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The Dumbest Thing I've Seen Yet
The Market Ticker ^ | 6/19/09 | Karl Denninger

Posted on 06/19/2009 12:12:53 PM PDT by FromLori

President Obama and James Lockhart have decided to (financially) rape Americans.

Yes, really:

June 19 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s program to help more homeowners refinance may be expanded to include borrowers who owe more than 105 percent of their homes’ values, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart said.

The Obama administration is considering allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance loans with current loan-to-value ratios of 125 percent or higher, Lockhart said at a National Association of Real Estate Editors Association conference in Washington yesterday.

Let me be absolutely clear so nobody can ever accuse me of being less than straightforward on this.

If you are underwater on your house and take a deal like this, you are as dumb as a box of rocks and have just consented to being bent over the table and violated repeatedly. That our government would propose "allowing" such a thing is fomenting financial rape upon The American Public. Period.

Under conventional financing terms loan-to-value (LTV) ratios over 80% have required what is called "PMI" - private mortgage insurance. The purpose of this is to guarantee for the lender that they can recover if you don't pay and, post-foreclosure, your home isn't worth enough to satisfy the mortgage.

One of the reasons for this requirement is that in most states purchase money first mortgages are non-recourse. That is, if you default they can take the house and ruin your credit - but it ends there. In those states they cannot pursue you beyond foreclosure and reclamation of the house.

In every state if you refinance the resulting mortgage is a recourse loan, which means they can sue you for any deficiency if you subsequently default and come after any other assets (other than retirement funds - which is why you NEVER EVER raid a 401k or IRA to stay afloat!) and even try to get a wage garnishment - and they just might!

For this and other reasons nobody should ever refinance a mortgage that is in trouble without getting qualfiied legal and accounting advice. It could be the cheapest $500 you ever spend.

President Obama's original "refi" program exempted LTVs from 80-105% from PMI requirements, ostensibly as a way of "helping" homeowners. What it really did was rape the taxpayer, because such loans are very dangerous in that if there is a subsequent default the lender will, after expenses, almost always lose money, and may lose a LOT of money.

We have since discovered that the majority of "refinanced" workout loans default again, because the underlying problem is that the buyer used exotic financing to get around their inability to actually cover the fully-amortizing payment of a conventional mortgage. When faced with a fully-amortizing payment, even when restructured, they re-default because they bought through a fraudulent device - they were never able to afford the house in the first place.

This plan will not change that.

Only one thing will change that: lower house prices.

But see, the NARites and other politically-connected rubes will not allow the truth to be told, or the market to assert itself so long as the government can bury you in insoluble debt.

The Chinese and Japanese will fully rise (they're already half-awake) soon and when they do, the curtain will be called down on this stupidity via the bond market. Indeed, the blow-out of MBS spreads yesterday might have been due to a leak of this stupidity - there is no more-certain way to guarantee that Fannie and Freddie, now wards of the Federal Government, will detonate and leave a thermonuclear-sized hole in the Federal balance sheet than this piece of stupidity.

WHERE ARE THE DAMN ADULTS?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government
KEYWORDS: acorn; economy; fanniemae; foreclosures; freddiemac; housing; mortgages

1 posted on 06/19/2009 12:12:53 PM PDT by FromLori
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To: FromLori

I’m going to run out and buy a house I can’t afford right now...be back later.


2 posted on 06/19/2009 12:15:17 PM PDT by americanophile (Sarcasm: satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language.)
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To: FromLori

When you think nothing can trump yesterday’s headlines, just wait for today’s.


3 posted on 06/19/2009 12:18:30 PM PDT by bgill (The evidence simply does not support the official position of the Obama administration)
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To: Pan_Yan

Engineering further financial ruin for the US.


4 posted on 06/19/2009 12:22:30 PM PDT by Pan_Yans Wife
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To: bgill
When you think nothing can trump yesterday’s headlines, just wait for today’s.

Nailed it!!!

