Fifty Two!

Fifty two e-mails this morning waging war against my position on the housing market. All FIFTY TWO citing last nights speech by the president, in particular a specific comment he made:

"We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values."

OK, fine. Let’s regress a bit. Why suddenly are people believing a politician? A politician is a politician and politicians do what politicians do. If any one thing separates them it is their intent; and I will say that the intent of this politician is better than most in past years - hell, I would say better than any since Carter in terms of intent. A quote now comes to mind: "The road to hell was paved with good intentions!" LOL!
Seeing all these e-mails this morning I delayed my trip to the gym and typed a search into my favorite web browser; "Bernanke quote housing market". Three clicks later (four counting the search execution) and looky, looky:

Defending the program Tuesday at a Senate hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said it's important to save some of those people for the greater good. He likened it to calling the fire department to put out a blaze caused by someone smoking in bed.

"I think the smart way to deal with a situation like that is to put out the fire, save him from his own consequences of his own action but then, going forward, enact penalties and set tougher rules about smoking in bed."

Similarly, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month it's not likely aid will be denied to all homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford.

"I think it's just simply impractical to try to do a forensic analysis of each and every one of these delinquent loans," Sheila Bair told National Public Radio.
(It took less than two minutes to find documentation making a farce out of the comment made in the address).

Do not defend a politician, it gets you further behind in almost any argument! Instead defend YOUR position! Perhaps it is reasonable that for the greater good the entire market is manipulated into taking a dump. If that is your position, it is fine. In fact, it is a reasonable ideology when you weigh the consequence of sorting out who is who. Hell, the banks can not even find the original notes to execute foreclosures! 9000 foreclosures are being filed a day, so from that perspective it becomes a matter of the most good for the most people, the fastest. You may well believe that those who have honorably purchased homes may have to pay the price for the dishonorable in this case. That is fine; this is subjective - there is nothing factual about it. No one knows the final outcome and we can only make an educated guess (at best) as how to best accomplish this and what will be of most benefit.

As for the statement itself, break it down and look at it.
Yes, it will help millions of "responsible" families facing foreclosure.

Forcing a market decrease will not help speculators.

Irresponsible buyers are getting help.

And the last part is all but comical. "But it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values." You can not force home values to decline through synchronized government action AND HELP those struggling with declining values. I simply can not believe that so many sent that sentence along with it. The idea is to encourage refinancing to meet declined market value; I have news for you - you still owe what you owe unless your home is "revalued" under the government program. Your loan gets extended, your payment "may" go down but you owe what you owe. The other side of that is you have equity and you refinance it away today hoping for more favorable market conditions later. The idea is you have lower payments at the lower value of your home - if you were not sub-prime it means you pay every single dollar you signed to pay. This makes it sound as if the government is going to discount your original loan - uh no, it’s not! (Trust me, I have been all over the phone on this hoping I could pay my house off at a lower valued rate - had I missed a few payments I would be able to; sounds fair to me).

Backing a point on even the best intentioned politician with their words will only get you the verbiage he or she wants you to hear at the time. This is usually because they know the vast majority will not investigate further than words spoken to them.

As sad as it is, it is true. People are lazy and prefer to be spoon fed rather than go out and dig for their own knowledge. Politicians play this card of lazy ignorance all day long and majority take the bait hook, line and sinker each and every time. Because you find yourself "liking" a politician and emotionally connected to a politician, do not think for a second that you are getting the full story on anything!

An example of such. The bailout in and of itself, many think it is to be paid by taxpayers down the road - I did too until I started researching it. Come to find out bonds are being sold; a great many of those bonds are being sold to China. (This is US Treasury Bonds we are talking about). This is a completely different can of worms in terms of long term impact. China now has the worlds largest holding of Treasuries. Kinda makes you wonder a little bit. Especially when China starts barking at the US and its depreciating dollar and criticism of the lack socialism instituted. At what point do we continue selling our interests AND start listening to the purchasing influences. Instead we see the light at the end of the bailout tunnel - even if the bailout weakens the nation beyond that of the financial.

Some will walk away from reading this as me calling a very popular president a liar. All presidents are. How much support would this man have if said his plan for economic recovery entailed China absorbing Treasuries at such an alarming rate? How much support would he have if said that his plan for housing recovery was going to be at the direct expense of those in good standing? This is what politicians do. Their popularity is most often in the form of public ignorance as they use charisma and their ability to persuade to sell a message of hope. They are all the same because we are the ones who allow ourselves to be easily fooled. Don’t blame me for calling it like it is but by all means challenge any thing I say at any time. None of this is personal on this end because I simply do not have emotional connections to any politician. Those emotional commitments have a nasty way of fogging your objectivity; so I opt to steer clear of them on matters such as this.

And for the record; I actually like the guy and I think he means well. I am just not that back seat guy going only for the blind ride hoping we arrive somewhere nice. My blinders are never on; I like to know exactly where I am going so I am not surprised and prepared when I get there. Try it sometime, you may like it.

My articles and blogs are not a popularity contest. In fact, they generate more controversy than accolades. My intent it simply to tell the rest of the story. In all of my years of writing articles on politicians and policies never have I come across a president this popular. That is a wonderful, wonderful thing! More people today are interested in current affairs than ever before and as a consequence more people take to much at face value because they like the person feeding it to them.

This past year people have called for change yet had no idea what change they wanted. To this very day, most that voted for the current president can not intelligently articulate why. The reason for this is not because people are stupid (even though I like to tease about it). It is because people are too emotionally connected (My Candidate Myself) to differentiate what is good and what is bad; or in many cases were simply part of the bandwagon of momentum for the president (Politics Are Like Football).

Contrary to popular belief, the best way to support your president is to manage politics as if it were a business and remove the emotional and replace it a skeptical logic. There is nothing personal from a relationship perspective concerning any politician and their job making this a better place. They are there to do a job to your standard! Buying off on words simply because of the person speaking them enables such behavior as this and never raises the acceptable standards. Just like you hire some one to fix your roof, you hold them to a standard of acceptance. A president is no different and you must call him or her out when things do not add up. It’s business, it’s not personal. In time, and through direct challenge the new standard can be met and maintained but sitting back and not challenging things that are obviously flawed will get nothing.

In this president there is potential, but as we all know from our own life experiences; no one’s potential is attained without being pushed.

(Personally, I feel I am pushing harder than you guys and I did not even vote for the man)!

-T