The Obama administration has repeatedly demanded that Israel meet an obligation to stop “natural growth” in its settlements, but is unable itself to define that obligation in practical terms. Meeting with reporters earlier this week, George Mitchell had this colloquy about the issue:
QUESTION: . . . can you give us just a definition of what the United States considers natural growth? What does that phrase mean in your mind?
MR. MITCHELL: There’s been no change in our policy. And there have been – there have been discussions on every aspect of the issue.
QUESTION: Well, what does natural growth mean? I mean, can you just use it in –
MR. MITCHELL: I’m constantly asked by editors, you know, please give a plain explanation of what natural growth is.
QUESTION: If it’s for your editor. (Laughter.)
MR. MITCHELL: Well, of course, one of the issues is that there is no universally used and accepted definition. The most common definition is by the number of births, but there are many variations of that. I’ve had numerous discussions with many Israeli and other officials, and there are almost as many definitions as there are people speaking. But I think the most commonly used measure is the number of births. [Emphasis added].
It is hard to charge Israel with violating a Roadmap obligation regarding “natural growth” when everyone has a different definition, and the person handling the issue for the Obama administration cannot define it, even when constantly asked by the press to give a plain explanation.
It is clear that over the last five years Israel kept the U.S. informed of its interpretation of its “natural growth” obligation and set forth guidelines to which the U.S. did not object (permitting building as long as Israel did not build new settlements, expand the boundaries of existing ones, or provide subsidies for people to move there). Mitchell suggests the “most common” measure of the obligation is to restrict the number of births, but he does not assert Israel ever agreed to such an unrealistic measure, nor does he explain why Israel’s own guidelines were not more reasonable.
There may not have been what Hillary Clinton calls an “enforceable” agreement regarding “natural growth,” but there appear to have been oral agreements and/or tacit understandings that the Obama administration has simply decided it does not want to observe.
The more important point, however, is that the major settlement blocs are located on strategic high ground, or in other militarily significant locations, which are undoubtedly part of the “defensible borders” promised to Israel in the 2004 Bush Letter — as part of an agreement relating to the Gaza disengagement that should be deemed “enforceable.” There is no definition of “defensible borders” in the letter, but the one thing everyone knows it does not mean is the 1967 borders.
It is ludicrous for the U.S. to be negotiating with Israel on the number of births that can be permitted in areas already effectively promised to Israel as part of the borders necessary to defend itself — unless the Obama administration plans to break that promise as well.
Its all part of a vast left wing conspiracy to drive the best and brightest from banking and finance to science and technology.
Ya, right.
At this rate Cuba will be freer than the US of A by 2012.
Cuba might not be so bad after all. Its warmer than Boston and has more Republicans.
Jennifer 4am? Do you ever sleep?
I agree Jen.
Definitely, we need to fight this Government, instead of supporting it.
Obama’s Administration only supports their ideology, and not the people.
By the way, the first comment is right.
Jen, you need a boyfriend to keep you awake until 12 and keep you asleep at 4pm.
Get a life, Jen. You’re too beautiful to waste it.
Sorry. I mean “asleep at 4 am”. He he.
Maybe executives of any stripe and in any industry should support “Card Check” so they can protect themselves collectively from an intrusive and facist government. Sort of like a Solidarity Movement for the USA, how ironic. And, how long does anyone think it will take before our fearless leader will decide that wage controls for everyone is essential to spreading the wealth around?
Morry…it will take no time since that is obviously a part of O’s plan. He’s planning to show that he can implement his plan faster than Lenin did….same plan, faster.
Now that Congress, including a few Republican dupes, believes they have the right to take away the property of anyone they choose, compensation controls are easy. Class warfare seems to be the preferred tactic, and it’s working.
“Oh, and Geithner is going to become compensation czar for the entire financial sector.”
If Princess Neoterica would look at the fine print once more, I believe Her Highness will discover that Th. Geitner will not be sole ‘czar’ or dictator, but probably more like second fiddle to B. Bernanke von Ludendorff–who was not, after all, installed by the present régime.
