News You Won't Hear Much About
Federal deficit plummets:
WASHINGTON -- The federal deficit for the first five months of the budget year is down sharply as growth in tax collections outpaced spending increases.
The Treasury Department says the shortfall from October through February totaled 162-point-two billion dollars. That's a drop of 25 and a-half percent from the same period a year ago.
For the budget year that began October First, revenues are up by nine-point-three percent while the rise in spending was two-point-three percent.
WASHINGTON -- The federal deficit for the first five months of the budget year is down sharply as growth in tax collections outpaced spending increases.
The Treasury Department says the shortfall from October through February totaled 162-point-two billion dollars. That's a drop of 25 and a-half percent from the same period a year ago.
For the budget year that began October First, revenues are up by nine-point-three percent while the rise in spending was two-point-three percent.
posted by Capitalist Infidel at Tuesday, March 13, 2007
7 Comments:
well, then, since you're all so healthy and wealthy, you won't mind the repeal of the tax cuts, then
No, you won't hear much about it. If it was due to the good sense of the democrats it would be splashed all over the newspapers, be the main topic on television, etc. They just can't admit our party can do anything good.
well, your party can't (as demonstrated by the impending recession, real estate bubble burst, and unprecendented foreclosure stats due to subprime loans farmed out to china, under the direction of the bush crime family)
keep ranting on, dear
I rarely respond to far left wing fanatical kooks like Hash but his statement here shows the total lack of critical thinking skills amongst democrats. House foreclosures are at an all time high? Of course they are, home ownership is at an all time high. That's simple mathematics
i rarely POST to fascist anti-american psychos like you
but explain how record home ownership is good for america, when subprime loans and foreign control of record debt are at the root of it
Poor hash needs a math lesson, maybe addition 101.
As a mortgage consultant myself, I'll offer my take on the foreclosure problem. Do with it as you will...
The problem, as I see it, is threefold. There will naturally be other factors in play here, but these three stick out to me as someone who does this for a living.
The first problem is the banks. In an effort to capitalize on the housing boom of a few years ago, subprime lenders started offering programs with extremely loose qualifying guidelines to everyone and their mother in order to win business. Many of these loans were set up as 2 or 3 year ARMs, meaning the interest rates on these loans would only be fixed for 2 or 3 years before becoming adjustable.
Which leads to the second problem - loan officers. Obviously, LO's wanted to cash in on these programs themselves, so they aggressively sold them to their customers, many of whom were desperately over-extended and needed to refinance in order to consolidate their debts and avoid bankruptcy. The problem is, many LO's checked their ethics at the door and never disclosed the potential risks involved with these programs, nor did they properly instruct their clients on sound financial strategies to get themselves back on their feet and avoid the same mess they got themselves into in the first place.
Which leads to problem #3 - the customers themselves. As a result of either not being properly instructed, or simply not caring enough to follow said instructions, customers let old spending habits creep up once the refinancing process was completed. Think of the temptation - you walk out of the closing office and all your debts are now consolidated onto your mortgage. Good deal, right? Well, it should be, but if you completely ignore the fact that you now owe more on your home itself - even if you've reduced your total outgoing debts due to the consolidation - then you've set yourself up for a fall if you let yourself fall into the same irresponsible credit card spending habits you were in before. Especially if you've put yourself into an ARM that reaches its adjustable stage and you've let your other debts get out of hand again and no longer qualify for the same refi program you did a couple years ago, which was supposed to fix this problem. Now you're stuck, and before you know it the sheriff is auctioning off your house.
It's this pattern that has the housing market in trouble. Other factors, like unrealistic property values, definitely play a role, but the main problems could have been avoided if lenders would have been a little more responsible and not recklessly approved so many applicants that had no chance of maintaining their financial obligations, whether it was their own fault or not. The deck was stacked against so many of them from the get go.
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