Activismania
Welcome to the age of the activist.
Having a community activist as president has opened the door to activism from every sector of the economy directed at every possible target both legitimate and otherwise. The president and his troubling alliance with the activist group ACORN is a perfect example of which I speak.
ACORN is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. They are supposedly concerned with a passel of issues such as fair housing, workplace reform, fair pay and predatory lending. They have however recently focused much of their attention on voter registration, some legitimate and some far from it. But because most of their “mistakes” in signing up the dead to vote are staunch Democrat voters they are now in line to gain a lion’s share of the $1 billion the president has set aside to conduct a new national census. My guess is if they get paid by the name this county will have a census population of about 216 billion by the time the counting is done, and most of them will be living in poor urban areas.
Like I said, it’s good to be an activist with an activist president.
In a recent story from the Wall Street Journal they discussed what they called an “Activist Financier” named Bruce Marks. Mr. Marks is supposedly a “campaigner on behalf of homeowners facing foreclosure”.
As where in the past folks looking to negotiate with a bank on behalf of someone who is not paying their mortgage may have attempted a diplomatic and reasonable approach, Mr. Marks will have none of that. He spends most of his time screaming insults into a phone, making threats and then slamming down the receiver. “I’m tired of borrowers being screwed!” he yelled into the phone. “You’re incompetent!” and then he hangs up after threatening to get the banks CEO involved.
Mr. Marks owns the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. His NACA has been able to intimidate the four largest mortgage lending banks into an agreement to work with his counselors to arrange lower payments for struggling homeowners. He does it by posting pictures of bankers on the internet emblazoned with the caption “Predator”, releasing their home addresses and phone numbers along with pictures of their houses and filing their yards with furniture as if they were being evicted. He has also gone so far as to leak banker’s private divorce settlement papers to the press. There appears to be absolutely nothing Mr. Marks won’t do to the benefit of the poor homeowner, oh yes, and his own for profit company as well. You see along with everything else Mr. Marks is a mortgage broker as well with 40 full time brokerage employees.
Marks maintains that banks the are problem and that if they check a person’s credit worthiness and find it suitable there should be no need for a down payment. He also suggests that banks should limit payments to what homeowners can afford.
All this sounds very valiant on behalf of Mr. Marks and his for profit organization but the reality is, like so many of the false claims of activists, it just isn’t true.
At recent rally held by Mr. Marks at which his counselors attracted some 10,000 people to an arena for mortgage renegotiations a representative of NACA told the crowd “What happened is not your fault. The mortgage crisis is the result of abuses and exploitation by Wall Street”. Wow, that sounds like it could have come right out of the White House.
But if the recent rash of government forced mortgage adjustments and the renegotiations through strong-arm tactics by the likes of Mr. Marks have shown us anything it is that most of the people who are in default on their Fannie Mae inspired subprime mortgages should have never been given any kind of mortgage in the first place. In most cases these “struggling homeowners” are incapable or unwilling to keep their mortgage current regardless of the terms.
It is always in the best interest of the bank to keep the mortgage holder in their home rather than foreclose. But as banks struggle to find new more accommodating terms for these loans, 75% of the modified subprime loans currently are, or will be in default again within the next 12 months. But as was the case in the original feeding frenzy to sign up unqualified buyers, mortgage brokers like Mr. Marks get paid up front. Maybe that’s why Mr. Marks is such a strong advocate.
The astounding failure rate of these renegotiated mortgages was reported by Fitch Ratings which analyzed mortgages bundled into securities between 2005 and 2007. This ominous report once again proves the folly of the Democrats attempt to install welfare into the home mortgage market.
Does Wall Street carry any responsibility? Sure. But the biggest failure of Wall Street was not in their desire for profit but in their misguided faith in congress to do the right thing. No oversight, political hacks in positions of authority, blatantly false bookkeeping to garner both favor and undeserved bonuses in the millions of dollars and a Democrat controlled banking commission that allowed it all to happen.
As for Mr. Marks, he’ll just keep screaming at bankers all the way to the bank.
Like I said, it’s good to be an activist when there is a community activist in the White House.
