Congress bars banks from real estate brokerage. Thank God!

From the National Association of Realtors:

"President Barack Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that permanently prohibits banks from entering the real estate brokerage and management business.
The bill--H.R. 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Bill--ends the National Association of REALTORS' nearly eight-year battle to preserve the separation between banking and commerce.
"If banks had been allowed to engage in real estate brokerage, it would have created anti-competitive and anti-consumer concentrations of power within the financial services sector, which would have ultimately increased costs for homebuyers," according to an NAR resource page it has devoted to the issue."

I can't believe they've been fighting this for EIGHT years. All it took was the banking system completely screwing up our entire economy for Congress to realize that the major banks need to keep their focus on banking. Can you imagine if instead of real estate agents to help you buy or sell your home, all you got were employees of JP Morgan Chase and Bank Of America? Yikes! Score one for the Obama administration.

Obama's foreclosure-prevention plan

This morning, President Obama unveils his plan pledging $275 billion to help stop foreclosures. To my understanding, it subsidizes lenders to restructure mortgages that are in trouble to the point at which the payments are brought down to 31% of the borrower's income. Banks that have taken TARP government bailout money will be forced to do this program, and that's a lot of the banks.

Critics of this plan keep pointing out that of all the mortgages that have been restructured so far, 50% of them are in redefault. They say this as a way to show that it doesn't work. But they're completely missing the point. That means that half of the time, IT DID WORK! They're making their payments. It saved an American family from going through the pain of foreclosure, it saved the lender a bunch of money by not having to foreclose, and if this plan continues to work just half of the time, it will prevent literally millions of foreclosures that continue to bring property values down for all of us.

Now I know this stinks for the rest of us responsible taxpaying, mortgage-paying Americans. Our tax money is going to be used to bail out some really ridiculous decisions made by borrowers, who will have effectively refinanced their homes that they could barely afford in the first place, outfitted their homes with swimming pools, big screen TVs, and god knows what else, and then bail them out. But unfortunately, it beats the alternative of doing nothing.

It would have been really nice if this plan had included something for people who have never missed a mortgage payment, some treat. But it does not. We just have to deal with the fact that the only benefit we will get from all of this is that by mitigating foreclosures, our property values will benefit, or not suffer as much.

Remember, 50% back in default means 50% worked. Maybe this will all be over in 50% of the time it would have otherwise taken!

Stop whining and let our government try to save us from disaster

Bailout, rescue plan, whatever you want to call it. Congress is getting ready to vote on this $700 Billion plan to try and save the financial world from collapsing. And out comes everyone (including Michael Moore) to whine about it. No! Don't bail out the rich executives who got us into this mess!

Well guess what? We have no choice. Yes, it stinks that the American taxpayer will be footing the bill (at least until the $700B is recouped). Yes, it stinks that the Bush administration created this mess and now is saying fund this or else. But we have no choice.

Why not? What will happen if we don't take action?

Let's recoup recent events. AIG, our biggest insurer - toast. Washington Mutual, 6th largest bank in USA - gone. Wachovia - done. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers - history. Fannie and Freddie? National City...headed down. Stock market - down 20% or so on the year. Crisis catching on in other countries now. Do we really want to just let this play out and see what happens? Don't these people have retirement accounts that they'd like to not see destroyed? Do you really think a world in which we only have a handful of banks to choose from would be good for competitive capitalism?

Stop whining. Pass the bill. What's another $700 Billion when we're already $10 trillion in debt. I'd rather not have the honor of living through Great Depression II.