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Bloomberg to WaMu: "Be careful what you wish for"


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2007 Nov 8, 4:48am   23,868 views  161 comments

by HARM   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

WaMu's Wile E. Coyote moment

Bankruptcy Law Backfires as Foreclosures Offset Gains (Update1)

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Washington Mutual Inc. got what it wanted in 2005: A revised bankruptcy code that no longer lets people walk away from credit card bills.

The largest U.S. savings and loan didn't count on a housing recession. The new bankruptcy laws are helping drive foreclosures to a record as homeowners default on mortgages and struggle to pay credit card debts that might have been wiped out under the old code, said Jay Westbrook, a professor of business law at the University of Texas Law School in Austin and a former adviser to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

``Be careful what you wish for,'' Westbrook said. "They wanted to make sure that people kept paying their credit cards, and what they're getting is more foreclosures.''

Washington Mutual, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. spent $25 million in 2004 and 2005 lobbying for a legislative agenda that included changes in bankruptcy laws to protect credit card profits, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan Washington group that tracks political donations.

The banks are still paying for that decision. The surge in foreclosures has cut the value of securities backed by mortgages and led to more than $40 billion of writedowns for U.S. financial institutions. It also reached to the top echelons of the financial services industry.

...'Let the House Go'

People are putting their credit card payments ahead of their mortgages, said Richard Fairbank, chief executive officer of Capital One Financial Corp., the largest independent U.S. credit card issuer. Of customers who are at least three months late on their mortgage payments, 70 percent are current on their credit cards, he said.

"What we conclude is that people are saying, 'Honey, let the house go,''' but keep the cards, Fairbank said Nov. 5 at a conference in New York sponsored by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

All I can say is... BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
It looks like the Law of Unintended Consequences rules the day (again). So much for the "no bankster left behind" BK bill. Couldn't have happened to a greedier, more evil group of thugs.

Pigs getting their just desserts.
Chickens coming home to roost.
Life for a debt-free bubble sitter: wonderful.

Discuss, enjoy...
HARM

#housing

« First        Comments 13 - 52 of 161       Last »     Search these comments

13   HARM   2007 Nov 8, 7:40am  

@DinOR :lol: !

14   HelloKitty   2007 Nov 8, 7:49am  

Once again with the new BK law we that government intervention in free markets causes all real estate bubbles.

I suppose its inescapable - in fact you can argue the private ownership of land cant even exist without a government to enforce the ownership laws. And when the country grows this government needs more revenue to continue, so the tax laws change over time morphing the markets as they pass thier laws to get revenue. 200 years later we have p13, any 2 will do rule, etc.....

15   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 8:07am  

Stupid bastards.

Citi's trying to loan me $4500 and I'm FAR in default, they're desperately trying to prime the pump.......

16   DinOR   2007 Nov 8, 8:21am  

EBGuy,

I'd heard that people used to put their gold in the upper tank of their toilet in the event of a total loss by fire. I suppose the theory is that the fire will run out of fuel before it evaporates the water in the tank turning your life savings into candy wrapper thick puddles of what used to be gold.

No Peter, I'm not advocating anyone burn their house down to test the theory. Sounds like a good one for the Mythbusters though?

17   Patrick   2007 Nov 8, 8:22am  

You know, cash is getting more valuable in terms of houses per million dollars. Used to be 1 house/million. Soon it will be 2 houses per million, and perhaps eventually 3 houses per million.

So cash is actually appreciating if you look at it that way. And houses are the biggest expense I can think of. If I can save $500,000 on a house, that pays for a lot of inflation in bread, milk, gasoline, etc...

Patrick

18   DinOR   2007 Nov 8, 8:26am  

Visa/MC Disclaimer: Page 37, paragraph 6, lines 17-20

Please be advised that ingesting your credit card into a wood chipper (or similar device) does not absolve you from making your full payments in a timely manner.

See, it's right there in black and white.

19   Peter P   2007 Nov 8, 8:50am  

Please be advised that ingesting your credit card into a wood chipper (or similar device) does not absolve you from making your full payments in a timely manner.

