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Time to ‘Save Families and Stop Foreclosures’ |
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More than 300 members of the national grassroots community organization ACORN, union members and their allies took the nation’s mortgage foreclosure crisis to the steps of Capitol Hill today, demanding that lawmakers protect homeowners who were victims of years of predatory lending.
Millions of America’s homeowners are facing disaster after years of predatory lending. This is the first time since the Depression of the 1930s that so many U.S. homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. And the activists delivered the message that now is the time to act to save our homes.
The AFL-CIO and ACORN are working together to shine the spotlight on the “do-nothing” policy of Republican presidential nominee John McCain regarding the foreclosures that are affecting hundreds of thousands of working families.
Looking over a sea of signs that read, “Save Families! Stop Foreclosures,” Toni McElroy, president of ACORN’s Texas chapter, told the crowd at the “Save Our Homes/Stop Foreclosures” rally:
We want to give a voice to all those who are being ignored, to all those who have lost their homes, to all those whose communities have been devastated. The government protects people who have yachts and second homes and vacation homes. Let’s protect people in their primary homes.
The rally was part of ACORN’s national legislative conference March 8–13. Tomorrow, participants will lobby their senators and representatives to pass legislation that would prevent foreclosures on subprime mortgages and allow bankruptcy judges to modify subprime mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families facing financial ruin.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told the crowd that the difference in the way the Bush White House and congressional Democrats responded to the mortgage crisis speaks volumes about the importance of the 2008 elections:
Only when the foreclosure crisis spread from Main Street to Wall Street did President Bush start thinking about doing something. The fights here in Washington, D.C., are about whether we want a president who will end this war and start putting that $3 billion a week [spent on the Iraq war] into cities across the country and start putting our country back together.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said the mortgage crisis is worsened by the exporting of American jobs and employers’ efforts to prevent workers from forming unions.
The best stimulus package is a good job, a good job here in the United States and not one that goes overseas.
Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) also spoke at the rally.
Describing the rash of mortgage foreclosures as threatening the American Dream, the AFL-CIO Executive Council last week outlined the steps needed to solve the mortgage crisis.
In a statement, the Executive Council called for:
- Passage of the Homeownership Preservation and Protection Act of 2007 (S. 2452) to establish new consumer protections and allow state attorneys general to enforce the provisions of the law, the Emergency Home Ownership and Mortgage Equity Protection Act (H.R. 3609) and the Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act of 2007 (S. 2136), which will prevent hundreds of thousands of Americans from losing their homes by allowing them access to bankruptcy relief.
- A six- to 12-month moratorium on mortgage foreclosures.
- A change in bankruptcy laws to allow mortgages to be modified so families can keep their homes.
- An end to servicing agreements that reward mortgage companies for foreclosing on homes rather than encouraging refinancing or other workout strategies.
- Strong new rules for the mortgage and financial markets that hold the industry accountable.
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I cannot support any legislation to bail out or assist the financial institutions or borrowers in the sub-prime mortgage implosion. We went through a similar event with the ballon payment loans in the 70’s. Many borrowers used these loans to secure properties beyond their means as an opportunity to make money on ever increasing home values. Adjustable rate mortgages are a gamble just like investing in the stock market. Their investment loss is not the responsibility of the taxpayers just as it is not our responsibility to bail out the financial institutions that loaned them the money.
Real Estate is a gamble. If you gamble and lose, that’s your hard luck. If you gamble and win which has been going on for years, that’s your good luck but I don’t see any of the winners sharing with taxpayers. I can’t see the taxpayers sharing with your losses.
Petition to Congress: Implement the Homeowner and Bank Protection Act of 2007
September 18, 2007 (LPAC)—The following petition from the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC) is being circulated across the United States by, and to, state and local elected officials, and to labor movement leaders, and other elected leaders, for presentation to the U.S. Congress. Emergency enactment of this bill is needed to erect a “firewall” to protect the life savings of American citizens, and to ensure that the hedge funds receive not one penny of bailout from the U.S. or any other government.
Currently, we are soliciting signatures and endorsements for this petition, from elected officials, labor leaders, and constituency group leaders, only. If you would like to endorse this petition, please send an email to, lpacpetition@gmail.com, include your full name and your organization (for identification purposes only.)
The onrushing financial crisis engulfing home mortgages, debt instruments of all types, and the banking system of the United States, threatens to set off an economic depression worse than the 1930s.
Millions of American citizens are threatened with foreclosure and loss of their homes over the upcoming months, according to studies released by RealtyTrac and Moody’s Economy.com.
The hedge funds which spread this financial collapse among markets worldwide, by dominating speculation in all those markets, are now going bankrupt and demanding government bailout of their securities and derivatives. The nominal value of the derivatives based on mortgages alone is the size of the combined GDP of the nations of the world. The hedge funds, the mortgage-backed securities, the financial derivatives can not be bailed out.
This financial crisis is now threatening the integrity of both state and Federally chartered banks, as typified by the run on deposits of Northern Rock mortgage bank in Britain in September and Countrywide Financial in California during the month of August; and such a banking collapse would wipe out the life savings of American citizens, and drastically undermine the economic stability of our states and cities.
In a similar financial crisis in the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened to protect banks and homeowners; for example in April 1933, he introduced legislation as a “declaration of national policy … that the broad interests of the Nation require that special safeguards should be thrown around home ownership as a guarantee of social and economic stability…” One month earlier, his Bank Holiday reorganized the nation’s failing banks under Federal protection.
The principles of the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007, proposed by economist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., meet this crisis. It requires emergency action that only the United States Congress has the capability to enact. This act includes the following provisions:
Congress must establish a Federal agency to place the Federal and state chartered banks under protection, freezing all existing home mortgages for a period of however many months or years are required to adjust the values to fair prices, and restructure existing mortgages at appropriate interest rates. Further, this action would also write off all of the speculative debt obligations of mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, and other forms of Ponzi Schemes that have brought the banking system to the point of bankruptcy.
During the transitional period, all foreclosures shall be frozen, allowing American families to retain their homes. Monthly payments, the equivalent of rental payments, shall be made to designated banks, which can use the funds as collateral for normal lending practices, thus recapitalizing the banking systems. These affordable monthly payments will be factored into new mortgages, reflecting the deflating of the housing bubble, and the establishment of appropriate property valuations, and reduced fixed mortgage interest rates. This shakeout will take several years to achieve. In the interim period no homeowner shall be evicted from his or her property, and the Federal and state chartered banks shall be protected, so they can resume their traditional functions, serving local communities, and facilitating credit for investment in productive industries, agriculture, infrastructure, etc.
State governors shall assume the administrative responsibilities for implementing the program, including the “rental” assessments to designated banks, with the Federal government providing the necessary credits and guarantees to assure the successful transition.
I urge the Congress of the United States to pass legislation embodying these three principles immediately, as emergency legislation, halting a “tsunami” of foreclosures, keeping millions of American families in their homes to avert social chaos, and protecting chartered lending banks of the United States and the states.