"Now that many subprime lenders are going belly-up and causing jitters on Wall Street, housing advocates decided the time was ripe to seek new consumer protections for would-be customers. On Wednesday, the Senate Business Committee rolled out Senate Bill 965, which would enact new safeguards for home buyers against so-called "predatory lending."'"Sen. Larry George, R-Sherwood, panned the bill. "If someone is being deceptive, I'm with you," George said. But it's not the state's role to "protect people from being stupid," he said."
And God knows we have been overwhelmed with The Stupid over the last few years.
Credit for this find goes to the fantastic Sonoma Housing Bubble blog.
And if you want to do your part to see to it that there is no bail-out of the stupid and greedy, send a letter to your elected representatitives. Here, here, and here are some letters you can use freely.
This whole mortgage bail-out/moral hazard mess reminds me of Christopher Buckley's latest book "Boomsday". Here's a paraphrased excerpt of the book review from BusinessWeek:
Have you heard of the latest proposal out of Washington for fixing the Social Security mess? It's simplicity itself. As the baby boomers shuffle into their sunset years, Uncle Sam will hand them a bundle of juicy tax breaks and assorted perks in return for agreeing to a painless lethal injection at age 65. A second option would give slightly less generous benefits to those who prefer to hang around to the age of 70. Known as "Voluntary Transitioning", the idea has a certain irresistable logic given the boomers' well-known love of tax-code manipulation.So when will the post-boomer generations finally get fed up with footing the boomers' bills, being saddled with their debt, and funding their retirement by paying their ludicrous prices for houses, etc? What's it going to take before the younger generations finally stand up for themselves and say "No, we're not going to take it anymore" and "It's not our fault you didn't prepare for retirement"?
4 comments:
Marinite,
Well I’ve certainly reached that state of "No, we're not going to take it anymore.” George W. personifies the selfish state of “apparent” fiscal and ethical ineptitude that characterize the worst generation this country has ever had.
A prefect subject for Buckley! I swear that David Lereah channels Nick Naylor.
Re. the bailouts mess, here's something else I recently discovered: there seems to be nobody out there who is for this idea. I had pretty much given up on talking to people about all things bubble because, well, frankly, nobody seemed to care.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that THIS topic really perks people's ears up. And pi$$e$ them off to boot. They want to know details (!).
They want to know about these folks they'll be helping out with their taxes:
the ones who lied on loan docs
the ones who HELOCed themselves out of a home
the ones who were just too plain stupid to read their loan docs
ETC
They're also fascinated to hear about Senator Dodds banker buddies, who, esentially is who they will be helping out most of all.
So after you've sent one of Marinites great letters to your local politician, go out and talk to your friends and neighbors!
They may not have been interested in other bubble news but they ARE interested in this!
seattle price drop
Feel free to take either of the letters on my wiki site or on Patrick.net's site and email it to friends, family, whoever and have them send it out.
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