Is Barack Becoming a Landlord?
By Larry Doyle on July 15, 2009 at 8:17 AM in Current Affairs, Economy, Housing & Housing Crisis, Mortgage Crisis, Mortgages, Real Estate, Sense on Cents (Larry Doyle blog)
I guess this woman wasn’t too far off in her prophetic statement last Fall:
Is Barack Obama about to move into the rental market and become the largest single landlord in the process?
Hat tip to AK for pointing out this developing story. Reuters reports, Obama Mulls Rental Option for Some Homeowners:
U.S. government officials are weighing a plan that would let borrowers who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments avoid eviction by renting their homes instead, sources familiar with the administration’s thinking said on Tuesday.
First things first, I fully empathize with all those whom are struggling at this time. However, from the standpoint of economics and capitalism, would this program actually serve as an incentive for some homeowners to stop making their mortgage payments? Would it cause other perverse, unintended consequences as well? Would it redefine the American dream?
Under one idea being discussed, delinquent homeowners would surrender ownership of their homes but would continue to live in the property for several years, the sources told Reuters.
Surrender ownership to whom? The bank holding the mortgage? The mortgage servicer? Uncle Sam? How is a rental payment determined? If based on percentage of income, does this program actually serve as a disincentive for individuals to increase income, if only to lose this benefit?
Officials are also considering whether the government should make mortgage payments on behalf of borrowers who cannot keep up with their home loans, tapping an unused portion of a $50 billion housing aid kitty.
That $50 billion housing aid kitty is money still in the TARP. Not that the rule of law means much anymore, but does anyone want to check if we actually need to write new legislation on the disbursement of funds under the TARP for a program such as this? What happens when the $50 billion is exhausted?
As part of this plan, jobless borrowers might receive a housing stipend along with regular unemployment benefits, the sources said.
How much and for how long? Who would oversee the program? Think there is the potential for massive fraud?
A few other questions and comments.
1. The mere fact that this idea is being floated would seem to me to be an admission that the housing market is a long way from bottoming.
2. How would this program impact the principle of property rights? If Uncle Sam is effectively dictating how an owner of a property, be it a bank or otherwise, can utilize that property, does this become precedent for other assets as well?
3. Would Uncle Sam consider establishing incentives for the banks and the homeowners to develop a program such as this through the private market? A tax incentive of some sort for the bank? Do we care to try to embrace free market principles?
4. Do we even try to determine the long term impact of this program on our economy in general and housing in particular?
Little doubt this type of program would be a sharp turn left on our economic landscape.
LD
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Reparation time?
I’m assuming by your comment that you think most of the beneficiaries of this program will be black. Where’s your evidence?
just a hunch
Evidence? Check out the growth of unemployment rates for black citizens vs other ethnic groups and then apply logic. In March, the overall national unemployment rate was 8%. For blacks overall it was 13% and for black males it was 16%. Also, they are statistically more likely to have received sub-prime mortgages.
aaaaaaaah this slippery slope keeps getting worse…
Rent? If they cannot make the mortgage payments how can they rent? Who pays taxes and insurance? Who pays for repairs?
This is just one more way to bring the USA down to level for all….But not quite all. Some will ride around in style and view the masses in the breadlines. Did I hear miss Mi errrr Antoinette say “let them eat cake?”
I am so stoked! We may be rid of this fraud soon. The orders to report were rovoked by the military for Maj. Cook. That means they cannot prove Obama is legit to be Prez! Of course that also means he is about ready to reveal the cooked up forgery of a birth certificate but maybe, just maybe we can get rid of the marxist posing as an American!
I know this is not the topic, but I am loving this! Every recruit and soldier now can challange, and what can the military do? Revoke orders for everyone? They take an oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign, AND DOMESTIC! The military can get us out of this. I hope it causes a constitutional crisis like none we have ever seen and wakes up the whole country to stand and say NO COUP BY A DICTATOR ALLOWED IN AMERICA EVER!
