Posts Tagged ‘subprime mortgage crisis’

Residential Real Estate Market Already Headed Over Fiscal Cliff

Saturday, November 10th, 2012

Roy Oppenheim’s commentary was originally published on Yahoo! Homes and is being republished on South Florida Law Blog with their permission.

Thelma and Louise Going Over The CliffThey say there is no rest for the weary, and that seems especially appropriate for our nation’s elected officials.

Election Day may be still be fresh in our rear-view mirror, but in case you have forgotten, the lame duck session of Congress begins Monday. And they will have little time to celebrate or lick their wounds, because the economy is under a very real threat.

The media has dubbed it the “Fiscal Cliff”. This cliff, which is a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts set to be enacted on December 31st, could drive the economy back into a recession, according to a new Congressional Office Budget report.

Here’s the problem: for people like myself on the front lines of the real estate market, the fiscal cliff is not some imminent threat, it’s already here.

When it is all said and done, DC’s landscape is almost identical to what is was before Tuesday, and the very same problems that were ignored during the election are now staring us right back in the face.

Let’s be real, Thelma and Louise are inches away from driving over the Grand Canyon. That is where we are right now with the housing market. I am not trying to scare anyone, but for those of us on the front lines of the housing crisis, there are some troubling signs.

There have been many cautious signs of improvement in real estate over the last few months, and on paper the housing market is starting to stabilize.
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New Ideas To Fix The Housing Crisis? Nothing to See Here

Monday, September 10th, 2012

Nothing To See HereWith the presidential race entering its final stretch and with the employment figures remaining effectively flat, one would think that the housing crisis would have already been front and center by now.

As I have said numerous times every economic recovery since the Depression has been led by the housing sector.

But only now do we have a fuller picture of both the Republicans’ and Democrats’ agendas on housing.

AND TO SAY THE LEAST I AM UNDERWHELMED.

In the wake of both conventions, each party has made their official party platforms public, and yes, they both at least try to address some aspects of the foreclosure crisis.

With the Democrats, there is a firmer grasp of the housing picture, but I still haven’t heard a solution from them that has the teeth to have a lasting impact.

They recognize the importance of refinancing, which is good, but to date nothing they have done has forced the banks to refinance. So the intent is there, but there is little actual follow through.

Not HARP or any of the alphabet soup programs created during the last four years have done anything to truly encourage refinancing. There’s too much please and thank you in the Democrats programs, when it is time for them to be the stern parent and send the banks to bed without their supper.

You must make refinancing in the banks’ best interest, to me the only way for that to happen would be to reinstate Franklin Roosevelt’s Home Owners Loan Corporation.

It closed up shop in the 1950’s, and mortgage lending hasn’t been the same since.
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Moral Hazard Lies On Wall Street, Not Main Street

Thursday, August 30th, 2012

Judge About To Make VerdictIf there is only one thing that I hope to see as an attorney, it is the law applied fairly to all sides of the courtroom.

And there has been no greater sense of frustration for me than to see the banks, time and time again, not be held to the same standards as you or me.

It has become standard practice for banks to wiggle and maneuver and do everything possible to escape accountability.

But perhaps even more maddening is when those in power refuse to dig their heels and go after these banks. The latest example: the Justice Department’s refusal to prosecute Goldman Sachs.

They hedged their bets and sought to make money on the backs of their clients. This is nothing new to any of my readers, nor is the Justice Department’s lack of reprisal.

Both Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone’s excellent political reporter, and the New York Times Opinion Page called Eric Holder on the carpet, and now it is my turn.

No one is suggesting that prosecuting Goldman Sachs would have been a walk in the park. But prosecuting them was necessary, if the climate of Wall Street is ever going to change.

What is absolutely maddening about all this is that by allowing Goldman Sachs to skate, the DOJ is all but announcing that the banks can continue to engage in other unconscionable and illegal activities without the fear of retribution This is called a moral hazard — encouraging certain negative behavior by allowing it to continue.

“Ironically” — we only hear about moral hazard in the media, it’s FROM the banks, or government officials like Edward DeMarco, who are alarmed at the notion that homeowners might participate in moral hazard. They will use that alarmist notion, despite the fact that it has yet to be substantiated, as a reason not to do principal write-downs or provide homeowners the meaningful assistance they need.
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The Wussification of America: How We Let Wall Street Become The New Schoolyard Bully

Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

Wall Street, The New Bully of the BlockAs I worked out in the gym today and watched the Olympics, I realized that Americans as a whole no longer participate in the sports that we used to as kids. It used to be the case that regular kids would go to the local Y and do activities like archery and dodge ball.

Today, most high school students don’t even get any physical activity, let alone participate in organized activities that can be perceived as violent or risky. Schools and the Y’s no longer want to risk having the liability for kids to develop a little toughness. Instead, we have become a nation of couch potatoes that wusses out of the sports we used to do in summer camp as kids.

This wussification also explains why we have faced scandal after scandal on Wall Street.

Americans as a whole do nothing more than shrug their shoulders and grumble; even as the scandals only grow larger and larger.

It started with the savings and loan crisis in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, and then came the overhyping of the tech bubble in 1999 and 2000.

Then it got really big, with the largest drop in economic output since the Great Depression, all because of Wall Street greed and government regulators asleep at the switch or coaxed into a drunken stupor by Washington lobbyists.

With the housing crisis, we have seen predatory lending, fraud, forgery, robo-signing, tax evasion, and the wrongful eviction of homeowners from their own homes in such large amounts that even the bankers should be blushing.
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