The government got us into this mess and now they need to step back and get out of the way.

So, David, what do you think you’re going to do about it?

It was not the government that “got us into this mess.” It was unregulated free market. Unchecked securitization spread the toxic paper all over the world. Fannie and Freddie were some of the purchasers that got hit in the end.

Anyway, I am opposed to any plan that would spend taxpayer money to “help” borrowers or banks. They made their bed they should sleep in it. It is called “shock therapy.” Shock therapy was strongly recommended by the US and European economists to my former country of USSR when it fell apart. It does not look like Americans have a lot of appetite for that same medicine.

It sounds like your “shock therapy” is another way of saying, “Let the free market take care of it.” Which way do you want it? And, you’re right; this American doesn’t want to see the United States fall apart like the USSR.

I want free market to take care of it with the government regulating it pretty tightly. However, no money should be given to borrowers or banks. No contradiction there. Shock therapy is intended to prevent the US falling apart.

David,

You really need a lesson in recent history.

Tons of money was created by inflated stock and real estate values. This “wealth” was all an illusion, as we now know quite well.

The huge pool of “artificial” wealth was desperate for a good return on investment, especially after Greenspan reduced the Fed funds (interest) rate to 1%.

That’s when mortgage backed securities took off. Everyone and their dog wanted in on them, and so unscrupulous banks, securities traders, and real estate brokers started cooperating to push homes onto anyone who would sign a mortgage. All that mattered to these people was bundling as many mortgages as possible together and selling them off as packages so that they could all line their pockets. Poor suckers who didn’t know any better were sought out aggressively and conned into signing for as large a mortgage as possible, regardless of their ability to pay.

THAT IS WHAT RUINED THE ECONOMY!

GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!

You’ve been pushing the ridiculous Republican talking point for months that “Dems forced Fannie and Freddie to loan to the poor and created the problem.”

This is a lie, lie, lie!

Fannie and Freddie were only a part of the problem, and a small part at that.

it really started in 1998 with the glass/Segel act, which allowed banks to be investing and commercial banks at the same time also making it harder to file for bankruptcy and only up to the last few years did fanny and freddy have a large percentage of mortages when the other banks unloaded what they could on them

, and when the internet bubble busted, investors were looking to find the next big thing and choose housing and real estate, as more banks started lending and receiving high profits from in more investors got involved, along with henge funds, and wall street broker, than loans got easier to give, and it went from having credit and 10 to 20 down with proof of income, to stating your income, to not even verifying your income, cause by that time once your house was sold it was than sold to another broker, who bundle these mortgages and sold them to wall street and henge funs, u took the amount at face value and bought other stocks, firms, and created a complex derivative system that most could not figure out, on top of these mortgage back securities, than came credit swaps that where bets that the person owning the home would fail ,and a form of insurance,but if they called it insurance than the fed would have to regulate it so it was named credit swaps, because this was unregulated but highly profitable at the time most banks thought they would not have to pay and leverage very high without keeping the capital to pay out if they loss, on the credit swap deal. Lemann brothers were over 25 to one like most banks to maximize as much profit as possible, but onces housing prices started to fall that leverage grew and banks couldn’t pay there debt.

I think its a good step to make it easier to file for bankruptcy, this causes greedy mortgages lenders or investor to rather work out a deal than. something needs to be done to help our fellow Americans, this whole deal of let my neighbors house burn its not my problem will not and does not help yourself or others

Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer put political pressure on Fannie and Freddie to buy a ton more subprime loans so the dream of home ownership could be extended to more Americans.

Chuck Dodd and others were getting sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide.

Speculators planted the seeds of their own demise; buying properties by the handful with the expectation of ever rising prices. No poor suckers there, just stupid. This mindset was not unique to them; bankers, rating agencies, homebuyers, regulators and others made the same assumptions.

If the government is effectively lowering principle and interest rates for some, might this move have the effect of raising rates for mortgage holders who are neither “under water” nor on the verge of foreclosure? Someone has to pay for this subsidy, right?

There has been fraud and deception in Mortgage Contracts:
All they have to do is to shift the burden of proof from the distressed home owner with over 31% debt ratio to the whoever is responsible to collect the monthly payments.

Otherwise, the injustice between The Crooks and The Victims will never be settled; and we will see another scam down the road.

