* education * energy independance/sustainability * ecological concerns * wealth disparity and the rigging of the financial system, ESPECIALLY in the credit industry, both secured and unsecured. This actually gets a lot of play but in the wrong areas, like the inane tug of war over Social Security amid false and repeated claims that it's insolvent. Entitlements are not and have never been the issue and are a smokescreen for the actual problem: a taxation system that's not progressive enough and legislation that increasingly favors the rights of corporations and corporate profit over individuals.
So are you saying that Romney and Obama are nearly identical on these issues? If so, what have you been smoking?
And on pretty-much all of those issues, the Republican party is on what I would consider to be the wrong side.
Basically, the Democrats are wrong about some things and right about others, but the Republicans are pretty-much wrong about everything at this point. They're the party of ultra ideological anti-environmentalism. They're the party that refuses to even discuss tax reform or regulatory changes.
* education * energy independance/sustainability * ecological concerns * wealth disparity and the rigging of the financial system, ESPECIALLY in the credit industry, both secured and unsecured. This actually gets a lot of play but in the wrong areas, like the inane tug of war over Social Security amid false and repeated claims that it's insolvent. Entitlements are not and have never been the issue and are a smokescreen for the actual problem: a taxation system that's not progressive enough and legislation that increasingly favors the rights of corporations and corporate profit over individuals.
So are you saying that Romney and Obama are nearly identical on these issues? If so, what have you been smoking?
Close enough as makes no(t enough) difference. Obama is going to bring painfully slow, incremental reform at best (because quite frankly he's almost as out of touch as Mittens), and then the next pendulum swing brings in another Republican Congress that will inevitably undo it all (assuming the Dems retake Congress during Obama's second term.)
You're not talking about voting for a good candidate. You're talking about voting against a terrible candidate. That's been the case on the progressive side of US politics for two or more decades and that shit has got to stop.
Slow reform/improvement is better than torpedoing and setting things back to the dark ages. Again, you sound just like those folks who said Gore was identical to Bush, only the reality was that there were significant differences between the two.
Name all the things that Bush Jr. torpedoed during his 6 years with a Republican Congress that Obama has since fixed or even given lip service to fixing. There's maybe two. He is getting our troops mostly the fuck out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and he sort of kind of addressed some Medicare stuff.
Obama agrees with Bush, at least tacitly, on things like the HORRENDOUS changes to bankruptcy law in 2005. He chose to continue to bail out the banks rather than underwater homeowners (which indirectly would still have bailed out the banks), etc etc etc. He's as much a corporate whore as any Republican.
We're entering a second Great Depression (keep on holding your breath for that supposed economic recovery that started in 2009) and Obama is staying the course. He's not even attempting to take on congressional Republicans on those issues.
Instead we're arguing, for the 5th decade in a row, about gay rights and abortion rights and gun rights, and everybody watches the middle class vanish.
Well, it's hard to fix things when you have a Congress whose primary purpose is to torpedo your presidency. There's only so much Obama can do when Congressional Republicans can filibuster him forever. About all he has the power to do is yell and scream and say they're holding things up, but that doesn't get laws passed. What do you want him to do, declare martial law and make himself dictator? Yeah, that'll be real popular.
Obama has given us the ACA, while perhaps not the best form of universal health care we could've gotten, is a significant step in the right direction. He's also tried (somewhat) to provide funding for green energy research. Yeah, Solyndra failed, but it was an effort, at least.
Obama also got us the Consumer Protection Bureau, something Bush (and Romney) would've never wanted. He also wants to implement the Buffett rule so that the uber-rich can't get by on "carried interest" tax loopholes and whatnot to pay lower tax rates than working stiffs.
Bailing out the banks was sort of a hold your nose and do it situation -- if those banks had died, the reverberations throughout the economy would've been horrendous. Never mind that if those banks failed, the FDIC would've used tax dollars to bail out everyone who had accounts in those banks. Odds are the TARP program was cheaper than the FDIC costs would've been to reimburse all the accounts that would've gone poof overnight in a bank failure. Oh, and as far as helping bail out underwater homeowners, haven't you heard of the HARP program?
Is he perfect? No, but no one is. Is he significantly better than any of the realistic alternatives? Most definitely. Can we do better in an ideal world? Sure, but this isn't an ideal world.
Go look up statistics on HARP. Its a big fat joke. Want to know why the economy is still dead? Everybody is maxed out on debt. Nothings gonna move until you address that or wait for the next generation to come along.
