The Banksters are cashing in on the mortgage meltdown.
By louisehartmann
The banksters are cashing in off their own disaster. The big banks are buying up distressed real estate by the boat load, and renting or selling it back to the public for huge profits. And, in addition to making it even more difficult for economically-strapped Americans to become home owners, the banksters are increasing the likelihood of another Wall Street-fueled bubble that could crash our economy.
According to the Washington Post, institutional investors account for as much as 70 percent of sales in some markets, and their purchases are increasing home prices in those areas. Some investors are bidding on as many as 200 homes in a single day, crowding out individual buyers, re-inflating prices, and taking on a huge volume of inventory that can't be liquidized quickly if and when big banks get into financial trouble.
Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, expressed his concern about the risk the banksters are taking on. He said, “This is frightening to me. At some point the music stops. The investors, if they get hurt, that is their problem...but invariably a lot of other people will get caught up in that.”
Because of the risky trading practices and sub-prime mortgage scandals of the big banks, the taxpayers were forced to spend 700 billion dollars bailing out the banksters. Now, they are putting our economy at risk again, and they're making huge profits off of the homes they foreclosed on. And, taxpayers could be left holding the bag, when the big banks get into trouble again.
This practice must be stopped. Let's break up the big banks, and stop the banksters from cashing in on the very disaster they created.
Comments
#2
HOUSING SPECULATION SHOULD BE ILLEGAL
WELCOME TO SERF CITY USA...
Major Hedge Funds Buy Up Foreclosed Houses And Rent Them Back At High Prices.
The End Of The American Dream.
Big investors and hedge funds are buying up foreclosed American homes and renting them back to desperate families at high prices. If you want a place to live, you have to pay the man, and pay, and pay, and pay. Areas with the poorest populations are being preyed upon first, the areas where the the most junk mortgages were floated first: Florida and Nevada. The average person in the U.S. is competing with these corporations in an effort to find a place to live.
Last month's report of an up swing in the housing market was a false rise in the economy as fat cat investors snapped up the foreclosure "bargains". But, how can there be any bargains when prices haven't been allowed to drop low enough for poor families to buy their own homes?
A real estate consultant in Deerfield Beach Florida, Jack McCabe, complained: "Lower income families will loose their opportunity for the American dream of building wealth through owning a home."
Real estate investors are bidding on hundreds of houses at a time and dumping the money they stole by selling phoney mortgage backed securities back into the market. They are confiscating the houses they forced into foreclosure. The poor will have no option but to rent from them, and when the poor make a bit more money, the rent will go up. 'Twas ever thus.
When I started this page, I wrote an essay showing that after the Civil War the rich kept black people in slavery by getting them in debt. Now, in the modern age, they want to keep all of us in debt and bonded servitude. We will soon be slaves. What's the next step? The "right of the first night" (jus prima noctis) where they get to fuck a pretty girl on her wedding night before her husband because they can? Don't rule it out the pigs did it in the middle ages and why would they want to stop now? When you can be thrown out into the street you may become humbled and desperate.
How did this happen? It happened because we, the American people. were asleep. It happened because we the people didn't look the bosses in the eye and say "F*k You and the thoroughbred horse you rode in on." We need to unite and destroy our oppressors. We need to fight this in every way possible...
WE SHOULD MAKE IT ILLEGAL FOR CORPORATIONS TO BID ON PRIMARY DWELLINGS FOR ANY REASON, AND WE SHOULD LIMIT INDIVIDUAL SPECULATION ON PRIMARY DWELLINGS AS INVESTMENTS.
A house is not an investment -- it is a necessity like food. You need it to survive the elements, your children need it to grow up in and live in. It's not something to be speculated on in the casinos of greed. Our homes are our castles. We will likely end up like they did in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries: people lived and died in the houses they were born in. Houses were passed down, because they were they last bastion of protection from the elements and the predators that lurk in the banks. If you have a house, pay it off, leave it to your kids so they will have more choices in life, more freedom. So they can look the bosses in the eye and tell them to do to themselves what they are doing to the rest of us.
