Do I understand this correctly?

[The Straight Story]

Banks lost a ton of money on bad mortgages and come crying, we loan them money - because it takes money to stay afloat and make more money, they pull out of a crisis and make enough to pay back and cover their loses.

Then your house goes into default, plus all the ones that already did, and they still have those assets and will make even more money from the sale of them.

So in the end, they lost nothing while everyone else did.

You are expected not only to absorb your losses but also pay a lot of fees/penalties if you are late when you get in a bind. And we just gave a huge loan/bailout while they won't extend the same to others???

:shrug:

[LWolf]

1. That's the way I understand it. nt

Banks are bailed out. People are not.

[bumbum]

2. Your have it right: it is always a mistake for the Government to bail out business

But we keep doing it don't we.

[MercutioATC]

3. Not exactly...

Banks are STILL losing a ton of money, they just to use accounting that hides it...and any money they ARE making is the result of borrowing money from us at zero interest and charging us 10% interest to borrow it back.

[PufPuf23]

4. Your summary is correct

as far as I am informed and can perceive.

The fix is bottom up not top down but this is not policy alas.

[billyoc]

5. Why do you hate America?

[Uzybone]

6. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest

[sandnsea]

7. Banks lost money on derivative investment crap

Created from mortgage paper. If they were truly trying to make money from mortgages, they would just leave the interest rates alone and let people keep paying what they've been paying. They can't because those higher interest rates are necessary to make the bundles have any pretense of value at all.

It's like if you loaned all of your neighbors ten cents on an ARM, and sold the IOUs based on the value of the future interest rate. If you don't follow through with those rate increases, it kind of looks like fraud - see?

And yes, as far as I'm concerned, it was fraud. The mortgages were just something they needed to manufacture, like fake stock certificates or something.

[GreenEconomist]

8. Actually, it only SEEMS like that

It's important to remember that "we" didn't loan them anything. The banks, i.e. Federal Reserve System, loan the money to the government at interest and then the government turns around and hands it all right back to them, not as repayment, but as a loan. Make sense yet? So really we just get a bill to repay the money we gave the banks. Put aside left, right, liberal conservative, republican, democrat and all the other labels that divide us---WE ARE UNDER ATTACK FROM CRIMINAL BANKERS!
They are creating an unescapable cycle of debt that we will never recover from. The worst part is, they will attempt, as they normally do, to claim that the only answer to the harm they cause is acquiring more debt from them.
The time has come for us all to break down barriers and come together for the good of our country. If we continue to believe in our political leaders who have let us down and robbed us for many many years, we will lose everything. History is wrought with tyranny at the hands of oligarchs, there is no reason to believe it can't or won't happen here. Let's get to work restoring this nation to it's greatness through induvidual action and determination. We must break out of this crazy left-right business before it becomes the demise of our once great nation.

[The Straight Story]

9. Welcome to DU

And thanks to you (and every one else here) for the input.

[Goddess me]

10. I agree

I worked as a mortgage processor for 20 years. I am now in the process of not being able to pay my mortgage because I have been unemployed for one and half years now. Before this crap started in 2002, I never even thought of not working. During 2002, the banks started loaning people money no matter what. Someone decided that banks could do FHA like mortgages. The one thing that was left out was FHA insured their mortgages, banks did not.

So, all the people that got mortgages, such as 100% financing were never insured because of what the banks called a 80/20 loan. If the first stayed at an 80% loan to value, the banks did not care that the borrower received a 20% loan for a down payment. Kinda of like a cash out of your credit card. As long as you paid your cash out loan the bank did not care about where the down payment came from. Guess what? That did not happen.

All this did was hold up the economy that was in turmoil since 9/11. Remember? GW went on vacation and pretended that nothing was wrong? The mortgage market was the only way that Bush could save the economy, even if it destroyed everything in its path. GW did not care what happened after the fact. He was safe in his own little world. Now Bush is living in a house in Texas without a care in the world. His life is fine, why isn't yours?

That, my friends, is a true story!