Plus not to forget [1] Big Management Party Neocomradess Sh. C. Bair over at the FDIC,
http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/speeches/chairman/spmar2009_2.html .
Happy days.
___
[1] “she lost the 1990 Republican nomination in the 5th Kansas district by 760 votes”
Big Shot Neo-Commisar, JHM, deflects the utter incompetence of uber Neo-Commisar Gethner by attack on honest Jew bloogerette for the people. This stalag resident #12 thinks we wait until the State Political Directorate & Party Bosses finishes bigtime transition to Peoples Republic of NA. The Trolls of Glorious Leader never sleep….
Jennifer,
As usual, you are correct on all points. The Administration’s steady socialist creep is frightening. I have been waiting with baited breath for St. Timmy’s banking plan. We’ve been told that the centerpiece will be a private-public entity for toxic asset purchase. With the AIG bonus uproar in the background and threats of even more onerous government mandates on the horizon, will hedge funds and private equity firms-entities that often fly beneath the radar-make a mad dash for the Bank of Obama? As long as there are other avenues of productive investment available to them, not a snowball’s chance in the hot place.
Obama and the congress are truly frightening in their expanding assaults on civil liberties. They are confiscating private property, abrogating contracts, individually targeting members of the press who disagree with them, preparing to subvert the census and reapportionment, and sending ignorant belligerents to ring our doorbells to tell us to support his legislation (are they being issued brown shirts?).
In a few week, Obama and Pelosi have done more to damage our individual rights that George Bush ever contemplated.
Today business executives, tomorrow everyone else.
It seems that the worse things get, the more frantically hyperactive the government’s stream of consciousness policy proposing becomes. In fairness, there were a lot of unusual (for the time) suggestions bandied about during the early years of the Reagan Administration, albeit from the opposite philosophical direction. The big difference is that Reagan had the experience and wisdom to concentrate on a few policy staples – lower taxes, stronger defense – whereas, like good post adolescent lefties, the current crew is all over the map. I am moderately optimistic that this will be their ultimate undoing precisely because it distracts them from fixing anything even where additional or re-regulation might actually be a good thing. Fears of a permanent illiterate majority notwithstanding, that demographic assumption is at least a generation premature . There’s still time for an articulate conservatism to jell, provided only its spokesmen resist the temptation to yap before they think. Believe it or not, there are nominally Democrat constituencies (eg here in New Mexico) that appreciate a calm, respectful tone and need not necessarily be written off as a Chavista mob..
Buckminster Fuller once advanced the theory that the last man to assimilate the sum total of human knowledge was Sir Francis Drake, that life later became so complex that no one man could know everything. Apparently that might even apply to a group of people, especially if they are in basically the same line of work.
Life in the 21st century is so complex, based on such specialized activities, that none of us has a clue to the operating principles of any of the rest of us. I might be able to design and install the piping necessary to operate the cooling in a computer facility but be totally ignorant of the operation of the computers themselves. Businessmen familiar with the organization of a work force to produce a product may have no concept of the steps necessary to finance the project. Yet politicians, and by extension the governments they operate, seem to have a grasp on all our endeavors. They claim to know what prices should be, what salaries should be, what impact on the environment is acceptable, what is the most efficient use of natural resources. Yet, they make decisions based on political considerations that result in disaster that never ends. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” is a great example. The witless embrace of ethanol as a motor fuel is one of the latest. Time and time again the control of an economy by fiat has failed but politics seems to require that we just keep on with the insanity.
It’s pacific time, morons.
Frank Rich is always good for a laugh.
To fail to address this crisis with transparency and consistency, he writes, “would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all.”
Apparently delivering the nation (back) into the hands of the Republicans would be a bigger outrage than continuing to fail and plunging our nation into a deeper and longer recession. In fact, nothing would compare with it, since that would be “the biggest outrage of them all.” Sigh.
