Is your home worth more than your mortgage? For many Americans that is not the case and they fall further and further behind in their payments.

Yet why did so many Americans obtain mortgages they should not have?

Have you wondered why you can’t pick up a paper today without reading about someone having their home foreclosed on and what caused that problem?

The number of Americans behind on their mortgage payments keeps increasing. For some- they obtained mortgages they could not keep up with. Many mortgages were given to people who could not repay. According to panelist: Richard Bitner,” the mortgage industry is essentially a food chain-

Borrowers on one end and investment banks, rating agencies and securitization on the other. Mortgages were bundled and sold off to investors world wide under the belief they would perform better than they did. There was a belief that mortgages were low risk, like bonds.”

Panelist: C.K. Lee adds “ People owning homes is a good thing. Everyone from the President to mortgage bankers have said so- BUT- But there was a flawed premise behind this . The problems started with investment banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac- operating under the auspices of government.”…

In this program we’re going to examine, in simple language, all the mistakes and fraud that led us to where we are today and the many causes of the mortgage debacle.

Panelists include:

• C.K. Lee –Managing Director; Commerce Street Capital
• Richard Bitner- Author; Confessions of a Sub Prime Lender

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1903 – 2.20.11

In this segment of McCuistion, host Dennis McCuistion is joined by a panel of experts:

• Stan Liebowitz, PhD., author of Anatomy of A Train Wreck & Director for the Analysis of Property Rights and Settlement
• Richard Bitner, author of Confessions of a Subprime Lender and Associate Publisher for Housing Wire Magazine
• Robert Higgs, author of Crisis and Leviathan and Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute

Unemployment is rising, stocks have fallen 35%, every area of industry is challenged, credit is tight, foreclosures are on the rise, and no-one admits responsibility. This program explores the greed, fraud and incompetence in all areas of business and government. It asks if the remedies being applied by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System (Fed) are the right ones and if, in fact, those in charge have any idea what they are doing to America’s economic future.

Experts point toward the mortgage industry and Wall Street as the source of the recession we’re in today and explain how the recession actually  started. Approximately 30-40 years ago getting a loan consisted of one loan recipient going to his or her local bank and completing the entire transaction through that one bank.  With the introduction and growth of securitization, which in itself isn’t a bad thing, a new era of issues were created.

In the early 1990s in an effort to get more Americans into homes, the Fed lowered lending standards to increase home ownership.  People no longer had to have verifiable income, strong credit history, and more.  This caused the demand for houses to go up and the prices of those houses increased right along with it. The panelists further explain the types of decisions and misinformation that took place during this time that led to the mishandling of the situation.

The experts   cover the role  investment banks have played, look critically at Wall Street and rating agencies, and examine the issues surrounding  both entities  decisions and actions.

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02.08.09 – 1722

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