Arkady's Thoughts

Yesterday Obama's foreclosure plan was unveiled and today House passed a bill that allows bankruptcy judges to modify loans . As of now Harry Reid plans to pull over spineless liberal GOP members to shove another travesty upon responsible Americans. If you are wondering why anyone would oppose a bill that apparently helps the housing a crisis, a leading catalyst of our current financial malaise, let me explain. First of all, despite all of Obama's lies as of now it does not appear that any programs or any provisions reward people who were responsible. He has said on multiple occasions that his plan will not only help struggling homeowners, but in the spirit of equality our dear leader indicated that the rest of us will not be left in the dust. As of now, we are left in the dust and worse yet, we are on the hook for all the unfortunate souls who were too stupid to read English language of the mortgage terms they were signing. Meanwhile because my CC company lost my payment a...

My heart has always been with Wall St. as it represents to me the quintessential free market enterprise. Anyone can participate, rich or poor, you can be in or can be out, all you have is your money and your wit. You can prosper with everyone, be broke with everyone or any combination of the four, the world is your oyster. The market is also a fantastic fortune teller, for it's entire purpose is to predict and anticipate and so far it has been predicting and anticipating the worst for the Obama administration. Sure the market over reacts, is subject to insider trading, corruption, etc, but so is human nature and human nature is precisely what makes the market tick. CNBC is not my favorite station, but it is one of the most popular cable stations for financial needs and though they typically discuss trivialities, they do interview capable and intelligent traders. Every day they also have a segment where they discuss different sectors including happenings in Chicago where the commod...

I must say that the GOP has been a massive disappointment for the past 8 or so years, but they are really impressive recently and much of the thanks can be given to Obama whose magical powers include spinal reconstruction. Specifically Eric Cantor the Republican whip, credited with rallying the House GOP against the Stimulus bill, has with John Boehner posed several questions for Obama. I personally see this bill flying through as too many Republicans are obsessed with stopping the housing meltdown at whatever cost, but I am happy to see them get vocal. Aim is to spend 75 billion to shore up 9 million mortgages in an effort to thwart our country from the continuing housing meltdown. Courtesy of CNN, here are the questions. • What will your plan do for the over 90 percent of homeowners who are playing and paying by the rules? • Does your plan compensate banks for bad mortgages they should have never made in the first place? • Will individuals who misrepresented their income or asset...

Today is the much anticipated unveiling of the Obama's administration to stem the foreclosures, a development I will be watching very closely. As of now the price tag is coming in at 75 Billion, which after the gargantuan pork monstrosity does not seem like a high number. The basic principle is to save people who are now holding mortgages they can no longer pay, most likely ARMs whose rates have jumped. Due to housing values dropping and equities vanishing a lot of the people are stuck in houses and have no ability to refinance. The plan as of now calls for 50 Billion from existing bailout money, although it is unclear as to which bailout we are talking about. For example the stimulus package allocates over 13 billion to section 8 housing, public housing and low-incoming housing, so will this be an additional 50B more? Or will this be coming from TARP? If it's coming from TARP, then this certainly violates the original principle behind the program - that is to shore up banks an...