Obama's an idiot

[Forever_frost]

According to the news this morning, Obama is going to use 'executive power' and bypass Congress, rewriting and refinancing government backed mortgages and student loans. He'll be announcing this this week and the implementation date is sometime in November. Sorry, no links, as I heard it on the news this morning but I'm pretty sure you can google.

This means those who have private student loans (like me) and a private company who still owns your house (again, like me) you're fucked while government bails out itself once more.

[Vertnut]

For those that think a POTUS doesn't have any power without congress...BULLSHIT. We are living it as we speak.

[no4njnk]

You can only go through on this were Freddie and Fannie. Lets take away money from the private sector and give it to companies that are owned and run by the government.
Good timing after Ron Paul was saying yesterday that the government should get out of the student loan industry.

Lets see where most people have their money invested and what parts the government are in.
Auto industry - check
Mortgage - check
Student loan - check
Banking industry - check

[stevo]

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-unveil-housing-plan-campaign-swing-west-064348119.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will tout newly unveiled measures on Monday aimed at aiding struggling homeowners and easing the housing crisis on the first leg of a campaign-style swing through western states crucial to his re-election in 2012.

Stymied by Republican resistance to his $447 billion jobs package and tapping into public displeasure with Congress, Obama is rolling out a series of economic remedies that do not require approval from a fractious Congress, a White House official said.

A leading U.S. housing regulator on Monday announced changes to a government refinancing program that could help up to one million homeowners classified as "underwater" because their mortgages cost more than their homes are worth.

The plan for homeowner relief will be the centerpiece of Obama's visit on Monday to Nevada, the state with the highest foreclosure rate in the country.

It is the latest White House effort to deal with a key factor stalling the economy -- a crippled housing market -- and adding to political liabilities for Obama, whose re-election bid is already imperiled by stubbornly high U.S. unemployment.

It remained unclear whether the Obama administration's revised approach, which falls short of an overarching plan that some experts have said is needed, will provide enough of a boost to the battered housing market to spur the stagnant U.S. economic recovery.

Earlier federal programs to curb housing foreclosures have failed to yield the benefits initially promised. An estimated 11 million U.S. homeowners hold properties that are worth less than their mortgages.

Seeking to show he is ready to take unilateral action to confront economic problems, Obama will also unveil a student loan initiative on a visit to Colorado. He will attend fundraising events in both states plus California during the three-day trip.

The states on Obama's tour were chosen deliberately.

Each has large populations of Hispanics, a voting bloc Obama's campaign is eager to win over. Nevada and Colorado are "swing states" that alternate allegiance between Republicans and Democrats, making them valuable political prizes in presidential elections. Both could prove critical to Obama's chances in the November 2012 election.

He will use them as a backdrop to make his latest push to boost the weak economy, which remains the biggest obstacle to his hopes of retaining the presidency. According to the White House official, he will also try out a new slogan to put pressure on Congress: "We can't wait."

'SAVE HIS OWN JOB'

Republicans, choosing among a field of presidential candidates currently led by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and businessman Herman Cain, accused Obama of focusing more on fundraising than helping the unemployed.

"The president is back to doing what he does best -- raising money to save his own job," said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in a new advertisement. "Instead of focusing on getting the 14 million unemployed Americans back to work, he's focusing on protecting his own."

Housing is one area that has dogged Obama's efforts to improve the economy.

His administration has been working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the regulator for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to find ways to make it easier for borrowers to switch to cheaper loans even if they have little to no equity in their homes.

Obama will highlight the result of that work during his stop in Nevada, the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis.

Before Obama left Washington, the FHFA announced it was easing the terms of the two-year-old Home Affordable Refinance Program, which helps borrowers who have been making mortgage payments on time but have not been able to refinance as home values have dropped.

To help underwater borrowers, FHFA said it will scrap a cap that prohibits any homeowners whose mortgage exceeds 125 percent of the property's value from participating in HARP, which is targeted at loans backed by Fannie and Freddie.

Regulators are revamping the refinancing program to ensure banks are protected from having to buy back HARP loans. The requirements now state they will only have to verify that borrowers have made at least six of their last mortgage payments and in most cases, eliminate the need for appraisals.

FHFA said that Fannie and Freddie will waive certain fees for borrowers that refinance into loans with a shorter term, aiming for homeowners to pay down the amount they owe at a faster rate.

HARP, one of the Obama administration's anti-foreclosure efforts, was unveiled in March 2009 and expected to help as many as 5 million borrowers. So far, 893,800 borrowers have refinanced their loans through August by using HARP. FHFA said it will extend HARP until December 31, 2013.

With mortgage rates currently near record lows, allowing these underwater borrowers to refinance could help stave off a wave of foreclosures and free up cash for other spending that could help underpin the economy's recovery.

Stevo

[FastFox]

Used to raise hogs as a kid. When a sow had too many pigs on the tits, they all suffered, even the sow. We are there now. Way to go Dems !

[jw33]

Used to raise hogs as a kid. When a sow had too many pigs on the tits, they all suffered, even the sow. We are there now. Way to go Washington !

fixed

[8mpg]

I want the free $8000 to come back...I want to buy my first home in this crappy economy

[STANGGT40]

I want the free $8000 to come back...I want to buy my first home in this crappy economy

With interest rates as low as they are, you're getting a better deal than the guys that got $8k.

[91cavgt]

With interest rates as low as they are, you're getting a better deal than the guys that got $8k.

We got a 4.5% interest rate and the $8k. We only have 6 more months to hang on to our house, after that we could let it go back without having to pay the $8k back.