Trust me, when you go to the courthouse to see the judge, you are entering in their turf, you have to fight against their lawyers and at their mercy.

Judges should generously “postpone” mortgage payments depending on the amount of misrepresentation in the contracts.

Government has to lower the guideliness to the judges. The overall relief at the lower end and its multiplier effect will dwindle the potential losses of Goldman Sachs and Morgan who hold these mortgages.

People bought homes without reading the paperwork and without having the representation of a lawyer. Who’s to blame for that? Doesn’t matter, we’re all going to pay.

I feel completely ignored. If my wife and I had known that if we bought a bit over our heads, the government would help us later, then we would not be still renting, waiting for housing to be more affordable. We acted responsibly by playing by the old rules – down payments, and not more than a certain amount of our income on housing – so it’s galling that so many others who are now “struggling” will get help, when they were not prudent in the first place.
Chris Z
New York

Both Republican and democrats were responsible for this crisis.

Republicans were responsible for loose credit and deregulation.

Democrats were responsible for funneling that easy money stupidly and irresponsibly

Both of these ingredients are needed to get us to where we are today.

What is the lesson here? => Big government is BAD!

Proof that democrats were complicit:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=democrats%20freddie%20mac%20fanny%20mae&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

Arnold,
The stupid and ignorant were buying homes for decades without this economic catastrophe being created.

The difference between then and recent history is that lenders used to be responsible and cared that borrowers knew what they were getting into and that they were buying mortgages they could afford. Lenders once took seriously the fact that most borrowers were ignorant about borrowing terms, and so stepped up to the plate when it came to lending responsibly.

The lenders and real estate brokers responsible for this mess only cared about taking advantage of the average person’s ignorance and lining their own pockets.

I played by the rules & lived within my means. After the kids left home, I downsized and eliminated my mortgage.

None the less, if my kids do dumb things, I feel their pain and I bail them out if that is the only solution. Likewise, if my fellow citizens made dumb decisions, I feel the pain (my 401k is down $400,000) and I’m obligated to support government initiatives to fix the situation.

The red meat Republicans who say “let’m fail” should fulfill their independent individualistic convictions by moving to Montana and live off the grid.

This whole thing is wrong. All the decisions and rules are made by people Who Have Jobs, Gainfully Employed and Are In No Danger of Being Homeless. And these people are in charge of spreading Government Money Around – indirectly protecting the Scam Artists and asking them to participate with incentives at their convenience. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is a cooked up scam. Look at XYZ Reform Acts of 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. All the credit card companies and holders/packagers of the mortgages and derivatives have protected themselves by reauthering the Reform Acts thru their lobbyists.

We have to stick it back to them, by postponing payments on all sub-prime loans almost accross the board; with no questions asked.

Chris,
Do you and your wife really want to be in the position those mortgage holders find themselves in? You’re in much better shape than they are – probably both financially and mentally. After all this settles out, it may be easier, better for you, to become a homeowner.

Why can’t the elite panel cannot put themselves on the shoes of a family with no income, no lawyer, no money in the bank and has to leave their home by tomorrow morning – and they just arrived to the courthouse, the front door.

Who do they talk to? Who will help them? Will a bancruptcy Judge ever say Hi to them?

Please stop dreaming; we should stop protecting the friends of Rubin, Giethner and Paulson.

My parents taught me that you save for a downpayment, and you put 20% down, even if it takes you years to save the money–you’ll learn fiscal responsibility this way. So that is what I have been doing.
At the same time, for several years, I’ve been reading and listening to experts, including Mr. Schiller, talk about housing prices being out of whack with traditional metrics of valuation. So, again, I decided to wait to buy, rather than get into a risky situation in which I might not be able to meet my fiscal resposibilities.
Why should I be bailing out all these people who didn’t do their homework?

The housing plan seems like a good effort at helping those who are already in a house maintain their ability to pay for that house. So, from the standpoint of maintaining the current status quo, it does a good job.

I am in the apparently tiny minority which thinks we should not be aiming to keep our current system at all. I’ve stood by, watching house values rise as speculators piled into the market, as lenders created new and more bizarre tools for indentured servitude over 30, 40, 50 years… An article in Home and Garden magazine in 1929 advised readers not to take out a mortgage (translated to “death pledge”) of more than five years, warning of “rascals who like to sell people more than they can afford, then deprive them of them when they can’t meet the payments.”

