Boofrickityhoo
By Thoreau
Via b psycho, I learn that mortgages have been bundled and sold and chopped up and transferred so many times that it isn’t entirely clear who owns the mortgages. Which means that it isn’t entirely clear who has the necessary clear title to foreclose on a house.
Now, I hate people who borrow more money than they can pay back. I do. I live in an apartment, so don’t expect me to cry a river for somebody who took out too big of a mortgage. OTOH, I have even more hatred for rich people who can’t balance their books. So if some financiers got too clever for their own good, took on some bad risks, got in trouble, and now they can’t kick out the borrower and sell to recoup some losses, well, sucks to be them. If the price of irresponsible rich people losing money is that irresponsible non-rich people can’t be kicked out of homes that they can’t pay for, well, it’s a rare treat to see shit roll uphill for once.
Now, I do realize that there might be economic repercussions if bankers are unable to recover some of their losses. Fortunately, I have a solution: They can sell their own organs to raise cash. I have a bit of damage on my cornea, my brother has a less-than-perfect cardiovascular system, and most of Ireland could use a new liver. So there’s clearly a customer base.
Comment by Fraud Guy —
October 7, 2010 @ 9:11 am
Unfortunately, they already had their defense for this ready last year:
http://www.moneynews.com/Headline/Bill-Toughening-Foreclosure-Challenges-Passes-Quietly/2010/10/07/id/372879
And somehow, when the shit flow started to reverse, it passed through with quiet alacrity. Somehow, just when one of the banks got a potential 10 Billion dollar wake-up call dropped on their head.
Comment by Happy Jack —
October 7, 2010 @ 11:43 am
Fraud Guy – I think Tom Friedman would refer to that as a supermajority. Maybe the radical centrists have arrived to save us from doom.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
October 7, 2010 @ 1:29 pm
The “people who borrowed too much money” thing is, mostly, a bit of misdirection.
As in every other period in history, the vast majority of people who go through foreclosure could afford their mortgage payments just fine when they took them out, but subsequently suffered some economic setback, like losing a job, having a medical crisis, or having a business fail.
Underemployment is close to 20%. There are about 7.5 million fewer jobs in the country than there were three years ago. Think about whose interest it is in to promote the idea that the typical victim of foreclosure was a house flipper or “predatory borrower.”
Comment by Altimeter Watches —
October 7, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
Hey, thanks for the awesome read! I found it tremendously interesting!
Comment by joe from Lowell —
October 7, 2010 @ 2:51 pm
Why, thank you. I wear a watch I found in a box of Golden Grahams in 1989.
Comment by the innominate one —
October 7, 2010 @ 5:34 pm
joe, did you stop to consider that Altimeter Watches’ comment might be directed at Thoreau, not at you?
Comment by CharleyCarp —
October 7, 2010 @ 6:14 pm
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc111/h3808_enr.xml
Doesn’t look like the apocalypse to me. So a Florida court has to accept a Georgia notarization. I mean, in the federal system we’ve had 28 U.S.C. 1746 for more than 3 decades.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
October 7, 2010 @ 8:06 pm
It’s spam, you idiot. It’s an ad for somebody selling watches.
Have you, by any chance, ever been on the web before?
Comment by Kevin Carson —
October 8, 2010 @ 2:00 am
Organ sales are OK, I guess, but I’d prefer they raise money through pornographic snuff films involving lots and lots of torture with truck batteries.
Comment by the innominate one —
October 8, 2010 @ 10:42 am
joe’s comments are spam? That clarifies things.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
October 8, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
Great thread, I learned a lot!
Comment by joe from Lowell —
October 8, 2010 @ 8:41 pm
Buy a watch!
Comment by Thoreau —
October 8, 2010 @ 11:52 pm
It was great to hear from you! As we discussed, I am sexy Ukrainian woman seeking generous American man. I hope we talk real soon!
Comment by Pham Nuwen —
October 9, 2010 @ 2:41 pm
What the hell is a “radical centrist”? No. I won’t read anything by Tom Friedman just to find out. I’m hoping someone will just post here telling me.
Comment by dhex —
October 10, 2010 @ 10:16 am
What the hell is a “radical centrist”?
it’s sort of a policy nerd version of calling someone a hipster.
Comment by Pham Nuwen —
October 11, 2010 @ 3:32 am
Apologies dhex but still lost.
Comment by dhex —
October 11, 2010 @ 10:25 am
it’s an insult, bruh.
Comment by BigHank53 —
October 13, 2010 @ 3:51 pm
A “radical centrist” is something that only exists in Tom Friedman’s fevered imagination, where the world is flat.
Or maybe it’s in his pants. I hear if he’s had a couple drinks and you have a nice rack he’ll offer to show it to you.
Comment by Green Eagle —
October 13, 2010 @ 7:52 pm
People who borrowed too much money? How is the average person supposed to figure out how much money he can safely borrow? This is not an easy thing to do, and people have traditionally relied on the “experts” at the mortgage lenders to protect them from borrowing too much money, on the supposition that the lenders would lose too if the person went into default. That is a reasonable expectation, and it is the failure of the lenders to carry out this responsibilit, in their orgy of greed, that is primarily responsible for so many overextended homeowners. This is just one more way that the rich have screwed all of the rest of us.