Apparently Friday, 11/14, is the deadline for banks to apply for federal cash through the Troubled Asset Relief Program and then, if accepted, the banks have to figure out what to do with the money. Nothing in the terms forces banks to make loans with these taxpayer funds.
Meanwhile, I still don't really have a gauge on what is going to happen for those homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages. I do believe in personal responsibility and I am not smart enough to know the right answer, but it does bug me that tax dollars are propping up institutions that made or purchased bad loans, yet we have not addressed the problems faced by homeowners who may have been sold some serious snake oil in their pursuit of the American dream.
Along these same lines, I note and am troubled by the fact that the that the acronym for Troubled Asset Relief Program is TARP. As a people, I hope we don't accept tent cities as the answer for these struggling homeowners. (This photo of the 9th Ward, New Orleans.)
1 comment:
There may have been some snake oil, but most people in this particular housing mess are, like the banks, victims of their own excess. The people who took these loans were not living in tarps before they leveraged their way in the front door of some high-end housing. Just look at images of the foreclosed housing stock.
As with the help for the banks, there is some economic logic in helping these homeowners - I get that. But a truly "great society" would spend a little of the $700B helping those already living in tarps.
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