I know that the goal of most folks is to just keep the price of houses from falling even more, but I think the bigger, more ideal goal would be to actually return to affordable, reasonable house prices. This would require setting aside the notion that we are entitled to have our investments grow every year at a remarkable rate, and it would also require those who have already bought into the scheme to lose even more money.

Our government designs programs that reward those who fail. This incentive warps behavior and results in crises like this one.

What about the people who bought houses they could afford, even if it meant no granite and no master suite? My kitchen is 50 years old and I share a bath with my entire family, but bought it because I could afford it without a smoke and mirrors mortgage. So my question is why am I, and all the other people who did the same, paying for people who had to have those things but couldn’t really afford it? Why is my money helping them live in “better” houses than I am? Should I have done the same, then have others pay for my granite? Why are we paying for people who took all their equity and then some to go on vacation or buy expensive cars?
I know some people are in trouble through no fault of their own, and I can understand and support the effort to help them. The irresponsible buyers however should live with their decisions and not have taxpayer money pay for their poor judgement.

every one just stop paying your loan.

Dennis, yes, you are right, but I agree with Warren, and as I said it is really galling that our tax money is bailing out other people’s bad decisions. I foresee higher taxes eventually – and thus, we will all have less for our eventual retirements – quite possibly a gigantic future crisis that might dwarf this one.

If I did my job the way these clowns did theirs I would be fired
why shouldn’t these guys be fired too?

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=democrats%20freddie%20mac%20fanny%20mae&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

$75 billion IS a lot of money, despite what your guest might think. We can’t resign ourselves to spending this amount of money and saying, “well, in the scheme of things, $75 billion is a drop in the bucket . . . .”

I think we should all just start putting the country and its people first and, for that matter, the whole world and its people first. There is a huge systemic economic problem and peoples’ LIVES are at stake. In addition, since what has happened now has never happened in history (the lessons from the Great Depression are limited because of how interconnected the world is now and other reasons), no one is absolutely sure what the “right” measures are. Now, of course, we should question but being mad that a certain individual who “doesn’t deserve it” is going to be helped by the housing measures is ridiculous and shows a total lack of understanding of how deep the crisis is and how is and will affect all of us. Best, Joanna

We homeowners will benefit from the support to house prices that this mortgager-holder bailout will provide. So even if we don’t benefit directly through a bailout ourselves, we do benefit indirectly.

On the other hand, it’s not really fair to cap a person’s mortgage payments far into the future at 31% of income today.

How about phasing out the support over three years? The first year you pay only 31%. After that you’re responsible for progressively more until you’re back to the full payment you originally owed. The progression could be done over three years, for example.

De@dbe@ts that can’t pay their mortage needs to return the property. ITS NOT THEIR HOUSE!! . IT DOES NOT BELONG TO THEM
ANYWAY YOU LOOK AT IT. I’m sick of the media claiming these
people are home owners. The Home owner term should only be restricted to responsible people who paid off their mortage.

These irresponsible people needs to be labeled as LOOTERS
asn SQUATTERS. Not Home owners. DO NOT cheapen the honorable
home owner title

Both those economists kept claiming that helping homeowners and stimulating the economy will boost the economy and help us all. Let me see– you don’t actually have to pay for this because we’ll grow our way out of it– who does that sound like? Didn’t we just do this for years and years, and where exactly did it get us?

I question whether government should be subsidizing home ownership and real estate development. What’s wrong with renting, much of the rest of the world rents including Western Europe. Subsidies encourage over building, suburban sprawl, huge homes occupied by two or three person families, and excessive energy consumption. The subsidies drive up the price of homes and ultimately the price of rental property. The main beneficiaries have been real estate promoters, developers, banks, mortgage companies and the financial services industry. The subsidies divert capital from infrastructure, industry, and alternate energy development. We’ve destroyed many of our great industies, steel, consumer electronics, telecommunications. Let’s subsidize our future which has to go far beyond selling houses.

