patrick.net

Good Post

But don’t worry, everyone can own a house in communist America. All you have to do is apply; no one is declined. You have after all a ‘right’ to own a house in America correct?

Ironic, the last Soviet Constitution under Gorbachev contained a provision that all Soviet citizens are guaranteed a house.

Fine, but laying this all at the feet of the 'gummit' politicians gives the mortgage brokers, banks and RE 'professionals' a free ride. Let's remember: "selling" mortgages and basing your business on commission, rather than collecting interest over the long haul is a big, big part of this. Banks used to follow the 3-6-3 rule, borrow at 3%, loan at 6%, on the golf course by 3 pm. Then, they went for the get rich quick schemes and started getting all their income from commissions on the loan and selling 'financial instruments' (a fancy word for B.S.) and bundling that up to be someone else's problem.
It's convenient to certain ideologies to blame that darn 'gummit' but it really misses a large part of the picture. Otherwise, I agree with a lot of your critique of the entitlement mentality - or as my parents called it, the 'immediate gratification' mentality. There is too much of that going around, like a flu bug.
I say we should have let them fail and let the chips fall. And we should have listening to the regulators who told us to watch out, rather than the 'free marketers' (i.e. Greenspan et al) who said 'stay the course'.

Greed and laziness will destroy us. You can't speak to stupidity and greed, either.

pkowen,

The politicians in Washington wanted more and easy access to Mortgage loans so that more people could own houses. Especially for those who can not afford to own a house. So politicians were simply allowing what happened to our mortgage industry because their constituents wanted something for nothing. Congress could have made sure that this mortgage meltdown never happened, but they allowed it to happen by choice.

A transparent freemarket would have prevented the housing meltdown from happening. However, the mortgage industry through derivitives became everything but transparent with very little supervision or enforcement of lending laws and even less enforcement of out right fraud. This was intentional so that government would be more in control.

It all comes back to the actions of the federal government controled by the President and Congress. And these politicians were voted in by the American people who wanted what the politicians have given us now. And it doesn't matter what political party. The senate voted 98-0 in favor of socialism via unemployment benefits, and the $8,000 tax credit. After all it would be a disaster if people ran out of unemployment benefits; Americans can't handle that kind of adversity you know. And it would be so unfair.

@CDW

...and just to think, these were the same people calling Obama a socialist during his run for the presidency. Now, they are all hanging together at the country club sipping on mimosas!

Americans want a chance. When 1% controls 99%, that's not much of a chance.

I believe that both corporations and individuals should be given enough financial rope to hang themselves. That is truly their American right, especially if it's a private transaction. Seriously, why should we be stepping between American Express and some redneck dimwit who just can't wait to get that 60" plasma TV to watch NASCAR? You can't regulate judgment or stupidity, and all attempts will just screw things up for smarter, more responsible people.

Of course, I also believe that the rest of us shouldn't be on the hook to leap in and cut them loose when they take a gainer off that platform with thirteen loops around their financial neck. We have bankruptcy laws for this purpose, actually. If you're a big enough screw-up, we'll give you a fresh start with no assets. I believe it's sufficient to have the FDIC guarantee our bank accounts (100% is appropriate), but let the banks blast themselves out of business, no matter the size. And we do need accounting transparency so we can see who's cooking the books.

Are Americans weak and sniveling now? It's tough to say. Most of them realize that they can prevail upon Congress (especially via lobbyists) to get them out of trouble---and why not use that Get Out of Jail Free card? It shouldn't be legally available in the first place. I don't have a problem with unemployment, COBRA laws or short-term programs designed to help people through unexpected losses. The overall point of those programs is to restore those people as productive members of society, or prevent them from becoming hazards to society. Whether or not those programs are entitlements is beside the point---the cost to society is lower when those programs are in place.

