Comments on: LAS VEGAS: POOR, BLACK

By: jon

jon — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:13:51 +0000

All those areas seem to have something in common: high growth at high cost that wasn't paid. Subsidized growth for growth's sake infested California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida in ways the rest of the country only saw little peeks of. But it was done, it was absurd, and it will be a nightmare to figure out how to keep those homes full of the "right people" at the prices that the market will decide. Many communities will realize that they haven't the tax base for good schools and police departments, meaning the Promise of Suburbia will be exposed as a huge sham. The Going Galters will be pissed, but too poor to move. This is going to be so much fun to watch.

By: Nan

Nan — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:45:29 +0000

That odd little blip right around Bentonville is intriguing, but somehow I doubt it's executives at the House of Satan who are losing their McMansions.

Ed, did you see the recent article in the NYT about motels around Disneyland filling up with homeless "middle class" families who are now depending on charities to pay their room rent? Pretty soon hookers are going to start bitching about day rate motels not having any vacancies.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:07:49 +0000

"Some of those issuing mortgages weren’t even banks, but they would then sell the mortgages to banks which then bundled them and sold them again. Everyone got their money up front and didn’t worry about whether or not the mortgage got paid off,"

This is really important. These shadow (non-depository) banks also thought rising house prices would basically takes care of the problems – allow homeowners to re-fi to pay the large fees, and give the bank a nice exposure to the housing market (which 30 year loans tend not to). It did, until of course it didn't.

Ed can you get this data? I'm curious for a closer look.

By: Kulkuri

Kulkuri — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:31:26 +0000

Some of those issuing mortgages weren't even banks, but they would then sell the mortgages to banks which then bundled them and sold them again. Everyone got their money up front and didn't worry about whether or not the mortgage got paid off, it was a case of the more mortgages they wrote the more money they made, so they would put whatever it took on the paperwork to qualify for the mortgage.

I notice on your map that it is just a few areas where most of the foreclosures are happening. I see a little blip in the NW corner of Arkansas where Wally World is headquartered, so it's not all bad.

By: Misterben

Misterben — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:11:03 +0000

I am sort of amazed at how many people still deny that the mortgage situation is the fault of the banks. It's not like fifty million Americans were clamoring for mortgages they couldn't afford – banks and their spawn aggressively marketed these loans to anyone with a pulse. During the late '90s and early Aughts, mortgage brokers were trained to "be creative" with roping in new borrowers – they were taught to set up booths at churches and other community centers, to pump whatever neighborhood or ethnic connections they had, and to be relentless.

There are many factors involved in our economic nosedive, but the core of the issue, I think, is that banks defaulted on their side of the social contract. America's "deal" with banks has always been that we would leave them pretty much alone as long as they behaved responsibly and policed themselves. They abandoned that by recklessly promoting the mortgages and more complex financial games that eventually exploded and left us where we are now.

If two parties have an agreement, and one party breaks that agreement, you blame the party in breach – not the party who acted in good faith. America's homeowners (new and old) have acted in good faith; it was the banks that violated their long-standing deal with America.

What we need now is powerful, effective, meaningful regulation of banking for at least two generations, to change the culture of banking in America. We have no choice but to re-build the social contract from the ground up.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:57:17 +0000

Kordo, please don't forget the liberal holocaust of abortion. We would have plenty of upstanding White Americans to buy these houses if feckless sluts would stop murdering them just to keep the libruls happy.

By: Kordo

Kordo — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:54:37 +0000

Yup, yer absolutely right; it was them damn shiftless negroes. They made the Dems vote for CRA, leveraging their massive, evenly-nationally distributed electoral clout to implement a bill (prolly written by Farrakhan) designed to collapse the economic system we all depend on, forcing the government to give hundreds of billions of dollars to multibillionaires who will now, no doubt, re-distribute it to their ghetto-dwelling henchmen. Oh, and earmarks, also. And something about condoms. I need a drink….