Sincerely,
The Anonymous Phantom (aka) Occupy Wallstreet.
https://www.facebook.com/occupy.wallstreet.1217?ref=tn_tnmn
#3
...uh,duh? i saw that coming when it crashed. think about it. OUr retirement accounts? if they buy up enough of it? will be funded by renters...the dream of owning a home? GONE! and any smart home owner if they "are" able to move up? should keep what "they" have and rent it! sound advice as i have done plenty of appreciation tracking for the folks i calc schedule Es for. If you have property and you are sitting on sizable equity? pull the cash buy some dirt cheap forclosure prop and rent it. yup! thats the ticket. Good luck...oh and one last tid bit? if you have sizable $$$ in your retirement account and can afford to pull 30% without crippling your funds? have your tax planner run a test on the tax and penalty verses continuing to be a prisoner of the bank over the life of your current loan. good luck!
#4
OWS -- I assume you know in order to make it illegal for a corp to bid on a primary dwelling, we need that amendment that money is not speech.
Other than that, Bravo!
#5
Well said, The Anonymous Phantom aka Occupy Wallstreet! But you might want to check the spelling of one of those words before the censor gets a hold of it...I don't know if they would censor it. I have no problem with it, myself. But, I'd hate to see your whole message be censored for just one little word.
Also...'A real estate consultant in Deerfield Beach Florida, Jack McCabe, complained: "Lower income families will loose their opportunity for the American dream of building wealth through owning a home." ' ---maybe that's part of the problem...making lower income families think they even have a chance of "building wealth through owning a home."
That seems to me to be the sales pitch that real estate people make to get people to sign on the dotted line. After all, isn't that what led to the housing crisis? Real estate people and finance centers not caring that the people that are buying these houses don't have a hell's chance of staying in them...because they wouldn't normally qualify for them?
These real estate and financial people, the banks, know what they are doing well enough to ensure that they will be able to take the money and run and duck later when they have all their wealth hidden in offshore banks. They slice and dice and repackage the mortgages to sell to some other manipulator...probably a hedge fund manager who takes his big cut and passes the problem to the retirees.
The high stakes gamblers with other people's money (ours) know that if they get into trouble that the corrupt government will make the tax payers bail them out. And they will keep doing this because of "Moral Hazard"..get bailed out once and you know that you will continue to get bailed out..so you have no incentive of doing anything different.
No one will bail out all of the new home owners who got suckered into buying the houses. And then, they will get blamed for the problems by the ones who gamed the system to begin with.
There is only one way to overcome this...and it is massive rebellion. When the masses get really, really angry because their loved ones are dying from starvation or lack of health care or over-exposure to living in one's car or a tent...maybe then..they'll take to the streets...but if you wait till then...well, maybe you could have saved your loved ones but didn't..you may end up regretting you didn't act sooner.
#6
All kinds of corruption will occur as long as Republicans are tyrranizing our congress.
#7
In this case, "banksters," hedge funds, and individual investors are basically engaged in "flipping" houses––the process of buying at down market prices, waiting while renting at premium rents, then selling after the market prices have jumped. These are generally cash transactions, which tend to be favored by sellers because of the assurance of the sale, even though they may have gotten higher offers from people who actually intend to live in the houses but who need approved "consumer" loans to purchase. Such mortgaged loans require a separate source of income. Given the limited supply market conditions they are able to control long term the market pricing of houses and reap greater profits from higher sale prices. This scenario is creating a competition between the average homeowner seeker wanting a place to live and raise a family and the for-profit investors who want to maximize their return on "flipping." Effectively, poor families are priced out of the market and cannot buy their own homes, and thus are losing out one of the most regarded cornerstones of opportunity in America. Instead, increasingly more people are being forced to rent and thus subject to rent increases and perpetual consumer debt over time rather than a fixed mortgage cost, which builds equity overtime, which results in greater wealth.
