Dr. Housing Bubble 10/02/08

Emergency Economic Stabilization Cliff Notes:
The Housing and Economic Bailout Bill of 2008 Explained.

You may recall that in the distant past (Monday) the House of Representatives voted in a decent margin to say no to the housing bailout bill. So after a 777 point market smack down, economic fear mongering, and polling politicians found out that Americans don’t like the sound of the word “bailout.” So from now on, we are supposed to call this the Economic-Rescue-Happy-Housing-Good-4-Stocks-Never-C-A-Down-Day-$700 Billion-Fun-Money bill. See how quickly our politicians respond to Main Street U.S.A.? Oh wait, on Monday the House of Representatives actually carried the will of the people to Washington D.C. in a rare form of listening to Main Street. Yet it wasn’t good enough because after all, in their eyes everyone on Main Street is a bunch of suckers so we’ll just repackage the same bill and pretend everything is different this time.

Think about it folks. This new 451 revised and amended bill is basically doing what securitization did for mortgages. That is, they are trying to repackage a bunch of crap with other more positive legislation and pretend that it is all good stuff. I wonder if this bill is triple-AAA rated? Did the Bear Stearns bailout help the market? No, but it put $29 billion of taxpayer money at risk so J.P. Morgan Chase was able to get a discount deal on a famed investment bank. What about the other bailouts of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and A.I.G.? Clearly, these have done nothing except put $200 billion and $85 billion of taxpayer money at risk respectively.

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/emergency-economic-stabilization-cliff-notes-the-housing-and-economic-bailout-bill-of-2008-explained/

I live in the Pacific Northwest. We have weathered the economic storm of the last couple years fairly well.
I have travelled within a hundred mile radius of Seattle in recent months and while there are many more
homes on the market, I'm not witnessing an extreme increase in the number of foreclosures.

In the previous few years money was so cheap many borrowed and invested in rental properties and second homes.
I'm wondering how large the percentage of current foreclosures are due to rentals and second homes.

To make whole those that may have taken advantage of poor lending regulations for mere investment, not
for primary residences would be unforgivable.