On the recordMay 24, 2010
In each of the last 14 years, Ohio has set a record for the number of foreclosures, and this year is on track to be no exception. Every year a new record. That is hard to imagine, and not what I want to say about my home State. Over the last 2 years, Congress has passed what I call hollow legislation that looks like it might stem the tide of foreclosures, but clearly the programs were not intended to work. Then, next, Treasury decided to make homes affordable, they say, by using some of the TARP bailout money, the Troubled Asset Relief Program that was passed back in the fall of 2008 to bail out the Wall Street speculative banks. According to The Wall Street Journal last week, of the handful of homeowners who have now been so-called 'helped' by Treasury out of the millions and millions that are in trouble, even Treasury's reported that only one in four of the few helped to try to get their mortgage payment to be affordable have now been even more weeded out of that program. This is like the great shrinking blimp. You sort of promise them everything, but give them nothing, and the gas just drains right out of the balloon. The overall program in fact is voluntary and aimed to protect the investor, not the homeowner.