Please be further advised that atomizing your credit card with energy beams, or other alien technologies, or occult practices does not absolve you from debt.

20   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 8:58am  

Being flat broke does though!

21   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 8:59am  

Er, althought.....

the food in FEMA internment camps is almost sure to be "catered" by Sodexho, yuk.

22   Rob Dawg   2007 Nov 8, 9:15am  

All you assets belongings to we.

HARM,
People really liked your comments on "Kalifornia Uber Alles".

23   DinOR   2007 Nov 8, 9:23am  

"alien technologies, or occult practices"

That's what I thought was so irresponsible with all of the lenders. Advertising that your neighbor would be so jealous when you flaunt your housing wealth over his plastic wealth? Well...? You just took something you could (at the time) easily walk away from and tied to your house!

How much of a stigma will having a foreclosure on your credit report be when every 7th American has one? Anyone have any luck finding the "other" famous Cramer meltdown?

24   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 9:31am  

Now, in reality, the new BK law does allow people to walk away from their CC debts IF they're earning below the median income for their area, the best place I know of to find out about this is the good old Nolo Press which I think may be www.nolo.com - the truth is, I think people are keeping their CCs up to date and letting the house go because a house is a huge money-sink where they can go rent a place for 1/2 or 1/3 of what they were paying for the house.

Kinda like the Joads leaving the farm but keeping the truck.

25   hugel   2007 Nov 8, 9:35am  

We need Ron Paul!!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=3839318&page=3

"There's a dollar crisis out there and people's money is being stolen; people who have saved, they're being robbed. I mean, if you have a devaluation of the dollar at 10 percent, people have been robbed at 10 percent. But how can you pursue this policy without addressing the subject that somebody's losing their wealth because of a weaker dollar? And it's going to lead to higher interest rates and a weaker economy."

26   Claire   2007 Nov 8, 10:19am  

I thought people were using their credit cards to pay their mortgages, I guess they realized that was a pretty useless idea of prolonging the agony.

27   Claire   2007 Nov 8, 10:20am  

Does that then mean, they will spend spend spend at Christmas time, as they will not bother keeping the mortgage up - and it is cheaper to rent!

28   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 10:23am  

They're not going to spend spend spend, this Xmas will be a lean one.

29   StuckInBA   2007 Nov 8, 10:28am  

Here is a nice chart.

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DX&v=d12

If you are outside US, the US stock market has crashed big time for you already. Somehow, I don't feel foreigners will come bargain hunting for our stocks yet.

30   StuckInBA   2007 Nov 8, 10:29am  

They’re not going to spend spend spend, this Xmas will be a lean one.

The retailers are already hurting. Pain comes early this Xmas.

31   Peter P   2007 Nov 8, 10:31am  

Is shorting UUP a viable strategy?

32   Claire   2007 Nov 8, 10:40am  

So if the big banks “failed” - would all credit cards stop working too? Would it all become cash only? Or would people still be able to operate their accounts?

Should I withdraw some savings and stash it in the mattress? How much?

33   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 10:41am  

StuckInBA - it's UnAmerican to mention that the dollar has fallen 30% over the last few years.....

34   Peter P   2007 Nov 8, 10:43am  

So if the big banks “failed” - would all credit cards stop working too?

Big banks will not fail... they are too big to LET fail.

35   Peter P   2007 Nov 8, 10:45am  

it’s UnAmerican to mention that the dollar has fallen 30% over the last few years…..

Nothing is more unAmerican than being a renter.

http://patrick.net/wp/?p=446#comments

36   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 10:48am  

Claire - what's happening is, people are unable to make their credit card payments, then if the cards aren't already up there, the interest is raised to 30% and sometimes even more - which eats up any "room" they had, and people get threatening letters. Actually the letters are amazingly polite so far, it's a very interesting process to watch lol.

As you may guess, this is my situation so I am happy to share my experiences with anyone here curious about, or looking forward to, the life of an insolvent bum.