OK, I will shut up now.
WoooooHoooooooo!
Is this comment serious? If so, as the daughter of a man who was imprisoned following an actual coup that brought an actual dictator to power, I find what you wrote profoundly offensive. As the wife of a man who has had 3 members of his family jailed and tortured following a separate set of actual coups in a different country after which a whole other batch of actual dicators came to power I find your comment doubly offensive.
If your comment is satirical I confess I don’t get it.
Do you actually believe Obama is not trying to make a communist style, government owned and run country out of the United States? Every step he has taken leads toward his handlers ultimate goal of Global Governance with a world bank and a world run system of laws. Every czar he appoints without the approval of congress, every program he is pushing is to kill our economy and make a third world banana republic out of us. His backing of the Honduran situation. His back stabbing of Isreal at every turn. His denying that America is a christian nation. His marxist mentors, professors, family, church, his books (if anyone bothered to read them) all plainly tells us what his goals are. He has not tried to hide it. His illegal campaigning for Odinga while a sitting US Senator, who is now under investigation for the slaughter of white christians after the election he lost. No offence meant to your family, but YES he is a dictator waiting in the wings for a long planned system of destruction of our country to play out.
You disagree with Obama’s policies and don’t like the man. Fine. You should ask people who’ve lived under dictatorships and experienced coups firsthand about their experiences - middle of the night arrests, no right to counsel, coerced confessions, torture, indefinite detention, amputations, the kidnapping of children to use as soldiers and sex slaves, repeated rapes, being burned by cigarettes…and on and on.
I believe what we’d all like to see is the removal of a fraud from office and a new election so we can get back to true democracy. No one is advocating a military coup ala Chile or other Latin American countries.
Obama is a usurper. Many people know this and many more are learning it every day. Did you forget that No Quarter did pieces on the birth certificate issue?? Read texas Darlin’ blog from last year.
What we should all do is refuse to pay federal taxes under this usurper and refuse anything he has signed into law until he proves his eligibility once and for all. He can’t or he would have by now. Stop giving the Federal Government any tax money while the are not legit. They cannot pay for all their illegal bs if they get no revenue.
Anyone who doesn’t believe Obama to be an illegal alien, that’s fine, but then tell me why he should not have to prove he is elligible if even one US citizen questions it! Obama thinks he is special and above the law. He can prove himself just like everyone else. if he is too afraid to prove it then he should resign.
I agree.
My question is why Obama has spent over a Million dollars in legal so no the public cannot see his long form BC. You know the one with hospital, doctors name and etc. Hey McCain show his without people filing lawsuits.
And why has Obama never addressed his name changes from Barrack Obama to Barry Soetoro to Barrack Obama. Along with the fact that his stepfather and mother listed him as not only Indonesian but Muslim. (Hey Obama kept claiming he had no Muslim background during the election).
Hmmm I was just wondering do we even really know if Barack Hussein Obama II was his given birth name….
Do you really want to know how offensive your vitriol is?
DCMG…
listen to Lou Dobbs…
Just ordered a stack of Post Cards from WorldNetDaily.com to send in time for 0fraud0’s August 4th birthday. It’s a picture of the WH with a lawn sign “Where’s the Birth Certificate?”
I believe the idea is to swamp the mail that day with these birthday cards.
me, too. My friends are all sending them, too. I will say, “Happy birthday, Barry Soetoro or whoever you really are. My gift to you is to keep trying to expose you because the truth always comes out and the sooner, the better for America.”
Better wear gloves when you handle the cards…his bullys might try to track you down from finger prints!
Carman, everything you say is true. Let’s hope this is finally the beginning of the end of this nightmare of government takeover!
This idea seems fraught with danger for the reasons stated. Plus, I hope the beneficiaries wouldn’t be people who couldn’t really afford to be homeowners in the first place — that would essentially be compounding the original problem that rocked the financial industry. Is a single-family home becoming a new entitlement?
