What has gone wrong with America?

by John Tiley

ONE-POINT-TWO MILLION That is one point two million families that have lost their homes. Put out on the street! According to Reality Track there were 288,345 properties lost to foreclosure in the July-September quarter alone. And these aren't low life's that are dodging their obligations. These are everyday people. Hard working Americans that through no fault of their own have lost their business or jobs, gone through all of their life savings and are now bankrupt. Their money is gone, their nice cars gone (if they are lucky enough, replaced with junkers to live in and get around town) looking for any kind of work they can find. The lucky ones have friends or relatives that will accept them and let them move in. Otherwise they are left to live on the street, in dilapidated RVs or tent cities that are popping up in abandoned factory's and such places all over the country. All of these people once good, upstanding many of them well educated Americans. Now, living like Hobos of the Great Depression. And I am afraid there are a lot more to come? Nine point seven million families, that's 38.8 million Americans who are “on the streets”....

“According to the latest figures, 4.2 million loans are now in or near foreclosure. An estimated 3.5 million homes will be lost by the end of 2012, on top of 6.2 million already lost. Yet the administration’s main anti-foreclosure effort has modified fewer than 500,000 loans in about 18 months.”

The banks position is, and this is correct and proper, that if you can't pay your mortgage you are in default and should forfeit your home, the collaterial for the loan. Those are the terms of a typical mortgage and I do agree with them. The house is the collateral on your promise to pay the loan. So why are so many people upset with the banks? Besides the obvious conclusion that the banks pillaging of Wall Street have (and will continue to for the foreseable future, cost the loss of so many American businesses and jobs and consequently the ability for the Average American to pay their mortgages. It is the banks inability to, in any professional manor, service these mortgages after the original sale where the problem begins! As a result there are no no avenues for families in distress to try and work out alternatives on their troubled mortgages. Research conducted with the large bank I deal with over the past 12 months has shown that nobody in the banks employment (invariably unidentifiable personnel residing in bullpens and with no way of even contacting the same person again in subsequent phone calls) are trained beyond reading computer scripted information.

Over the past decade or so, the banks efforts to produce profits has led them to gut their own companies. It is no secret that wholesale firings take place regularly with these people. A thousand here, two thousand there. It is no wonder they have no talent left in their employment. And that explanes the “Burger King Robo Signer” mentality that they have employed in this latest foreclosure crisis. Faced with illegally trying to foreclose on millions of properties, now they are going to pay the price and I would guess this is just the tip of the next financial crisis.

If you find yourself getting into trouble, there is nobody at the banks to contact to even try and work out an alternative! It is hard to believe that the banks would prefer to take over a property (always a losing proposition) rather than work something out that would keep the homeowner in the house and making payments, but it appears that is all the banks are prepared to do just that.

So what will it take to get America back on track? The banks will continue to dig their own grave. Eventually with their shortsighted greed for quick profits they will pay the price. With every foreclosure they are driving customers away. Folks will hide their money in their mattresses again and live as best they can. And most, even if the can will never subject themselved to homeownership again.

The real solution doesn't lie with banks... it resides with the countries resolve to put Americans back to work.

America rose out of the Great Depression because of the build up for WW II, followed by the Cold War, and the Space Race. That put us in first place, because we had the people and resources to do it. Now, short of WW III we have few choices. 1, we close our borders and become isolationists. 2, we come up with a truly innovative product, say a power source only available from America and sold all over the world to replace mid-east oil (wouldn't that be great), or perhaps anarchy? How does a country get around the bums that gut it for personal wealth and gain?

I believe a country, especially one once as rich and resourseful as America was before the corporations and politicians plundered it can deal with the tens of millions of citizens put out on the streets and out of work can do it, I'm just now sure how?