Barney Frank: “What do we tell the person making mortgage payments why we are trying to help reduce foreclosures? And the major reason…”

“What do we tell the person making mortgage payments why we are trying to help reduce foreclosures? And the major reason is that it is the improvident granting of these loans and the failure of many of these loans to pay off that is the single biggest cause of the financial crisis we're in. And a wide range of economists agree that until we reduce the rate of foreclosures which are embedded in so many securities that were, without regulation, scattered around the economic landscape, we will not be able to undo the economic problem we're in. So foreclosure diminution is part of our economic recovery plan. It also, of course, hurts property values in general.”