That’s my hope too. On the other hand, Barney Frank is planning another low income boondoggle just like the last one so…I’m guessing that if you’re on unemployment or welfare you can qualify for one of these houses, get the stipend to help with the rent payment and probably can never be evicted. At least this was part of the plan I read…stipend for the people on unemployment…now with 3 federal extensions…and more to come, I’m sure.
I thought to myself…”Well, well, well. Weren’t you the smart one to opt out of one of those loans; you could have stuck it out until you could be saved by 0fraud0’s can-not-evict-plan, then rent the property back to yourself with their help.” Flim Flam at its best.
Our system is being broken. It is like the quotation… in order to save the village it had to be destroyed. Except that we are the village. This goes way past democrat vs. republican ideology. The democrats right now are just tools. They think they are winning, but every fight doesn’t have a winner.
I don’t come to any conclusion except that they are destroying the country by design. They really want to own us lock, stock and barrel; then they have total control over all of us. It’s like that inadvertent Freudian slip from Zero during the campaign: “America is the greatest country in the world. Join me in changing it.”
Let see the federal gov’t head of banks, car manufaturers, loan companies, health care almost, so why not our homes.
I hope enough Americans wake up before its too late.
It is important to remember, too, that this did not come about solely because of one political party or the other.
ConfusedAmerican, what do you think about this article” http://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/we-are-all-fascists-now/
Spooky, isn’t it? I hope we wake up, too. “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Gustav Jung Time to quit trying to realize the ‘dream’–it’s an illusion.
Did you have to add to my nightmares…
Hey I have no bills…own my own home if property taxes dont get to me…Make a meager living subbing which is burning out due to teacher cuts..
The only handout I’m looking for is my ss If and when I retire. which is 1/2 my ex’s social security (hmmm will that be there).
Even though I am probably considered below poverty level income wise I dont want Obama’s crap and feel in the long run it will destroy what little I have built up.
You sound very UNconfused to me. More like very disappointed in our rulers. Me too.
We will all hang in here and we will get things to change for the better. Stay strong and spread your knowledge around
If they pass the cap and trade bill, every new home in the USA will have to have 30% more energy efficiency that exists today. Every property that is up for resale will have to have the same 30% upgrade.
Does that include homeowners who were never really qualified to buy the home in the first place? Those who bought more than they could afford? So, we’re rewarding irresponsible acts of homeowners who purchased beyond their means. Great. Just wondering who’s going to bail ME out when I can’t make my rent payment?
Our non-government is out of control. Time for a revolution. Where’d all the PUMAs go???
Everyday it seems that the government is taking over another aspect of our lives…
And everyday I keep hoping that I will wake up from this nightmare….
Well now I pray that enough people will wake up before its too late and the America that we fought for so many years ago is no longer.
we fought for our freedom.but it us an ongoing battle.
we must never give up.
This is another assault on private property - and the Constitution, which is being shredded every day by this government. No way the government should be allowed to swoop in and take over ownership of a person’s home, even if that person agrees to it. What about the holder of the mortgage? Do they get shoved aside just like the secured bondholders of Chrysler and GM? I suppose so. The rule of law and the Constitution are dead in our beloved America.
Why do I go in moderation every time I comment now? Does NQ not like me anymore?
I’m wondering if this new trial balloon being floated isn’t as much a nod to the banks and mortgage companies as it is to “regular folks.” I understand there is a growing number of people living in homes they haven’t paid on for months, some for as long as a year.
The banks don’t want more foreclosures because it means actually showing those staggering losses on their books. I think the Obama Administration is well aware that ordinary taxpayers will howl with another Stim bill to bail out financial institutions.
But if you couch it in terms of “people hurting,” particualry when so little has been done to help Main Street, it’s a way to get a very bitter pill down the public’s throat.
Do I trust these people?? No way.