Go look up statistics on HARP. Its a big fat joke. Want to know why the economy is still dead? Everybody is maxed out on debt. Nothings gonna move until you address that or wait for the next generation to come along.
16 MILLION underwater mortgages in the United States.
Forgot to also say: The Consumer Protection Bureau is fucking toothless, especially relative to the power credit card companies and other lenders have for ruthlessly fucking consumers and their ability to legally stack the deck against them to a ludicrous degree.
How many total underwater mortgages do you think there are in the country? Plus, that's also out of total number of people who applied. Even with HARP, it takes a while to get approved. Plus that only includes the underwater refis, not the general refis. If we look over the lifetime of HARP, over 1.3 million were refinanced via the HARP program (again, according to the stats I linked to -- or here's the direct link to the full report). 1.1 million of those were in the "owes up to 105% of their home's current value" category since inception. Those that are up to "owes up to 125%" are 157k or so, and the "owes over 125%" is around 11k.
The 78,000 I mentioned are for the "up to 125%" and "over 125%" categories for the first half of this year. The overall number for everyone up through May, including the "up to 105%" category is around 300,000.
So yeah, 300,000 mortgages total in 5 months is a pretty good number, I think. Given how that 78,000 is only for the most desperate cases of underwater mortgages, which are almost certainly in the minority nationwide relative to those who are only slightly underwater, yeah, I do think HARP is working.
So yeah, I gave you real, legitimate numbers. Where are your facts to back up your claims?
Banks are weird. When I wanted to refinance my car that was under-water, no problem. You want to do the same with a house and they tell you to fuck off.
Banks are weird. When I wanted to refinance my car that was under-water, no problem. You want to do the same with a house and they tell you to fuck off.
The gap was likely smaller and your personal credit was good enough to cover it on their actuarial tables.
Meanwhile, wealth concentration in the US, which stifles the economy and impacts infrastructure nationwide as the wealthy keep buying tax breaks, is at the highest level since the 1930s. Obama may have a little brag book but Rome is still burning.
How many total underwater mortgages do you think there are in the country?
16 Million.
Where did you get this number from? This number is meaningless unless you back it up with a legitimate source.
Plus, not everyone who is underwater refis anyway. I mean, if you managed to get a crazy good rate when you bought the house, underwater or not, you're not going to refi if it's not going to gain you anything significant. Refinancing, HARP or not, is a pain in the ass to do. I just did a refi myself a couple months ago and it was a pain. Worth it for the amount I'd be saving, but if my original rates were lower, it probably wouldn't be.
So 1.3 million out of 16 million results in about a 8% refi rate for HARP. Given the paperwork involved, the fact that not everyone would be interested (i.e. if refinancing your underwater mortgage would only save you a handfull of bucks a month), people may not feel any pressure to refi if they can afford the current payments, underwater or not, and so on, I think it's actually a reasonably successful program.
Meanwhile, wealth concentration in the US, which stifles the economy and impacts infrastructure nationwide as the wealthy keep buying tax breaks, is at the highest level since the 1930s. Obama may have a little brag book but Rome is still burning.
Hence why he wants to raise taxes on those making over $250k and implement the Buffett Rule, neither of which will be easy, or perhaps even possible, to do with the current GOP numbers in Congress. He's basically trying to stop Rome's burning using a bucket brigade of dixie cups because that's all the Roman Senate will allow him to have.
What's the big deal on underwater mortgages? If you thought it was worth the cost when you bought it who cares what the selling price might be today? Hold that house for twenty years and it will very likely be worth more than what you paid for it.
Cars lose value as soon as you buy them but we don't hear people arguing for ref I on cars.
The money loss is only on paper until you actually sell. Just like the stock market. Unless you think the company is going to cease to exist why sell low?
What's the big deal on underwater mortgages? If you thought it was worth the cost when you bought it who cares what the selling price might be today? Hold that house for twenty years and it will very likely be worth more than what you paid for it.
Cars lose value as soon as you buy them but we don't hear people arguing for ref I on cars.
The money loss is only on paper until you actually sell. Just like the stock market. Unless you think the company is going to cease to exist why sell low?
Financial liability from an underwater mortgage is a very real risk that will hit you square in the nuts when something tragic happens like a fire or a flood or a death or the sudden need to relocate... it's not a non-issue at all.
What's the big deal on underwater mortgages? If you thought it was worth the cost when you bought it who cares what the selling price might be today? Hold that house for twenty years and it will very likely be worth more than what you paid for it.
Cars lose value as soon as you buy them but we don't hear people arguing for ref I on cars.
