Remember that nut job Ross Perot who years ago warned that we were headed for trouble if we ship all our jobs and technology offshore….wellllll, we’ve shipped our jobs and technology offshore and did not develop any alternative economy. The prosperity we enjoyed after the last decade was nothing but a hot air filled balloon ride….and the air is fast coming out of the balloon. You can’t make mortgage payments here in the US if we don’t make anything else in the US.
This article point out several very problematic aspects of foreclosure, key in my mind being the fact that Washington has been totally out of t0uch on the issue, writing blank checks to bankers and doing nothing to help ordinary Americans. Whenever anyone asks, “when are we getting out of the sinking foreclosure ship?” My answer is the same, “Several years after we first hear about major initiatives on un-employment. You can have all the programs you want, you can even reduce principle, but the bottom line is until real wages stop their decline, Americans cannot afford to live in their homes…and I don’t hear the first thing that gives me hope that anyone is doing anything to address the systemic unemployment in this state and in this country.
Let me see if I can follow the logic.
Obama, who heads the executive branch, is responsible for the private corporations not creating enough jobs, even though their profits are rocketing upwards.
By not having high paying jobs people are unable to pay high intrest payments on their bubble mortgages to the banks, and the banks are regrettably forced to deny them modifications and foreclose.
Therefore the collapse of the 1990’s housing bubble, and the fraud in the NY mortgage trusts is Obama’s fault.
What if the US goverment issued an edict that the amount of intrest due on all primary residence mortgage loans is 0% for the next four years?
Would most people be able to make their payments? Would the return on the mortgages closely mirror the return on US securities? Would people be able to breath, re-train, and re-engage in the job market with a new set of skills?
Right now there are very few employers who pay for their employes continuing education.
We live in a world where change is happening very fast. Continuing education or re-education is a necessity, almost more than health care or hosing.
If employers can’t or won’t provide it we must create a space, both in time and finance, where individuals can be re-trained, re-tooled and re-tasked to the changing world.
Our falure to grasp that continuing education is a national necessity, not a luxury of the rich professional trades, is the fundamental problem with the employment market.
Most of the unemployed don’t have skills you can use, this is proven by the simple fact that you are not reaching out to employ any of them.
The second factor, most real job creation is caused by small, and very small businesses. We have structured our economic system where people get tax breaks for investing in IRA’s 401K’s and other methods for pumping money into the stock market where bankers and corporate executives of large corporations can move it to their own pockets.
We have failed to structure our financial system to encourage investment in technical education, local small business and starting a business.
By continuing to put our savings into the washing machine called the stock market and not investing in our local communities main street will continue to wither and the false illusion of paper wealth will prevail.
There is nothing you can do to inprove your investment in a large corporation and increase it’s real return, but if you own the local laundry you can personally go give it a coat of paint.
Investment in commercially useful education, and tangible local business is far more sound than intangible stocks valued in a currency soon to be devoured by inflation.
AND, such investment directly leads to growing more and better jobs.
excellent points, this is an academic environment where debate, dispute and disagreement is encouraged! Keep on fighting…~!