I draw a line between these entitlements and an "entitlement mentality". My problem is more with people who have a 60" LCD TV, a new European sedan, expensive clothes and a -$50,000 net worth. By all means, let them get to the end of that rope with a nice, sharp crack.

cdw7503 says

pkowen,
A transparent freemarket would have prevented the housing meltdown from happening. However, the mortgage industry through derivitives became everything but transparent with very little supervision or enforcement of lending laws and even less enforcement of out right fraud. This was intentional so that government would be more in control.

A tranparent free market? Free implies to me no government controls and yet government controls force tranparency. If not, how do you define it? Please tell me you are not saying it's a big government conspiracy to keep the market 'opaque'. Seems to me Greenspan et al discredited the warnings from government adminstrators charged with regulating markets (by lobbying congress HARD), because as free marketers they believed 'the free market' would solve all problems. Greenspan testified after the crash that he was wrong (ok, admitted "a flaw in his philosophy") - and he really seemed a broken man. The "flaw" was that his ideology was proven a failure.

CDW

Well articulated, well thought out and exactly how I see it.

pkowen,

In a capitalistic system, there must be safegards to prevent abuse and outright fraud. Credit derivitives were black box unregulated securities which only the financial companies who produced them knew what they contained and how toxic they really were. Investors around the world were duped with these investments which funded our real estate bubble.

Don't take my word for it watch this and learn how the world of unregulated financial products and the companies that produced them fleeced American taxpayers:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

Basically what we see here is the endgame of GREED on a massive scale. "Big Business" and the "Banking Industry" colluded with "Wall Street" and sucked up all of the wealth and aren't willing to part with "their" money. The irony to that is that the top 1% cannot survive without the rest of us who are in the 99%. Who do they think will buy goods and services to keep the economy moving and restore sanity to balance sheets and profit margins if they don't pay living wages for an honest day's work?

Americans are unwilling to handle adversity especially when the adversity was created by those who hold most of the capital who are entirely unwilling to spread around their record profits that they earned by enslaving Americans by keeping real wage growth stagnant while increasing prices exponentially on everything drawing Americans into debt who would like to eat, drink, and sleep in decent shelter because they work hard and deserve an honest living wage for their labor.

Wow, that was an intense run-on sentence.

I'm just tired of hearing how the "uneducated masses" were so "stupid" and "allowed" themselves to be drawn down the merry trail of debt into oblivion. It's not like there's much choice for many who work who haven't seen real wage increases in almost 30 years while the cost of everything has increased.

Can't you hear that sucking sound? That's the sound of the top 1% jacking up prices while never paying people who actually input value into a capital system "the worker" what they are actually worth. It's the sound of the massive accumulation of wealth at the top 1% while the other 99% lose ground every day. The sucking sound got louder once the working middle class realized that they couldn't maintain their standard of living or even maintain the basic necessities while our top 1% overlords "graciously" loan us what they won't pay us in wages to keep our households afloat. That way the top 1% could suck up those last drops at the bottom of the glass with their "straw of repossession" once the inevitable happened (defaults due to having no real increase in wages but massive increases of debt) so that they could take and keep it all.

When will we 99% wake up and realize that we've been cheated and robbed?

Pure capitalism does this. It encourages those with the capital to amass more of it and hoard it. That's the dark side of human nature. If you give me something good, I'm going to want more of it. Give it to me. It's called GREED.

The sad thing is that currently those in that top 1% have messed things up royally. The system they set up whereby they suck up all the wealth and keep it is unsustainable. It's doomed to fail. For capitalism to really work, capital must keep moving. Workers must be paid so that they can afford to buy the goods and services that are produced after the injection of capital from the top 1%.

This boils down to a moral issue. Too many people keep blaming workers for asking for more, more, more while ignoring how the top 1% (the capitalists) have taken it all without realizing that in order to keep capitalism afloat, they MUST keep injecting capital into the system. They must put money (capital) into the hands of workers so that they may do their job as consumers keeping the cycle going. The momentum continues.

The more capital the top 1% continue to suck out of the economy without injecting capital back into the economy, the more mired in the muck of recession, then depression, we go.

