To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1062116 ) 3/23/2018 1:39:40 PM From: Broken_Clock Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1578228 we would have but action was needed by OBanker and his wall st. buddies to complete the swindlemotherjones.com reuters.com dealbook.nytimes.com newrepublic.com billmoyers.com Obama’s Foreclosure Relief Program Was Designed to Help Bankers, Not Homeowners February 14, 2015 by David Dayen President Obama will carry several legacies into his final two years in office: a long-sought health care reform, a fiscal stimulus that limited the impact of the Great Recession, a rapid civil rights advance for gay and lesbian Americans. But if Obama owns those triumphs, he must also own this tragedy: the dispossession of at least 5.2 million US homeowner families, the explosion of inequality, and the largest ruination of middle-class wealth in nearly a century. Though some policy failures can be blamed on Republican obstruction, it was within Obama’s power to remedy this one — to ensure that a foreclosure crisis now in its eighth year would actually end, with relief for homeowners to rebuild wealth, and to preserve Americans’ faith that their government will aid them in times of economic struggle. Faced with numerous options to limit the foreclosure damage, the administration settled on a policy called HAMP, the Home Affordable Modification Program, which was entirely voluntary. Under HAMP, mortgage companies were given financial inducements to modify loans for at-risk borrowers, but the companies alone, not the government, made the decisions on whom to aid and whom to cast off. In the end, HAMP helped only about one million homeowners in five years, when 10 million were at risk. The program arguably created more foreclosures than it stopped, as it put homeowners through a maze of deception designed mainly to maximize mortgage industry profits. More about how HAMP worked, or didn’t, in a moment.