The money loss is only on paper until you actually sell. Just like the stock market. Unless you think the company is going to cease to exist why sell low?
The problem is you can't refinance your expensive mortgage to the historically low rates because it's underwater.
What's the big deal on underwater mortgages? If you thought it was worth the cost when you bought it who cares what the selling price might be today? Hold that house for twenty years and it will very likely be worth more than what you paid for it.
Cars lose value as soon as you buy them but we don't hear people arguing for ref I on cars.
The money loss is only on paper until you actually sell. Just like the stock market. Unless you think the company is going to cease to exist why sell low?
The problem is you can't refinance your expensive mortgage to the historically low rates because it's underwater.
Which admittedly is less of a problem if you can still afford your monthly payments. When I did my refi, it was more of a "it'd be nice to have that extra cash in my pocket" thing than I "I can't afford my house anymore" thing. Granted, it helped that I had a 30 year fixed rate on my mortgage already and didn't have to worry about ballooning interest rates like those who got ARMs. However, if you got a 5 year ARM and your house's value tanks 4 years in and you can no longer afford it once the interest shoots back up after 5 years, well, then you're in a bit of a world of hurt.
Personally, I think that unless you're a damned good financial prognosticator who plans to flip a home in under 5 years, you should avoid ARMs at all cost and stick with fixed rate mortgages. If you're so unsure about your commitment to a certain home for longer than 5 years or whatever, you're probably better off renting.
The money loss is only on paper until you actually sell.
Riiiight. SO - try and get some credit to do anything else significant, like start a business, improve that house to the point where it actually will sell, or pay for a huge medical expense while you have that tremendous "loss on paper" on your credit history.
Meanwhile, all your mortgage payments are going mainly towards interest, and you're never paying off any of the principal while you're locked into a thirty years or longer contract. Oh yeah, as the interest keeps going up and the principal never gets paid down, your payments keep going up and up. Sound fun?
You're right, this is not a problem for cars. Hmmm, I wonder why? Oh yeah, mainly because cars are usually bought for less than a tenth of what most good houses cost? When was the last time you heard of anyone having a thirty-year loan to buy a used Nissan?
<---- Bought a house in 2005, it's worth about 60k more then I bought it for, still. Don't buy a house at market value ever. I think I remember another thread on home buying where people were saying "Pay the list price if you really want it" If you do that guess where you are, UNDERWATER.
What Cremlian said. The house I bought was originally listed for something like $200k more than what I ended up paying for it. Later, the list price had been dropped down to significantly less and I was even able to negotiate down to less than that. While my house has dropped in value a little, it's pretty much stayed above water the whole time I've owned it.
Never pay list for a house -- always negotiate down. If the seller won't budge on the negotiations, move on. Keep a target price range in your mind and don't buy until the house falls within that range after negotiation. There are plenty of houses out there.
<---- Bought a house in 2005, it's worth about 60k more then I bought it for, still. Don't buy a house at market value ever. I think I remember another thread on home buying where people were saying "Pay the list price if you really want it" If you do that guess where you are, UNDERWATER.
Being a cheap ass bastard has it's benefits. </p>
Isn't your house only worth more cause you fixed it up and finished the basement?
Nope, home improvements and refreshes add surprisingly little to the price of a house. (plus I'm going with Zillow estimates and what other houses in my neighborhood sell for that have less then mine.
Comments
Basically, the Democrats are wrong about some things and right about others, but the Republicans are pretty-much wrong about everything at this point. They're the party of ultra ideological anti-environmentalism. They're the party that refuses to even discuss tax reform or regulatory changes.
You're not talking about voting for a good candidate. You're talking about voting against a terrible candidate. That's been the case on the progressive side of US politics for two or more decades and that shit has got to stop.
You act like I'm boosting for Romney, here.
Name all the things that Bush Jr. torpedoed during his 6 years with a Republican Congress that Obama has since fixed or even given lip service to fixing. There's maybe two. He is getting our troops mostly the fuck out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and he sort of kind of addressed some Medicare stuff.
Obama agrees with Bush, at least tacitly, on things like the HORRENDOUS changes to bankruptcy law in 2005. He chose to continue to bail out the banks rather than underwater homeowners (which indirectly would still have bailed out the banks), etc etc etc. He's as much a corporate whore as any Republican.
We're entering a second Great Depression (keep on holding your breath for that supposed economic recovery that started in 2009) and Obama is staying the course. He's not even attempting to take on congressional Republicans on those issues.
