Posts Tagged ‘state of the union’
Friday, January 27th, 2012
The South Florida Law Blog loves a good burger!
We’re finally starting to catch our breath, with the substantial amount of news we’ve seen come down the pipeline in the housing market this week.
President Obama’s State of the Union, and the apparent collapse of the federal government’s settlement with the banks have been our focus this week, and rightfully so. But there’s been lots of other stories that have crossed our desk this week, some big, some small, but all important.
Republicans Offer Unpopular Solutions for Housing Fix
Most of our attention has been on the President this week, but we’ve also been keeping our eyes of the Republicans as well. With the Florida GOP Primary just days away, the candidates have been descending on Florida as expected. Foreclosure, which has been long absent from the GOP discussion, has become a more focal issue this week.
Unfortunately, it feels like much of the talking points have focused on the candidates blaming each other for causing the housing crisis, and less on what they plan to do to fix it.
This excellent piece in The Street details all the remaining Republicans comments on foreclosure. They all have suggested a hands-off approach, and appear to be under the misguided notion that the market will correct itself on its own. Gingrich and Paul have made one-note villains out of the Dodd-Frank Act and The Federal Reserve, respectively.
Romney’s past comments about market correction have come back to haunt him as he tries to pass himself off as sympathetic to the homeowners’ plight. Frankly we don’t feel like any of the Republican candidates are looking out for the homeowners.
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Tags: Bank of America, Barack Obaama, David Stern, Dodd-Frank Act, Five Guys, Florida, Florida Attorney General, foreclosure mill, GOP, HAMP, housing, housing crisis, housing market, market correction, Pam Bondi, President Obama, republican, state of the union, TARP, The Federal Reserve
Posted in Florida Law News, Week In Review |
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
Leading up to the State of the Union, we heard a lot of chatter that a proposed $25 billion settlement with the banks would be a selling point in President Obama’s speech.And maybe it would have been, had President Obama delivered the State of the Union. But clearly the person we saw last night addressing Congress was candidate Obama, who is a very different individual.
The State of the Union, at times, felt more like a stump speech that an address from a sitting president. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Obama finally sounded like someone willing to play tough with the banks with his ‘No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts’ line. Only time will tell if this is a true change in the President’s perspective, or if he’ll go right back to being the same man who handed out bailouts like candy.
We were glad to see Obama acknowledge that Wall Street was playing by its own rules, but he had a hand in allowing them to do so, so we hope he understands if we’re still a bit skeptical.
Right before the State of the Union, the Huffington Post broke the news that New York Attorney General Eric Scheniderman has been named to lead a new Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses, which could be a real game-changer. Like the editorial team at Oppenheim Law, Schneiderman has been a vocal critic of the aforementioned settlement.
He has been very tough on the White House’s foreclosure policies before, so maybe we’ll finally see the accountability and thorough investigation that we’ve been demanding.
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Tags: Attorney General, bailout, banking, barack obama, candidate, corner, Eric Scheniderman, Huffington Post, Jekkyl and Hyde, Obama, political, political positions of barack obama, president, presidential election, state of the union, tim geithner, timothy geithner
Posted in Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, Obama |
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the economy at Shaker Heights High School,Shaker Heights, Ohio, Jan. 4, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
We really haven’t seen President Obama insert himself directly into the housing crisis, but there are rumblings that he may do just that during Tuesday’s State of The Union address.
The fact is that is what homeowners have been clamoring for. A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 58% of Americans want the government to do more to help people keep homes.
According to HousingWire, Ohio senator Sherrod Brown told reporters today that there was evidence that Obama would address the robo-signing case which involves several major banks. A North Carolina congressman even said there were rumours that Obama would announce a settlement, something HUD secretary Shaun Donovan suggested last week was ‘very close’, as we mentioned in our Week In Review on Friday.
For the record, Obama’s press secretary refused to confirm any details, saying only that the President was “focused on the issue of housing”.
Between Dononvan’s comments and the recent white paper sent out by the Federal Reserve, it seems that more and more top government officials are finally realizing how important the housing market is to our economic recovery, not to mention their own political survival.
This is not news to us here at the South Florida Law Blog.
In the Huffington Post last September, Roy Oppenheim called housing the “thousand pound gorilla in the room” in the 2012 election, as many of the states with the highest underwater mortgages, such asFlorida, are also key electoral swing states. The pressure on Obama to be more aggressive on the banks is growing in Washington, and it’s about time.
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Tags: barack obama, foreclosure, gallup poll, housing and urban development, housing crisis, HUD, Huffington Post, president, President Obama, principal reduction, republican, Roy Oppenheim, shaun donovan, sherrod brown, state of the union, usa today, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Federal Reserve, Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense, Huffington Post, Obama, Roy Oppenheim, The Wall Street Journal |
