Missing Mortgage Payments But Staying In Homes

Luke Ford writes:

The Boston Globe reports on thousands of Massachusetts home owners who are skipping their monthly mortgage payments but staying in their homes and fighting foreclosure.

Many of these folks are asking their lenders for mortgage modifications. Others have given up on that and are instead taking advantage of the delay in foreclosing to get free housing.

Some people have stayed in their foreclosures for years!

From Boston.com:

About 36,000 borrowers statewide have not written a mortgage check in at least three months, and one-third of those borrowers are a year or more in arrears, according to the most recent data from Lender Processing Services Inc., a Florida company that collects mortgage data nationwide.

Countrywide Settlement Funds Mortgage Modification

Luke Ford writes:

Countrywide and other mortgage makers would quickly sell the mortgages they had made, so they had less incentive to make sure that the people who borrowed their funds could pay them back.

CSM reports:

The state had sued Countrywide, CEO Angelo Mozilo and President David Sambol under former Attorney General Jerry Brown. The 2008 lawsuit alleged that the company lured borrowers with low "teaser" rates on adjustable rate loans. Loan officers didn't tell borrowers that the rates would jump, that prepayments would be penalized, and the total loan costs would skyrocket, even if they made additional payments, the state alleged.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Underwrite 95% Of New Mortgages

Luke Ford writes:

The plan is not in final form yet but expect it to announce a massive reduction of the government role in the mortgage market. Currently Fannie and Freddie underwrite 95% of new mortgages. This plan will call for reducing that to 50% in three years.

CNBC reports: Treasury is expected to propose reducing the maximum size for mortgages guaranteed by the government, to $625,500 from the current $730,000. The limit was temporarily raised in September.

Sources cautioned, however, that changes to the plan could yet be made in the week before its release.

JOSHUA GREEN WRITES FOR THE ATLANTIC:

What's most interesting about the debate on Fannie and Freddie is how similar the plans are to fix them. Whether you are a liberal or a conservative, the plan is to substantially reduce the government role in mortgages over the next three years.

Privatize Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac? Set Free American mortgages?

Luke Ford writes:

AGNES T. CRANE WRITES A GREAT COLUMN ABOUT HOUSING MARKET MYTHS. SHE LISTS EIGHT:

Myth 1: Significant reform will kill the housing market.
Many fear any major overhaul of U.S. housing finance will slam a still tottering housing market. If America scraps its current system tomorrow, that’s what will happen. At a minimum, removing the government subsidy should nudge mortgage interest rates higher, potentially knocking home prices down further. But the UK took more than a decade to phase out tax deductions on mortgage interest. Homeowners, would-be homeowners and mortgage lenders can adapt to even a potentially wrenching change if there’s a five or 10-year transition period. The United States needs to get started on a plan.

Rabbi Moshe David Tendler On The Jewish View On Brain Death

Luke Ford writes:

A rabbi tells me: “I have not read the RCA’s position paper, but I have read hundreds of medical textbooks and journals. I have been present many times when doctors were doing a brain stem death protocol and it is clear that the person is dead. When the gemara (last perek in Yoma) says that both heart and lung function are how we know if someone is alive or dead, it is talking about examining a person under a collapsed building or wall, this is spontaneous breathing and heart function. To extent that to the case where only mechanically is the body kept alive organically seems to be quite a stretch. I think Rabbi Moshe Tendler‘s position is correct. This has also been the position of the rabbis Shlomo Goren, Ovadia Yosef, Mordechai Eliyahu, Avraham Shapira. Many times when Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach was confronted with this question, (he was one of those that rejected brain stem death) he would always send the question to Rav Avraham Shapira (in order to save a life).”

Orthodox Rabbis Debate The Jewish View On Brain Death

Luke Ford writes:

A rabbi tells me: “I have not read the RCA’s position paper, but I have read hundreds of medical textbooks and journals. I have been present many times when doctors were doing a brain stem death protocol and it is clear that the person is dead. When the gemara (last perek in Yoma) says that both heart and lung function are how we know if someone is alive or dead, it is talking about examining a person under a collapsed building or wall, this is spontaneous breathing and heart function. To extent that to the case where only mechanically is the body kept alive organically seems to be quite a stretch. I think Rabbi Moshe Tendler‘s position is correct. This has also been the position of the rabbis Shlomo Goren, Ovadia Yosef, Mordechai Eliyahu, Avraham Shapira. Many times when Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach was confronted with this question, (he was one of those that rejected brain stem death) he would always send the question to Rav Avraham Shapira (in order to save a life).”

I understand that the brain stem is the last part of the brain to cease functioning. This continues after all cognitive abilities are gone.

Heart, liver and lung transplants are unique. Those organs have to be harvested while the heart is still pumping blood. If you wait three seconds after the heart has stopped pumping blood, they will deteriorate so they will not work in another body.

Dennis Prager Loves Little Boys

Luke Ford writes:

On his show Jan. 26, 2011, Dennis said: “Taking care of a home is a good thing. When you have an apartment, somebody else takes care of it.”

“When I went to graduate school in Manhattan, I lived in the apartment next door to the super[intendent]. When I wanted something done, I told the kid, ‘Tell your father to come over.’ It worked like a charm. The kid loved me.

“I wonder if that kid who’s now middle-aged remembers me? Do we remember the adults who come into our lives and becomes something for two years?

“That kid would come over and I would play Beethoven for the kid. I love little boys. I actually well up with emotion taking care of a little boy. I never raised a little girl so I don’t know.

“I took care of the superintendent’s kid so much that I had an in.”