There used to be a time where I actually believed, growing up as an American, that Americans looked out for one another and did heroic and even risky feats "for the greater good" of the country. The top 1% have lost their way. They have ceased to do their part in keeping the cycle going.

Over the past 30 years the American worker has become the most productive worker in the world. What reward did we get? We got stagnant and even falling REAL wages adjusted for inflation. We simply worked to fill the hoards of the top 1% at our expense without being able to share in the bounty that our impoved productivity created.

Is anyone still confused why "the common American" is very much in debt and has gone broke?

cdw7503 says

pkowen,
In a capitalistic system, there must be safegards to prevent abuse and outright fraud. Credit derivitives were black box unregulated securities which only the financial companies who produced them knew what they contained and how toxic they really were. Investors around the world were duped with these investments which funded our real estate bubble.
Don’t take my word for it watch this and learn how the world of unregulated financial products and the companies that produced them fleeced American taxpayers:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

Exactly, I watched the show.

Excuse me, but my family and I did not thrive by getting sucked down the black hole of debt; we avoided it by not buying crap and not believing we had to be surrounded with material crap to be happy. I am now mostly retired at 54 and bought and paid for my retirement home. We have zero debt, forever. It can be done; Americans are just weak, stupid and greedy, yes, and their government helps them stay that way by promoting the illusion that debt=wealth. I'm not buying the argument that the capitalists are to blame. I am a capitalist, and I say you get what you deserve if you can't manage money.

Capitalists are to blame this time, sorry, it's simply self-evident. They've backed themselves into this mess and are taking all of us down with them. When you pay do-nothing managers six figures and underpay those who actually add value to your business (the worker bees), you quicken the demise of your own business. There are way more worker bees than "big fish top 1%" capitalists or do-nothing managers. If you are a capitalist who holds all the capital, you need customers to buy your goods and services. Who do you think are the customers? They are the worker bees. Under pay the worker bees and they go into massive debt. All of the sudden, you have no more customers. When you have no more customers, economic activities die. When economic activity dies, so does your business. Then it's "buh bye" "big fish top 1% capitalists" and the "corporate whore do-nothing six-figure salary managers" who depend on them. Basically they dug their own graves in this economy and they are taking the rest of us to the grave with them.

CDW say: "Some of this can be blamed on the fact that people are just financially illiterate and that they don’t take the time to plan ahead for the future and think their financial futures out in advance. But really people make excuses because they want a lifestyle and refuse to accept the long term implications of their financial decisions. It used to be lenders that gave these unqualified applicants the bad news; now no one gives them the bad news. And the federal government wants to coddle these unqualified house owners, give then loan modifications and does so at the peril of our once great nation."

Aren't you the same person who, on another thread, blamed a couple's financial disaster on the banks and wanted BoA to bail them out after 10 refi's in 30 years, their being hopelessly upside down and being offered a payment that was completely unaffordable?

http://patrick.net/?p=18060

You say that: "This husband and wife are both 76 years old and English is their second language; they are natives of the Philippines. This couple believed in 2006 that they could “always refinance.” The reason they believed they could “always refinance” is because since “buying” their house in 1982, they have refinanced about 10 times and because they were also told by shrewd mortgage brokers that they could “always refinance”.

Since 1982, this couple has overspent $345,000. Less than $30,000 of that $345,000 went into home improvements, and they still have the original carpeting in their house. Before 6 months ago, they had never missed a loan payment in their life and had “perfect” credit. Their Fico score was 750+. They can only afford on their retirement income about $1,435 a month."

You go on to say that someone should have told them not to refinance somewhere along the way, even though you, as a loan officer, advised them not to do so in 2006 - so they went to Countrywide and are now somewhere around $200k underwater.

Your post then compares their situation to the Hotel California, where "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave..." due to the lender's offer to modify, an unaffordable option for the couple.

I only bring this up because this thread appears to blame the American public for the current financial crisis. I say, spread the love. People were stupid, watched the teevee and wanted everything they see. McMansions, granite countertops, master suites & guest suites and guest houses and backyard grottos and all the trappings. Big screen teevees in their media rooms, new cars, 'spensive vacations...

