dayman

We'll never agree but I enjoy the conversation. To me it just isn't going to happen on it's own. I'm not under the impression btw that there's a magic fix, but I look at some actions various experts think can help and say I think we're better off going with them than doing nothing. You all say no, do nothing b/c it isn't going to happen in any acceptable way with that action. Whatever. This is why we have elections. One thing seems clear to me though, doing nothing means no strong recovery for years and years. Is that acceptable? To people who say yes b/c that's economics...that's your disposition, and I respect that. It's fair enough and I agree in normal circumstances btw I just don't agree today. But don't go around screaming your head off about the economy not partying like it's 1999...and how Mitt will walk in and lay out a huge line of blow on day 1 and we'll all get it on again. You don't want to consider any solutions b/c they can't work, so we'll all just wait around on it to fix itself. Nothing can be done to aid market crisis or spur growth in time of recession apparently...everything in any past scenarios is the past fair enough...I don't agree though.

Look we're fixating too much on the eminent domain idea. If you go back through the thread you'll see I just saw some guy going on about that as a creative idea last night while I was in the thread. It's not something I even heard about until yesterday. And besides, the government would take the mortgage, write down the principle, then sell it out again. The entire thing isn't to set the floor in individual properties it's just a work around to write down the principle on these houses that are underwater and dragging us all down with them. It's not about setting the market at artificial levels. It's about providing some relief to the homeowners so they can participate in the economy normally again, in doing so foreclosures happen far less often which helps the housing market stabilize naturally, etc... This isn't some big government central planning solution like you make it out to be, at least not as I see it. And like I said the eminent domain idea isn't my baby I'm just talking here...I never even heard about that until last night. But keep in mind they would take the debt from the bank, not the house.

First off I'm not advocating for that I'm just explaining it as one potential creative solution if DeMarco refuses to budge. It would be much easier if F&F would just write down some of this **** themselves and share in the profit if/when the house bounces back. And while to me it makes sense do this for a hell of a lot of houses, it's not right for every house. There are other ways some people have put forward to address those problems which I've talked about. The idea that there is no market value at which any of these houses can be purchased (or revalued) at b/c they are "falling to market value" is nonsense. It just makes no sense to me, no I'm not really in the finance business I admit but I'm just having a discussion here. There is a value these houses have, people buy and sell houses even today at prices that take variables into account. Houses have no value right now? That's nonsense every house has a market value today. The government doesn't "set" the value ... that value is there.

As to the first paragraph that's just nonsense. The market value is something a "central planner" can never have? These houses have identifiable market value. How do you think people realize they're underwater in the first place? These loan holders think that over time (given a recovery which once again won't happen until the housing market stabilizes) the value will go back up but the fair market value today takes that into account. People trade these all the time we can determine exactly what the fair value is. And it's not a central planner deciding btw...it IS the market. In that guys idea the local municipality acquires the mortgage for fair value (yes, as determined by the market today), works with the home owner to restructure it and then it's sold into the FHA programs (so the money comes from the very people who buy mortgages today) as a superior property where the payments are far more likely to be made and where there is a person in the house and where the market is the better for it. The opposition is simply from people holding lottery tickets waiting on the recovery, but those very people benefit more than anything else from the recovery of the market itself and their lotto ticket sure as hell isn't going come up a winner without it. Principle write down is needed plain and simple. We're over-leveraged plain and simple and the entire economy won't recover until the housing market stabilizes and people can start again. You guys are ideologues. It isn't true that government intervention is responsible for where we are, and it isn't true that the government can't play a role to help get us out of our spiral. And that's why addressing the problem would help some w/ the mortgage, others would get a lease/option or have some sort of equity interest created (various creative solutions for those who really can't have the house), and finally those w/ no solution should be foreclosed on QUICKLY. The the general idea that we simply shouldn't write down some of this is bogus. Yes in normal times this should be our policy but it isn't right for today. The collapse hurts the entire economy many people who would benefit from these policies actually were reasonable to think they would never default when they signed the mortgage papers before the collapse. And in any event as we all know every foreclosure drives down the prices of all the other homes around it, and what we see w/ them happening in massive amounts is the depletion of the single greatest source of wealth for American families. A quarter of all mortgages are worth more that their homes... And in any event the idea described above is just one get around dick head DeMarco who is simply looking to preserve F&F's assets. If F&F wrote the damn mortgages down themselves and the value does go back up the terms can be such that they homeowner should share the profits with the lenders anyway. The overall point is this, it's time to put aside your ideology for the moment. This isn't your standard economic event, this isn't your standard downturn, we're !@#$ing stuck and we aren't coming out on our own that's just the bottom line. We aren't. There are a lot of different ideas about things we can do that many very smart people think will help us spur a recovery....when we finally recover then we can go back to being governed by "normal" principles. Doing nothing is not the answer. It's obvious.