Wake up America! This is how Communism begins. The government criticizes private corporations for “unfair” compensation. The government incites the public, which in large numbers, turn on the wealthy because they have not. The public demands that the government increase regulation which is what the governement wanted in the first place (control). And everyone gets a whole lot of government with very little to nothing in return. Oh yeah, but I’ve heard this can’t happen in the U.S. we are too, I dont know, powerful as a people. Right now, the media coupled with the government is acting more like a communist regime than a democratic society. I guess a communist society can be considered democratic, if the majority of the people support it. AIG was simply honoring their contractual obligations, which the government obviously knew about as they did write it into the agreement with AIG in regards to the bailout funds. Does the government really want to solve this economic crisis? Why don’t we try lowering home owner’s insurance to $750/yr, and taxesto $1250/year, and interest rates for all homeowners to 1.5%, 30 years fixed? This would re-stimulate the economy by decreasing expenses for homeowners, freeing up funds for health insurance, groceries, and other basic neccessities. Maybe it would even allow for new businesses to start up and citizens to save for their own retirements. But it would also create a weaker government that would have to accommadate itself to a budget. (Heaven forbid!)
Candidate Palin made a speech wherein she said that if we elect Obama we wouldn’t recognize the America we were leaving our children. I was generally supportive of Palin (certainly compared to Biden), but I thought that that statement was hyperbole. Now I see it as prescient.
EPro-1977 — you’re quite right that Obama & Co have done absolutely nothing that offers relief to the middle class. One problem with changing everyone’s mortgage-payment terms by fiat is that it would hit people, localities, and businesses differently, depending on location and situation. There’s no way to make it equitable. And if the government’s going to do it by force, it has to start out as equitable.
Just to take a small example, my homeowner’s insurance wouldn’t have to go down if a cap of $750 were set, because it’s already below that. My property taxes would be more than halved by a $1250 cap — but someone on an acre in rural Oklahoma wouldn’t see his go down at all. Meanwhile, capping property taxes at $1250 in my part of California would mean immediately shedding police, firemen, and teachers, starting yesterday. Setting a fiat rate of 1.5% for all mortgages would start slaying lenders left and right, and put even the survivors in a very precarious position: if the Fed raises its raise even a quarter point, they’re hosed. Any lending rate that wasn’t capped (at least not somewhere below the typical 20-something % for state usury laws) would immediately shoot up. Car loans, signature loans, credit card rates — all through the roof. The lenders would have to recoup their costs and maintain assets somehow.
I’m discouraged by the market value of my home versus the size of my mortgage in March 2009, but here are the two big things that would help the value come back: rate cuts in the federal and state income tax, both individual and corporate, and abandonment of the cap-and-trade idea for carbon emissions. Cutting income tax rates would put more money in the pockets of most Americans every month, and cut business costs for everyone from Dell to GM to WalMart — meaning consumers would see lower prices.
On the other hand, KNOWING our federal taxes will go back up to the Clinton rates in 2011 is something a lot of people and businesses are already preparing for — by not spending money, and by planning to take as little taxable income as possible. The only money you can spend is taxable income: the more you tax it, the less people take.
Businesses are all eyeing cap-and-trade too, as smart individuals are. Unless the threat of it goes away — with the dramatic increase it will represent in operating costs for both businesses and households — people are just going to keep hedging until we know what it will to amount to.
It would be superficially nice to see my mortgage payment go down. But it wouldn’t get me spending again, because that 2011 tax hike is coming, and cap-and-trade may well double my costs for utilities, gas, food, and household supplies. Those two threats will govern my spending decisions, and those of many other Americans, as long as they still loom.
