“Stop eating so much salt,” my doctor tells me. “Cut back on the caffeine. You’re already too tense. And whatever you do, stop reading Tyler Durden.”
Maybe she’ll be happy to know that this next item will require my to drink an extra Relaxation Martini tonight. Read ‘em and weep:
Get that? Democrats and the regulatory buddies are using the law as a club, beating banks back from foreclosing on houses the “owners” are no longer paying for. So instead of being sold off to responsible (or at least solvent) new owners, these unpaid-for houses are off the market, in a sort of foreclosure limbo.
(I remember seeing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers perform the Foreclosure Limbo in That’s My Banker! As always, they put on a delightful show. Anyway.)
So here’s the net result.
Deadbeats get to keep on deadbeating and, presumably, voting Democrat — two or more votes if they have dead relatives. Small business, the bane of collectivists everywhere, find it more difficult to get credit to expand, as banks continue to feel the squeeze of a crisis which should have been allowed to end years ago. But, hey, can’t let that good crisis go to waste, especially when you get to look like a good guy by making last longer. And finally, the price of homes in the white market remain artificially inflated, as millions of these gray market beauties remain in limbo.
But, wait — weren’t we told that the housing bubble had popped, and that housing was finally on the rebound?
Yes, we were told that. But so long as millions of properties remain off the books, there’s still another bubble to pop and there’s still another shoe to drop.
In the meantime though, we’ll keep kicking that can down the road with our one good shoe.
You are so right. What is going to happen when the banks release all these foreclosed properties?
I just sold a home last October. What a nightmare. The real estate agents had me flooded with potential buyers. My house was being shown back to back 3 or 4 times a day. Just one problem though, most of the “potential buyers” had no money even they had their pre-approval letters. What a joke.
Four months later my house did sell. Who bought it? A young couple in their early twenties, both still in college. How did they buy it? A Rural Development Loan, no money down, none!
The second bubble is coming.
Correction: “had no money even though they had their pre-approval letters.”
It’s good to see some supporting facts come out, but this is hardly a surprise. Everything the Obama administration has done concerning housing has been pumping more money into the leaking “bubble”. Not fixing any holes, just trying to pump it back up. Any progress is wholly illusion. Until the thing is allowed to collapse and the leak fixed, it’s still a flat.
The money pumped in? Gone mostly. At least the destruction of that much wealth will limit the inflation from, what, tripling the money supply? Of course there will still be all those bonds to be paid.