Advice for visiting congressional commission
| Friday, Sep 03 2010 07:44 PM
Last Updated Friday, Sep 03 2010 07:44 PM
In anticipation of this morning's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearing in Bakersfield -- a hearing that will include local bankers, real estate professionals, construction executives and others -- we asked readers for their thoughts on the causes of and potional solutions to the meltdown of the U.S. economy.
The hearing, to be held starting at 9 a.m. in the Board of Supervisors chambers at the County Administrative Center, 1115 Truxtun Ave., will be the first hearing outside of Washington, D.C., and New York. The panel, whose vice chairman is former Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Bakersfield, also wants to hear from the general public about how the nation's financial crisis has affected them.
The commission was created by Congress to investigate the economy's collapse and is due to produce a report on lessons learned by Dec. 15.
Some of the written comments received at The Californian's office:
We are a retired couple living on Social Security retirement benefits, as we worked all our lives and are now unemployed. Due to our financial situation, we have opted to enroll in the government sponsored Home Mortgage Modification Program offered to us by our mortgage holder, Nationstar Mortgage LLC in Texas. Our mortgage was sold to them by Flagstar Mortgage earlier this year.
We live in a Del Webb retirement community and love our home. We always paid our mortgage on time but with my recent unemployment we were worried we would probably be unable to make the payment. Nationstar promised that with this program they could substantially lower our mortgage but would cause our loan balance to go up. We fully understand this and want the peace of mind of having our home made affordable. We are starting this trial program this month, and it continues until February 2011. At that time they will look at current interest rates and give us a new modified loan which they promise will be close to our reduced monthly payment. We do have to make our trial payments on time each month.
Recently we read that this government program is a scam by the lenders. The lender has no intention of lowering the mortgage payments to make the home affordable. They will push us to doing a hort sale or foreclosure. An article in The Californian on Sept. 1 by Glenn Porter of Re/Max Realty claims this to be the case from his perspective. The government's Making Home Affordable Program is not what banks want to do, but rather "short sales" for which they receive tax dollars. My wife and I are very concerned, needless to say, about all of this.
Can this hearing please address this issue that concerns many unemployed Americans? This is shameless to citizens that have worked all their lives to retire in their homes without being forced out by greedy lenders using the government as their cover.
EDWARD and IRMA LEAHY
Bakersfield
In the wake of the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression, the president signed into law on May 20, 2009, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009, creating the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The Commission was established to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." The FCIC has 22 listed purposes. The objectives are wide-ranging in scope, giving the commission areas it needs to investigate. What I feel needs to be contained in the final document are the following:
* The Chronology of Events. This should include a time line on the "domino effect."
* The Players. This should include SEC, FED, Treasury, ratings companies, banking institutions.
* The Causes of the financial meltdown: Rules bent and lack of oversight.
* The Remedies: Laws, penalties. What The Californian is requesting from "the public" on the effects of the financial meltdown have been the grist in the media mill for 2 years now.
Bank failures, housing mortgage break-downs, unemployment, business failures. Crashing pension and 401(k) values. The contagion around the world from falsely rated Triple -A -rated bond issues.
I hope this commission's report doesn't become another "Dog-and-Pony" show, giving the weak-kneed officials and politicians cover for their ineptness in doing the people's business. This voice from "The Streets of Bakersfield" wants to see perp-walks, Glass-Stegall banking laws re-enacted, serious fines imposed. I want to see politicos get a spine or get voted out. I want The Californian to carry meatier stories on this issue.
I want the people to understand what has happened to them in the name of capitalism. Wall Street has nearly run America into the ground. They have bankrupted us with their greed in the name of free markets.
VAN CURRIE
Bakersfield
What? Another commission created by Congress? How much are we paying each of the 10 members of this Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission? How much for expenses? How much for travel and benefits? Don't we already have several government agencies that Congress forces us to pay for that oversee banking, investment and federal regulation? This commission sounds like another "busywork" program for unemployed, retired politicians to pick up an extra check at the expense of us, the U.S. taxpayers.
Has Congress been living in a closet for the past 20 months? If they don't know that it's their out-of-control spending and runaway legislating that's destroyed our economy, then they need to be fired for total incompetence. They must otherwise believe that the citizens of this country are completely ignorant of the criminal actions that they've committed since the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, which resulted in the recession starting later that same year.
Now, all of a sudden, they wish to "hear the voice of Main Street" this morning at the Kern County Board of Supervisors' chambers? They obviously haven't been listening to the people for months! This commission is a bold faced slap-in-the-face to the taxpaying citizens of the United States of America by an arrogant, pompous bunch of elitist dictators from the District of Criminals in Washington.
BILL CURTIS
Bakersfield
