Subprime Obama

[emilyg]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080211/fraser


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Last year, forty-three states reported increased home foreclosure rates. Nevada led the way for eleven consecutive months; in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, nearly one in twenty homes is in foreclosure. Whole blocks have been foreclosed in Chicago. Nationwide, rates are nearing Depression-era highs--ravaging working- and middle-class neighborhoods that fell prey to the soft sell and outright chicanery of predatory lenders in the heyday of the housing boom. These lenders have targeted the most vulnerable--black and Latino borrowers have been twice as likely to receive subprime loans as whites; female homeowners, 30 percent more likely than male; black women, five times more likely than white men.

As the subprime mortgage debacle drives a recession that threatens financial markets around the world, the Democratic presidential candidates are pushing plans to address the crisis. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are pledging substantial federal resources to stabilize the mortgage market and intervene on behalf of borrowers. Barack Obama's proposal is tepid by comparison, short on aggressive government involvement and infused with conservative rhetoric about fiscal responsibility. As he has done on domestic issues like healthcare, job creation and energy policy, Obama is staking out a position to the right of not only populist Edwards but Clinton as well.

Edwards's plan includes a mandatory moratorium on foreclosures, a freeze on rising interest rates for at least seven years, federal subsidies to help homeowners keep up with payments and restructure loans, and explicit measures to rein in predatory lenders and regulate the financial sector. Clinton's plan is weaker--a voluntary moratorium, a shorter freeze, less commitment to new regulations--but she has promised $30 billion in federal aid to help reeling homeowners and communities.

[Occam Bandage]

1. I note you do not actually provide Obama's plan, but yet bash it.

[emilyg]

3. Excuse me - where did I bash it oh sensitive one.

I gave you a link.

[Occam Bandage]

4. "Subprime Obama"

[emilyg]

5. I didn't make that up. That was the story headline.

[sandnsea]

2. Obama introduced mortgage fraud legislation a year ago

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/

A lot of his proposals are already out there which is why he didn't need to include them in a short term stimulus package.

Here's the stimulus package
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/01/13/barack_obama_announces_plan_to.php

[Catherine Vincent]

6. Is that his Transformer name? nt