Banks wanted the interest $$$. Builders wanted the $$$. Investors wanted the $$$ that wall street created. Madoff lived high on the hog.

But blaming welfare programs & unemployment is shortsighted and certainly not productive. Most people don't qualify for welfare - and if they do it's only after they've depleted every asset and are desperate. They're time-limited. Food stamps are minimal - less than $150 a month for a single person - and are also limited to a short period of time. Unemployment benefits average $350 per week across the country - and one can't get them if he didn't pay into the system. It's a safety net designed to help people get by, but not comfortably.

Social Security retirement/disability benefits are also paid by payroll deductions - only the federal govt spent the money set aside for the program rather than invested it. Now Social Security is broke and people are pissed that they're paying for retired old people to live. Medicare benefits are paid into during one's work history, deducted from every paycheck. And people who receive Medicare pay $100/month premium (part b) and around $30 (prescriptions) plus hundreds of dollars in premiums for supplements or HMO's on top of the monies paid in.

Elliemae's Healthcare is important and shouldn't be an option.

Sure, we've got problems. Sure, we need reform. But if we cut out the pork, the bridges to nowhere money that Palin accepted and spent, building commemorating politicos and such, we could provide services that are so desperately needed.

HeadSet says

Soviet Constitution under Gorbachev contained a provision that all Soviet citizens are guaranteed a house.

I highly doubt this. All property was owned by the state for the good of the people. While it's possible it stated that all citizen are guaranteed housing, that not the same thing as individual ownership of a house.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Soviet_Union
"Land in rural areas was allotted for housing and some sustenance farming, and persons had certain rights to it, but it was not their property in full."

While it was possible to own things like a TV, Car or clothing, all land and buildings were property of the state. Even if you cut down the trees youself and built a log cabin to live in, it still wasn't yours. Housing was allocated by the state, if you decided to build youself a bigger nicer house than everyone elses, a party offical could come along and take your house from you for the good of the state (and better housing for them) and force you to move elsewhere.

Just in case people really don't understand welfare for the individual here in California, I offer this:

It's now called, "General Assistance." And it's a LOAN. That's right, we as a society are putting people who have no job and no money into debt to "assist" them.

The maximum amount you get on GA is $300 per month. Most people only get 3 months to be on GA. In order to stay on GA you must do 3 job interviews and 3 job applications per week. In order to get it extended, if that's even possible anymore, you must really be in dire straights.
After you finally have a job, they garnish part of your wages until you've paid off the entire amount of "welfare" you received. So basically, we as a society start people who haven't had a job and who are poor at a disadvantage. If they get jobs at minimum wage, which is mostly what they can get these days, they make roughly $8.00 an hour currently. That's not enough to rent anything in the 9 county area of the Bay Area. It's certainly not enough to buy health insurance for even one person. But, we as a society have decided that those poor people who were on GA must use a portion of their minimum wage checks to pay back what they got in "welfare." Meanwhile minimum wage workers are homeless and without health care. Do you think this might be a set up to end up jobless again if you get sick?

It's sad, sick, and cynical. It's degrading.

Food stamps are difficult to get. The most I've seen an individual offered is $120 per month but it's not a loan. So, between GA and food stamps you can get $420 per month of which $300 is a loan you must pay back once you get a job.

Let's say you find a psychiatrist to declare that you have a mental illness disability. The most you get for SSI or SSDI is around $850 per month. That comes out of Social Security and State funds. It's not a loan. But as you can see, it's not living "high off the hog." There is a maximum of money that you can have on your person at any time while you are living on SSI or SSDI or you get cut off. It completely discourages savings. The maximum amount is currently $2000. And it includes your current month's payment. So, if you have somehow managed to scrape together savings of $1500, you will only get around $500 that month and you get "cut off" until you "spend down" and get below $2000. This keeps the disabled completely dependent on their disability payments and prevents them from saving for emergencies or even a car to get to work if they can somehow manage to work part time. It makes it especially difficult for people to plan to get off of disability and return to the workforce since there's no way to save up for transportation to get to work.