Dale – it is not obvious to me that even homeowners who pay their bills on time will indirectly benefit from this bail out. This threatens to prolong the housing market downturn by articifically keeping the prices high and keeping houses from the market thereby reducing both the demand and supply. I am not sure which will cave in the end, but I don’t have a good feeling about this one. We may see stagnant market for years to come.

For the record, I am buying a condo now. My closing is at the end of February. I am buying precisely because prices have fallen. I think, only when they fall far enough will we see signs of recovery. This bailout wants to conserve the status quo. I object to that.

I’m not sure whether the stimulus or the bailouts are worth doing. Lately I’m leaning towards believing they are a bad idea. Much of American business, the legislation affecting it, and the American way of life seems backward, and maybe a complete overhaul of everything is in order.

The trick is how to minimize the true suffering. I believe most should be brought to earth in terms of living standards, but many already fallen or low stand to lose their dignity or worse. The amount of money that’s being tendered for this whole mess, some two trillion and growing for bailouts and stimulus (not including interest), could instead help the destitute for the decade or so it might take for reality to sort everything out. The rest of us could maybe rough it, so to speak.

I think perhaps it’s a bad idea to preserve such a screwed up and anachronistic status quo, and we might all be better off in the long run if things are allowed to take a sort of brutal course of natural selection.

The whole bundle is likely sufficient money that a few other real necessities might also be funded or better funded; education, mass transit, and green technology.
Since crime and poverty are the biggest threats we would face from letting commerce sort itself out naturally, and since high gas prices will surely return soon, funding for the destitute, education, and mass transit would be paramount… funding for green technology is just a good idea and would help temper the environmental impact of cost-cutting measures that would result from a compromised economy.

This alternate idea of how to use the two trillion might have saved us from civil unrest and too much suffering, while perhaps saving several hundred billion of the two trillion as well… too late now of course, as the course was already set long ago by Bush and an all too accommodating Congress under both parties.

Question To Ask:

Was it illegal 10 years ago to fool the potential buyers during mortgage process, with difficult to read contract, fine print, no requirement for income, choose your payment options?

Was it illegal to do the same thing two years ago; knowing that there is a very very good chance that the potential buyer cannot make payments?

Anybody who knows the rules and laws and regulations, please help here.

[...] But there are already those asking if it’s big enough to address the sheer scale of the problem. And there are plenty more questions. Today, On Point asks: Who exactly gets help, and who doesn’t? Where does it leave banks? Does this plan get to the root of the economic crisis? [...]

This month’s Atlantic feature article (author Florida)–suggests that foreclosure process should allow (former)owners to rent their homes at market rates, which will be below mortgage payment, for a specified number of years. In general the article suggests removing some of the incentives for home ownership and placing them on renting.Although this comment is far too brief in presenting argument, people might wish to read the full article and debate it.
[I have no connection to the Atlantic.]

In general, I don’t think gov should use taxpayer money (borrow or not) to bail out bad decisions. However, I would make an exception here if there were frauds involved. I would support big help to get them back on track.

There is no fairness in selective bail out…

Why an autoworker is more important than the waiter in my neighborhood diner? They are both in danger of losing their jobs.

Why someone losing their house is more important than someone losing most of their retirement investments?
The ones losing their investments may be hard workers, careful consumers and savers, and contributors to NPR.

Why do people have to buy a new big car when a new small car or used car would do?

To be fair, we should consider the followings instead of the “stimulus” bill and homeowner bailout…

Everyone (all homeowners) pays prime rate. Gov will pay the rate difference to the banks. Banks still set their own rates to be competitive. Banks set higher rates will have less business. The lending stds should be realistic.
For those who have net savings, they can now spend or save.
For those who are still struggling, they may need to move on.

Run this program for a year so everyone is on the same page.

For many years banks were not permitted to make mortgages outside their own region, and monthly payments could not be more than 25% of a family’s income. Deregulating banks (and just about every other industry) and wiping lending policies off the books has hurt everyone; reasonable regulations are important. Without them it is too easy for certain individuals to gain to much power;the history of the world shows that those with too much power do not use it for the greater good. Post depression banking regulations were the foundation for equitable economic growth in this country. But during the last 30 years most all our politicians have acquiesced to the financial industry; AS IF history is not littered with stealing, lying and cheating by the banking industry. If the U.S. gov’t is going to back banks, they have the right and the duty to regulate them and if that doesn’t happen the stimulus bill will certainly be for naught and the housing industry will never recover.

