"One of the study's coauthors, Boston Fed senior economist Paul S. Willen, said the government would be better off giving the money directly to struggling borrowers to help them with their payments, rather than to lenders that are averse to working out the troubled loans."

Well, duh! How many experts as well as posters on this site were saying the same thing as both Bush and Obama gift-wrapped those billions for Wall Street?

"The study, coauthored by Manuel Adelino and Kristopher Gerardi, also rebuts a widely held suspicion that the holdup in modifying loans is because of investors who control them through mortgage-backed securities. The Fed found no difference in the rate of aid between investor-controlled loans and those that lenders own directly."

I'll admit that this finding is news but isn't all that surprising.

q

Foxes author study on Henhouse? Goddammit the lenders got us into this mess with their predatory subprime lending, as fast and furious as possible, for packaging up as "mixed risk securities" to sell downline to a gullible investing public. Of course they're going to try to get out of cleaning up the mess, even if they've got the help of taxpayer money raining down on their heads. Why would anybody believe anything "the lenders" have to say? The lenders just want to get back to shuffling numbers around the world on computers, taking fat bonuses and buying corporate toys. After all, they've been told they're too big to fail.

funny how little campaign contributions matter if one doesn't watch tv...funny how little campaigns matter if one understands the country's power structures...

hopefully, increasing homelessness will increase awareness of the country's power structures, and reduce fascination with political theater...

hopefully, increased awareness of the country's power structures will increase awareness of one's personal contribution to this power via daily labor and spending...

we support property ownership, even as it destroys our living world, and our ability to simply live within it...this we must face...the fundamentals of housing must change: what is a house? a home? how is it created and financed? shared? what is a family? a neighborhood? what expectations and behaviors, beyond wealth, power and possessions, constitute adult contribution and status in the community?

cease toxification, embrace vegetation...when it all comes down, we will be back to the basics...air, water, food and shelter...pray we have resources left...best to prepare, as one sees fit...

all begins and ends with this living planet...you and I are but a heartbeat, a breath, a fleeting interaction between earth and sky...molecules held together by spiritual will...molecules drawn directly from the living world...

housing cannot continue to be a for-profit market, supported by weaponed professionals...the planet is not to be violently stolen, nor industrially devastated, to be put up for sale...

>>US Representative Barney Frank, head of the House Financial Services Committee, said the study results may provide answers about why so few struggling homeowners have been able to get help.

This speaks to just how shameless these politicians are.

There was no STUDY that was needed to show this would happen. People on these boards and economists of all stripes were claiming this EXACT thing would happen if the money just went to the bankers.

Now a Mr Frank appears to suggest that this was something that could not have been predicted and that more discussion might be needed.

Well at least the study leads to what many of us were saying last year. Since the collapse was precipitated by people defaulting on their mortgages the most effective use of bailout funds would have been to bail out these mortgagees.

Of course it would have required careful details to ensure the destitute and not the gamers were bailed out.

raydelcamino's comment reminded me of a Democracy Now segment with Robert Johnson, former chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee, and Bruce Marks, the founder and CEO of NACA, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.

It aired on 9/30/08, when the first bailout bill was still up in the air. (Candidate Obama lobbied hard to push it through.)

Economics is not my strong subject, to put it mildly, but Marks made a lot of sense to me. Generally speaking, he argued for a "bottom-up" bailout that put screwed consumers first and banksters last.

Needless to say, our bipartisan plutocrats gave exactly zero consideration to that sensible and moral approach.
________________________

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/30/bridge_loan_to_nowhere_house_rejects

· Yr Obd't Servant

I knew they would do this, and I am no economist, you and a whole bunch of other writers, critcs and economists KNEW that the little people would get screwed. Screwed Hard and without mercy, like we always do.

If there is more "stimulus" It better be "Bottom up" stimulus, otherwise they are just gorging the pigs that created this whole scam.

If the pigs always win, and they always do, we better start up the barbecue'

"My guess is they are going to help people who are OK, and they are not going to help people who are deep trouble,'' he said.

yeah, right...you guess?

They are gonna grind us all down untill we fall apart , then they bring in the brownshirts..

how will they pay them??

I hope that the two cops in the picture came away with the "today it's her but tomorrow it could be me" feeling.
I know more than my share of police and some get a kick out of throwing folks out of their homes. If asked they give the same pat response "I'm just doing my job".

To Police, sheriffs and Constables everywhere I give this quote from a John Mellencamp song: "Calling it your job, old hoss, sure don't make it right"

At least Sheriff Dart of Cook County took a stand.

You know, reading this, the thought occurs to me that what Obama really doesn't seem to have quite grasped yet, is that the rich and powerful are not going to do something just because it's the right thing to do - even if you do incentivize it - as long as it's up to their discretion. You can't do carrot and stick without the stick. Otherwise, the bankers just get to eat the carrots and go home. Anyone else feel an eerie parallel between this position and the position on health insurance policy?

How much money do the banks lose when the houses go into foreclosure?????????????