I completely understand the conflict that an extreme measure like fixing interest rates, home taxes, and insurance costs would create. To be clear, I am not suggesting a cap, this would be a fixed expense. Nevertheless, if you believe that the system is equitable now, I respectfully disagree. I understand this would have tremendous effects on municipalities in varying degrees. However, if this system is examined more carefully, it could prove as a viable solution to our crisis. At the very least it is worth investigating.
http://www.fairtax.org
The problem is that politicians are getting fat pockets on the way the system operates now. Therefore, they are less inclined to change it. Outlearning the wolves is a simple book that people should read to educate themselves on how to stop behaving like victims and start changing the way we think to begin making real changes that will actually improve our quality of life. Right now, people are just trying to spread the wealth by taking it from the wealthy without understanding what the wealthy have done to get there. And, without understanding that if you spread wealth amongst everyone, there will not be any more wealth, we’ll just all be poor, except for goverment. (Look at Cuba) I wonder if they thought it could happen to them?
if anyone sees my biographer lesterologist let him know my 500 point prediction is BACK ON.
geitner announces the plan, 500 point run up in the DOW.
and I don’t win if it’s not clear that THAT was the reason for the spike higher.
thank you continue on with your interchangeable anti obama posts
fairtax is half assed. just get rid of the income tax.
“just get rid of the income tax.”
That, we agree on, lester. Repeal the 16th Amendment, and re-amend the Constitution to prevent it from ever coming back. Obviously, merely relying on the Founder’s original checks and balances didn’t do the trick. Amendment. It’s the only way.
Lester-
The retroactive stripping of AIG compensation is to going to wieigh against any public/private partnership proposal by Geithner. Anyone with a brain knows that the upside is now limited, and limited retroactively.
We’re playing Calvinball now-the rules can change at any time. It’s wiser to sit teh game out if you can.
it accounts for like, a third of what the government takes in. we would still have a budget of 2 trillion if we eliminated the income tax. does anyone think we couldn’t run the government on two trillion dollars!!!
the budget is the problem. not just because it’s a waste but because it divides america and feeds peoples paranoia. if we didnt have the ability to act on such a massive scale people wouldn’t be worried about global warming, universla healthcare, Iran. any of this stuff because there would be nothing they could do about it.
people aren’t apathetic and lazy enough basically. like when don imus said that stuff about the black girls basketball team. it wasn’t enough for people to just say “that was bad” they had to DO Something about it. they just couldn’t sleep till they knew the guys career was over.
take away the income tax. let people feed their own paranoias at their own level without involving the entire free world.
marty- interesting
This is pretty alarming. lester actually agrees with me on something. You feeling all right, shipmate? Have any dreams last night, about being switched out for a clone by aliens?
Yes, yes, and yes. Taxing our incomes on a percentage basis merely fosters the idea that government has a huge operating budget, generated by a prior claim on what we produce, no matter what government is doing.
It isn’t wise to let government get into that position. It starts making all sorts of grandiose plans on the assumption of this regular income, for which it never has to justify specific needs.
The right way to treat government is to keep it small and importunate, and regularly set the dogs on it.
yes. but “”War is the health of the state” grows it’s size and scope exponentially. so how “conservative” are hawks, really?
Who could propose a list of, say, 5 Constitutional Amendments that could get the necessary supermajorities across the states and would tilt (not guarantee, of course) us in a generally conservative, limited government direction? If the Democrats entrench themselves, and/or the Republicans don’t appear capable of offering any alternative, that might be the way out, politically: a movement behind a cluster of Constitutional amendments deliberately and carefully drawn up to bring fiscal sanity and limit judicial activism. If such a movement got large and autonomous enough, candidates would gravitate toward it, rather than us chasing after and placing our hopes in candidates. We could call it the movement to restore the Constitution by amending it.
bulldoze the beltway. liberals conservatives, greens, libertarians. let them all get real jobs
Adam — I’ve been advocating another Constitutional Convention for some time now. I remember being hooted down a lot five years ago, but more and more people have been showing interest in the idea since about when the Democrats took over Congress in January 2007.
You’re right, it would have to be executed as a private movement, not under government sponsorship. Something politicians seeking office could affiliate with, but not exercise control over.