[8mpg]

With interest rates as low as they are, you're getting a better deal than the guys that got $8k.

sending you a PM

[Forever_frost]

Obama’s pathetic refinancing initiative

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Markopolos eyes a fortune from BNY whistleblowing
Obama’s pathetic refinancing initiative

By Felix Salmon

Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:13pm EDT

HARP II is being announced with great fanfare today:

Across the country, nearly 11 million owe more than their property is worth.

Millions of these people have done everything right. They’ve paid all their bills and kept current on their home loans. But right now, they’re stuck with higher payments because their mortgages are underwater. They’re not eligible to refinance because the decline in home prices have made their property worth less than what they owe. And that’s a problem President Obama knows must be addressed…

Today, President Obama is taking action.

Sounds impressive, eh? It is, until you read the official FHFA press release. At which point you learn that

If you’re a homeowner whose mortgage isn’t owned or guaranteed by Frannie, you’re out of luck.
If your mortgage was sold to Frannie after May 31, 2009, you’re out of luck.
If you want to get out of negative-equity hell by doing a principal reduction, you’re out of luck.
If your bank doesn’t feel like participating, for whatever reason, you’re out of luck.

All of which is likely to result in not-very-much, as the FHFA itself concedes:

For many reasons it is very difficult to project the number of mortgages that may be refinanced under the enhancements to HARP, including the future path of interest rates, borrower willingness to undertake a refinance transaction and the number of lenders and servicers who choose to offer the program. Given current market interest rates, our best estimate is that by the end of 2013 HARP refinances may roughly double or more from their current amount but such forward-looking projections are inherently uncertain.

First, by the end of 2013? Never mind mortgage relief now, we’ll try and get you mortgage relief in two years’ time?

Secondly, the current pace of HARP refinancings is pathetic. This chart comes from the FHFA press release, and it shows that over the most recent four months for which we have data, we’ve been managing to do less than 30,000 HARP refinancings a month. And in the 28-month history of HARP, we’ve managed a grand total of 894,000 HARP refinancings, which works out to about 32,000 per month. Interestingly, the chart ends at August 2011, which means it represents exactly half of the total timeframe from the beginning of HARP to the end of 2013.

In other words, the FHFA is projecting that the pace of HARP refinancings won’t increase at all as a result of this plan. We’ll still average out at about 30,000 per month — maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, but you’re never going to make a dent in the mountain of 11 million underwater mortgages at that rate.

This whole exercise is so obviously pathetic that even above-the-fray central bankers are sneering at its inadequacy. Here’s NY Fed president Bill Dudley, today:

Problems in the housing market are a serious impediment to a stronger economic recovery…

Obstacles to refinancing and access to credit for home purchases are limiting the support provided by low rates to house prices and consumption. Meanwhile, the large supply of foreclosed homes for sale—and the prospect that unemployment and negative equity will continue to feed the foreclosure pipeline—continues to put downward pressure on home values. The risk of further house price declines in turn discourages would-be buyers from entering the market.

Continued house price declines could lead to even more defaults, foreclosures and distressed sales, undermining wealth, confidence and spending. Breaking this vicious cycle is one of the most pressing issues facing policymakers…

Stabilizing the housing sector is particularly important because housing equity is an important part of household wealth. This calls for a comprehensive approach to housing policy, starting with an urgent effort to remove the obstacles that make it difficult for all borrowers to refinance at today’s low mortgage rates, but extending beyond this to tackle other problems weighing on housing.

The best that Dudley can bring himself to say about HARP II is basically that it’s a start. Most importantly, it doesn’t do principal reductions — if you’re underwater when you get your HARP refinance, you’ll be underwater afterwards, too. The FHFA itself, in its press release, helpfully points out that for someone with a loan worth 25% more than their house, they won’t start building equity in their home for ten years if they refinance into a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

But the sad fact is that anything more substantive than this is likely to require Congressional approval, and therefore be a political non-starter between now and November 2012. The government’s done almost nothing to address the housing mess, and will continue to do almost nothing for the foreseeable future. Which, as Dudley says, bodes very ill for the economy as a whole.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/idUS51184198520111024

[STANGGT40]

We got a 4.5% interest rate and the $8k. We only have 6 more months to hang on to our house, after that we could let it go back without having to pay the $8k back.

i'm talking about over the life of the loan.

ie; if you have a 30 year 4.5% $200k loan, you'll pay $364,813.83 at the end of the loan...if you have that same loan at 4%, you'll pay $343,739.43 at the end of the loan. (a difference of around $21k)

there are obvious variables...like selling the house and moving to another, but there are also closing costs on the side of the sale of the house and the closing costs on the side of the purchase of the next house, that you would need to figure in. i'm just using a blanket "over the course of a 30year note", situation.

[mustangguy289]

What does any of this have to do with college student loans as you mentioned in your first post?

[sc281]

What does any of this have to do with college student loans as you mentioned in your first post?

Reading comprehension is not your strong suit, is it?

It has everything to do with the Homeowner half of the first post, which everyone who has posted since is one.

If you want info on the college side, wait for someone to answer or look it up yourself.

[mustangguy289]

Reading comprehension is not your strong suit, is it?

It has everything to do with the Homeowner half of the first post, which everyone who has posted since is one.

If you want info on the college side, wait for someone to answer or look it up yourself.

My bad, I thought the entire story was posted above which made no reference to student loans. I will go look it up now and post for anyone else that is curious.

Edit: The student loan part won't be announced until Wednesday.