Quote of the Day: Fighting a fire with a garden hose

by: Jason Springer

Fri Nov 21, 2008 at 02:20:57 PM EST

Today, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced a plan to freeze some foreclosures until January of 2009. Reacting to estimates that the plan would prevent up to 16,000 foreclosures, when there were 279,561 foreclosures nationally in October alone, Senator Menendez had this to say:

Once again, the Bush administration is like a fire department showing up late with only a garden hose. Preventing up to 16,000 foreclosures is better than nothing, but at least half a million families will join those already facing foreclosure if stronger action isn't taken between now and the Obama administration. Last week, the Bush administration announced a plan to modify mortgages for only a small segment of struggling homeowners, and now we see a freeze on an extremely limited number of foreclosures. Clearly, if they don't understand by now that stabilizing the housing market helps stabilize the entire economy, they never will.

Ocean County has the blaze raging with 30 foreclosures per day, up from the normal 4-6. And in September, one in every 453 homes in the state received a filing -- either a default notice, a scheduled sheriff's auction or a bank repossession. We have been on pace to hit 50,000 foreclosures this year.

Along with the foreclosure problem, we need to stabilize the market because you have people that have lost so much value in their homes versus what they owe on the mortgage that they're walking away altogether.

There are many culprits who can share in the responsibility for this chaos in the housing market, but trying to apply a bandage to a wound that needs a tourniquet at this point is probably not going to do the job. That's why they have warning signs, which were ignored by virtually everyone with decision making power. So that you don't have to deal with the massive problems we face now

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A Child's Stigma

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Zimmer Doesn't Know ... Symbols

by: huntsu

Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 04:15:15 PM EDT

Dick Zimmer tried to jack up Frank Lautenberg over a 1992 law that changed the rules for public-private hybrid mortgage holder Fannie Mae that Zimmer opposed and Lautenberg backed.

Zimmer stood in front of a foreclosed home in Linden railing against Lautenberg for it, but made one small mistake:

Zimmer selected the house where he held today's press conference from Fannie Mae's web site, and did not know the story of how it came to be in possession of Frannie Mae.

If you're gonna blame your opponent for something, you have to know what that something is. Not knowing why the house was foreclosed on kind of blunts the whole story.

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