Appearing with U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison in north Minneapolis, Franken called for:
- A 120-day moratorium on foreclosures, which would also require financial counseling for homeowners at risk of losing their home.
- Allowing bankruptcy judges to rewrite terms of loans on primary residences.
- Increased funding to redevelop abandoned and foreclosed homes.
- Minimum federal standards for state licensing of brokers who originate mortgages.
Rachel E. Stassen-Berger of the Pioneer Press, adds:
The press conference was the third policy-focus Franken’s had this week. Monday he talked gas prices and Wednesday he talked drug prices and Medicare Part D. Each was at an evocative locale — Monday he was at a gas station; Wednesday at a drug store, today at the home of a couple who is under threat to lose their home. At each he said Republican Sen. Norm Coleman had gotten more donations than any politician in Minnesota history from the appropriate business — Monday, oil companies, Wednesday the pharmaceutical companies, today, bankers.
Norm proposed the HOME Act which went nowhere in the Senate because nobody would consider it. Mainly because it was a gift to the mortgage industry which had gotten itself into quite a mess.…In contrast Al Franken thinks this issue affects the value of everybody’s home and wants to help actual people. Plus he’s not funded by the mortgage industry.
Funny how a radio program on NPR seems better informed about the mortgage issues than either party.
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242
Listen to the episode at and think about how non of what wither candidates has anything to do with fixing what went wrong.
Let’s see……
“A 120-day moratorium on foreclosures, which would also require financial counseling for homeowners at risk of losing their home. ”
This will not solve the problem, unless most of the homeowners plan on winning the lottery in the next four months. The main trouble is that people took out a mortagage larger than their ability to pay it back. Some knowingly, some unknowingly, either way, you have to let the system rebalance or this crisis will be around even longer. Here’s my free counseling - “read the terms of the loan, don’t complain when they come back to bite you, and only take out a loan no more than 30% of your stable income”. Oh, and if that means you can’t buy the biggest home on the block with all of the Stainless and Marble goodies, than too damn bad - live within your means, not within my pocketbook.
“Allowing bankruptcy judges to rewrite terms of loans on primary residences. “
That would be insane - allowing a judge to rewrite the terms of a contact after the contract has been written, and accepted, by both parties to the transaction. Especially since one party has already performed, and the 2nd party is in default. I can see it now - What, gas prices too high, let’s reduce the price wholesalers must pay to the refineries with the stoke of a pen! What, $5 too much to pay for a one week rental at Blockbuster - make it half price with the stoke of a pen! Then let’s see just how much oil is refined or how many new movies Blockbuster offers. The same will happen to mortgages - since the risk has now increased, all loans would have higher interest rates, along with much tighter restrictions on downpayments and income levels. the latter three items should have been in place already.
“Increased funding to redevelop abandoned and foreclosed homes.”
Why not let the foreclosures happen quickly, let the houses be sold at market price, and let the flippers and handy-men owners move in to solve the problem without a single dollar of taxpayer funds? Increasing the taxpayer funds available to rehab the homes will only make the homes more expensive to purchase, thereby benefitting the banks that made the loans in the first place. We do not need any more corporate welfare.
MO, I agree 100%,
Because the Republican party has been 100% correct predicting the outcomes of our policies, we Republicans are best qualified to tell these moonbats what the outcome of THEIR policies will be.
The only policies we Republicans have been wrong in predicting the outcomes of are results of policy that NOBODY could have anticipated.
Your unbiased and non-exaggerrated opinions on these matters will certainly take moonbats down.
Great Job MO!!
Typical,
You are 100% correct! I agree with your absolutely incoherent review of my post! It was amazingly brilliant.
My post was so shamefully sophmoric and devoid of reason and name calling,I am not sure how I could get anyone to read it.
Typical, you are so wonderful!
Thank you for setting me stright and showing, with facts, logic, and reason, where I was wrong.
I bow down before you, and beseech you to grant clemency to such a mere mortal as myself.
MO I agree 100%,
Thank you for representing the Minnesota Rpepublicans so well.
I AGREE 100% of course.
Great Job!!
Thank you for whining, oops, winning hearts and minds on MN Publius.
Great Job!!
Typical,
You are 100% correct! I AGREEE with your absolutely incoherent review of my post! It was amazingly brilliant.
My post was so shamefully sophomoric and devoid of reason and name calling, I am not sure how I could get anyone to read it.
Typical, you are so wonderful!
Thank you for setting me straight and showing, with facts, logic, and reason, where I was wrong.
I bow down before you, and beseech you to grant clemency to such a mere mortal as myself.
