Well- it’s a great name.  They might not want to quite so obvious though in pointing out just how little an understanding they have of what the country wants.  I wonder how they are going to feel when 3% of the population joins in with them?  Will they change their name to the 3% Group?

Lelldorin, I’d be willing to bet that yes they do all own property.  What they don’t have is the imagination required for basic empathy, and cannot picture themselves in a situation where they might have financial difficulties through no fault of their own.  Say, if they or someone in their family was diagnosed with cancer but their insurance wouldn’t pay for their treatment.  No, that sort of thing happens only to people who deserve it.

Are they talking about the 92% of people who enjoy having boarded-up homes nearby*, or the 92% of people who enjoy having their home equity line of credit reduced to zero, as house prices plummet?

After the end of the Bush Presidency, every asset I own has either dropped significantly or pays a pitiful return.

Things are going to get worse before they get better, I fear.

*Assuming squatters and tweekers have not pried off the boards and are living inside.

I saw an interesting analysis.

A foreclosure in your neighborhood can cut 9% from the cost of your home.

There are 75,000,000 homes.

$75 billion is $1,000 per home.

9% is a heck of a lot more than $1,000.

There is, of course, one thing missing: how many people are actually facing a foreclosure in their neighborhood. I suspect this might be part of the issue. I reckon that if you live in a wealthy enough neighborhood, you may be (or may suspect that you’re) *not* facing foreclosures-in-your-neighborhood.

“reckon that if you live in a wealthy enough neighborhood, you may be (or may suspect that you’re) *not* facing foreclosures-in-your-neighborhood.
“

Did you read about the problems in the Hamptons? They now have mansions going for half price and people still aren’t buying them. Sorry but wealthy neighborhoods are seeing foreclosures and several suburbs are becoming abandoned.

Too bad those 92%ers don’t all live in the same neighborhood—we could just refuse to help out anyone who lives there.

If you’re in a position where you’re going to want to sell your home anytime in the next couple years, it hardly matters if you’re in a wealthy neighborhood or not. The mortgage crises drags *all* home prices down.

And in the wealthy neighborhood, the homes may not have big “foreclosure” signs, but dollars to donuts, a lot of those for sale signs are up because the owners are in trouble. While the poor people were getting the problematic 100 percent financing with atrocious adjustable rate mortgages, a lot of “rich” people were getting interest only loans with giant balloon payments that are coming due.

Granted, a lot of these borrowers were ______ (fill in the blank - greedy, stupid, naive, irresponsible, purple, from Mars, etc.) Doesn’t change the fact is that their problems are dragging all the home values down, which means even people who did everything “right” could find themselves in serious trouble because their homes are worth less than their mortgage.

No, those people don’t own property. They live in houses owned by banks, just like everyone else with a mortgage. And they were looking forward to picking up a bunch more properties cheap, for investment purposes.

As if keeping one’s own property value from going down weren’t reason enough to prevent foreclosures, there’s also, at least in warmer climes, a public-health reason: Mosquitoes turning abandoned swimming pools into breeding grounds for disease.

“Abandoned swimming pools can, over the course of a month, produce thousands of mosquitoes,” said Jonathan Day, professor of medical entomology at the University of Florida. “You have a whole new source of mosquitoes you didn’t have before, and these are mosquitoes that transmit West Nile virus.”

But I guess that if you get bitten by an infected mosquito and become deathly ill, and you don’t have healthcare, it’s your own st00pid l00zer fault.

It isn’t even a matter of the foreclosures dragging prices down. I live in a wealthy neighborhood - there’s only one foreclosure anywhere near me, and my home’s value hasn’t dropped noticeably. But what we do have is 15 months housing inventory on the market right now. That includes the three brand new houses that were built after the bubble burst, because what else are the construction companies supposed to do?

I’d like a bigger house, but there’s no way we could sell our house right now. No one’s buying houses that cost as much as ours right now. There’s a house down the street that’s been on the market for over a year, and lowering the price hasn’t helped anyone sell. Even if I didn’t have empathy, I think we need to fix the mortgage crisis so the lack of crisis will help restart the real estate market so I can have a house with room for a library and another kid. Surely even republicans want to sell their houses and get more bedrooms and bathrooms?

Whatever. If these idiots want to skip their April mortgage payment, they’ll just make me look better to my lender.

They’re going to withhold April’s mortgage payment?

And they think they can do that without penalty?

The banks will charge interest and late fees AND they will report it to the credit agencies, who will lower FICO scores.  The lowered FICO scores may be used by other asshole credit card companies to “change the terms” of their agreement, or raise the interest rate to 30% even though the default wasn’t on their account.

Should these l00zers then decide to cancel the card or refuse the terms (in which case the credit card company terminates the card), their credit availability will take a hit, which will again lower that magical, used for things it was never intended for, FICO score.

Which will cause still further cards to raise rates, change terms, shorten grace periods, etc.

These assholes really think they can play chicken with their mortgage payment and teach THE MAN a lesson?  Idiots.  Seriously, if you want to boycott, at least learn a little bit about what boycotts are and how they work.

I reckon that if you live in a wealthy enough neighborhood, you may be (or may suspect that you’re) *not* facing foreclosures-in-your-neighborhood.

Actually, I suspect it’s the opposite—these people do know a lot of people in foreclosure but are convinced that it’s because those friends/neighbors are dumb and made bad decision, not because there’s a systemic problem.  How else can they reassure themselves that the thing that’s happening to people just like them will never happen to them?

“Granted, a lot of these borrowers were ______ (fill in the blank - greedy, stupid, naive, irresponsible, purple, from Mars, etc.) “

Did you miss that special that showed the home lenders were doing nasty contracts that had a lot of nasty hidden clauses or didn’t mention what the effects of the ARM were?

The home lenders and home mortage companies were responsible for a lot of this mess in the home buying market.

Personally I plan to protest the bank that holds my mortgage by refusing to pay my taxes. Except I don’t have a mortgage, dammit.

OK, I’m going to protest Section 8 by refusing to pay my rent.

What pisses me off is that these jackasses supported McCain, whose mortgage scheme was absolutely insane.  It would have cost four times the amount of the Obama plan, had no measures to help people who most desperately need it or who aren’t completely lost causes, and was a huge giveaway to the mortgage industry.  Obama’s plan is actually responsible and lets people who aren’t 100 percent underwater or weren’t ridiculously irresponsible in buying way more house than they could afford renegotiate the terms of their mortgages.

A lot of people are still going to be left out of this plan, but this is the best of all possible worlds and takes the best steps possible to help people who most need it and are the most deserving.

How about Tom-Tom getting Scooter Libby to pay off all the mortgages?