Instead we're arguing, for the 5th decade in a row, about gay rights and abortion rights and gun rights, and everybody watches the middle class vanish.
Obama has given us the ACA, while perhaps not the best form of universal health care we could've gotten, is a significant step in the right direction. He's also tried (somewhat) to provide funding for green energy research. Yeah, Solyndra failed, but it was an effort, at least.
Obama also got us the Consumer Protection Bureau, something Bush (and Romney) would've never wanted. He also wants to implement the Buffett rule so that the uber-rich can't get by on "carried interest" tax loopholes and whatnot to pay lower tax rates than working stiffs.
Bailing out the banks was sort of a hold your nose and do it situation -- if those banks had died, the reverberations throughout the economy would've been horrendous. Never mind that if those banks failed, the FDIC would've used tax dollars to bail out everyone who had accounts in those banks. Odds are the TARP program was cheaper than the FDIC costs would've been to reimburse all the accounts that would've gone poof overnight in a bank failure. Oh, and as far as helping bail out underwater homeowners, haven't you heard of the HARP program?
Is he perfect? No, but no one is. Is he significantly better than any of the realistic alternatives? Most definitely. Can we do better in an ideal world? Sure, but this isn't an ideal world.
- 20% of the total refinance applications this past may were HARP loans
- During the first 5 months of this year, 78,000 HARP refinances were completed, more than double those of 2011
- Around half of the refinanced mortgages in the hardest-hit states were underwater
It may have taken a while to get going, but it certainly seems to be working now.Wooo.
16 MILLION underwater mortgages in the United States.
Forgot to also say: The Consumer Protection Bureau is fucking toothless, especially relative to the power credit card companies and other lenders have for ruthlessly fucking consumers and their ability to legally stack the deck against them to a ludicrous degree.
The 78,000 I mentioned are for the "up to 125%" and "over 125%" categories for the first half of this year. The overall number for everyone up through May, including the "up to 105%" category is around 300,000.
So yeah, 300,000 mortgages total in 5 months is a pretty good number, I think. Given how that 78,000 is only for the most desperate cases of underwater mortgages, which are almost certainly in the minority nationwide relative to those who are only slightly underwater, yeah, I do think HARP is working.
So yeah, I gave you real, legitimate numbers. Where are your facts to back up your claims?
Plus, not everyone who is underwater refis anyway. I mean, if you managed to get a crazy good rate when you bought the house, underwater or not, you're not going to refi if it's not going to gain you anything significant. Refinancing, HARP or not, is a pain in the ass to do. I just did a refi myself a couple months ago and it was a pain. Worth it for the amount I'd be saving, but if my original rates were lower, it probably wouldn't be.
So 1.3 million out of 16 million results in about a 8% refi rate for HARP. Given the paperwork involved, the fact that not everyone would be interested (i.e. if refinancing your underwater mortgage would only save you a handfull of bucks a month), people may not feel any pressure to refi if they can afford the current payments, underwater or not, and so on, I think it's actually a reasonably successful program. Hence why he wants to raise taxes on those making over $250k and implement the Buffett Rule, neither of which will be easy, or perhaps even possible, to do with the current GOP numbers in Congress. He's basically trying to stop Rome's burning using a bucket brigade of dixie cups because that's all the Roman Senate will allow him to have.
Cars lose value as soon as you buy them but we don't hear people arguing for ref I on cars.
The money loss is only on paper until you actually sell. Just like the stock market. Unless you think the company is going to cease to exist why sell low?
Personally, I think that unless you're a damned good financial prognosticator who plans to flip a home in under 5 years, you should avoid ARMs at all cost and stick with fixed rate mortgages. If you're so unsure about your commitment to a certain home for longer than 5 years or whatever, you're probably better off renting.
Meanwhile, all your mortgage payments are going mainly towards interest, and you're never paying off any of the principal while you're locked into a thirty years or longer contract. Oh yeah, as the interest keeps going up and the principal never gets paid down, your payments keep going up and up. Sound fun?
You're right, this is not a problem for cars. Hmmm, I wonder why? Oh yeah, mainly because cars are usually bought for less than a tenth of what most good houses cost? When was the last time you heard of anyone having a thirty-year loan to buy a used Nissan?
Being a cheap ass bastard has it's benefits.
Never pay list for a house -- always negotiate down. If the seller won't budge on the negotiations, move on. Keep a target price range in your mind and don't buy until the house falls within that range after negotiation. There are plenty of houses out there.
Edit: via Daily Show tumblr: Last night’s debate summed up in one GIF.