Corporate welfare, on the other hand, is big business. Corporations don't receive many stipulations around what they must do to keep their hand-outs. We saw that with the "stimulus" payments to the banks. At first there were no requirements placed on the banks to do anything but keep the money.

So, next time when people start talking about personal "entitlements" and "welfare" as ways of being able to avoid work and live off of the taxpayer, please remember what our personal welfare system has become. Then look at what corporate welfare is and compare the two. Now ask yourself who really sucks our taxes out of the government coffers with impunity? I suggest that it's not the people on General Assistance, Food Stamps, or SSI or SSDI.

"Without the lessons learned from making mistakes and experiencing failure and adversity, our country will continue to socialize the mortgage loan losses and become essentially a communist state. "

No, we will simply become a bankrupt country. Just because America is the richest country in the world Americans assume this will always be true. Yet throughout thousands of years of history many very wealthy states have become poor states, sometimes very quickly. Most have managed this by doing exactly what is being done in America right now, letting the government grow out of control until it overwhelms everything.

Everyone seems to be up in arms about the so called welfare programs yet other than medicare and social security, which are funded apart from the general budget and have been a cash cow to fund the general budget for decades, the social programs altogether don't amount to much more than a rounding error in the military budget. That's not including all the military items hidden away other places in the general budget. There is simply no way for America to survive financially without a large cutback in military spending along with a major reform of social security and medicare unless we are talking about Swedish levels of taxation. Without any of the benefits. These areas are simply where the bulk of the spending is. Cutting out all the federal social programs won't even make a dent in the problem.

bob2456, you better watch it. You're making sense.

You may be labelled as "unpatriotic" or "soft on terrorism" for even suggesting that we cut back on military spending. The American Empire and its military industrial complex isn't going to allow us to take our money back to bring about real social programs that actually help "We the People." The Dick Cheneys of the world have a vested interest in keeping endless wars going and making sure people are afraid enough to continue to vote against their interests in order to "feel safe."

simchaland says

bob2456, you better watch it. You’re making sense.
You may be labelled as “unpatriotic” or “soft on terrorism” for even suggesting that we cut back on military spending. The American Empire and its military industrial complex isn’t going to allow us to take our money back to bring about real social programs that actually help “We the People.” The Dick Cheneys of the world have a vested interest in keeping endless wars going and making sure people are afraid enough to continue to vote against their interests in order to “feel safe.”

Are you a proponent of socialism? Explain?

I'm a proponent of common sense regulations that keep the economy moving while providing an adequate social safety net so that we Americans can achieve "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

We do not have a level playing field today at all due to avarice and greed. Unfortunately we have people in the top 1% who just simply don't care about any of the rest of us even though we are fellow Americans. The rules have all been skewed to their benefit and to our demise. Oh, "We the People" got fooled into voting these people into positions of power and allowing them to take away worker's rights and prevent us from getting the best health care that they enjoy.

The problem is that when the people at the top who have most or all of the major capital don't "do the right thing" by paying workers real living wages that stay ahead of inflation, you get a crash of epic proportions like this one. If you provide no safety net that includes the basics like shelter, food, clothing, and health care you end up with people who are sick, malnurished, and angry. Europeans learned that if they got angry enough they could force philanthropy just enough so that people don't feel like rebelling and over-throwing the government. Western European Democracies have varying degrees of socialism because they are afraid of their own people.

On the other hand, here in the USA, we are afraid of our government and the top 1%. We've been carefully manipulated into weak positions where it may be too late to change things before we have a revolution once people wake up to how bad things actually are.

