Bush to Bail Out Sub-Prime Lenders

While claiming to bail-out low-income borrowers, Bush's plan to extend Government Guaranteed Loans to borrowers who cannot pay their mortgage is, in actuality, a bail-out of the lenders, who will receive payment for their bad loans while enslaving ... er, indebting mortgage borrowers to the federal government. And where does the money for this bail-out of the Ponzi scamming bastards come from? Right out of the taxpayers pocket.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6971746.stm

That's right, let's just heap more debt on the American people to save these worthless criminals, after all, they're worth more than the future of America, right? If you really wanted to help the borrowers, why not force the lenders to convert those fraudulent ARMs to low interest fixed rate loans? Why? Because it doesn't bail-out the sub-prime lenders. What is with this collusion to fleece every last penny out of the American working class? Does the United States even have the ability to issue enough debt to cover these loans? Last I saw, the rest of the world had enough of it(in more ways than one), and weren't showing up at the auctions. Aren't we in enough of a debt crisis already? I guess the working class in America takes it in the angus again so the thieving rich can skate away scott free. Where is Robin Hood when you need him?

Be sure to read Mish's take on this. Really good.

Bush Moves to Aid Lenders

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, looking for ways to respond to the subprime-mortgage crisis, will outline a series of policy changes and recommendations today to help borrowers avoid default make sure lenders aren't defaulted on, senior administration officials said.

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http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Mish's take is just like what the MasterCard commercials say, "Priceless". John



Prudentbear has less humour:

The one thing all bubbles have in common is that they eventually pop, and ours just did. Unlike the popping of the last bubble in 2000-2001, this one will fall directly to our economy’s bottom line. And this time the Fed can not step up to the plate with unlimited liquidity injections.

A record percentage of our GDP is comprised of consumer spending. The source of this spending was the housing bubble. Would our savings rate really be negative were it not for housing related “wealth?” Could consumers really have spent as much as they did without the benefits of temporarily low teaser rates and the ability to extract equity from their homes? How many service sector jobs are directly related to that extra spending? When the low mortgage payments and home equity disappear, so too will the spending and jobs they engendered.

Those who feel that the economy will keep growing must believe that discretionary consumer spending is unrelated to wealth or expenses. In other words, they believe that individuals will spend as much with no home equity and $3,000 per month mortgage payments as they did with $200,000 in home equity $1,500 monthly payments. Factor in other rising expenses; such as food, energy, insurance, and taxes and discretionary spending will not just slow, it will completely collapse.


http://prudentbear.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4743...

Just wait, the other shoe will soon drop. The dollar will decline in value, and the cost of imports will go up. TPTB must have decided that higher prices for Chinese junk at Sprawl-Mart & fuel at the gas pump would probably generate less flack than a further decline in house values.

But hey the "official" U.S. debt limit stands at 8.989 trillion as of yesterday and no talk of raising the limit nor is there any media talking head to ask, "Where's the Beef?". John

By those clocks numbers, we will be at 9 trillion dollars by this time next week or sooner. And seeing as we can never pay off this debt, what in the real world is going to happen to the USA in 20 years?

The cost of China sourced goods will go up only if they show some restraint in currency manipulation by buying less dollars and letting the yuan float, as all other major currencies do. So far they have refused to do either. So worry not - that $25 DVD player may soon go to $15.

I'll confess up front I'm a physicist, not an economist. It always troubles me when I hear that spending of one sort or another is going down because consumers have to spend their money elsewhere. The paradox I see is that the money still goes somewhere. It doesn't vanish. Or does it?

Say a person borrows against equity and buys a new big screen TV. They now have to pay that money back through higher monthly payments.

Say that ARM rates go up by the same amount so that person doesn't buy the big screen TV. They just make the payments. However, the lender gets more money and they turn around and either use that money to lend to other people to buy homes or they take it as profit and go out and buy a Mercedes or a yacht.

Why is one different for the economy than the other?

Unlike energy, money can be spontaneously created or destroyed without changing forms (being exchanged for goods or services.)

When you buy something (like a house) and then its price drops, the money representing the difference in price is destroyed.

If we take your example forward a few steps:

The ARM rates go up by a huge amount. Millions of borrowers stop buying all products except what they need to live.

Most people work for companies that don't provide what people need to live. Nobody is buying their products anymore. Millions of borrowers who work for these companies are laid off.

Unemployed people can't afford the ARM payment anymore. They try to sell the house, but nobody else has cash either. This causes house prices to plummet, which reduces people's ability to get out of house debt by selling the house. Eventually many default on their home loan.

The lenders at first make a lot of money. The relatively few people who make yachts or Mercedes do OK as a result. As more and more borrowers default, however, the lenders begin to lose a lot of money, too. Because now the houses are worth much less, and the original borrower won't ever pay off the original debt.


However, the lender gets more money and they turn around and either use that money to lend to other people to buy homes or they take it as profit and go out and buy a Mercedes or a yacht.



What you are describing is exactly what has been happening in the US economy which is transitioning into a rentier economy in which 10% of the population owns 99% of the assets. The other 90% of the population own next to no assets and remain indebted to the property owners.


From a political economy point of view, the 10% will have effective control of all apparatus of government and will manage it to serve their interests. This is already taking place. The 90% keep running faster and faster just to stay in place and fail to understand why their effort is fruitless.


This economy is far, far different from the Jeffersonian ideal in which each citizen was a property holder and each therefore had a vested interest in the governing structure. The US is transitioning back to the very political economy that it rebelled against 200 off years ago.


The wealthy buy luxury goods and services so if you offer these goods you will do well. The wealthy also invest for the greatest return and if this turns out to be in India or China then that is where the investment flows, the factories get built, the employment increases, and the exports originate.


