Where is the moral outrage? Both presidential candidates are soaked in lobby money, one with a quasi Marxist agenda, the other with quasi free market agenda and both sleepwalking through a financial dilemma that attacks every property taxpayer and American.
Selling houses to people who could not afford those home let alone the property taxes was begun by legislation passed by President Jimmy Carter. His legislation encouraged home ownership to people who were high financial risks by making it easy for them to get loans.
President Bill Clinton put this bogus practice on steroids. He enacted legislation that punished mortgage lenders that would not comply. He deregulated risk by legislating against it causing a complete abandonment of sound lending practices.
These foolish loans were bought up by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They repackaged these loans and sold them on the open market to other financial institutions. They also gave hundreds of millions of dollars into political coffers to ensure this circus continued.
To insure these bad mortgages, AIG and other insurance companies evaluated the risk and sold insurance to cover these mortgages in case of default. Their leverage was set at a 12 to 1 ratio. They too threw millions of dollars into legislator’s coffers and asked for and got the permission to raise their leverage to a 30 to 1 ratio. This greatly increased their risk as well as greatly increased their short term profits.
This fraud was given the stamp of approval by chief economists Greenspan and Bernanke and the ship of fool’s balloon took off. Socialist organizations such as Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and other related groups pressured banks into giving even more misguided loans.
Banking Committee Chairman, The House Finance Chief, SEC Chairman and other top-ranking government officials allowed this cancer to perpetuate because of the lobby money they received. The greed for lobby money twisted sound reasoning and perpetuated complete nonsensical thinking. The only solution for not tempting elected officials to sway their votes from socially responsible to sociopathic dimensions is to banish those accepting lobby money from government service as well as requiring prison terms.
A balloon full of hot air eventually has to crash. Instead of letting the markets sort this out, bailout is the new mantra. The global Credit »”>credit boom is OVER. Throwing out 700 billion dollar »”>billion dollar band aids laden with lobby inspired pork on the problem is meaningless. There is little the Fed or Congress can do to change it. Thanks to the weasels the Emperor has no clothes. The danger of ignoring economic realities is how we ended in this financial crisis. Where is the outrage?
The other news: Lower real estate prices has many towns raising tax rates to compensate for lower assessments. If you compare your home’s value to comparative values of recently sold homes there is a good chance you qualify for a property tax appeal. At least, you should investigate whether you have a case.