If a person thinks that they want to invest in home ownership, then they need to understand that is an investment like all others and there is risk to it if they have to take a mortgage. Home ownership is expensive, and in our society most people really cannot afford it. Why not just own up to that – let the banks own the housing (as they do anyway), and lease it to people at very low rates tied to their income. In order to qualify people could be required to put a % of their income into a govt savings account so they would be forced to save the amount of money that they would otherwise put into their mortgage and/or home repairs & upgrades. That money could be made available to them after 10 or 15 years and would be a savings for college, retirement or (gasp) simply spending and enjoying what they sacrificed to enjoy?

Another radical idea is to use the state testing systems, and test our students for civic and moral values, and personal finance – critical issues that schools have completely backed away from. I would like our kids to learn how to handle their money, know what an investment is, and what is the difference between good business practices and stealing. If we had a generation that had been taught about that we might not be in the mess we are today.

Most generations WERE taught to be financially responsible. Problem is that its all a big bait and switch con.
Work hard, save your money, buy a house you can afford, only have as many kids as you can support,serve your country, pay your taxes,ssid,unemployment! When time comes to collect there are a million rules why you don’t get your share unless you failed to do any of the above.

Example: pay into unemployment for 30 years and be denied benefits when you get laid off because you take 4 hrs of classes a week to try to improve your marketability.

Example:
Pay into social security for 40 plus years and have your benefit REDUCED (possibly to zero) because you also served your country in multiple combat tours in the military and earned a retirement.( can’t wait to see how the current servicemembers view this, particularly reservists because they get hosed from both ends)

Example: Have the energy and drive to continue working and again have your SS benefit (your money) reduced.

Mr Patterson
“In order to qualify people could be required to put a % of their income into a govt savings account so they would be forced to save the amount of money that they would otherwise put into their mortgage and/or home repairs & upgrades. That money could be made available to them after 10 or 15 years and would be a savings for college, retirement or (gasp) simply spending and enjoying what they sacrificed to enjoy?”
Your kidding right? Just like social security?

Just ask yourself why all the bureaucrats in DC have all their eggs in a different basket than the rest of us and you’ll understand where the fault in all this lies.

This looks like a big black hole that greed, speculation and irresponsible people helped to create. I played by the rules and good common sense and did not help to dig this hole. I stood in watch this disaster coming many years ago,I prepared for it. Nobody could talk sense into people who wanted the world and paid for it with credit. Lets eat, drink and spend for the government will help us out. So once again, we are told in order to solve the problem, we need to fill up the hole with money. The problem is this, the hole is getting bigger by the day. There are more and more needy hands sticking out for cash. We are becoming a nation full of needy people. The hole is getting bigger! No amount of money will fill this hole until we solve the problem of what is creating this hole? My problem is this: I saw it coming, I acted responsibly, I did not help dig this hole! But!!!! My government who stood by and encouraged those who did, wants me to help foot the bill to fill up this black hole with my hard earned money! What a incentive to work hard and reap the fruits of your labor! Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar!

[...] read more | digg story [...]

How about we send a full refund of every person’s taxes from 2008? Say, you paid $30,000 last year. You get that back. If you paid $5,000 – that’s what you get. If you paid nothing – that’s what you get. If you happen to be a homeowner who paid $30,000 you get a big help. If you happen to be a homeowner who paid nothing – you get nothing. That will put some money into the economy and benefit the people who deserve. That’s fair.

yea, that wouldnt increase our national debt, cause states to raise taxes to compensate for your plan,maybe we can ask soilders to work for free, hey since the government cant pay for it using your plan,, hey maybe we can privatize our army, navy, air force let the free market control it. since they have done a great job and thought of the welfare for the country not themselves….. Lets not help people in trouble hey its only there fault not predatory lending right, than when crime sours we can always just build more jails.we can have a oligarchy,if your poor its your own fault, so the rich small elite should have control they are the master of the universe, healthcare…how dare people wish to be healthy right?

Hey, let’s just pay somebody’s mortgage. Nice idea. That will surely improve our fiscal health. There is always next election, though. Be careful.

