Is the mortgage bailout simply more big government intervention into private affairs?

Question

Bush set to announce help on mortgages
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071206/ap_on_bi_ge/mortgage_crisis

How do true conservatives feel about this?

booman (below) AGREED! Due to this "bail-out" the overly inflated home prices will remain overly inflated.

People should not have paid those ridiculous prices in the first place. Bush's bailout will not insure those inflated prices never correct themselves.

- will NOW insure - (above)

sociald (below) {high five} I understand your opening statement yet I disagree that we should blame the lenders.

I was in Fresno Cali a few years ago and had a realtor. She was showing me 1700 Sq-Ft homes for $500K. I told her that I would rent for life before spending half a mil on anyone's crackerjack sized house. The 900 sf condos were going at 200k plus association dues. If people were stupid enough to borrow that type of money to showoff they deserve to be held accountable for their dumb decision. Had they said no, as I did, the prices would have come down on their own.

Answer 1

Chi, you're doing it again! You might want to read the article you linked to and understand what it's saying.

Then you should look into how mortgages work and why the freeze is taking place.

The freeze has nothing to do with inflated home prices. In fact MOST of the market corrections have already taken place. The only people who will be hurt here are the predatory lenders who made these sub-prime (read iffy) loans in the first place. There will be no expense to taxpayers and the result will be more hard-working people keeping their homes.

How can a card-carrying liberal like yourself be against working people keeping their homes???

You're too smart by half, as usual!

Answer 2

This is a mixed bag situation. I would say how they are going about it would look to me as such. But if government had done the oversight on the industry in the first place then maybe this situation wouldnt be where it is....
So years of letting the mortgage and finance industry play games and not keeping an eye on them has now left them with a mess and instead of monitoring corporating affairs ( and intervening if nescessary, now we are going to have intervention more like you describe.

Its a similar situation to the S&L scandal some years back or even the Enron, MCI worldcom, global crossing ( and the list goes on ) scandals in recent years only now its hitting home closer to the consumer because we are talking not just about investments but houses people live in.

edit: "sociald (below) {high five} I understand your opening statement yet I disagree that we should blame the lenders."

you know... after i submitted that answer I thought to myself I should add to that that its not all the mortage and finance peoples fault. Its partly governments fault for not keeping tabs on it, its partly the fiancial industries fault and its partly the consumers fault. Ultimately people have to quite buying houses they cant afford and learn how to manage their money.

Answer 3

I don't like it Most of these people were not even qualified to enough to get a loan.Yet these loan officers wrote un-realistic agreements in order to "sell" a loan. AND now the government has to bail out these people Who were a waste of time to begin with. Big government needs to keeps its cottonpicken fingers out of the private sector. Loan companies that go under, go under. Let them reep the rewards of their greed.

Answer 4

It's putting a bandaid on what is getting ready to be a severed artery.

Banks have been making subprime loans with variable interest rates for almost 5 years now. The first of them just now came up for adjustment - and have caused massive problems for people who suddenly can't make their mortgage payments.

As these loans continue to come up for adjustment - it is going to get worse and worse. Some people might be able to refinance - some loans let you do that as early as 2 years, however some don't.

Answer 5

Yes, and the intervention, although meant to be an act of kindness and compassion, is actually worse for the economy. The natural events of a free market system should be adhered to. Japan made that mistake a few years back and it took much longer than it should have for the housing market to recover. Perhaps, the powers that be, need to be reacquainted with Mr Adam Smith.

Answer 6

its ok with conservatives when the government helps out people,as long as they're big buissness.funny ur only a socialist if trying to help out the poor,u don't here any of the crazy far right on YA calling bush a socialist for his handouts to coporations

Answer 7

There are people who want to be bailed out.

Answer 8

I hate it. I don't want government to ADD anything else. They can't pay for what they got now,,,,, stay out of my life, (government) you have done enough to "help" me....