Two amendments I would see right off the bat are the following:
1. An amendment prohibiting any kind of federal tax on income, individual or corporate. Yes, that means Social Security and Medicare “contributions” too, which would have to become voluntary if they were retained at all.
2. An amendment citing Congress’ authority from Article III Section 2 of the Constitution, to limit what the federal courts may have jurisdiction over, that would prohibit the federal courts from ruling on a short list of social issues that should be legislated by the states, including marriage and abortion. In theory, the 9th and 10th amendments should already take care of that — but we see how well practice has conformed with theory in that regard. Not promising.
I’ve also been on this hobby horse for a while–I’ve been focusing on things that seem to me to give special privileges to one group of citizens over another, giving them official sanction. For example, campaign finance laws that, in effect, elevate both the media and the established political parties over other citizens–the New York Times has unlimited rights to not only editorialize for its candidates but slant its news stories in their favor, while if I want to get together with others to organize an ad campaign there are all kinds of restrictions. The “media” should not be a protected class. And we should mkae it clear that all branches of government are responsible for interpreting the Constitution. And other suggestions consonant with your #2 as well. Well, here’s an essay I wrote about it a little while back for New English Review:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=5370&sec_id=5370
So, who will set up the website?
The President on “The Tonight Show”:
“Here’s the dirty little secret, though. Most of the stuff that got us into trouble was perfectly legal. And that is a sign of how much we’ve got to change our laws — right? We were talking earlier about credit cards, and it’s legal to charge somebody 30 percent on their credit card, and charge fees and so forth that people don’t always know what they’re getting into. So the answer is to deal with those laws in a way that gives the average consumer a break. When you buy a toaster, if it explodes in your face there’s a law that says your toasters need to be safe. But when you get a credit card, or you get a mortgage, there’s no law on the books that says if that explodes in your face financially, somehow you’re going to be protected.”
So if I understand him correctly, I should be able to run up thousands on my Chase Visa, say “No thanks” to the bill, and Chase (and Uncle Sam) will pick up the tab.
There it is, Obamaism in a nutshell, individual responsibility incinerated. “Moral hazard” evidently isn’t in the President’s vocabulary.
Amazing the way these terms “equitable” and “fair” have grown. Now EPro1977 thinks it’s inequitable that people are paying the rate on theri mortgages that they agreed to pay when they bought their homes! And the local tax rates that their locales voted for! And homeowners insurance that one buys to protext one’s ability to pay for or replace one’s property–this also needs to be adjusted if one believes that the price being charged is too much.
Scientific Socialist is quite right–this is the Obama mindset. If it is unpleasant (or even creates real hardship) it must be unjust, unfair, and the responsibility of government to mend.
Obama himself seems to forget that the financial sector is already one of the most heavily regulated in the economy. These mortgages did not “explode in your face.” They were big gambles that people were glad to take. People who avoided the gambles (and their potential big payoffs) shouldn’t have to pay for the risk-takers. That would be–unfair!
I don’t suppose a walking moral hazard would be likely to have the expression “moral hazard” in his vocabulary.
Obama is a summa cum laude graduate of Demagoguery U though. One has to admire his superb technique. For example, the non-specific implication that what got us into the current situation was legal things done by lenders. Whereas it wasn’t legal things done by lenders that got us here at all; it has been ILlegal things done by borrowers: namely, taking on too much debt and defaulting. There have been other things at the root of the problem, done by GOVERNMENT: not “illegal,” perhaps, but arguably unconstitutional: namely, requiring lenders to make risky loans as a price of retaining federal certification and avoiding lawsuits.
Obama raises the specter of something that has been no part whatsoever of the debt meltdown: the option lenders have in some states to charge up to 30% interest on consumer debt. It’s a scary number, and is completely irrelevant to the debt meltdown, which was precipitated by people defaulting on mortgages when they jumped from 1.9% to 6%. It is pure, unadulterated demagoguery to throw this into the argument. Consumer lending at 30% is a big red herring covered in mucky bilgewater, designed to get people riled up for no reason they could rationally explain.
