the poor but today we forget about all this when it ha gone wrong.

In the 90's lending practices were RELAXED, to push more loans to the poor, REMEMBER THE DIETECH commercials started in about '97

Who is at fault? Well it's the consumers, the banks and other lending outfits but most of all IT'S THE CONGRESS THAT PUSHED THESE RELAXED LENDING RULES THOUGH.

What should happen?

1) every loan that is a bad loan should be foreclosed upon immediately

WHY FORECLOSE NOW ON EVERYONE?

Because we have one National bail-out after another coming down the pike and WE THE TAXPAYERS ARE THE ONES PAYING FOR IT ALL

The 300 Billion Dollar (BAILOUT) that congress is passing is beyond OUTRAGEOUS

First off 90% of the people defaulting on the loans are people that SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN LOANED TO IN THE BEGINNING. ONLY about 10% are worth looking at and possible re-writing.

People that cannot read a contract and still sign there names don't deserve a new Write down just because they say they didn't UNDERSTAND
Understanding the contract is there own fault

I mean come on if you can't read and understand then don't sign "

" I didn't buy into the bubble and I resent that my family's tax dollars may go to bail out not only irresponsible borrowers, but an irresponsible and even criminal bunch of corporations that KNEW what they were doing was detrimental, and even illegal. Some home buyers were victims of crimes and if anyone is helped, it should be them. But, the mortgage mess was created and pushed by the industry, not by consumers. It was not consumers who invented toxic loans and sold them bundled as 'investments' on Wall St. The complex schemes and slick public relations ads to promote them were not done by consumers, they were done by the builders, real estate industry, lenders, etc. Even now we see these ridiculous "buy now!" campaigns going on all over the country. The govt pushed for homeownership, too, and many feel govt backed loans were almost as risky and foolish as the lowest subprime lender's offering. Now FHA is saying it may have to ask congress for money to cover their losses, when previously FHA loan defaults were covered by FHA borrowers' mortgage insurance payments. Govt acted too slow to prevent damage to the economy or help true victims. It only seemed to act at all when banks and investors screamed that they were the victim. Why is it that the banks and investors were expected to have done less due diligence than mere consumers, when it came to researching what they were doing, before they did it? Consumers may have been ignorant to go along with this, but overall, the crimes were committed by the industry, and that is who should pay. Not the tax payers. Perhaps some jail time for big company CEO's would send a message. "

" What is worse is the FANNY MAE and Freddie MAC Problems.... BOTH ARE A quasi-government agency

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are government sponsored corporations that go back to the 1930's. Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) came into being in 1970. Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association), established as a response to the Great Depression, was privatized in 1968 to help balance the US budget at the height of the Vietnam War.

The US Congress, the Clinton administration and the Bush administration have all been utterly spineless in controlling their growth, or properly regulating their operation.

Fannie Mae employees falsified signatures on accounting transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a "manipulation" that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives, a federal regulator said yesterday. The company lost BILLIONS

Now who has been running these INSTITUTIONS?

Almost forgotten in the recent panic over Fannie Mae's prospects is that in late 2006, US authorities filed more than 100 civil charges against Franklin Raines, its CEO from 1999 to 2004 (and before that Bill Clinton's top budget official). Charges were also laid against the firm's chief financial officer and Controller.

Franklin Raines
WHICH BY THE WAY IS CONNECTED TO BARAK OBAMA, OBAMA consults with Raines on Economics

Fannie Mae reported paying the following executive bonuses in 1998: chairman and chief executive James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines, chairman-designate, received $1.11 million; Chief Operating Officer Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Vice Chairman Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Chief Financial Officer J. Timothy Howard received $493,750; and Robert J. Levin, an executive vice president, received $493,750.

Vice Chairman Jamie S. Gorelick who also was the one that put up the wall between the FBI and all other agencies in the 90's was also on the 9/11 Commission Who was also connected to The Clinton Administration and now advises OBAMA via backdoor.

chairman and chief executive James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Was the Senior veter for VP for OBAMA

In the mid-1990s, he headed up a power trifecta: mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Brookings Institution, one of the city's most prominent think tanks. At various times, political insiders have floated his name in Democratic administrations for White House chief of staff, Treasury secretary and president of the World Bank.


These people Were WORSE THEN ENRON COOKING THE BOOKS....ENRON WAS NEVER BAILED OUT.....BUT FANNIE MAE SEEMS TO BE IN TROUBLE ALL THE TIME...AND WE THE PEOPLE ARE PAYING FOR IT ALL THE TIME.....


This will COST US BILLIONS, All those that were in charge have never given the monies.

Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, chief executives and chief financial officers are required to give back incentive-based bonuses if the company has to restate its earnings because of financial misconduct.

To this day none have paid back anything

FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC MUST BE ABOLISHED.

What's worse is most these CRIMINALS are connected to OBAMA in one way or another "