The majority in this country had an unusual string of good fortune called the "Boomer Economy" under which to prosper where unions were strong for a while and wages actually were better and bought more than wages do today. Our elite manipulated the people into divided camps by fear mongering against labor unions who were looking out for "We the People's" (who work) interests. It worked. Reagan busted the Air Traffic Controllers Union and things haven't been the same ever since. We've seen a total erosion in buying power in relation to our wages and a total erosion of worker's rights. We even had to start a bill to make it so that workers could form unions without the interference of management recently in our Congress to re-establish a union presence in the workplace.

While all of this was going on the elite in bed with the government amassed the largest and most powerful military ever known on this planet. Don't you think "We the People" weren't paying attention. Do you think it's possible for "We the People" to actually fight the government with demonstrations or anything else that the elite don't like? Do you really believe that we don't live in a police state where we have the largest proportion of our citizens locked away in jails in the industrialized world?

No, we know to be scared of our elite and their government. We have to be careful how we reform things because we know the stakes are high. Our lives could be ruined or possibly ended for taking action that others in Western European Democracies take for granted like civil disobedience, union organizing, and whistle blowing.

I'm not for socialism in the classical sense whereby the government owns the capital and does "central planning" to dole out resources for the common good. I am for a hybrid like the Western European Democracies have whereby the workers are treated with respect, are given 5 paid weeks of vacation, as many sick days as needed for each illness, health care, basic shelter support when needed, basic assistance with food when needed, and many other "perks and benies" that only the very rich who sit on boards of large corporations get in this country.

If we are to really look at the principles written in the Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and the Consititution you would get the clue that perhaps the Founders wanted us to be able to actually democratize affluence gained when workers increase productivity and the corporations have record profits. The spirit of those founding documents is crushed by today's system where only the top 1% benefit from any gain in profits or productivity and the people who work hard to gain these profits are left to "fend for themselves."

We workers have become slaves to our jobs, our wages, and our bosses. Oh yes, we do have the right to strike it out on our own, certainly. But the rules are stacked against us such that only the giant corporations can compete. The individual can no longer take on "the big guys" because the system is rigged in their favor.

We may have anti-trust laws but seriously, there is only mild enforcement that is only half-hearted. The system is now designed to keep all of the wealth with the wealthy and to make certain that any profits earned go to them whether or not they did the work to earn those profits. There is no acknowledgement that the profits are gained through hard work and increased productivity from the workers. If there were, the middle class wouldn't be tanking into the "working poor" class.

So, I believe in a social safety net so that all citizens of our great country can benefit from our once vast wealth. I do believe that private citizens should be running and owning business and that government should be regulating so that the playing field remains level.

The problem with our system is that only the rich benefit from periods of great boom and expansion. The worker bees who create that wealth don't get to share in that wealth because the super rich have become greedy and heartless. But we certainly get to share the pain when the economy is driven into recession and depression by the super rich capitalists.

So the way that the system is set up now, those who labor don't benefit from any gain realized by their labors and we only share in the misery when things go bust. Either way, the worker loses in this system the way it's rigged now.

Can we change things without violence using our system of government where we elect people who do want to actually change things? Does this have to get to an even more violent place than it already has recently before things change? Even if things get more violent does the elite with their government have more than enough weapons and fire power to keep the rest of us under their control?

We shall see.

Revolution is ugly. It's not glorious. I hope to never see one happen here. My fear is that there is enough discontent brewing due to the vast inequalities that have arisen out of the way the elite have rigged the system against everyone else to cause calamity. Our elite and their government should be afraid of us and allow us to share in our bounty democratically and peacefully. Are they afraid? Will they allow real change before it's too late?

Actually, "WE" weren't lobbying for more lax lending, it was the housing and finance industries. Dressed in the guise of being good for America, of course. Regular citizens not only don't have the money to lobby, they don't usually have the motivation. It was more about builders and lenders making more sales and being immune from liability, than about helping people achieve homeownership for any good purposes. These lenders and homebuilders cared not one whit if the loans foreclosed because loans were sold to investors who were also blinded by greed, because anyone who really knew what was going on was saying it was a house of cards doomed for failure. Those most in the dark were consumers, fed real estate propaganda as "news" on the TV.

