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2011-10-25 Home Front: Politix
Obama to announce actions on housing, student loans
(Rooters) - President Barack B.O. Obama this week will announce a series of actions to help the economy that will not require congressional approval, including an initiative to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages, according to a White House official.

The actions come as Obama is facing resistance from Republicans to a $447 billion jobs package he has urged Congress to pass.

The first of the initiatives will be unveiled during Obama's three-day trip to western states beginning Monday.

He will discuss the changes in mortgage rules at a stop in Nevada, which has one of the hardest-hit housing markets in the country.

The B.O. regime has been working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator for 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.

The FHFA intends to loosen the terms of the two-year-old Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), which helps borrowers who have been making mortgage payments on time but who have not been able to refinance as their home values have dropped.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the changes should boost refinancing because they will let banks avoid the risk of any "buy-back" on a HARP mortgage as long as borrowers have made their last six mortgage payments and they prove that they have a job or another source of passive income.
Posted by Fred 2011-10-25 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ]  Top

#1 The USA can never get enough of what it doesn't need.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-25 00:58||   2011-10-25 00:58|| Front Page Top

#2 "Hey Boo Boo, gotta take more of those pickinick baskets so we can make more of a bubble."

"Wont that make the bubble blow up worse, yogi"

"Yeah, but if I get it, I can keep taking more and the people will still drive to jellystone park to get robbed by me"

"Okay Yogi, but I do not think the Ranger will like it"

"I am the ranger in jellystone park, boo boo, never you worry"
Posted by newc 2011-10-25 01:05||   2011-10-25 01:05|| Front Page Top

#3 actions on housing, student loans

Casting blame?
Posted by gr(o)mgoru 2011-10-25 04:10||   2011-10-25 04:10|| Front Page Top

#4 These dangerous bubbles must be kept inflated for the good of the politically connected!
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-10-25 05:08||   2011-10-25 05:08|| Front Page Top

#5 God forbid the Baby Sages suffer with the rest of us.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-10-25 09:39||   2011-10-25 09:39|| Front Page Top

#6 There is something like $1 trillion in outstanding student loans. Earlier BO was talking about loan forgiveness. If this is about loan forgiveness, that is a bad precedent--but then what isn't a bad precedent in this administration? The OWS bunch wants free college education. Forgiveness would feed into this.
Posted by JohnQC 2011-10-25 12:46||   2011-10-25 12:46|| Front Page Top

#7 Student loans are the only debts not discharged by bankruptcy.
Posted by trailing wife 2011-10-25 13:03||   2011-10-25 13:03|| Front Page Top

#8 trailing wife

I think if you have a debt to a crime victim based on you being the criminal it is also not dischargeable by bankruptcy.
Posted by .lord garth 2011-10-25 13:08||   2011-10-25 13:08|| Front Page Top

#9 trailing wife
Loans are secured on the asset the debt purchases.
In student debt cases this is he contents of their heads.
How can you move ownership of the contents of your mind? You cannot. Not discharging these loans is a sensible idea.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-10-25 14:35||   2011-10-25 14:35|| Front Page Top

#10 "Discharging loans" is not the same as "loan forgiveness" and neither are the same as "bankruptcy."
If student loans are secured by anything other than rent-seekers or imaginary assets, that is news to me.
Not making generations of young people "debt slaves" aka "peons" is an even more sensible idea.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-25 14:41||   2011-10-25 14:41|| Front Page Top

#11  Making student loans dischargeable through bankruptcy will not make college educations free (ultimately) but it would make the cost of such educations for the next generation much, much cheaper.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-25 14:43||   2011-10-25 14:43|| Front Page Top

#12 Jerry Pournelle on the significant of unlimited student loans: over time more and more money has been injected into the University and College system. If they have the money they will spend it. Eventually the Iron Law governs, faculty, administrators, and staff get ever increasing raises and benefits, admission requirements fall, demand for more public money rises – well, you get the idea. Tuition rises. The answer to that is to inject more money in the form of loans. Unforgivable loans. Loans that will destroy social mobility, as everyone who doesn’t inherit a college education finds himself – herself – a bondswoman for life. But as tuition rises, fewer want to pay, so more and more students must be admitted regardless of qualifications. Public programs that were supposed to be restricted to the smart people who might become boffins have to be extended to everyone regardless of qualifications – or even of background. A program that was supposed to be for veterans is replaced by programs that must be available to all. Programs expand. Campuses multiply. The bubble continues.

And here we are.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-25 14:47||   2011-10-25 14:47|| Front Page Top

#13 Debt clock is running "student loans are set to surpass $1 trillion in total notional for the first time in history". Then the next insult, no jobs for arts majors.
Posted by Dale 2011-10-25 14:50||   2011-10-25 14:50|| Front Page Top

#14 Meh. Starbucks has plenty of jobs for art majors.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-10-25 14:51||   2011-10-25 14:51|| Front Page Top

#15 AH,I was just going on. I hear Zombies are in. Opps!, Zombies are empty vessels. We must be close to Halloween.
Posted by Dale 2011-10-25 15:09||   2011-10-25 15:09|| Front Page Top

#16 > Making student loans dischargeable through bankruptcy will not make college educations free (ultimately) but it would make the cost of such educations for the next generation much, much cheaper.

Er how?

1 Educate then Bankruptcy!
2 ????
3 Cheaper Education!

The underpant gnome theory of education.

There's only ONE way to make education cheaper.
Lower the wages cost. Whether by less teachers or less pay for teachers.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-10-25 15:27||   2011-10-25 15:27|| Front Page Top

#17 No, the educational cost lies mainly in the administration and beauracracy needed to keep it in power.
Posted by bman 2011-10-25 15:55||   2011-10-25 15:55|| Front Page Top

#18 Got a lazy hundred bucks, pal?
Posted by tipper 2011-10-25 16:41||   2011-10-25 16:41|| Front Page Top

#19 Can the Youth Vote Be Bought For a Trillion Dollars?
Posted by tipper 2011-10-25 18:15||   2011-10-25 18:15|| Front Page Top

#20 I was reading today that Germany is leveraged 32 to 1. France is like 26 to 1. Guess who is leveraged the most? Fed is leveraged at 53 to 1. I would like to get off this crazy ride. I'll let this fellow go first:



Posted by Dale 2011-10-25 18:29||   2011-10-25 18:29|| Front Page Top

03:23 Besoeker
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