from new yorker: The day they came for Addie Polk’s house

Nov 25, 2008 22:51

Here's a very basic, concrete example of how predatory lending practices have wreaked havoc on Americans in recent years. From The New YorkerOhio Postcard ( Read more... )

dennis kucinich, bailout, bankruptcy

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lelah November 26 2008, 04:21:10 UTC
That is so sad. My family came to Akron in the 20s and late 30s because it was such an industrial boom town. As the big 3 tire companies started doing whatever it did to poop all over Akron, people left in droves if they could, my family included (we went to NJ in 1991, right after the last recession). To hear Addie Polk's story is just so sad. She seems like she or her parents came to Akron for it's industry and job prospects. And it was all crapped away, left for the elderly folk who have worked and lived all their lives there to try and salvage it. And if they didn't have the resources, they were left with no options ( ... )

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roseofjuly November 26 2008, 04:49:40 UTC
I sure know that's not the way it works when you don't own the place. A friend of mine got evicted from his apartment -- the marshals showed up on the eviction date (which was never announced) and starting throwing his stuff out on the curb. Just so happened I was there that morning so I could watch his belongings before he rushed home from work to pick them up in a moving van ( ... )

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Total Double Post roseofjuly November 26 2008, 05:21:44 UTC
I just read the story and it was soooooooo fucked up. Complete and total discrimination and predation all the way around, from preying on the elderly, the black, the poor, and the female, to knocking on people's doors who had paid off their houses and asking them if they want to go on fucking vacation. A vacation for the sake of your home? And you know they are not properly explaining the terms to these people, they just get them to sign on the dotted line. Yes, folks should be reading contracts and asking questions beforehand, but when you're 77 and your husband just died, what are you going to do?

He saw the plan as an undeserved rescue of the very institutions that had caused the crisis, while guaranteeing no relief for people who were losing their homes to foreclosure. The Addie Polk story seemed to capture the disparity; Countrywide and Fannie Mae had been bailed out, but Addie Polk was left fearfully hiding from her fate.Kucinich hit the nail on the head. The fat cats on Wall Street are jockeying for this bailout so they ( ... )

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