Demand the rental option for foreclosures

[eridani]

http://www.truthout.org/111708A

Politicians often prefer complex solutions to simple problems. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the long list of complicated and convoluted proposals to address the country's foreclosure crisis.

Millions of people face the loss of their homes over the next few years. While the politicians in Congress have developed a wide variety of complex schemes in order to hold back this flood of foreclosures, including one passed into law last summer that provided up to $300 billion guarantees for new mortgages on homes facing foreclosure, none have had much impact thus far.

The unavoidable problem with these schemes is that it is difficult to design a plan that aids families facing foreclosure without giving an incentive to other homeowners to also default on their mortgage. In addition, it is hard to justify taxing the people who are struggling to keep up with their own mortgages in order to help those who default. It is even harder to justify taxing ordinary people to help out the bank executives, who issued hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans.

[susanna]

1. Admitting that I know nothing about all this...

It seems like a keep-it-simple approach to me, but I am interested to hear the opinion of more knowledgeable DUers in this field.

And, eridani - thanks for the article. It is really interesting!