In summary - let´s bail out people who bought houses that dropped in value because then these people will go buy new cars and more houses. Brilliant.

You know why they´re sweating it, don´t you? They have been forced to keep interest rates artificially low up to election time. Now they know they need to let them rise. But if they do, the relatively housing stability they´ve engineered is going to come crashing down as even bigger wave of foreclosures sweeps the country.

They´re stuck. And they are scrambling to come up with some scheme that will get them out of it. Unfortunately, Math never sleeps.

Seems like 1932 all over again and we all know how that one turned out.

People who can´t pay their mortgage have obviously made mistakes. Why reward making mistakes?

All lib "thinking" revolves around magic.

It is a well kept secret that revenues are down at Treasury and we know that we are approaching the limit that other countries are willing or able to lend us. So, where does a socialist dictator go when it all starts unraveling? Why- to the makers , of course. They are the stingy ones who put aside money for a comfortable retirement. That´s just unfair and the takers will have to occupy the street again to get some more Social Justice!

Just where do they get power to write down the balance of a mortgage? This is insane.
If I loan money and the govt steps in to write down the principle, I will be exercising my 2nd Amendment rights.

the people who know that lending goes hand in hand with economnic growth think that by lowering rates alone, they can stimulate the economy.

While they are lowering rates, they are also strangling and castigating banks for everything that doesn´t go right. Banks realize that they have to be uber careful this time around and ARE ONLY LENDING TO PEOPLE WHO WILL PAY BACK LOANS... and most of those people, being careful as well...

...aren´t borrowing.

Stop the meddling. Let the market work.

A lot of these houses are underwater from people refinancing and taking cash out. They blew the money and want to government to eat that cost.It has nothing to do with crashing home values.

Appraisers were a big part of the housing crash and they were caught between a rock and a hard place. If the didn´t give generous appraisals, they were blacklisted by loan brokers,so they went along to get a check.

The real problem with the continuing mortgage crisis is the people who think they´re entitled to the house.They´ll hang in until the bitter end waiting on an Omama rescue.Sensible people walked away from their house and moved back home or whatever. They don´t get gold stars for that but at least hey recognize reality in front of their face.

Banks aren´t going to make money giving out 3% loans but they´d rather do that than face billions in lawsuits from aggrieved liberal groups.If you make a loan you suckered them in. If you don´t make the loan it´s race discrimination.They also lowered the debt ratio to get people into houses which defy simple math.

Now they want to sue because banks are doing a better job protecting houses in upscale neighborhoods than poor ones. There´s always an angle with these people.How or why would you protect a house that´s had all the wiring, plumbing and appliances stripped from it.

Obama wants to spend even more stimulus fixing these houses up and reselling them to the same type people that destroyed them.

The government tampering with the housing marketplace is the major cause. First demanding that risky borrowers be given mortgages. Now they keep coming up with schemes that only prolong the problems.
They should have let the housing marketplace hit bottom in 2009. It would have been painful but by now we would be on the road to a stable, firm recovery.

This is NOT about the ability to pay mortgages; it´s about the choice/ability to spend on anything else for folks stuck with underwater home loans. If my mortgage makes my home unsellable (i.e. I would have to pay off the sale shortage in cash myself with money I do not have), or if I can no longer borrow to buy a new whatever (car, refrigerator, remodel), it translates into lost consumption in the marketplace. In other words, you can´t sell me anything and make money with your goods and services. Get the picture? Harry Homeowner has no money to spend anymore...and Billie Businesswoman isn´t selling Harry anything...so Frankie Factoryworker isn´t needed and gets laid off, just before Billie closes her small biz. Get it now? Those bailouts should have all been predicated on relieving this mess...but, NOOOO! The banks and investment houses, and the foreclosure-threatened got bailed, not the schleps that pay their debts on time to the detriment of other economic activity.

There is a tremendous crash coming to real estate, and it won´t be long in coming as inventory is still incredibly high, and there are also tons of foreclosures just hanging out there that the banks have not pursued yet. Lots of people have long ago just stopped paying, daring the lenders to do something about it.

There are a couple of generations of people who lived high on the hog using their credit cards to buy anything they wanted. They were allowed to buy houses they cold not afford, they took money out of the house as the price went up and spent every penny, they use one credit card to pay off another, the are getting college loans to subsidize their life style. They get $30,000 a year from a college loan, and take one course, and the rest of the money buys clothes and vacations. This group of people have no savings. Those who have savings will end up paying for these deadbeats´ bills. We are doomed.

The problem, once it occurs, is not going to just go away.

If you´re going to bail someone out, you can bail out the bank, or you can bail out the homeowner. And if it´s the homeowner - that is, the borrower - you can do it by allowing EVERYONE to refinance even when under water, OR you can make them not underwater anymore by forgiving principal (and *then* they can refinance).

It all stinks. The actual money is all gone, whoever sold the house last at the inflated amount, is the "winner".

But NONE of this is a problem with the economy, the problem is 10,000,000 jobs shipped to China. If you don´t fix that, there is NO solution to real estate or the economy. None. Zip. Nada. Zero.

The constant theme in the article is how the Obama administration failed to do what was needed early enough.

Remember, he had a Dem House and Senate to work with too.

We are a consuming economy.

So, adding taxes and increasing costs for things like gasoline, electricty and water only hurt the average consumer.

Those same inputs are expenses of government as well, so they require more $$$ to fund.

It doesn´t matter what anyone says. Obama meets with all kinds of groups and pretends to listen and then does just what he wants to do. Happened the past 4 years. What a con.

@#5: Unless you worked for the govn your entire adult life, then your retirement was well earned......../s