I could go on, but that’s all I can take for now. I appreciate Scientific Socialist posting the quote here, since I didn’t watch Obama on Leno. This quote ought to be used in logic and reasoning courses (I guess some schools still have them?) as Sample A of the appeal to emotion, and evasion of empiricism or rationality.
Adam — your argument for the amendment that would de-privilege the media is an interesting one. I do wonder, however, if it could end up being applied, in a sort of converse sense, to tax-exempt religious and charitable organizations. I would regard that as very bad. I firmly believe the power to tax DOES involve the power to destroy, and I do not want to see religious and charitable organizations subject to taxation. I have absolutely no doubt that there are elements in our society that would energetically use taxation to drive churches and synagogues out of business — and target Jewish relief agencies for seeking to help Jews, Catholics for helping Catholics, the Salvation Army for preaching the Christian gospel along with its practical ministrations, etc, etc.
Maybe that could be wholly preempted, at least at the federal level, with the amendment prohibiting an income tax. It would still leave state and local tax authorities to get funny ideas.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that we need to stop privileging the media in the variety of ways we now do. The contrast between the media’s unfettered ability to promote candidates and editorialize on issues, versus that of the private citizen, is a powerful case in point. I wonder, however, if reaffirming the rights of the citizens — removing, through covenant, the absurd limitations that have been imposed by “campaign finance reform” — might be a superior approach.
Obviously, we’ll have to let some legal scholars live long enough to write these amendments. I may do a piece on this at my little blogitilla.
Margo writes: EPro1977 thinks it’s inequitable that people are paying the rate on theri mortgages that they agreed to pay when they bought their homes! And the local tax rates that their locales voted for! And homeowners insurance that one buys to protext one’s ability to pay for or replace one’s property–this also needs to be adjusted if one believes that the price being charged is too much.
Fixed rate is the way to go . I’ve always known and done just that. However, some people were lied to by their lending institutions/ mortgage brokers and this is one of the reasons citizens are in trouble. Any person who owns a home, did you request your paper work 24 hours in advance, as permitted by law, to go over your documents? or did you attend the closing signing all the paperwork, trusting the professionals to hold up to their fiduciary duties? How many people bought properties and now pay taxes on double the amount of thier purchase because the assessed value has been adjusted? Can you now sell it because the taxes have increased? The same happens with insurance, rates fluctuate based on the insurance companies’ discretion. Isn’t the job of the government to protect the public? This is the purpose of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Many entities ave failed to do so. Let’s allow voters to vote on fixing taxes, homeowner’s insurance, and interest rates. The banks, government, and insurance companies have abused the citizens of this country quite enough, because of their greed and power-hungry attitudes. The reason people are broke is because they pay three and four times the value of their home in interest by the end of a thirty year fixed loan. Then, in many cases, they have to rely on the mismanaging government to hand them the dividends of their hard earned garnished wages to retire. The fact of the matter is these entities overcharge, mismanage funds, screw the public and now, to add insult to injury, the government screws us again by bailing them out with our hard earned tax money, and our children’s and our children’s grandchildren’s money.
Epro1977 — just a couple of things to consider. One, the doubling of property taxes is something local government does. Californians put a stop to it with Prop 13, and other states have followed suit. I would never advocate having the federal government intervene in local property taxes — there’s way too much unconstitutional overreach from the federal government already.
Two, insurance rates do change, and for a reason: claims go up in some areas, and costs of paying them out go up. If government caps premiums the way you propose, you won’t even be able to get insurance in some places. Insurance rates shot up the last few years in the fire-prone areas of California, because the companies were having to shell out hundreds of millions on claims, and the areas are still fire-prone. The best way by far to make insurance more affordable in those areas would be for government authorities to enforce brush clearing, rather than doing the opposite, which, incredibly, they too often do. There are environmental groups that literally prevent brush from being cleared on government-managed land, while local fire authorities beg homeowners to clear their 0.2-acre plots. Which many do — but a fire that gets to the brush within 20 feet of your house is probably going to make it to your roof.
