Predatory lending is rampant. Please try not to frame it as a minority issue. That will only muddy the waters.

White friends went to the bank intending to get a 30 year fixed and spent a half hour arguing with these bozos who insisted he’d be better off with a toxic loan.

Lenders have been pushing toxic loans for the past several years now on EVERYONE. Indeed, didn’t our own dear Alan Greenspan suggest that the public might find ARM loans advantageous – a few years back when rates were at historical lows?!

Anyway, they were pushed by all and sundry. Nobody in power began addressing the issue until the market began falling apart recently (hmmm… why IS that?!).

Toxic lending has blown the price of homes sky high to the point where Americans are now in debt up to their eyeballs.

Here’s the solution:

-20% (at a minimum) downpayments for a home, 15 or 30 FIXED
- get rid of the 250K capitol gains exclusion
- get rid of the mortgage interest deduction
- get the government OUT of the housing market. All Fannie/Freddie have ever done is drive the price of homes UP. FNM is on the verge of collapsing AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT. Let them collapse. Good riddance.

If you REALLY want to help the American middle class, bringing the price of homes back in line with incomes would go a very long way.

The 4 points above would do a LOT to drive down the price of homes to where people could once again affford to buy without the “help” of toxic loans.

And please, no bailouts for anyone who got caught in the toxic loan trap. A dose of reality is needed to turn people off of these for once and for all.

We have created a monster with this ridiculous housing market. Pray for a swift return to the mean. It’ll be brutal but we’re going to have to deal with it.

Intel, Ford, Chevrolet, Maytag …. etc. have all bought out there employee’s to pave the way for the re-staffing with cheap Mexican labor at American’s exspense – Will congress give them amnesty or create a special class not eligible for minimum wage or health insurance?.

With rich millionaire industrialist’s ruling the government whom are owned by the corporations that they in turn own – this is the ultimate in collusion and conflict of interest.

I don’t see Democrats or Republicans anymore – just a bunch of rich politicians … Living on the sweet side of the Gini coefficient , extremely relieved there is a Pareto principle – and your one too.

Sir, I give you Real America:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/10/Dobbs.Oct11/index.html
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/faux
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39333
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archive_bilderberg.html
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/27050prs20061012.html
http://acsmustbestopped.blogspot.com/
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4458
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/05/loc_warrenvote05.html
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/13469
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/usworld/news-article.aspx?storyid=64704

Thank god Mr. Edwards will speak out on issues like this and his Two Americas.

John Edwards & Wesley Clark in 2008!!

I see the state of debt in America as sort of a Roman Colosseum where the privileged and fortunate can sit back and watch, self satisfied, while debtors fight losing battles and go down in humiliated defeat. Whatever reason that they are down there, they must have bought it on themselves and thus deserve their fate.

The credit industry is ravenous and utterly obsessed with it’s own profit. Including looking the other way while a large and growing cross-section of American society struggles to pay debts. And at the same time their constant mailings and marketing efforts strive to convince people that their every hope and need can be almost painlessly attained with borrowed money.

Thanks for your public work Mr. Edwards and thanks for your willingness to place yourself in the path of invective and verbal abuse for the potential betterment of this country. I think it’s called walking the walk vs. talking trash or just talking the talk. Something like that.

Right on. Good luck.

1. You need to first go to an approved credit counselour to see if an informal payment plan will work out, or do you really need to file for bankruptcy.

2. The law provides for more chapter 13’s instead of 7’s, because assets are now based on cost to replace instead of garage sale pricing. This means you get put on a repayment plan that may or may not pay all debts off totally, but after 5 years I believe, all debts are cleared as long as repayment schedule is kept. This means that any leftover debt, is still wiped clean.

3. You have less of a chance of declaring bankruptcy if you income is a percentage above the median income for your area. (Read into this, if you are making more money that other people, you have less chance of declaring a bankruptcy). – The new law will prohibit some filers with higher incomes from using Chapter 7.

4. The law provides that you MUST have a certain amount of disposable income after paying on your debts that cover, a place to live, transportation, food, etc, as well as secured debts. So all of your money is NOT going to paying debts, but some is still available to you for things OTHER than specific necessities.

I am not a big supporter of the changes, but I can understand the need. A lot of time it’s not the little people, but the BIG ones that cause problems..

Take Air America for example. They are filing for chapter 13, re-organization of debts. This means, that some of their creditors are going to get screwed out of the money they owe them. This is in the MILLIONS of dollars. Who do you think makes up for that? That’s right, you and I, in the form of higher interest on our loans, higher prices on tangible goods and services. Someone needs to make up for the money they lost, so the liitle people, you and I get to pay it. Most of the bankruptcies you are talking about, low/middle income people, are a drop in the bucket compared to businesses and individuals who borrow millions, and then file bankruptcy.

No matter how it happens, or why, it’s going to be US, that bears the expense of making up the lost money that the creditors lose.

One way or another. Doesn’t matter if you are yellow, red, black, white, dem, or republican, or libertarian. Quite frankly, I am a constitutionalist.

Usually a Bankruptcy Attorney is the last person people come to see. People file Bankruptcy as a last resort. I have counseled over tten thousand people over the years and have had many cry in my office. Most are eztrmely embarassed to talk to me.

I find it interesting that Congress limited the rights of the poorest in our society and protect the richesy. Most predetory lenders are subsidiaries of the very same financial instituitions that lobbied for the Bankruptcy Bill.

Haditha: I’m not sure what you talking about. For one thing, he’s not in Congress. For another, he’s been loudly calling for the United States to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq immediately.