There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this. We are just re-arranging the chemical bonds to come up with a new molecule that contains all the original elements but which functions in a different way. This is the position of a moral relativist.


On the other hand, 10% of the population are making out like bandits and fleecing the other 90% out of their wages, their property, their communities and their avowed form of government. From the perspective of a true conservative this is an abomination, a call to arms, grounds for an attack on the ruling class and a return to the status quo.


The $800 trillion dollar question bubbles up when this state borrows, and borrows, and borrows. At a certain point the creditors have as much or more influence as the citizens, perhaps more. The creditors observe the 10% moving their funds offshore and do likewise. The result is a major economic collapse in which the 90% suffer while the 10% again make out like bandits.

What remains to be seen is how long a rentier society can continue when a significant number of the 90% own guns, many of the 10% do not, and most of the military -- including the officers -- originate from the 90% rather than the 10%.

Historically, rentier societies featured a disarmed proletariat/peasantry, and an officer corps drawn from the propertied classes. This was how social control was able to go hand-in-hand with economic control.

When there is too much of a disconnect between the ruling class and the officer corps, then the thought inevitably occurs to the officer corps that the ruling class could just as easily be THEM, and that there really is nothing to stop them from taking over. There is a lot of historical precedent for this, too.

The 10% may make out like bandits, but then again bandits make out like bandits -- until they swing from the end of a rope.

Cid,

O.K., I hate to say this and seldom do, but....Is that exactly what I been trying to tell you guys since the start of this so called "crisis"? !!!

This whole thing was timed, whipped up and doled out to the public to get EXACTLY this result!

Think of this way and you willl understand.....It's an IPO to allow the mortgage lenders and their backers to cash out, with Unc' Sam to become the big buyer.....so really it's an IGO (Initial Government offering).

You get to the top of the Ponzi scheme, or "market", you've made millions in fees and closing costs, you know there's no more suckers left, you know these poor dopes you stuck with these pathetic "subprime", "interest only", "ARM" loans can't cash you out soon (which unlike legit mortgage banks, you DID NOT intend to stay around for no 30 or 40 years waiting for your money), so you tighten the screws, tighten the lending requirements, tighten the credit ratings, begin foreclosing on a few of the poor bastuurds, and let the business press and the hysterics in the market do the rest of the job for ya'....

And like magic, Uncle Sam comes in and buys your IGO, bails you azz out, and you walk away to some real estate of your own somewhere in the Bahamas, Cayman or Virgin Islands....and America tacks the bill on behind the trillion dollar Iraq war and a few other little expenses, is still in less debt per GDP than half the Euro currency Ponzi artists who have run the same game for years, the house is still standing in the suburbs on a nice big lawn, Uncle Sam signs off on the poor schmoe's debt, and the sun still rises.

The only "crisis" in this game has been the crisis of scruples.

RC

I cannot shake my image of the CEO president looting the pension funds, stripping the corporate assets and walking out on the employees and vendors. The next step - to avert bankruptcy - is the "restructuring". If I thought there were one or two opportunities on which BushCo had passed, then I might doubt the image, but I cannot think of any.

They know the company (country) is dying, so they strip it.

cfm in Gray, ME

They know the company (country) is dying, so they strip it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen...

If I was a U.S. taxpayer who has been prudent with my money I would be furious. If I were a foreign lender I would pull my money out of the U.S. as fast as possible

Damn right, beyond furious.

We have become a country for Zionist bankers and welfare mobs with eternally outstretched hands.

Since the working and tax paying real citizens can't take the country back at the voting booth we should make an effort to remove any excess liquidity from the US and not spend a dime on anything other then basic food.
Let the bankers drown in their own shit and this will automatically starve the welfare mobs.

You can make your point without antisemitic epitaphs.

Nothing anti-Semitic in the post.

Please don't cry wolf with anti-Semitism and degrade its meaning. Calling a Zionist a Zionist isn't anti-Semitic. Zionism is not Judaism, although Zionists would like people to believe they are interchangeable terms, they're not.

Would you have complained if the post referred to Masonic bankers? Would that have been anti-Caucasian or whatever?

Differentiating between Zionism and Judaism doesn't make your post any less kooky.

My post? Kooky? Would you like to expand on that a little so I can understand what the hell it is you're trying to say.

Personally, I think raving about Zionist and Masonic bankers sounds equally kooky.

I wouldn't disagree with that Leanan, it wasn't me and I wasn't agreeing with the sentiment of the original post.

My rub was with the gratuitous misuse of a special term and its expansion to include an organisation for which it was not meant. The distinction is very important and should be maintained.

Masonic bankers? Please point me to 'em so I can ask 'em to help a brother.

While the post is not anti semitic, your response high lites one real major problem we have in the US these days.

Every time you have a member from any group that gets to call itself "minority" commit a crime, no matter how atrocious, even otherwise decent and educated members of that minority will call for absolution and innocence based purely on the specific minority status.

The result can only be a society without any values whatsoever.

Best hopes for a correction before we become Iraq.

Curious. If I didn't know better I'd think I've just read a comment by not just an anonymous internet blowhard but also an ignorant anti-semite.

Worse than that, Musashi. Some of those Zionist bankers are accomplices of the fugitive Emmanuel Goldstein.

This is a really BAD idea. This kind of crap keeps up there won't be a election next year - there'll be some lynchings.

..., and weren't showing up at the auctions.

I've always wanted to hear the soundtrack from one of those auctions: "Who-da-gimme $17,455,273,675,498.50?" I sadistically want to hear the auctioneer's tongue blow up.