5 posted on 06/19/2009 12:22:51 PM PDT by org.whodat
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To: FromLori
... and the grasshoppers spent the winter in the ants' nest eating the food the ants had stored away for hard times.
6 posted on 06/19/2009 12:23:28 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Chrysler and GM are what Marx meant by the means of production.)
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To: FromLori
The Obama administration is considering allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance loans with current loan-to-value ratios of 125 percent or higher, Lockhart said at a National Association of Real Estate Editors Association conference in Washington yesterday.

Just makes me want to do this:


7 posted on 06/19/2009 12:29:59 PM PDT by Bushbacker1 (I'll miss President Bush greatly! Palin in 2012!)
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To: FromLori

Well, I admit it. I am utterly underwater, by about 90K. Not because I had a 105 LTV, but because the prices dropped 100K in my area.

So I am just stuck. Screwed. We can’t re-fi, we can’t do a damn thing other than declare Bankruptcy. Needless to say we don’t want to do any of that, and can make our payments so we just suck it up and try to over pay until we have equity again. What else can we do? Gonna take me graduating from AMU and going back to work. So we are looking at min of a decade stuck. JOY. But at least we are taking it like adults.


8 posted on 06/19/2009 12:30:36 PM PDT by Danae (Amerikan Unity My Ass)
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To: FromLori

Wish Karl would stop telling the truth so much, he is destroying my (fantasy) world...

Signed,
Uncle Ben


9 posted on 06/19/2009 12:34:12 PM PDT by mr_hammer ("Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you")
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To: Pan_Yans Wife
They are:

1) Trying to re inflate the mortgage bubble because they think it will turn the economy around.

-or-

2) They are going to force the rest of the banks to capitulate to direct government control, thereby seizing the vehicles of capital from the free market system.

-or-

3) They will use it as a prelude to the largest land grab in American history, similar to what happened in Zimbabwe. Once personal property rights are gone so is the republic.

-or-

All of the above.

P.S. I'm heading home now.

10 posted on 06/19/2009 12:36:57 PM PDT by Pan_Yan (Obama is to Nixon what mass murderer is to jaywalking.)
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To: Danae

Wife has a friend in a similar situation. Except they live in Michigan and her husband works for GM ... until September.


11 posted on 06/19/2009 12:39:30 PM PDT by Pan_Yan (Obama is to Nixon what mass murderer is to jaywalking.)
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To: americanophile

Told Ya So!!!! Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are still in their powerful chairs doing what they do best - steal anything that isn’t nailed down....there never was any language in the Stimulus Bill that stopped these thieves from a repeat performance. Oh, Obama is soooooooooooowonderful......</s>


12 posted on 06/19/2009 12:41:04 PM PDT by yoe (Pay attention to what Obama does NOT what he says.)
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To: Bushbacker1

I understand, but the head(s) that I want to bash ain’t mine!


13 posted on 06/19/2009 12:41:23 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Bushbacker1

omg lol too funny


14 posted on 06/19/2009 12:46:58 PM PDT by FromLori (FromLori)
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To: FromLori
more from the economic genius democrats

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32355

Obama Financial Proposal Contains Sub-Prime Loan Shocker

The Obama administration’s latest financial regulatory reform proposal contains a stunning surprise hidden on page 67: “Rigorous application of the Community Reinvestment Act should be a core function of the CFPA.”

15 posted on 06/19/2009 12:55:09 PM PDT by sloop (pfc in the quiet civil war)
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To: KarlInOhio
... and the grasshoppers spent the winter in the ants' nest eating the food the ants had stored away for hard times.

The corpses of the ants, huddled with their children, were soon covered by the late January drifts, which added a magical wintry ambiance to the rustic scene....

16 posted on 06/19/2009 2:08:34 PM PDT by SnuffaBolshevik
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To: KarlInOhio
"... and the grasshoppers spent the winter in the ants' nest eating the food the ants had stored away for hard times."

This 'ant' has included weapons in the nest this time.

17 posted on 06/19/2009 2:45:01 PM PDT by blam
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To: americanophile

Pick one up for me too while you’re out.


18 posted on 06/19/2009 4:56:01 PM PDT by beaversmom
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