#8
Gary, have you ever worked on Wisconsin Ave north of Georgetown? Your name rings a bell...I think I might have known a Gary Reber many years ago. Not sure of the first name...but definitely a Reber. Mother Fletcher's boat house ring a bell? Just askin'...won't blame you for not saying one way or the other.
#9
Our stuation in the proverbal nutshell: This isn't the first time in our history when the richest few gained too much power over the country. In the past, the poor and middle classes united to successfully push back, to the benefit of both. Not this tme. This time, the middle class was successfully pitted against the poor. What the middle class did to the poor, the rich are now doing to the middle class, and there wll be no push-back.
#10
Even after hard working citizens have finished fattening the Capitalist holding their mortgage, true home ownership is still a bald faced lie. Local government is the perpetual landlord and the rent goes up every year despite the property owners ability to pay. Vermonters have had enough and have proposed a base income tax as a fairer way than property tax to fund things like education. Other states are following this idea.
Of course the rich investor is more than happy to pay the back taxes, gain possession of the property, and rent it back to the serfs.
Who was it, John McCain that couldn't remember how many houses he owned?
#11
I think we are all being a little naive here the banks purpose is to maximize profit and seek opportunity to do that in the short term ,long term interest is just not there game now or has it ever been ?
This is called profit survival mentality and is now on steroids ,in the UK before the crash only 10 % of the royal bank of Scotland,s lending was for small business the rest went to property speculation why because these where the fastest shortest money makers .
When the economy becomes more important than actual living human beings and co operation you know that we are in trouble.
Greed is the problem and the thought that there is never enough to go around but the master teachers keep giving us the same messages ,the world will only truly work when we share and share alike and live simply so others may simply live !
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Right on! We definitely need to break up the big banks! And it might not be just the "taxpayers" who will get left out in the cold this time. Cyprus has set a new precedence. And what happens in Cyprus can happen here. It may not go down exactly the way it did in Cyprus but the end result is that your savings accounts will be greatly reduced if not completely sacked.
Consider this...the authorities want us all to believe that a Cyber War with a country like China is possible. Some even are saying we are in a Cyber War now. Since the US may not be able to fund their illegal wars anymore on the backs of countries like China the US warmongers now considers these countries to be enemies (perhaps not out loud). China no longer trusts US funny money and is stocking up on gold. They can't use their US funny money to by US property they want to buy. Yes, they can buy houses and some businesses but not the really big things. So they have all these treasury notes based on the US dollar that are really nearly worthless. No one wants them anymore.
One of the reasons the US attacked Iraq was because Saddam was not willing to be a puppet and useful idiot for the US..he was going to break from the dollar standard for his oil which would have cause a lot of problems for the US. If the dollar standard is no longer a standard, then the US loses control.
I experienced some of this when I went to Slovakia and tried to exchange my US dollars for Slovak koruna or even Euros. The banks wouldn't take my US dollars. I was lucky I still had some koruna and Euros that I got at the airport back in the states.
So, since China won't allow themselves to be pushed around anymore by the US dollar hegemony, the US sees China as not a gullible useful idiot anymore and the US corporate capitalist maggots are seeing red flashing upon their panels saying "Terminate"! Well, they will at least try to control China through limiting the oil they can get from the oil producing nations.
They will also try to convince the American people, that China is an enemy that is snooping around in our computers. And they might be...but why not? The US snoops around in theirs!
Did the US and Israel not produce the Stuxnet, Flame, and DuQu viruses to infect Iranian nuclear reactor computers? Did it not launch a Cyber War against Iran? But the really bad parts, for the rest of us, is that those viruses got out and started infecting computers outside of Iran.
So, in the pretext of a massive Cyber War strike against America massive bank transfers out of our accounts could take place...records screwed up...and the bankers make off with the loot while the rest of us are hating China for doing such a thing. Under the cover of a massive attack, the bankers will just claim they've been wiped out...our savings gone...FDIC would not be able to cover the losses..nor would they really know who to pay because the records were destroyed.