Being a businessman I seldom delve into politics in this platform, but it is clear to me that part of the problem in affecting a sustainable recovery is a lack of political will in our current leadership, including the White House, after reading this gem in the Times on the foreclosure fraud crisis:
the Obama administration has resisted calls for a more forceful response, worried that added pressure might spook the banks and hobble the broader economy.
So we’ll just spook the borrowers, who are already hammered and traumatized. Protect the banks. Look, I am a brazen capitalist and this is insanity. Insanity! And both parties are culpable.
In our local elections, state Senator Suzi Oppenheimer has been devoting the bulk of her campaign to going negative on challenger Bob Cohen, accusing him of being a slumlord, among other things. Cohen, who apparently owns a number of buildings in the Bronx, is having tenant complaints and other dirty laundry aired by Ms. Oppenheimer in her bid for re election. This skirts the real issues. Cohen, a real estate guy, for all his blemishes might actually have more insight into our problems than the Senator, who has been in Albany since 1985. This is not an endorsement. It is conjecture. But neither candidate is addressing the issues facing the electorate while we discuss the man’s apartment buildings.
Late last night, in a post entitled Short Sales are the Answer, I said the following:
It is a shame that there is no political will on either side of the isle to hold lenders feet to the fire to affect meaningful change, and defaulted homeowners must contend with a mad race to work a miracle with an uncaring, unresponsive monolithic entity before that monster forecloses, repossesses their home, wrecks their credit and crushes their dreams. This is not progress.
In reading this morning’s NY Times on the White Houses sheepishness (Hey Mr, Obama, can you pretend that Bank of America is General Motors?) and reflecting on Ms. Oppenheimer’s electioneering in lieu of addressing her constituents’ pain, my words are all too sadly true. Forget Washington for a moment. This is Westchester County’s state senate seat. This is our representative in Albany.
Show me someone up for election with the guts to stand up to lender’s unwillingness to change their architecture against short sales, which are a huge part of the solution, and G.O.P., Democrat or Martian, they’ll have my vote.