So.... since I can't charge, the only card useage I enjoy right now is using my food stamp card, I have to admit that's fun.

It's all cash for me, I don't have a bank account and in fact, this is funny but right now I don't have the $100 cash to start one at the local bank. I'll open one when I make some money doing something I guess. It's all cash for me right now.

Hmm, now if the banks fail ...... I'd say that yeah, let's say you have a Citi card that you have little or no balance on, you're a good user, and you use it for say your Starbucks purchases and pay it off each month. It's a good way to have all your purchases for the month on one bill actually. And, let's say Citi fails, they're bankrupt, will your faithful Citi card still work at Starbucks? I'm going to guess it will, because Citi will get bought out by some other bank, or they will try to keep doing business as long as they can - which apparently companies can when in chapter 11. If for some reason the bank just plain stops operations, I'm sure you'd get a polite letter saying your card will stop working and that's that.

Depending on how fast things fall, and how much of the financial system is automated, maybe we will see CCs just stop working. I think ultimately we will see people going back to cash - a lot of us are going to become cash-only curmudgeons!

37   Richmond   2007 Nov 8, 10:49am  

I finally talked to my buddy down in El Mirage, AZ. I sent him the link from the last thread.
He says, "Sounds about right. There are 50 to 60,000 homes for sale in the Phoenix Metro area and a full one third are unoccupied."
Can you imagine that? Geeeez.
I'll agree that it is a big area, but still.

38   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 10:49am  

PeterP - I've got you beat, couch-surfer in a paid-for place. Who eats old fashioned Quaker Oats for b'fast.

39   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 10:50am  

El Mirage is a hellhole. At least it was when I last drove by it, about 3 mos. ago.

40   Paul189   2007 Nov 8, 11:01am  

Coworker just returned from Toronto - He paid $5 CAD for a gallon of milk. The inflation will ravage both strong and week currencies!

41   Richmond   2007 Nov 8, 11:02am  

It's the newer area over by Suprise, east of Luke. Nice neighborhood, but then again, I like it when war hardware flies overhead. Watching those F-16's stand on their tails and hit the gas--- YEA BABY--- that's horsepower. The one thing I will not do is visit in the summer. TOOOO DAMN HOT!

42   Paul189   2007 Nov 8, 11:04am  

It's time to get mad as hell!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ELleCQvew

43   Paul189   2007 Nov 8, 11:05am  

French subtitles for our friends up north.

44   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 11:06am  

Yes it was around the beginning of August when I blew through there..... great place if you likes planes though.

I had all kinds of military hardware overhead in Sunnyvale, one day I looked up and saw an AWACS you know, the plane with a frisbee on it, it was cool. I often could just about count the rivits on the undersides of the cargo planes flying in and out of Moffett from my ghetto-partment micro-porch.

45   Peter P   2007 Nov 8, 11:08am  

I often could just about count the rivits on the undersides of the cargo planes flying in and out of Moffett from my ghetto-partment micro-porch.

Can you see the Google Jet from there?

47   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 11:13am  

PeterP - I'm not in the bay area any more.

Brilliant video clip - of course things are MUCH worse now than in 76, and I doubt anyone would stick their head out of the window and yell now - people are much better controlled and brainwashed now.

48   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 11:16am  

Wow - "Rollover" is such a dangerous film I've never heard of it and I'm willing to bet maybe 10 or 15 americans ever have.

What we're undergoing is a Tainterian collapse, and but we'll experience it as is a financial collapse.

49   Peter P   2007 Nov 8, 11:27am  

I’m not in the bay area any more.

Bay Area is a scam anyway. Hope you will do well.

50   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 11:31am  

Thanks PeterP.

Follow my posts on here, I'm not keeping my situation any secret lol.

51   anonymous   2007 Nov 8, 12:08pm  

Same pay in Podunk towns and in the Bay Area, yeah I'd say it's a scam.

52   goober   2007 Nov 8, 12:26pm  

http://tinyurl.com/2wosv4

(my tinys never work?)

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