Predators Still Roam the Housing Industry

The types of folks who tend to gravitate toward tea party beliefs have consistently believed the housing crisis was the fault of people not paying their mortgage payments.  Indeed, the name "tea party" came from a CNBC analyst's screed that there should be a tea party against "losers' mortgages."  Regular people don't want to believe that there have been predatory lending companies who feed on homeowners, particularly those with poorer credit, and go to great lengths to concoct reasons to charge extra fees and threaten homeowners with foreclosure.

The story linked below shows this behavior is still going on.  New York state regulators and a group of homeowners charge that Ocwen Financial "has been charging marked-up and illegal fees as well as engaging in deceptive business practices."  Ocwen is one of the country's largest mortgage servicers.  Regulators and homeowners involved in a class-action lawsuit say that Ocwen has found reasons (read: excuses) to charge extra, sometimes illegal, fees for small issues.  One couple mentioned in the story borrowed $98,000 and now owes $150,000 after making payments for ten years due to the fees.

The blame-the-victim mentality of many people allows this kind of phenomenon to exist, blunting any movement to put pressure on Congress to crack down on predators because, after all, it's just a bunch of losers trying to get something for nothing.

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/364131391/firm-accused-of-illegal-practices-that-push-families-into-foreclosure

The Wageless Recovery and the Choice for the Left

I came across this article via Truthdig, written by Robert Reich and explaining artfully why the 2014 midterm elections went badly for Democrats.  It wasn't that the Obama Administration didn't tout its accomplishments sufficiently as the President said; it was what Reich called the wageless recovery that makes most people feel as if the recession is still ongoing.

Reich wrties "If you want a single reason for why Democrats lost big on Election Day 2014 it’s this: Median household income continues to drop. . . . The stock market has boomed. Corporate profits are through the roof. CEO pay, in the stratosphere. Yet most Americans feel like they’re still in a recession."  Reich points out that in this recovery, 100 percent of the recovery's gains have gone to the top 10 percent in this country - 95 percent have gone to the upper 1 percent.

That language may turn off some as overtly political instead of statistical.  But Reich contends that this is the way that the political left must go to win, by coming out swinging in favor of middle class issues and reigning in Wall Street excesses.  He points out that in four so-called red states, minimum wage increases won at the ballot even as Democratic candidates lost.

President Harry Truman once said "Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time."  Reich appears to be applying the principle in reverse, taking the position that if Democrats advocate forcefully for their core positions, the forgotten middle class will hear through the din that someone is speaking for them and gravitate toward the party not afraid to stand for them.

Here's the link to the original article on Reich's own website, entitled The Choice of the Century.