Big Surprise: Mortgage Bailout Program Hurting Rather Than Helping

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Big Surprise: Mortgage bailout program hurting rather than helping say experts

Rick Moran

Before Obama is out of office, the four most overused words in the English language are going to be...

"I told ya so:"

The Obama administration's $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.

Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.

As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.

Some experts argue the program has impeded economic recovery by delaying a wrenching yet cleansing process through which borrowers give up unaffordable homes and banks fully reckon with their disastrous bets on real estate, enabling money to flow more freely through the financial system.

Omigod. It appears that Peter Goodman of the New York Times has discovered the free market! That last paragraph that describes what must happen before a housing recovery can occur must have been used by conservatives a hundred times before this idiotic bailout package was passed.

And the Treasury Department is still fiddling with the program, trying to get it to work. With more than 50% of people who got their mortgages adjusted once again finding themselves more than 90 days behind, this boondoggle will keep the housing sector depressed for years to come. There will be no recovery until individuals and banks pay the price for their greed and stupidity. That's how capitalism works and no one has found a go around for it yet.