OK allow me to clarify, you can't complain while we sit here not doing that (which you say we should do) and letting your idea go. B/c the housing market IS still freezing the recovery and our housing market policy as of now is basically your policy. So we're waiting. So you should tell people to wait patiently.

What would could we accomplish with these demon interventionist policies if done in a rapid coordinated comprehensive way? Bank balance sheets cleaned up freeing up lending money, massive reduction of economic stress on millions of people allowing them to participate as normal members of the economy once again, turn the rotting foreclosed death omens sitting in neighborhoods and condo units into properly maintained rental properties so they are no longer toxic to the surrounding home values, and yes even some (I'm not saying a huge fix to unemployment here just saying "some") direct jobs in preparing these foreclosed properties and as a general result of some house cleaning in the housing market. The guys holding these mortgages don't want to them down b/c they basically have lottery tickets waiting for the recovery. But as long as they hold their ticket, it isn't coming. The bottom is nowhere and the recovery is dependent on something happening here. We need to write down and/or refinance the people who can pay, those who can't there are a lot of idea we can convert the deed to leases w/ options to purchase at the end, I read some idea instead of the lease/option to convert a portion of the bank mortgage to an equity investment (not entirely sure of all the details on that idea), etc...and yes even after all this some will need to be foreclosed on anyway and we need to expedite those foreclosures. The idea that this is going to just find it's bottom isn't insane...but that isn't going to be acceptable to most people when they understand what that means in terms of time. I know government intervention is a sin to you and there are others who feel that way so I'm not saying you are crazy. But this ongoing mortgage-recovery cycle is crippling us and both sides complain about the job numbers and slow recovery...the implication is we need to fix it. If that's true this is how. Now if the implication you would have people draw from your ideology is that we don't need to fix it but simply eat it and let it go...that's fine...but what you are saying is deal with it. You can't say deal with it and then complain about the recovery...that's all I'm saying.

The policies DeMarco ignores and can't be compelled to accept?

People disagree and I get that. If we don't start some principle write-downs, IMO we're not going to recover any time soon and that seems fairly obvious to me. So all I"m saying is don't complain about recovery. Complain away about Obama I would never take that from you, but even assuming I'm wrong and you are right...your policy on the mortgage issue admits the recover simply won't get going until the market finds it's natural bottom which is something the President has nothing to do with b/c he should be hands off.

I don't agree that this is the way to go here. But I do accept the basic logic that in your opinion we have to let the cyclical feeding of this disaster just continue. However, I had better not see you complaining about jobs numbers in some other thread in the near future And btw just for the record guy on Eliot Spitzer talking about local government taking the debt by eminent domain. Paying fair value for the public purpose of plugging the drain and writing it down to keep people in their houses. I'm simply reporting here I don't know about this one just hearing it as I type.

No b/c LABillsFan is a proud non-thinker. You don't tell anti-intellectuals to think. It's offensive to their doctrine.

Honestly both campaigns have been !@#$ing around none of this matters. Obama and Romney will roll out what will become the true campaign movement in the next month and after the conventions it will be on. No matter what happens or has happened until then it's all just nonsense summer campaigning. The only reason it matters at all is b/c they all need so much money.

We need a Chris Carter emoticon

Continued foreclosures while we're trying to mount an economic recovery, which hasn't taken off yet btw, is the choice for a quick and strong recovery in prices? The vast majority of these houses will end up on the market anyway? Who is buying? This thing is holding itself back. We need to put a floor on this and keep people in homes and provide some debt relief. More foreclosures dumped isn't going to bounce the housing market back any stronger or quicker with the economy frozen by... foreclosure dumps depressing the housing market...and the thing will continue to feed itself as the housing crisis holds the economy back and the economy sucking prevents the housing dumps from doing anything is it?

By stop poking at you mean continue to allow them to dump thousands of foreclosed houses into the market further depressing the market?

DeMarco sees his mission as preserving the assets of Fannie and Freddy not restoring the housing market despite the $140B they got b/c they went nuts w/ subprime dog ****. Even if not writing down mortgages or refinancing them at lower rates saves F&F today until the real problem is addressed in the long run the value of housing stock will continue to suffer and more mortgages will be valued higher than homes. Something needs to be done no matter what party you associate with the entire economy is sucking and the single biggest source of family wealth is in crisis. The mortgage problem continues to freeze us in place and here we have F&F at the middle of it all again b/c DeMarco is a douche.

Well I would suggest you learn to separate ideas from people.

