Foreclosure of a Dream

Again with the Megadeth, jeez, anyways so they did another song long time ago called “Foreclosure of a Dream” and, yet another song dealing with a very recent issue. It’s kinda funny how this video/song was dealing with the mess during the first Bush’s term in office and is relavent in the current Bush’s term. Go figure.

 

At the moment, there are hundreds of thousands of people being screwed over by lenders and credit card companies all over the U.S. These companies have ridden roughshod over the population without any regulation or intervention from the Congress, and Congress still isn’t going to help any of you.

We’re seeing numerous politicians standing around scratching their heads and wagging their fingers at these financial institutions, telling them “don’t do that” and that’s about it. We’re hearing from presidential candidates, “we’ll freeze interest rates!”, but that’s not going to fix the problem. Predatory lending is at an all time high right now and some of the biggest offenders are some of the largest lenders. Bank of American and Chase tops the list in my opinion. Not only did a lot of these companies rope people into these adjustable rate mortgages, candying it up to look like some sort of manageable system, but they also failed to disclose how things like property tax would affect their mortgages. They prettied it up to look like people could make these payments and “adjust” their interest rates to suit their current situations, but in reality, the only way an ARM goes is up. I guess the banks figured, we’ll get our money for a while then when the interest rates skyrocket on their homes we’ll foreclose and sell them to the next set of fools that come along. Seriously, this is what they were thinking, and our government is SUPPOSED to protect their citizens from this kind of crap.

Another thing companies like Bank of America and Chase are doing is randomly raising people’s interest rates to insane levels simply because “their credit to debt ratio is too high.” Effectively making it so that people cannot pay off their balances, ever. My wife had this happen to her. She made her payments like she was supposed to do, then all of a sudden one day they raised her interest rates from like 12, or 14% (might have even been lower) to a whopping 30%. She called them and they said there wasn’t anything delinquent on her account, they just felt they needed to make sure she never, ever pays off her balances.

So Congress sits down with Bank of America and Chase executives in a Congressional hearing and tells them they’re not being nice. So what!?!? They told Congress, “ok, we won’t do that anymore”. But what about the people you have been screwing over for the past few years? Are you going to lower the interest rates for the people you told “you credit to debt ratio is too high”? Nope, they’re just going to keep on raping the hard working people that pay their bills on time as long as they possibly can. Is Congress going to do anything about it? Nope, they’re just going to wag their fingers and say “shame on you” and leave it at that. Oh, they may play with the prime rates a little here and there, but are the banks going to adjust? Nope, they’re just going to keep making more and more money off the people they’ve already set out to screw over.

Do I think Barack Obama is going to fix this? Probably not. Is Hillary Clinton going to fix it? Absolutely not. Are we ever going to see a Congress that looks out for the working people in this country and protect them from this? Nope, and you know why? Every single one of these companies has their hands in every single politician’s pockets. Why would you lose the perks from these companies by making them reverse their horrible practices?

If either of these candidates want to make a difference in the lives of Americans, they will stop these companies from killing the lives and dreams of the people they want to represent.

On a side note, Bank of America purchased all of Lasalle Bank’s assets here, and well, after a discussion with my boss, and the owner of the company I work for’s dislike of Bank of America, they won’t have our some odd billion dollars worth of bank accounts much longer. Guess they should consider who they screw over a little more carefully. They managed to “close the deal” on losing a good billion dollars worth of buisness by screwing over one of the “average” Americans they’re so bent on stealing from.

Honestly I think the only thing to do at the moment, everyone that deals with Chase and Bank of America, or any of these other predatory lending institutions needs to close their accounts and find someone to sue them out of existence.

~ by g0thicicecream on March 4, 2008.