Relief for borrowers | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    The chief community organizer is ready to require many lenders to "swallow" a good part of their income on loan balances on houses that are "underwater". How wonderful for all those folks who when it's with other folks' money). But how about those people who bought only as much house as they could afford (remember the bad old days of 20% down, very careful scrutiny, and documentation of your income and credit history)?? And how about the people (the long suffering taxpayers) who will ultimately be footing the bill for this latest effort to attract votes?? What about them??

    Buying a house is very likely one of the largest expenditures most of us will make in our lifetime. The last three administrations seem to have been dedicated to making it easier to own a piece of the American Dream - until now. Now we are told by our Prez in a recent speech how "soft" we have become and how we need to toughen up and start looking after ourselves. We need to quit expecting the government to do everything for us. We need to accept the consequences of our own decisions. Yeah, right.

    Do you suppose some conservative's speech got stuck in the TelePrompter - or some "hacker" substituted it for a speech supporting Kenyesian economics or Cloward-Piven philosophy - which normally seem to be more to the anointed one's liking. Sure sounds like it. Speeches like that surely could not have come from an Obama speech writer (perhaps an ex-Obama speech writer, but surely not someone who is still on the payroll after putting words like that in the anointed one's mouth) What is particularly interesting is the notion that the anointed one doesn't seem to find much fault with a lot of the government mandated freebies that are the source of our "softness" as long as they will deliver him more votes.. Hmmm...

    In the meantime, we are left to wonder how many of the so called "under water" loans that we are going to rescue are that way because in the halcyon days of double digit real estate price increases the owners refinanced, taking out the "paper" growth in their "equity". Think about it. You purchase a home with nothing down and no check on your ability to repay (in some cases there were even reports of buyers walking away from settlement with a check from the lender in hand). Over the period of a couple of years, the market value of your home rises so you go back to the bank and refinance it. The bank hands you a check Now you have a bigger loan, but money to spend on other "necessities" like a "Beamer", or a big new boat, or a big new RV, or something else equally as important. Then the market drops out from under you and your house is suddenly worth barely what you paid for it originally (or even less) - never mind that you still have a bundle of the bank's money in your pocket - and little or none of your own money invested. But you still have the "Beamer", or the big new boat, or the big new RV, or whatever. But then here comes the anointed one with a scheme to get the bank to refinance your outstanding balance at a lower interest rate (with the bank "swallowing" the loss in interest income). By focusing on the bank, people tend to overlook who owns the bank and would be the ultimate loser. There is hardly a word spoken about whose money is being confiscated to pay for this bailout. Could it possibly be the long suffering tax payers who aren't "underwater" or those "savers" who can't even get a 1% return on their CDs?? Go figure...     Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    In proposing "fixes", we don't seem to hear much about these folks. Not knowing how so many of these folks got into the situation in which they find themselves makes a lot of other folks reluctant to participate in yet another bail out. Even knowing would likely still make a lot of them reluctant to bail out these overextended folks.

    The folks who have kept up their monthly house payments, even though the loan is "under water" are people of integrity. Something went wrong; they "swallowed hard"; and showed what they are made of. Those can't possibly be the folks whom the anointed one accuses of being "soft". And yet, those are the very folks the anointed one wants to convert into "takers" by mandating a change in their contract with the bank (or lender). I rather doubt that there are many folks who thought that when the Prez' was chiding us for getting "soft" he meant it was time for more bailouts...

    D'ya think??.