The Word Not Spoken: Foreclosure - Marcy Wheeler

[slipslidingaway]

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/01/28/the-word-not-spoken-foreclosure/

"...Mind you, the mortgage crisis did not go without mention. Here are the places where the giant trauma that has devastated our economy was discussed:

...But I am utterly fascinated by the way Obama dealt with this–probably his Administration’s single biggest failure–the failure to keep more people in their homes. Aside from the mention of those abstract children, asking why they have to move, there’s no admission of the human cost of the mortgage crisis. Instead, homes are just investments, the ability for individual families to spend more to stimulate the economy, a store of value. And the claim–that without the bank bailout, more homes would surely have been lost? I’m not sure I buy that. After all, as it is the banks can’t find the paperwork for the mortgages they hold, and if the crash had happened, I think people would have just become common law owners of their own homes (though admittedly job losses would have been far worse).

So while it’s perhaps a subtle rhetorical point, it is, to me, also a stunning revelation of the way in which the Administration still fails to see how the banks should be punished, because their fraud devastated all these families. Obama fails to see that housing has not just an upside–investment, jobs, growth–but also a huge downside of crumbling communities as one after another neighbor gets evicted from their home.

Obama, at least from his rhetoric, doesn’t see the foreclosures still happening all over this country (and he sure as hell didn’t admit that Commercial Real Estate is about to repeat the foreclosure pattern). Which is, I guess, why he’s never really going to fix that problem."

[Edweird]

1. Mine wasn't an 'investment'. It was supposeed to be my *home*.

I wasn't the much storied (and, I suspect, mostly fictional) 'burger flipper in a mcmansion'. I was a seasoned and experienced construction worker moving up, in a house my wife and I could easily afford. That is until everything crashed, and there was suddenly no work.

All of that is over. The business crashed. The wife left. The house was foreclosed.

I am a calender year away from being licensed in my new career of choice. One that is much more recession resistant. That license then qualifies me for emigration to Canada - which I am seriously contemplating.

I still bristle when I see the issue of jobs and housing being handled so callously. I am intimately acquainted with the overwhelming gut wrenching heartache the inability to hold your life together causes. These are not investments. These are people's homes. Their lives. For many, it means the destruction of their very family.

[SallyMander]

2. I am so sorry

for everything you went through :(

:hug:

[Edweird]

4. Thank you. It's done. That chapter of my life is almost closed.

I didn't post that to garner sympathy, though.

They need to quit worrying about the corporations, and start taking care of the people.

NOW.

[truedelphi]

7. Sadly, the money for taking care of the people has been given away.

Fourteen trillion gone. Possibly the monies that my generation has put away for Social Security.

Expanding wars - hey, even with a supposedly Democratic President, our nation always has the money for wars.

This President lost me way back when he told "Sixty Minutes" that he thought that Paulson was working hard. Sort of a "Good job there, Brownie" Moment to signal to his masters that they did not need to worry - the Bush ideas on enabling the financial institutions would proceed, no problemo!

I still have my beliefs that some elected officials are there for me. For instance, when Mr Kucinich asked Kashkari, Paulson's right hand man this - "No on e on this COmmittee doubts that you have been working hard, Mr Kashkari. But for many of us on this committee, the question is: "Who are you working for?"

[slipslidingaway]

5. First I would like to echo SallyMander's comments and ...

wish you every success in your new career path.

Many knew this bubble was building, but nobody in power wanted to rock the boat. New products were being sold to investors and pension funds who wanted to make a higher return in order to compensate for any previous shortfall. Last I read the number of people who now have a permanent solution to their mortgage problem is fairly low, I do wish there had been a large push for permanent job creation from the very beginning.

Good luck!

:)

[Edweird]

8. Thank you for your kind words.

Starting over sucks, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I enjoy what I do, and there is great earning potential. If it gets me into Canada, so much the better.

[Zenlitened]

3. All of DC has failed to grasp how urgent and dire this is.

They're like Dubya and his "response" to Katrina: People are in crisis out there, crying out for relief... and the powers-that-be just can't seem to get all that worked about it.

:grr:

[slipslidingaway]

6. Very few have showed they really get it ...

I did like Marcy Kaptur's idea of telling people to stay in their homes and make the banks produce the note.