Thursday, August 30, 2007

Barack Obama and his plan for the common man

Looks like a market correction is also a good time for politicians to get some publicity going. FT carried a comment article by Barack Obama on Wednesday, August 29 where the presidential hopeful provided solutions to protecting home owners affected by the sub-prime mess.

Let's see here, this is what Mr. Obama he had to say:

-Predatory tactics used by mortgage companies to target unsuspecting wannabe home owners
-Wannabe home owners were lied to about the affordability of the mortgages they were getting into
-When owners started defaulting people who suffered most were the homeowners themselves as their homes were foreclosed
-Mortgage companies and people on Wall street did not suffer too much
-Solution to this is that the government should get off their hiney and force mortgage companies and banks involved to pay fines
-These fines would be pooled and a fund is to be created
-Home owners who lost their homes would be paid from this fund so that they can get their homes back
-And everybody's happy! Yippie!

Again, all the above bullet points were Mr. Obama's ideas-not mine.

So, what do I think? Well, I will admit I am not following the presidential election campaigns closely and I will also admit to being ignorant about Mr. Obama's strategy and plans for the future. Having said that,
-This article is obviously an attempt to garner votes among a certain demographic, and being a politician that is expected.
-That Barack Obama is a teeny weeny bit to the left is also pretty obvious from this article
-Not sure how much understanding of the economy and the financial markets does Mr Obama have but someone obviously fed him this solution and carefully worded it to be different from others (oh, yeah each member of the presidential hopeful brigade has suggested their own solutions to this mortgage mess-you can read them everywhere).
-Why am I approaching this from a political perspective? Well, because that is all it is. Obviously I do not know what Mr. Obama's (why am I calling him Mr. Obama? Dont know) real intentions are but this solution seems somewhat amateurish and implausible.
-Go back and check historically if there is any precedent for this, that is has the government ever paid any money back to the common man (apart from all those BS taxbreaks)? I dont think so.
-Moreover, the very Wall Street types that Mr. Obama is berating in the article are contributing heavily to his campaign. No politician wants to piss off the rich people. Not really sure what Mr. Obama is trying to achieve by doing this.
-And more importantly, what the hell does he mean when he says "unsuspecting home buyers fell to the schemes of mortgage companies"? Hello? These people are not children yeah? I am tired of people blaming someone else for their decisions.
-It is not that difficult people. If you are earning $100 a month and have to pay $80 for monthly expenditure, having to pay $60 mortgage on top of that is out of the question yeah?
-Banks and mortgage companies are always out to make money, we all know that. So dont blame them. Take responsibility for your own actions. Do some math or talk to friends who can do it. It is not that difficult.
-Well, the problems lie elsewhere here, in my opinion. Education and Regulation.
-People need to go out and do some research on their own before taking credit for anything. And dont give me that BS that people dont have time, yes they do. Talk to a friend or some non-profit or browse the web, there are multiple sources these days. Until you are very comfortable
with how far your money will take you, do not take out any loans.
-The government needs to step in and pass some sort of regulation for banks and lending institutions that stipulates what the criteria is for giving mortgage loans. And make it mandatory for homeowners to buy foreclosure insurance.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Dude,
what else will you expect from the Left. For them, the government is the answer to all the problems. Let the govt take care of health issues, social security, energy policy, and now of course housing. I agree that lot of people got duped over the past 3 years, but an equal number of them were greedy folks who wanted to get rich quick trying to flip houses.
Hey, I lost a bundle in the 2000 market collapse. I did not hear the politicians bailing out the investors.
Friggin, unbelievable times we live in.

Unknown said...

Spoken like a true Republican. You can come out of the closet now.

I agree that the govt should not be bailing out people in this sub prime mess. But its a case of throwing the baby with the bathwater.

There are people who "flipped" houses and got stuck with the ridiculously high interest rates. What they need is a swift kick in the butt and nothing more.

But there are people who were genuinely misrepresented. I empathize with such people. Ive spent sometime talking to mortgage brokers in my time and they can be pretty persuasive.

I wouldn't mind if these people are bailed out but not with tax dollars, use the 3 billion/week being spent in IRAQ for that.

As for Obama's plan - its just electioneering.

Unknown said...

Ram
What else will you expect from me, I am from Alabama.
For people flipping houses, I would not bail them out, no matter what the circumstances. That is pure greed.
For folks that got duped, I would like to see some sort of action where the lenders are forced to accomodate these individuals. The bailout nonsense talk yesterday is only going to help the lenders.
You can't complain about Iraq yet. Give him one more year and I am sure we will find the WMD (long time since I heard that) and the govt is only asking for an additional $50B for that war.
Geaux W