Banks Beat Homeowners: Foreclosure Bill Killed In Senate

[nebris]

The Senate on Thursday rejected an effort to stave off home foreclosures by a vote of 51 to 45. It was an overwhelming defeat, with the bill's backers falling 15 votes short -- a quarter of the Democratic caucus -- of the 60 needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote

Comments

Disgusting, appalling etc.

[jimmywitz]

This vote represents a clear and dangerous failure of our democratic system to overcome the oligarchy of the financial sector. All those who voted no on this bill were recipients of large contributions from the banking lobby, and they should be punished by the electorate in the primaries (for the Democrats who voted no) and in the general (for the Republicans).
In his book "American Theocracy", Kevin Phillips warned us 3 years ago about the entrenched power of the financial sector, and this is a prime example.
The irony is that the banks may have won this battle, but they will have contributed to their loss in the war. For their long-term success and profitability will not be helped by further impoverishing and rendering homeless the many homeowners who hold mortages on these properties. Foreclosure will result in an immediate mark-to-market of these distressed assets, as their value on the open market will not be any higher than if they renogiated the terms of the mortgages. On the contrary, they would get less for them on the open market, than if they eased the terms for the homeowners, who have a much greter incentive to stay in the homes than a new buyer, and would pobably pay much more that open market price or the homes, if they were given a chance to renegotiate the terms, including even a cram down of the principal amount.
The cost to the overall economy of huge swaths of empty, foreclosed, and consequently decaying homes, together with homeless families unable to, in many cases, even work productively, is even higher.
This is a shameless and, ultimately, senseless position on the part of the banking lobby.
The fact that 1 in 9 homes are now empty, together with the rising tide of homeless American citizens is total insanity, and one for which the whole of the elected representatives of the people should be ashamed.