Are we missing the outrage for being sold down the river by a ship steered by fools in the mortgage crisis? Even our choice for presidential candidates show heavily embedded lobby and financial interests for a Marxist socialist solution or a watered down free market solution. Both are sleepwalking in lobby money and favoritism.
Selling an expensive assets such as a homes to those who are unprepared financially to deal with making mortgage payments, insurances and property taxes is foolish. But that is exactly what president Jimmy Carter did by passing legislation encouraging such loans. This started the disconnect between reason and reality and utter foolishness. Political meddling into economic issues and sound lending practices kills the golden goose every time.
With the Clintons in the White House, the problem skyrocketed. They passed legislation punishing the mortgage companies if they did not lend to high-risk borrowers. They put laws with penalties in them thus encouraging easy credit with eyes shut to risk. Sound lending practices were completely abandoned.
Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac bought these loans, repackaged these loans and sold them on the open market. They sent hundreds of millions of dollars by their lobbies to politicians that in order to continue this masquerade.
AIG and other insurance companies insured these loans. Their primary goal is to evaluate and insure against debt risk. Their leverage was set at 12 to 1 meaning that they had to have one dollar in assets to cover 12 dollars or risk. They threw millions of lobby money to leveraging its recirculation rate at a reserve rate of more than 30-1. With such a high-risk and profit expansion levels, any big bump in real estate valuation put those assets in danger.
Federal Reserve economists put their stamp of approval on this financial gimmickry and allowed this charade to continue. Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and other related socialist leaning organizations further aided in twisting banks to make even more fraudulent loans.
The House Finance Chief, SEC Chairman, Banking Committee Chairman and any Congressman or public official accepting lobby money were shills for this cancer. Prison and banishment from public office should be their reward for violating the public trust! Politicians accepting lobby money need prison and banished from public office. Lobby money is nothing more than a bribe. If you bribe a cop for not giving you a speeding ticket you go to prison. If a public official accepts a bribe, shouldn’t they be put in prison as well?
Hot air balloons have a way of crashing when their fuel runs out. When the rise in real estate prices came to a halt and the value of real estate assets declined combined with a foreclosure explosion, the market imploded. The government created the problem and a 700 billion dollar bailout (laden with funding for pork projects) is meaningless. The credit boom is finished. But, where is the outrage?
Across the nation, real estate prices have fallen and municipal and state governments have raised their tax rates to compensate for the shortfall. If, when you get your property tax assessment bill, you need to compare your home to the assessments of similar sold homes, you may find that you are overtaxed and could profit from a property tax appeal. It’s worth another look.
Before you accept the accuracy placed on your property tax assessments, investigate and read a property tax guide that could actually reduce your tax burden. Property tax records are many times in error and an appeal will reduce your property taxes dramatically and continue to actually reduce your property tax for years in the future.
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