The New York Times reports this morning: “He is not a mortgage broker. But for a time on Thursday, President Obama seemed to be playing one on television, urging Americans not to miss out on rock-bottom refinancing rates. … Seldom has the president sounded so much like the host of a late-night infomercial, stopping just shy of imploring people to call the toll-free number at the bottom of their television screens.” We don’t get to say this very often, but the New York Times is dead right. Here are some …
The left has developed a firm and frightening pattern of how it deals with critics of President Barack Obama. Mere hours after Joe the Plumber had the temerity to question candidate Obama’s tax plans, government employee donors to Obama were socuring his public records digging for dirt. The media then followed up with hit pieces on Joe’s tax, professional, marital difficulties. CNBC analyst Rick Santelli has come in for the same treatment after he expressed criticism of President Obama’s mortgage bailout plan. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs attacked Santelli …
7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner and Nobel Laureate Gary Becker weigh in on President Barack Obama’s mortgage bailout plan on their Becker-Posner blog. First up, Posner: The four measures, taken as a whole, are likely to be administratively complicated, costly, and slow, and so have very limited effect in arresting (let alone reversing) the decline of housing prices by reducing the glut of houses for sale as a result of widespread foreclosures. [Cram down in bankruptcy] fails on both grounds; bankruptcy is a complicated proceeding and …
The House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill today that would round out the legislative authority necessary for President Barack Obama to institute his $275 billion mortgage bailout plan. Taken together the plans three main components (enabling some select borrowers to refinance their loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, enabling other select borrowers to modify their loans at the cost of taxpayers and lenders, and changing bankruptcy law to allow mortgage cram downs) will bailout the most irresponsible borrowers, raise the cost of borrowing for honest …
President Barack Obama’s mortgage bailout plan is predicated on the idea that by forcing lenders to rework some mortgages, there will be less foreclosures and housing prices will not keep falling. Problem is, as soon as you start setting standards to determine which mortgagees qualify, many homeowners won’t qualify for the federal aid … especially in the areas hardest hit by the housing bubble. So the San Francisco Chronicle reports: More than 90 percent of Bay Area mortgage holders cannot qualify for the low-cost refinances included in President Obama’s housing …
