Thursday, September 13, 2012

I dearly hope this will return home and property values to the consumer.

I find myself wishing the Fed did this will QE1 and QE2. We might be out of the doldrums by now. I also hope there is somewhat no option for the banks egregiously taking consumers for a ride. In particular, Bank of America. They need to sell of their mortgage interests to the Fed. BOA is not a good lender, they have no desire to invest in their personnel's expertise to refinance struggling homeowners. I hope this works to the advantage of all those seeking relief from difficult financial circumstances and homes now currently devalued.

I previously have pointed to the lethargic nature of BOA in regard to consumers seeking refinancing under the government programs. BOA is not doing that at all or they are only on occasion choosing a home they know won't go into foreclosure if they refuse to refinance long enough. BOA is terrible and they hold a large number of struggling homeowners.

The refinancing is not that difficult either. I stated previously family is working within this banking practice and finds the steps in refinancing fairly straight forward. There are no secret doors or trap floors in this process. If there were I would be outraged by it.

When this all first occurred there was confusion and some malpractice in banks unwilling to invest in their staff, but, this process is self taught and all one has to do is go the the federal government and they direct people to 'web classrooms' where the process is explained and exampled. This is not difficult for people to learn, they simply have to be directed to the correct government site to learn the process and begin paperwork.

Unlike their peers, BOA just doesn't want to be bothered. I realize there is incentive to do this, or at least most reasonable people would expect the refinancing to be an incentive, but, this bank is horrible.

Wasn't Warren Buffet that stepped in with $5 billion to bailout BOA? I thought it was BOA. Mr. Buffet needs to protect his investment and seek fact finding within BOA to realize what the problem is exactly. There really should not be one.

The refinancing options open to homeowners would save their investment to date and provide more cash in hand to recover their personal circumstances. So, this is not a minor topic.

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer  / September 13, 2012
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve unleashed a series of bold and open-ended steps Thursday to stimulate the economy by making it cheaper for consumers and businesses to borrow and spend.
The Fed said it will spend $40 billion a month to buy mortgage bonds for as long as it deems necessary to make home buying more affordable. It plans to keep short-term interest rates at record lows through mid-2015 — six months longer than previously planned. And it’s ready to take other unconventional steps if job growth doesn’t pick up.
A statement from the Fed’s policy committee said it thinks ‘‘a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the economic recovery strengthens.’’...

There is no issue of inflation. The currency is not going to deflate and cause WW III. Promise. The inflation that exists now is from the petroleum industry. Across the consumer horizon there are impacts from the petroleum industry. Then there is the Climate Crisis. Crops did very poorly in the early half of the summer growing season. In Michigan, due to a heat bubble from Texas, the cherry growers experienced a lot of damage to their crops occurring in March. The subsequent return to freezing temperatures have reduced the cherry crop to about 10% of the usual yield. It was due to climate. Absolutely.

So, the idea the Fed is going to cause inflation is silly. There are bigger players to inflation than the Fed at this point. Dare I say Wall Street.

...The statement was approved on an 11-1 vote. The lone dissenter was Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, who worries about igniting inflation....

One of the worst problems in the USA when it comes to joblessness is the fact Congress refuses to act in a way that is meaningful. Voters tend to think why did we ever need The American Jobs Act because, like the Recovery Act, when the money runs dry we will be back where we began. That is false.

Investment into the American economy stimulates growth. Once growth occurs it takes on a life of its own. A prime example are the infrastructure projects and the changes in bonds and support for small contractors to move into venues of larger projects. That is a permanent change. It would have placed American contractors in a place where they could bid on larger projects into the future. It would have changed the venue for them and made them better competitors in the market place. The jobs that single legislation would have created would be permanent and it would have been in the construction business.

The refurbishment of older buildings, especially in areas of education, would have been permanent improvements to classroom size and would have employed more teachers in the long view. If a city has more viable buildings to include in their number of classrooms and assembly areas, it would have created short term construction jobs, but, long term teacher and administrative jobs. It would have reduced the size of classes and improved the success of the students.

That is another thing, those attacking teacher's unions and imposing some arbitrary test standard to leverage influence with teachers employed and not are grossly "W"rong in their approach. The simple FACT the class size effects student outcomes is one of the best reasons why a teacher cannot be held responsible for student outcomes. No matter how good a teacher is in the classroom, if it is difficult in teaching due to the number of students, then they all suffer and test scores will be eschewed. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, such actions by legislative bodies assaults the bargaining process and places false values in the way of student's learning.

Demanding false focus for teacher evaluations could dismiss the better teachers while the poorer teachers simply teach to the test. 

One of the aspects of this voucher stuff that goes on is the willingness for charter schools or otherwise to tear down the public school system as broken, yet, most of the private / charter schools don't teach to a test. They don't evaluate their teacher's performance as to how tests are used or how successful students are in respect to tests. Most of the these schools have far smaller classroom size and the grades on the report card reflect very successful students.

It is wrong to abandon the public schools believing private or charter schools are the answer. That is not the case and it is a false measure of success. When a public school room reflects the same advantages of other schools and they are still failing, then decisions can be made about effective and ineffective teaching staff. But, until the public schools are refurbished of function there is no alternative for some parents but to seek alternatives.

One has to ask, are the Republicans so focused on failure of our public institutions that our children are actually pawns in this hideous game? I would not put that past any politician that operates on 'political juice' rather than facts and expertise.

Let's hope this 'edition' of the Fed money works to benefit the consumer and increases property values while relieving banks to LEND more to small businesses and consumers at reasonable rates in THE USA!