Forgot to clarify that many of the seemingly consumer oriented org's that were pushing for making more home loans had to be somewhat asleep at the wheel not to have noticed that what the industry was responding with was often mortgage fraud. And some were not consumer oriented at all but simply fronts for money laundering, (e.g. down payment assistance scams). It can be hard to figure out where stupidity ends and well informed greed begins, but to be sure, no one in the industry could honestly claim they were innocently unaware of what was going on, or what the consequences could be. To believe that the industry was innocent does not jive w/blaming home buyers who were surely less educated about complex finance issues than the industry itself.

cschnackel says

Actually, “WE” weren’t lobbying for more lax lending, it was the housing and finance industries. Dressed in the guise of being good for America, of course. Regular citizens not only don’t have the money to lobby, they don’t usually have the motivation. It was more about builders and lenders making more sales and being immune from liability, than about helping people achieve homeownership for any good purposes. These lenders and homebuilders cared not one whit if the loans foreclosed because loans were sold to investors who were also blinded by greed, because anyone who really knew what was going on was saying it was a house of cards doomed for failure. Those most in the dark were consumers, fed real estate propaganda as “news” on the TV.

This article over simplifies the whole situation and is pretty much a joke.

dt_mcgrath

I have oversimplied eh?

About 75 percent of the country's 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, overweight and have physical ailments that make them unfit for the armed forces, according to a report issued Thursday.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,572351,00.html

Try explaining how exactly I have oversimplified that Americans are soft, lazy and unable to handle adversity. Instead of getting a mortgage that had a fix rate 30 year term, many Americans refi'd and bought houses with insane loan terms. Either Americans are lazy, soft and wanted low payments at the expence of their long term financial health or there was a consiracy to implode America with bad martgage loans. I don't think the trillions of American dollars that went into treating this sickness was/is a joke. It is the sign of a larger more prevalent sickness in America. Wake up buddy smell the coffee!! The politicians Americans freely voted into office allow this crap to happen and continue to happen. Bottom Line.

simchaland:

You're mixing up programs - but you're close.

GA varies from state to state. In NV, for example, you must complete 10 job searches the first month and 40 every month thereafter. And you have to have a place with an owner (or person authorized, such as apartment mgr) who will sign saying that they'll accept the GA amount to keep you housed for a month. Some states have no limit on GA - but this is a mix of federal & state funds so it varies.

If you're disabled, while you're waiting for the disability you can get GA. You have to present an MD statement (even if you aren't insured and can't afford an MD) or complete the job searches even if you can't work. And the workers usually call & verify that there were job openings - that the job searches are reasonable for jobs that the person might actually get. If/when the disability is awarded and you get a check retro to the date social security deems you disabled, the check goes to the state that paid out the GA and that amount is deducted from the award - then you get the rest. This takes at least a month, during which you usually aren't eligible for GA because you have money, even though it's not in your hand.

If you're mentally disabled, have no work history, or were disabled before you were 18, you probably don't qualify for social security disability (RSDI), you qualify for SSI. So if you are awarded disability you receive $650 +/- in many states, Calif pays about $850 because it contributes toward the amount the patient receives. In order to be eligible for SSI you can't have more than $2,000 in assets. If you have one penny over that, you are denied and must reapply and possibly wait months for the benefit to start up again.

You can save up to $2,000 and still keep your income - but on the amounts provided it's nearly impossible to save anything.

If you have SSI, you automatically get Medicaid. But Medicaid pays less & less these days - so if you've been disabled 2 years you probably get Medicare.

It takes a hell of a lot more than a psychiatrist's statement to be deemed disabled. It takes multiple applications, denials, appeals and reappeals. It takes at least a year or two to be awarded disability, unless it's obvious that you are disabled and rarely are people obviously disabled.

If you have a work history and are awarded disability, it's based on your earnings history and hopefully will be greater than the SSI amount. But not necessarily. You might receive $400/month and that's it - and you'll wait a couple of years from the date they deemed you disabled to receive Medicare.