When the Fed bought the toxic assets did that mean the banks already got their money and the taxpayers actually own the properties and the taxpayers are the ones taking the loss???????????

jove4015 ,

Obama and his administration surely are aware of what you wrote of. They're not naive. They know more than you seem to think they do.

A good, while also important, documentary film that is very fitting to consider with these economic crisis articles being published in U.S. news media is entitled, "The Money Masters", from www.themoneymasters.com , where the film, three and a half hours too, is available on DVD; while it can also be viewed freely online at Google, Youtube, and other websites. Links for that are easy to find with a simple Web search using the title of the historical documentary film and "video" or "documentary" as an extra search term.

I just viewed it, finishing last night and beginning the day before, and it's a very important film everyone in the U.S., or even everyone in the world, should view. People in the U.S. rather [need] to view the film.

It covers centuries of history, many centuries, including brief, but good references to economic crises starting in Biblical times, centuries before Jesus of Nazareth lived, while wherein the Roman Empire is referred to, it's covered from the time of Caesar, if not earlier than him, all the way to the fall of the empire. Then there are references to 18th century Europe and 19th and 20th centuries in the USA. It all fits together, the film is very, very well compiled economic history.

View that carefully, learn from it, and then we have no reasons to wonder why there are economic depressions, etcetera. The ruling "elites" if the economic, monetary systems operate in all societies; capitalist, socialist and communist. They always want to dominate, economically, and they cause depressions, etcetera, when ever and how ever they strategically decide; and they always become richer every time. They form the "invisible government" in the U.S. government, and their "invisibility" is for many people; not only for the general public, but also many politicians. And they have their privately owned "news" media to keep the public very ignorant of what's really going on. These "news" media publish a lot of propaganda of deceit, blatantly and through omission, for these ruling "elites".

The rule economically, and the reason for this in the USA is that it's the fault of the U.S. government, Presidents and the Congress. And they are very invisible to perhaps most of the general public; and to many politicians, who should spend more time at careful homework, always seeking to properly educate themselves by viewing and carefully listening to very educational documentary film makers and authors.

Etcetera.

All of the above is very, very well and clearly explained in this above documentary film, "The Money Masters", which tells a lot more than what I mentioned, above. The economic killing apparatus today is the privately owned Federal Reserve, owned by a "handful" of bankers and until the U.S. Congress corrects the unfortunate legal basis it created for the F.R., the U.S. will suffer economic crises and revivals, but only as the real ruling "elites" decide, strategically decide. The F.R. needs to be eliminated or nationalised, taken out of private ownership and put into ownership of The People through their government. And the Congress also needs to make sure to end and ban fractional spending, .... If the Congress and U.S. President don't do this, then economic problems aren't going to be resolved they way they rather easily and quickly could be, whenever some economic problems would happen with the proper corrections established about this F.R. and fractional spending. Those two matters are killers for The People, and for peoples of other countries the U.S. wars on, military and economically wars on or against.

That documentary is one I learned of through a serious recommendation by Ellen Brown, who also well recommended, for video recommendations, "Money As Debt". That one might be by the same people, but if it isn't, then it's certainly available for purchase on DVD from the same website, www.themoneymasters.com . I also saw a copy of "Money As Debt" available for freely viewing online, but didn't see part II, while this above website has both parts on DVD.

See this documentary film and then you'll understand that people losing their homes, etcetera aren't likely to get help from good actions by the government. The lenders are very much among the ruling "elites" of the "invisible government" of or in the U.S. government. Banksters. And this bunch is relatively small in number, but very rich, and very powerfully influential. They get rich every time the society goes through recession, depression, and revival. They are, as some people, including U.S. politicians and Presidents, have said, very, very 'evil', 'vipers', ..., and they rule. It's evidently because of them and his contrary actions to help revive the U.S. economy that President Abe Lincoln was assassinated. And I think the documentary also says that another President shortly after President Lincoln was also assassinated and evidently because of his contrary positioning against these "money master" fiends, "vipers", ....

"The $75 billion Obama administration plan, announced in February, provides incentives to motivate companies that service mortgages to make loans more affordable, including $1,000 bonuses for each modified loan and an additional "pay for success'' fee of $1,000 a year for three years if borrowers stay current on their new terms."

Since the middle of 2008, over $12.9 trillion (taxpayer money) in the US has been spent, guaranteed, borrowed or printed out of thin air to prop up the economy and financial system. And to make matters worse, our leaders are still rewarding the same people who created this disaster.

How can the American public trust anything they are told by Wall Street, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the White House or Congress? We’ve been lied to, fleeced of our retirement savings and told that we must foot the bill for the criminals on Wall Street for the good of the country.

"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." - A. Einstein

So what you're saying is: Newsflash: capitalism good for rich, bad for poor!

Wow. Thanks for that insight.

Nice picture of two cops standing there forcing a 70 year old women out of her home. This country is going to hell faster than a comet. After they've destroyed the middle class and put everyone into a corner. What will happen when the rats attack. We'll all be labeled terroists and either be put in concentration camps or hunted down and be shot.

Haven't these lenders not already gorged themselves enough off of the backs of those who fell for their dirty tricks? The "American dream" has turned into the "American nightmare".