Politics: February 2009 Archives

Watch CNBC’s Rick Santelli go ape-crazy on the Chicago trading floor. “President Obama, are you listening?”

UPDATE: Partial transcript from Pamela at Atlas Shrugged:

Santelli: “The government is promoting bad behavior. Because we certainly don’t want to put stimulus forth and give people a whopping $8 or $10 in their check and think that they ought to save it. And in terms of modification, I’ll tell you what, I have an idea. You know, the new administration’s big on computers and new technology, how about this, President and new administration. Why don’t you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages or would we like to, at least, buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people who might have a chance to actually prosper down the road. And reward people that can carry the water instead of drink the water. (rowdy applause on the trading floor)

Host: That’s a novel idea. They’re like putty in your hands. Did you hear -

Santelli: No they’re not, Joe, they’re not like putty in our hands. This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills? Raise their hand. (no hands raised, lots of booing) President Obama, are you listening?

Trader on the floor: How about we all stop paying our mortgages? It’s a moral hazard.
…
Host: How about the notion that you can go down to 2% on the mortgages -

Santelli: You could go down to -2% and still -

Host: - and still have 40% not be able to do it. So why are we trying to keep them in the house?

Santelli: I know Mr. Summers is a great economist, but boy I’d love the answer to that one!

I’m a total schmuck. A fool. A maroon. A jerk and a loser.

When I bought my current house, the real estate company told me that I could afford a house twice as expensive and just get a variable rate mortgage. Being the moron that I am, I decided to buy a house that I could easly afford and get a fixed-rate mortgage. After all, you can buy a lot of house for little money in Texas and I wasn’t really all that interested in living in a mansion.

We just refinanced the house this morning (for the second time) and are now paying hundreds of dollars less every month than I was when I bought the house. The lender appraised the house at more than 20% higher than what I paid for it.

Now I learn that Obama’s stimulus package includes 75 billion dollars for people who can’t pay their mortages. If I had had any sense, I would have spent myself senseless and let Obama pick up the tab.

President Barack Obama’s plan to tackle the foreclosure crisis will spend $75 billion in an effort to prevent up to 9 million Americans from losing their homes.

In tandem, the Treasury Department said it would double the size of its lifeline to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The government, which seized the mortgage finance companies last fall, said Wednesday it would absorb up to $200 billion in losses at each company.

The plan, which Obama is releasing later Wednesday, is more ambitious than initially expected — and more expensive. It aims to aid borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth, and borrowers who are on the verge of foreclosure.

…Another key component: a new program aimed at helping homeowners said to be “under water” — with dwellings whose value have sunk below the principal still owing on their mortgages. Such mortgages have traditionally been almost impossible to refinance. But the White House said its program will help 4 to 5 million families do just that.

Of the nearly 52 million U.S. homeowners with a mortgage, about 13.8 million, or nearly 27 percent, owe more on their mortgage than their house is now worth, according to Moody’s Economy.com.

I would be living easy right now if I hadn’t exercised common sense when I bought this house.