If you are over 65 and your income is less than the SSI amount you can get funds that raise you to the SSI amount, and you automatically get Medicaid which supplements Medicare.

Every state has rules on food stamps, TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families, which replaced ADC and AFDC), GA, etc. These are temporary programs to help out.

Nomograph,

"In general" means over 50%. And what is implied is that this applies to adult Americans only. If you'd like to make the argument that a majority of Americans are not soft, lazy and unable to handle advsersity then make that point. Otherwise you have oversimplified what I have written completely.

It's not oversimplified if it is true. If we have 75% of Americans age 17 to 24 in the prime of their lives unqualified for military service due to mental problems, being overweight, uneducated or with physical aliments then it is fair to say in general Americans are lazy soft, and unable to handle adversity. I'd say that the vast majority of Americans are lazy, soft and unable to handle adversity if that 75% number is true. You may not like the truth and you may deny the truth, but it is the truth nevertheless. I did not say all Americans are lazy, soft and unable to handle adversity.

Nice try though!!

cdw7503 says

Otherwise you have oversimplified what I have written completely.

Nomo - you oversimplified his oversimplification, which was simply oversimplified. In the future, please be simplistic when you do this.

cdw7503 says

I’d say that the vast majority of Americans are lazy, soft and unable to handle adversity if that 75% number is true.

If that 75% number is true... And I can simply prove that it is. I took a sampling of Americans, four of them from my neighborhood. To make it simple, I used men ages 17-24 who aren't in the military. Three of them are over their ideal body weight and don't do yard work (I know this because their mother told me so) - so they're lazy. The fourth is physically fit and I saw him mowing the lawn this past summer. So there's your 75%.

I might also mention that the three belong to one family, the boys play football for the local high school and college, and are receiving scholarships and attend church regularly. Their body types consist of frames that are larger than average, but using the strict criteria I mentioned above they're fat & lazy. The fourth one is currently in jail for DUI - he's physically fit because he gets exercise picking up trash.

cdw says that 75% are unqualified for military service "due to mental problems, being overweight, uneducated or with physical aliments..." I don't believe that any independent study has been conducted that supports that statement. If any study has been conducted, it would probably consist of potential enlistees - and I sincerely doubt that the military refuses to accept 75% of applicants.

Simply speaking, that is...

Elliemae, thanks for fleshing out what I was simplifying for the sake of brevity. ;-) I understand what you have written because I work in a field where I must deal with these benefits indirectly. I wasn't trying to be that specific and just trying to make a point. Thanks for hitting it out of the park! That was awesome!

I wrote what I wrote from memory and from being confused by all of the misinformation that is out there for people seeking benefits and trying to keep them. It's amazing how much people who work for the places where you must go to apply for benefits don't know about their own system and rules.

Absolutely, it requires much more than simply a psychiatrist's letter to get SSI. I know that one directly because my brother is on SSI. He just moved here from out of state so he could be closer to me and all his numbers changed just a little bit. Like most he was denied SSI the first time he applied. Like most he was forced to enlist the help of a law firm to make his case the second time. It required almost two years. They gave him a giant lump-sum back payment from the time of his application. He had less than a few months to spend down so that he had no more than $2000 to his name. It was sad because that lump-sum would have made a great cushion against hard times and emergencies. Now, we the family are called to "chip in" whenever there is a money crisis. If the system would have simply left him with the lump-sum given him without forcing him to spend down, none of us would have had to "chip in" from our modest means. SSI can be so humiliating and disheartening. It is a program that keeps people dependent on the system and relatives for emergencies. But, unfortunately without his SSI, Medi-Cal (Medicaid in other States), and Medicare, he wouldn't be able survive with any independence because he just can't work full time due to his disability. We would be forced to take care of someone who can live mostly independently and his life would have been much smaller.

And I'm with you, elliemae. I don't think I've ever come across such a study that states simply that 75% of 17-24 year olds are unfit for military service. I'd be ever so curious to find such a simple study. ;-)