THE DAILY BLADE: Sub-Par Solution For Sub-Prime Loans: Part II
In their stump speeches Barack Obama (D-IL) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) have done their best to create what Washington Post columnist George Will calls “economic hypochondria,” and their surrogates in the MSM are laboring mightily to find everyday folks who can put a face to the suffering the candidates claim is caused by the “housing crisis” and the “stock market meltdown.” However, Will’s paper has thus far been able to come up with examples of folly and fecklessness that play right into John McCain’s (now slightly wobbly) preference to let events play out.
Arguing that “the vast majority of homeowners will remain well ahead, even after the market corrects for housing inflation” - between the beginning of 2000 and the middle of 2006 average housing prices rose 93 percent, whereas between January 2006 and January 2007 single-family homes in major metropolitan areas lost 10.7 percent of their value – Will points out that “so far during this ‘crisis,’ the homeownership rate has declined just three-tenths of 1 percent [and] at 67.8 percent, it remains higher than it was when President Bill Clinton left office.”
Here’s one economic victim whose story Will came across:
Declines in housing values and the stock market are causing some Americans to delay retirement. A
So, this is a facet of today's hydra-headed "crisis" - the man must linger in the labor force until, say, 62. That is the earliest age at which a person can, and most recipients do, begin collecting Social Security. …
As conservative pundits and economists have noted, subprime mortgages comprise a fraction of all home mortgages, and only a fraction of borrowers with these loans are unable to meet their obligations. “Casting this minority of a minority as victims of “predatory” lending” writes Will, “fits the liberal narrative that most Americans are victims of this or that sinister elite or impersonal force and are not competent to cope with life's complexities without government supervision.”
The WaPo found two such people libs would describe as victims of predatory lending, but who the rest of us would describe as victims of their own stupidity – and there ain’t no government program to save people from themselves. Nor should there be.
Eight years ago, single mother Kimberly Mitchell, 38, bought a spacious three-story townhouse in Prince George’s County, MD, that was close to a good school. She paid $200,000 and took out a fixed-rate mortgage with a 7 percent interest rate.
So far, so good. But then Mitchell – who had a job paying $90,000 a year with bennies – decided she wanted to “have it all” and made a series of disastrous (some would say irresponsible) career and financial decisions:
Longing for a chance to start her own business and spend more time with her son, Mitchell left her corporate job in 2002 and started a day-care center in her home. … [S]he decided to refinance her home in 2005 and tap its equity to consolidate bills. Her loan officer steered her to an 8 percent adjustable-rate mortgage, assuring her that she could refinance later and return to a fixed-rate interest loan.
Mitchell said her monthly payment jumped by $300 a month, and she quickly fell behind. She later learned that her property taxes of more than $3,000 a year were no longer a part of her mortgage payments. In October, her rate will increase to more than 10 percent. …
She acknowledged that she was too trusting and did not read all the paperwork, which she regrets.
Now she is stuck. …
Mitchell, who owes $260,000 on her mortgage, said she tried to refinance at a lower rate, but lenders said her credit was not good enough.
So she put her house on the market. List price: $350,000.
Note that even if Mitchell gets 10 or 20 percent less for her home than her asking price, she still walks away with a small profit that she can put towards paying her bills and repairing her credit. She can live in an apartment for a few years while she saves up for a down payment on a more modest home within her means. To be sure, she is struggling with the consequences of her own actions but she is hardly ruined. Mitchell does not need a taxpayer bailout, she just needs self-discipline.
And then there’s Glenda Ortiz, a cook at a Best Western married to an air conditioner installer. She spoke to the WaPo reporter in Spanish – the paper does not divulge her immigration status, natch – and holds her out as an example of “what can happen when a hot real estate market collides with cheap credit, lax lending standards and little oversight”:
She looked at only one house and paid too much for it: $430,000 for a run-down, one-story duplex in
She agreed to a high-interest loan that would cost her more than $3,000 a month, more than 70 percent of the $4,200 that she and her husband brought home monthly.
She signed papers in English that she didn't understand. One said she was married to a man she didn't know.
She placed her financial future in the hands of a woman she barely knew who sold cosmetics and jewelry door to door. She sought no one else's advice.
Her loan application sailed through an originator and was accepted by a mortgage company, both specializing in customers with “less than ideal” credit.
And so, in August 2005 … Ortiz … became a homeowner. By last March, the home was in foreclosure. The loan originator and mortgage company had gone out of business. And Ortiz was headed to court.
Blindly led down the primrose path by her naiveté and her “burning desire” to own a home in the
But creating an enabling codependency on Big Government helps Dems get into office. Dems are always accusing Republicans of cynically manipulating workaday Americans to vote against their own financial interests. The shoe is on the other foot.
Yankee Hex Was No Hoax
The Yankee organization better start doing background checks on the construction workers being hired to put up the new Yankee Stadium. Not to check felonies, but fealty. Mason Gino Castignoli – a Red Sox fan who lives in The Bronx – copped to imbedding a David Ortiz jersey into the concrete last summer to jinx the joint. Fortunately, two other construction workers figured out where the accursed garment might be located - a service corridor near the site of the planned Legends Club restaurant, behind home plate and toward the third base side, reports the New York Post – and workers jackhammered at the spot for five hours until they found it. Team spokeswoman Alice McGillion told the paper that the shirt was on the stadium's lowest level, behind where the field-level seats will be. Hank Steinbrenner, who’s running things now, said, “I hope his coworkers kick the s**t out of him.” Castignoli was unrepentant: “Tell Hank he can come meet me if he wants to try - and tell him to bring [catcher Jorge] Posada, because he's the one Yankee I can't stand.”
Editorial Note: Jorge Posada is The Stiletto’s favorite Yankee.
Proud To Be An American
The ranks of American citizens grew by 259, as
The service members sat in olive green folding chairs, their rifles placed neatly underneath on the shiny marble floors, perpendicular to their boots.
“This crowd reminds us that the source of our nation's uniqueness is our ethnic and cultural diversity,” said Lt. Gen. Lloyd James Austin III, the keynote speaker. “These warriors have already sworn an oath to protect the
A
Reciting the oath of citizenship, the group, which included service members from 71 countries, vowed to "bear arms on behalf of the
The ceremony had special meaning for one U.S. Marine, in particular:
“When they called my name, I looked down and said: 'It happened! It's done!’,” [Evan] Eskharia said. …
Eskharia's childhood neighborhood is a 20-minute drive from the military base where he became an American. He recalled the night in 1990 [when he was 9 years old] that his family crossed into
In
His family settled near
Eskharia told The WaPo, “It's ironic that I fled this country from a dictator and came back to get my citizenship here.”
Obama’s Family Values: Part II
Considering the indifference and neglect with which Barack Obama treats his grandmothers – the white one and the black one alike – the Dem presidential candidate would appear to be the last person who should advise Americans on family values. But there he was in
“You've got to parent. You've got to turn off the television set in your house once in a while, you've got to put the video game away once in a while.” …
“You should have a curfew in your house so your children aren't out in the streets all night. You should meet with the teacher and find out what the homework is and help that child with the homework. And if you don't know how to do the homework, don't be embarrassed, find someone to help you.
“Fathers, be fathers … Be a part of your child's life. Be a part of your child's life and try to make them proud.
“And the last thing is, if your child is misbehaving at school don't curse out the teacher. You know who you are. It's not the teacher's fault that your child is misbehaving. That's some home training.”
What about not exposing your impressionable children to expletive-riddled anti-American, racist hate speech on Sunday mornings?
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