CALIFORNIA FORCLOSURES INCREASE 799% OVER SAME PERIOD LAST YEAR
July 25th, 2007Via: Los Angeles Times:
A sagging real estate market and tighter lending standards are exacting a rapidly growing toll on Californians, forcing them from their homes in record numbers, figures released today show.
Foreclosures in the state during the second quarter totaled 17,408, up 799% from the same period last year. The current rate handily eclipsed the previous foreclosure peak set in 1996, when the state was in the final throes of six-year slump.
Research Credit: EG
Posted in Economy | Top Of Page
Does anyone know where “the people forced from their homes are going?” What are they doing? Renting? And if so, renting what? A dastardly thought just came to mind re renting- are the foreclosing banks directing the peoples forced from their homes to the banks/lenders other foreclosed properties? At what – $20 cheaper rent than their mortgage was? Do i doubt it. No. But wish I knew.
This short essay….. http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/HKPC/anarchy.htm …. ended with a prescient question.
Is capitalism organized crime?
Does loaning money on a property which the lender can reasonably expect to be defaulted on, create crime? And is it therefore itself a criminal act in the first degree, which would by design criminalise a third party, and therefore render said third parties innocent of being classed and/or treated as criminal/defaulters and rendering the foreclosure as yet another criminal act?
Would that justify punitive redress in the property being rendered as paid in full to the dispossessed owner?
And Eileen’s “payola/rollover” notion is probably valid too.
As is the notion that information about regular payments on mortgaged properties from mortgagees with no visible means of support/employment history, will be of interest to “alternative lifestyle”/crime investigators/law enforcement offices/spooks.
“Is capitalism organized crime?”
The question is oxymoronic. “True” capitalism (i.e. open markets free of artificial manipulation) is totally disorganized.
Now, your question would make sense if you confuse America’s current crony-capitalist/fascist/socialist/monopolist system with a true Austrian style “free market”.
However, in the end, my answer is the same. I’d rather trust individuals to not be taken advantage of over trusting some government regulator to make sure that *nobody* ever gets taken advantage of – whether the issue be home loans, used cars, computers, food, medicine, or whatever else.