Bush's new mortgage 'help plan' allows mortgage industry wolvesto approach the sheep again

. . . . .| The companies that sank their teeth into hapless victims, are being allowed to

start herding the sheep all over again. These wolves are the same ones who approached

vulnerable folks and dangled bait in front of them, knowing, and indeed putting money in the

bank based on the assumption, that the mortgage holders did not have the ability to keep up

the treacherous deals. This whole scenario is playing itself out in a dramatic fashion that

may result in our economy being driven over the cliff. . . .|

Feds to Unveil New Mortgage-Help Plan By Marcy Gordon

The Associated Press Tuesday 12 February 2008

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021208LB.shtml

Washington - At-risk borrowers with all types of mortgages, not just high-cost subprime

loans, could be eligible for help under a new plan involving six big home lenders.

The plan, called Project Lifeline, will be announced Tuesday by the Treasury Department

and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said a person familiar with the plan

who confirmed earlier news reports about the plan but spoke on condition of anonymity

because it had not yet been made public.

Against a backdrop of surging defaults and administration officials' prodding of the

mortgage industry, the plan will allow seriously overdue homeowners to suspend foreclosures

for 30 days while lenders try to work out more affordable loan terms.

On a pilot basis, the plan will involve six of the largest mortgage lenders, in hopes

that more lenders will sign on. The participants are Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc.,

Countrywide Financial Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Washington Mutual Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co.

All six are involved in Hope Now, an effort the Bush administration brokered with the

mortgage industry late last year to freeze rates on some high-cost subprime mortgages for

five years to aid borrowers whose teaser rates are jumping sharply higher. Since then,

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has urged lenders to expand that effort to cover struggling

homeowners with conventional mortgages.

The new plan applies to seriously delinquent homeowners, those whose mortgages are 90

days or more past due.

With home prices falling, even some people with good credit have gotten behind on their

payments. Like many subprime borrowers, they signed up for adjustable-rate mortgages that

allowed them to make smaller, steady payments for several years until a higher fluctuating

interest rate kicked in.

Some borrowed against their rising equity as home prices climbed, assuming they would

be able to refinance or sell their homes before the higher payments began. But as prices

have plummeted, many homeowners now owe more than their home is worth, and banks have

tightened their lending practices, leaving even people with stellar credit struggling with

higher payments.

The Hope Now alliance, which includes lenders, investors and nonprofit groups, said

last week that it helped nearly 8 percent of subprime borrowers in the second half of 2007 -

more than its original estimate.

The group said it helped 545,000 subprime borrowers with spotty credit in the second

half of last year, compared with its January estimate of 370,000. That works out to 7.7

percent of 7.1 million subprime loans outstanding as of September.

Among the subprime borrowers aided, 150,000 were helped through permanent-loan

modifications, such as lower interest rates, while 395,000 negotiated repayment plans, which

often involve a borrower getting back on track even after missing a few payments.

Consumer groups, however, point out that many borrowers still can't keep up, even after

loan workouts. They say many of the borrowers in the Hope Now effort have negotiated

short-term loan modifications or repayment plans, which often involve a borrower getting

back on track after missing a few payments. A full-fledged refinancing at a lower rate is

preferable, they say.

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There's a new page describing the social aspects of American Fascism at

http://politicsusaweb.com/RootsOfFascism.html

Multiculturalism will not move us out of the fascist slough we are in:

Back to the Enlightenment!

http://www.politicsusaweb.com/BackToTheEnlightenment.html

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Still the most concise explanation of how we are who we are:

"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress

of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her August claims, have been

born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing,

and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it

does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor

freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the

ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the

awful roar of its many waters."

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be

both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a

demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly

submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will

be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words

or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those

whom they oppress."

---Frederick Douglass

Source: Douglass, Frederick. [1857] (1985). "The Significance of

Emancipation in the West Indies." Speech, Canandaigua, New York, August 3,

1857; collected in pamphlet by author.

http://www.buildingequality.us/Quotes/Frederick_Douglass.htm

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A reasonably just and well-ordered democratic society might be possible,

and . . . justice as fairness should have a special place among the political

conceptions in its political and social world. . . [M]any are prepared to accept the

conclusion that a just and well-ordered democratic society is not possible, and even

regard it as obvious. Isn't admitting it part of growing up, part of the inevitable

loss of innocence? But is this conclusion one we can so easily accept?

The answer we give to the question of whether a just democratic society is

possible and can be stable for the right reasons affects our background thoughts and

attitudes about the world as a whole. And it affects these thoughts and attitudes

before we come to actual politics, and limits or inspires how we take part in it. . .

If we take for granted as common knowledge that a just and well-ordered democratic

society is impossible, then the quality and tone of those attitudes will reflect that

knowledge. A cause of the fall of Wiemar's constitutional regime was that none of the

traditional elites of Germany supported its constitution or were willing to cooperate

to make it work. They no longer believed a decent liberal parliamentary regime was

possible. Its time had past.

The regime fell first to a series of authoritarian cabinet governments from 1930 to

1932. When these were increasingly weakened by their lack of popular support,

President Hindenburg was finally persuaded to turn to Hitler, who had such support and

whom conservatives thought they could control.

~ John Rawls "Political Liberalism" pg. lx

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