As we are well into the recession brought on by the burst "housing bubble," I have seen blame apportioned to any number of "malevolent" forces including "predatory" lenders, "greedy" developers, "unprincipled" house flippers, George W. Bush and the wicked Dick Cheney, as well as other evil or indifferent classes of fortune seekers. The theme is played to demonize all who thought to profit in housing while portraying those facing foreclosure as victims, duped by sophisticates playing two or more steps ahead of them. ...more

February 20, 2009

Those desperate for a change can heave huge sighs of relief with President-elect Obama's victory, but must be realistic about significant change. Current bailouts have shown only relief for Wall Street bankers. ...more

November 26, 2008

If voters in the 16th Congressional district were struggling to decide whom to vote for in our district's U.S. House of Representative race, the process got a lot easier this week. Rep. Tim Mahoney's troubles concerning an affair, and now allegations of another affair, are enough to knock him from consideration. Besides all that, his Republican challenger, Tom Rooney, is a quality candidate whom we endorse for the position. ...more

October 17, 2008

On the front page of Sunday's New York Times, Gretchen Morgenson described Diane McLeod's spiral into indebtedness, and now a debate has erupted over who is to blame. ...more

July 24, 2008

Most Americans feel compassionate about anyone facing foreclosure. Witnessing more than a million people staring down foreclosure due to home mortgages leaves all us wanting to save people from this sad situation. But before we spend billions in taxpayer dollars for a bailout, we need to consider how this happened in the first place. When we do that, we'll see that most of the people losing their houses never should have qualified for a home loan in the first place, and that predatory lenders are to blame for most of this mess. The Bush administration reached a deal with mortgage bankers to freeze interest rates on some sub-prime mortgages for five years. Other limitations apply, and only about 225,000 people will benefit from it. In fact, it's fair to say that if these homeowners are already in trouble, freezing interest rates won't help much – if at all. ...more

December 9, 2007