Perhaps one way to help pay for this program, and peg moral hazard to some form of value, is to have owners who participate in this foreclosure program pay capital gains on any profits on the sale of their home. If I am correct, you currently pay no capital gains after you live in your home 2 years. While it will be a number of years until profits may ever be realized, 10 to 20 years down the road it is conceivable.

This may address the bitterness many of us have. When we sell our house, we will make much less profit than we could have because we were prudent to begin with. I would go nuts if I met someone bragging about the sales profit on his McMansion that he could only realize because my taxes helped him keep his home. Knowing his capital gains tax helps to pay for a future school, mass transit upgrade or affordable housing complex would mitigate my distress.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the same folks now blaming the government for everything are the same ones who pushed for deregulation and touted the big (and now seemingly meaningless) boom in the financial sector (and housing) as the brilliance of the “free” market.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too – whether or not the government was instrumental in creating an environment which better facilitated irresponsible behavior, does not get the institutions that packaged and sold mortgage-backed securities off the hook. It doesn’t give a free pass to banks who lent out $33 to every $1 and rubber-stamped every loan request that came their way – seriously are you kidding me?

It’s especially irritating to hear this line of logic (if you can even call it that) coming from conservatives – isn’t one of your core ideologies personal responsibility? Oh but I guess that only applies to folks who got laid off, can’t pay their mortgage, have kids to feed, etc. Where the hell is compassion (or was the whole “compassionate conservative” thing a trendy little phase for you guys?)? Lotta folks seem pretty comfortable saying “tough luck” to families that made a mistake or miscalculated. Really? That’s the line you wanna take?

Personally I’m MUCH more comfortable keeping families afloat and in their homes than I am chucking more cash at Wall St. or paying a couple hundred bucks less on my taxes.

I understand the natural selection theory, at times it works, but at times it doesn’t.

Say for instance, if natural selection has always been the rule of the game, then why should we risk our lives to save other people’s life? Why do we feel good about doing things to help others (of course, there are exceptions of people don’t give a damn about helping others, and ironically those selfish people always survive and somehow live longer at the end). Have you ever wonder why there’s no one set of rule to stay in the game, those rules alters. But there’s one way to keep the game going is “balance”. Expansion and contraction, this economy expanded beyond itself can handle, it’s contracting now, and the process of balancing itself won’t be pretty.
This bubble economy was made up artificially, and it can be fixed to some extend by artificial injection of money, but the damage has been done, it will require a long time to run its course.

I am always puzzled by how our education has polarized each course by history/geography/chemical/physics/economy…etc…. What we should do is to inject the law of balance and at least the consequence of human behavior and the law of nature in teaching economy. Say for instance, if a economy system is based on short term gain, and that’s dangerous not only to our economy, but also bad for our natural resources and environment. If the world economy is heavily based on consuming, there are only so much we can take from natural resources, when those sources are running out, all the money we got are worth nothing but bunch of recycle papers!

Are you ready for THIS!!!!! First we bail out freddy and fannie, and now that they are handling all or most of the refi’s in this country they have maganged to raise their FEES and CHARGES!!!! When the rates got to 4.85 we decided to refi – we are not behind in any of our bills, no one is knocking at the door for unpaid bills, but since the government has trashed our economy and everything – literally – has gone up in price – saving a few bucks on our mortage was a timely and good idea! So we go to the bank, our bank, we have long good standing with this bank, our credit in the mid 700’s – and normally, because we are GOLD members – a refi would have cost us NOTHING!!!! Except a few hundred for processing fees – we’ve earned that! But NOOOOOOOO, Fannie and Freddy, remember them – we BAILED them out – and so we get F___ed again!!!!! Our no cost refi cost us over $4000.00 and they wanted HALF up front. The same company Americans bailed out so they could stay in business and under the watchful eye of President Change – they put it to us!!!!! That’s TREASON and Fannie and Freddy should be LOCKED UP!!!!! So much for helping people refi – we were fortunate – we borrowed the cash from our taxes to cover the refi – how many people won’t have the cash up front to refi – and whats up with this cash up front crap for a refi – it goes on the tail end of the loan or at least for the 53 years I’ve been alive!!!??? This is Bovine Scatology in its purest sense.. So much for CHANGE!!!!!