MO I agree 100%,
Circular arguments only help take moonbats down. I think you’re representing very well. I’m sure that a undecided voter will decide their vote on the talking points they’ve heard over and over and over for years.
Keep on saying the talking points we are supposed to say, as Talon News and Jeff Gannon would agree with.
Great Job!!
Typical,
Once AGAIN, I see no correlation of your response to my post. No facts. No figures, No logic, no reason! Talk about representin’!
Hooray FOR you! I agree with YOU! YOU go girl! Way to support Al!
Does anyone else here have a coherent reply to my original post? I would really like to see one. I am in this for intellecutal stimultion, and resonable discourse, not the mind-numbing circle jerk Typical has propogated.
MO I agree 100%,
Obviously, We Minnesota Republcans have won. Thats why we have to continue to stalk Liberal websites and continue to take moonbats down.
Great Job MO!!
Kerosene Hat,
I also agree with you that pretty much noene of the proposals out there today form either major party will work. All they are doing is paying people and banks for poor choices, with OUR money.
I think most of what the parties are proposing are ways to avoid a complete meltdown of the housing and financial markets now, so that your home (which you’re current on your payments for) doesn’t become worth a third of what it was worth and the bank where your money (10% of every paycheck your whole adult working life) is stored doesn’t have to be taken over by the government. Would’ve been nice if none of this had happened in the first place, but that’s the situation we’re in.
There is a new, larger wave of forclosures coming. One comprised of middle and upper middle class families. In fact, defaults on large mortgages (million dollar homes) is up significantly.
Furthermore, this isn’t simply a case of “borrowing more than you can afford to pay” as some RW trolls here posit. This is a result of unscrupulous banking practices combined with deflating home values.
“This is a result of unscrupulous banking practices combined with deflating home values.”
I think it’s a combination of things, including unscrupulous banking prices, deflating home values, AND people borrowing more than they could afford, whether because they didn’t think about how their rates would change or/and in hopes that when it came time they could sell the property for a profit. The problems aren’t just about the mortgage itself - some of it is people borrowing against equity that has vanished in the new market.
It is not simply the case of anything. People borrowing more than they could afford of bad banking practices. Those that think this event has a simple good guy or bad guy are perfect examples of simpletons.
The housing market is what happens when interest rates have been held artificially low for decades while the real rate of inflation is underestimated by 4 points or so. All in a vain attempt to avoid any type of politically damaging economic signs.
Huge funds of money around the world were looking for places to invest. Safe low yield investments didn’t work very well because real inflation (not reported inflation) was higher than the return. So mortgages were the next best thing. They earned a great return and were backed by a commodity that people assumed, idiotically, would not go down in value. Since so many funds wanted to buy mortgages and the interest rates were held artificially low there became a market where anybody could buy a house. Instead of requiring what had been the traditional 20% down that protected the banks from property value fluctuations people were able to get houses there was an attitude of “No income, no assets, no money, no problem”. Mortgage brokers could sell any mortgage they could buy and people were willing to take advantage of crazy loan types like interest only to buy houses they shouldn’t have considered. Everybody involved made these decisions with the deluded belief that housing prices would go up forever.
Of course that belief was unfounded. Housing prices were massively inflated and when there were no more buyers and prices weren’t going up, the highest risk loans couldn’t be refinanced and the defaults began. More houses on the market meant further price drops and so it went with the loans that required refinancing to continue. When prices drop enough and people can’t sell they begin to make decisions to simply walk away from their loan. Why pay for a $400,000 mortgage on a house that is worth only $250,000. Other loans defaulted because the people were given loans they simply would never be able to afford regardless of the drop in the houses value.
Both the home buyers and the mortgage brokers made bets that home prices would continue to climb. Bets that neither were able to cover when they lost. Bets that defied all historical evidence and sound judgment because they both wanted it to be true. People without the financial means wanted houses and mortgage brokers wanted to have a product to sell. The number of loans gone bad due to consumer fraud has never been shown to be a significant factor in the current condition.
Delaying foreclosures and unconstitutionally invalidating contracts may help those who got in over their heads but it will also punish those who waited. Allowing the more houses to come on the market will continue to lower the prices which will benefit those who have yet to buy homes. Homes are not investments or savings accounts and shouldn’t be thought of as such. They are products that provide shelter. Anybody who buys a home as a speculative investment should do so with the understanding that there is risk involved.
KH, thanks for the read. It’s a complicated situation, with plenty o’ places to point fingers, and you pointed out a bunch of ‘em.
TPT,
I agree - great write up from Kerosene Hat.