We see similar premium adjustments in the flood-prone Midwest and the hurricane-prone Southeast. As Californians can tell you, after their experience with worker compensation insurance regulation, excessive intervention in insurance premiums simply makes it harder to get insurance — and whatever you’re stuck with is lousy, because the premiums don’t keep the insurance company(ies, if you’re lucky) financially positioned to cover big payouts.
A final thought: no one is going to lend you money at 1.5% when inflation is over 2%. He’s LOSING money by doing that. If you want to guarantee that no one can borrow at all, because no one is willing to lend, the best way to achieve that is to proclaim that lenders should have to lose money on lending to you.
When crazy uncle Morey says for the hundredth time that he could do a better job as President than that guy in the White House, I’m beginning to believe that, now, he might be right.
EPro1977, I’ll yield to JE DYer on the specifics. But on the basic premise, I don’t think the job of the government is to protect the public–not from the things you mention. The things you mention have to do witth the cost of doing business under changing circumstances. YOu cannot be “protected” from them without two consequences: 1) you are prohibited from taking some kinds of risks that it would be very much in your own interest to take (for instance, a subprime mortgage if you know this will enable you to start your fantastic business or if you know Uncle Jeff will back you). Or 2) business are prevented from doing business in certain fields and withdraw from them (for instance, insurance companies find that given all the rate freezes and requirements for coverage, they can no longer write insurance for some locales). In both cases, the government will gladly take over and “protect” you, while and you your fellow citizens lose opportunities to create wealth and to express your own choices in your lives.
I hope you’ll think carefully about it and realize that deliberately lending money to people who won’t pay you back is not a good business model for any lender–unless they are constrained to do it by government. That, simply stated, is what got us into this mess. Asking for more government regulations is not going to get us out.
Also, a word about greed: Why is it greedy for a lender to raise rates when business situations change (if that possibility was already in the agreement), and not greedy for the homebuyer to want to keep paying low rates (having previously agree that rates could rise)? It looks the same on both sides to me, and not particularly immoral on either side.
most of the humongous amount of press sand speculation regarding this crisis overlooks the mian culprit- alan greenspan.
the sub prime bubble was purposely inflated as a middle finger to terrorists. it part of the war on terror that’s why no one questioned it and those who did were treated like heretics.
Margo, your point is well taken. I’m all for free market and small government to expand opportunity for wealth. I am not for big government and heavy regulation. The idea I propose does not call for heavy federal regulation or oversight. It could actually potentially lead to stabilizing economic situations (and reducing inflation, therefore making the interest rate proposed appropriate Dyer.) All I know is you cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it. Independent thinking is required, not the same old Republicans vs. Democrats. The government is absolutely charged with protecting the public from predatory lending. Unfortunately, it failed in this aspect and the culprits (banks, that play a major role in setting the terms) are getting bailed out. It is greedy for lenders to increase rates when in the actual market rates should be decreasing, especially when borrowers were not aware of when or how these rates would change. The banks make the rules and change the rules in the middle of the game. I understand about adjustable rates. They may be used to the borrowers advantage, when a borrower needs a temporary loan and can later refinance to a low fixed rate. These programs permit borrowers to pay more toward the principal and then refinance a lesser principal at a new low rate. However, the public has not been adequately educated in regards to this matter. If the American Dream is for people to eventually own their own little slice by way of a home/property, high schools should probably teach a course on financing and real estate integrated into the economics curriculum. As far as insurance companies go, they collect, collect, collect, and collect. Then, when it is time to pay on a claim, they find any and every excuse under the sun to bail out. This goes for home, and especially health. How many have heard of people not receiving treatment for illnessess because insurance companies dump them after years of getting paid? Government, banks, and insurance companies are in it together, which is why they keep covering each others assets regardless of which party is in the White House. For the people, by the people is asleep in the back seat. Once again, WAKE UP AMERICA!