The interview I saw with him said he had problems with the old news so he did it himself, his way, and saw it get stronger not weaker. And he's a scientist he knows not to assume correlation & causation his point was that in his professional opinion the results of his study so indicated CO2 as THE factor (along with countless other studies) that until some other hypothesis can credibly make the case for something else there simply is no other way to feel about this scientifically. At what point exactly would you start to think as he does? What exactly are you waiting for, what would do the trick? Why are you so skeptical still?

Have you looked at the latest study from Muller? Once he stripped away all the variables he had problems with in some of the other studies he said the CO2 curve matched, exactly, various climate change indicators he saw. That, he says, is when he became a believer. He said he was utterly shocked at how tight the data fit together. Anyway I'm not against you on nuclear. So bet it. But we will need natural gas as a hold over and developing worlds will have no other choice. Lucky for us we 1) know how to build nuclear reactors and can do so with ease 2) consistently rank in the top 3 for studies on national capability for solar and wind power and 3) have well documented **** loads of natural gas to frack for. If these solutions, nuclear, solar, wind, and gas are some tangible solutions to build on moving forward...each with their positives and each with their negatives...there is absolutely no reason we can't find the right blend to power ourselves into a CO2 reducing, independent energy future. The point of me sort of advocating on all this is not to be some prick about climate change or hate on coal and gas pipelines or sniff my own ass. It's just to say that people who staunchly oppose the idea of climate change...and who pride themselves on supporting coal and oil (I'm not saying stop cold turkey tomorrow btw I'm saying we should be moving away and moving fast though)...are complete and utter !@#$ing idiots *sniffs my own ass* ...but these people are often the same people who have nonsensical views in a lot of other arenas anyway so they really get more due than the deserve in terms of being relevant it is just disappointing some political officials still pander to their idiocy.

For users to adopt in many areas of the country yes. And that is driving demand which accelerates the innovation curve that is quickly closing the gap. In other words, incentives spurring demand have worked to increase the rate of development beyond that which the market alone would have seen. You have to approach the entire discussion in a way that assumes it's good to develop clean energy quickly. If you don't then you just won't ever agree. If the attitude is one of fossil fuels until they're gone then we'll do something and CO2 emissions aren't something to factor into the analysis then I agree it doesn't makes sense.

The market if left to itself would not be encouraging innovation in technology at this rate or adopt the mission until it makes absolute economic sense. Just look at how the rate of innovation responds to incentives placed in the marketplace by governments. The free market doesn't really deal w/ tragedy of the commons type situations all that well. It's a wonderful thing, the free market, but there are a few situations where it simply doesn't work that well...moving away from CO2 more quickly than we have to based on supply...for environmental reasons...is not something it is well suited to facilitate.

Oh 3rd you know what the deal is. You know what they are and you know what the deal is, and if you were smart you would see them as opportunity both to solve the CO2 problem, to gain our independence from foreign energy, and to take as stronger position in the world economically. If you weren't aware many of the various technologies are advancing very quickly but the rate of advancement is all about demand...the innovation curve follows the demand. Solar for one....solar actually is competitive now in areas of the US certainly for commercial users (residential as well in some instances though) who can take advantage of the federal and state/local tax subsidies. The increased demand improves the innovation rate ... of course China sort of flooded the market so the companies themselves will hurt for profit until the demand gets closer to industry capacity but the innovation of the technology will continue to march along so long as there are people buying them. And in any event you miss the point in asking the question to begin with. It's not about what magic clean energy source is perfect now, obviously if there was one we would all use it. It's about getting there. Hopefully the military plays a huge role in this, and they may well. Additionally there needs to be public incentives to spur all manner of clean energy commercially. None of this is some great revelation or beyond just basic common sense. Clean energy good, CO2 bad, get to clean energy sooner rather than later good, not do anything to work on that bad. And before some libertarian douche comes in here, no market forces alone won't do the trick well enough IMO there's cause for government to be involved through the military and incentive schemes so we just disagree there this is one area where smart government can help us collectively pursue this better IMO this is not an area where I'm on board with the anti-government movement.

In the immediate future fracking for natural gas that produces 1/3 the carbon emission of coal is the solution b/c it's about the only thing that developing countries...the countries where pollution will increase the most in coming years...can afford. The actual answer is not just fracking, but fracking is apart of it. And of course the voodoo "clean energy" efforts that conservatives on this board seem to hate in lockstep are actually the answer and a big part of the short term mitigation as well as the long term answer.

I think there is a Mitt interview to air on Fox news any moment on "on the record" if anyone is interested in knowing ahead of time.

Those liberals and that climate change talking point what a knee slapper. Every now and then the crying baby is just spot on hilarious.