Is It a Bailout or Bail?

by Howard Bell

It’s easy to hate the financial system that broke itself and most of the world, especially when they need even more of our money.

They simply are not lending and the danger is an ever deeper world economic crisis.

Advice for Obama: “The incoming administration and the Congress are currently discussing a substantial fiscal package that, if enacted, could provide a significant boost to economic activity,” Bernanke said.

“A modern economy cannot grow if its financial system is not operating effectively,” Bernanke said during a speech at the London School of Economics (via marketwatch.com). Basically, he is saying that the banks are central to the crisis and if you don’t fix them now this crisis will get worse.

Bush has already released the last half of TARP, about 350 billion and Obama has every intention of using a part of this for foreclosure relief. It’s clear that we are not sure how to spend this money.

I like the Obama direction of simply investing in America and bringing its infrastructure into the 21st century, but that is long term and we are hurting in the short term.

Bernanke, Obama And The FDIC

Obama and the FDIC:  Obama has assured Congress that a good deal of the new money from TARP Program would be used to help homeowners refi and escape foreclosure. The FDIC’s Blair also has a plan to reduce mortgages and increase workouts so that they are performing according to expectations. Today, the mortgage workouts are re-defaulting at an alarming rate of 50% within the first six months of the work out.

Bush, Bernanke and Paulson

The outgoing administration has refused to use TARP money for foreclosures, insisting that it’s key to shore up the banks, so that they will lend and companies facing a shortage of cash will be able to stay in business and people will pay bills.

Earnings are out for the banks and they are losing a lot of money because more and more are defaulting on credit and car loans as well as mortgages. Citigroup is now below $5…..sad that six months ago it was the largest bank in the world. But Bernanke is warning Obama that most of the remaining $350 billion – and possibly more – has to go to shoring up banks if they are to resume lending at anything approaching normal levels.

What’s not clear to me is, even if you continue to shore up the banking system, that they will loan. The money already given to banks has not really been used to keep the economy’s wheels in motion, but for mergers and bonuses. Quite a pickle…..

Howard Bell PFP CCRM is the founder/editor of Your Property Path.com, featuring over 450 articles on property management, Your Property Path SF, trade talk for the San Francisco real estate industry, and Your Property Path Amazon Store. Howard is a property manager in San Francisco and holds a certification in financial planning.

See Howard Bell’s feature, FDIC’s Plan to Save 4 Million Mortgagors .

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Tags: bailout, credit+crisis, real+estate+investing, real+estate+forms, tenant+background+checks, FDIC, landlords, apartment+owners

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Filed under: AAOA Forum, Financing

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 7:56 am and is filed under AAOA Forum, Financing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. AAOA - American Apartment Owners Association » Obamanomics: The Plan to Save the World said at February 23rd, 2009 at 8:44 am

   [...] Well, few are actually convinced this plan will even pull us out. Personally, I think this is just the prologue to the big event. The Obama team will peer into the banks’ books under the “stress test” mechanism to determine which banks could survive with help and which ones should be let go without taxpayer money.  This is the psychological set up that will allow the Govt to declare the problem is worse than thought. I’m sure we will see a replay of that great film Casablanca, where Claude Rains shuts down Rick’s cafe. “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here…..”   We have spent trillions to prop up the financial system and still it’s a black hole. I think everybody knows that the banks are insolvent. My guess is that we will find trillions more in bad debt or debt that cannot be evaluated.   Once this is out and the damage revealed, the rest of the plan to save the world will be unveiled to a public that is willing to go the distance….this is gonna cost….   Howard Bell PFP CCRM is the founder/editor of Your Property Path.com, featuring over 450 articles on property management, Your Property Path SF, trade talk for the San Francisco real estate industry, and Your Property Path Amazon Store. Howard is a property manager in San Francisco and holds a certification in financial planning.   See Howard Bell’s feature, Is is a Bailout or Bail? [...]

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