Romney, GOP fail to see Americans’ need for help in foreclosure crisis

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/oct/30/romney-gop-fail-see-americans-need-help-foreclosur/

Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney got in trouble recently when he came to Nevada and started talking about housing. Nevada has the highest foreclosure rate in the country, and Romney, a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, showed little sense of compassion or desire to help ease the foreclosure crisis.

In an interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Romney said “the key thing for me is let the market do its work. Get the foreclosures washed through the system ... let the market rebound from the bottom that it hits, and get people back into homes.”

In other words, Romney doesn’t want the government involved but instead wants the market left on its own. And he wants it to move quickly by having foreclosures “washed through the system,” meaning even more foreclosures.

Romney is not alone proposing a hands-off approach to the foreclosure crisis. Arguing to let the market “do its work” has become something of a conservative mantra. Nearly all of the Republican presidential candidates have said similar things.

[tridim]

1. Nobody should vote for these quacks.

I still don't understand why anyone does.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Foreclosures aren't people and families. They're a business or financial procedure.

Why interfere, or mitigate the effects? It's just business.

[dkf]

3. Well I personally am holding back on buying because I think it's going to go down more.

Having so many unresolved foreclosures/short sales keeps people from buying because we all know clearing distressed properties will being prices down further. And the economy won't recover until housing starts to go up so we are just prolonging the misery.

The problem with circumventing foreclosure is it takes guts on an individual basis to make these calls. Foreclosure is the normal way to resolve these situations. Anything that deviates from the norm exposes a person to risk.

[abelenkpe]

4. If banks don't have to mark their assets to market and can forge documents

During the foreclosure process than the entire process is corrupt. And before the crash banks and realtors steered people who could afford and wanted fixed rate mortgages into risky arms, bundled risky investments with safe ones and sold them as triple a assets to wall street. In short banks created the crisis that led to foreclosure, that led to pension plans and local governments investing in crap and suffering huge losses and have been coddled since. Never suffering the consequences of their actions. Banks should have been nationalized, their CEOs investigated, claw backs made, and every mortgage should have been renegotiated to help owners remain on their home who have been forced out due to the economic crisis caused by the banks. Yes it would be difficult to determine who had just spent themselves into debt vs those who were led their by the bubble but it would have been the right thing to do.
Aside from that real estate is seriously overpriced. It is not in line with local incomes. There are two ways to solve that. One would be to force the banks to mark to market and unload all their shadow inventory causing the market to find the real sustainable price. Millions of home owners would suffer as they realized the true worth of their home. Or we could have wage inflation which would bring local salaries in line with homes. Neither one will happen.