Word: interests
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Under the new plan, servicers, the companies that collect mortgage checks, will be paid $1,000 every time they cut the interest rate on a loan to reduce the monthly payment to no more than 38% of a borrower's gross income. The government will split the cost of reducing the debt-to-income ratio further than that, down to 31%. Both servicers and borrowers will be paid up to $1,000 a year (for three and five years, respectively) for keeping the loan current...
...between helping borrowers who have been caught off guard by tricky mortgage products and falling house prices and those who simply made imprudent decisions and genuinely can't afford their homes. In order to avoid propping up the second group, Treasury won't subsidize loan modifications that reduce the interest rate below 2%. If you can't afford a 2% mortgage, in the eyes of the government, you can't afford your house. The plan also doesn't apply to investors or people with jumbo mortgages - those, historically, larger than $417,000. Loans for homes that would be more valuable...
...avoid moral hazard, though, might make the plan less effective in stemming the tide of foreclosures. "This goes a long way but not far enough," says Bruce Marks, who runs the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, a nonprofit that works with servicers to restructure loans. After five years, the interest rate on modified loans can rise again, up to the industry average when the change is made, even if that pushes borrowers above the 38% payment-to-income ratio. The plan encourages but does not require servicers to make adjustments to principal balance - the generally acknowledged best way to keep...
...alike. It's also one that even Burris has now contradicted. While saying "I have absolutely nothing to hide - I have done nothing wrong," Burris acknowledged this week that he in fact did attempt, albeit unsuccessfully, to raise cash for the embattled governor even as he was making his interest in the potential appointment known, though he maintained there was nothing improper about his actions. "I welcome the opportunity to go before any and all investigative bodies," he told reporters Tuesday...
...maddening and bullying ideologue. (As far as the rest of the world is concerned, so was Bush.) And so are all the other anti-U.S. strongmen out there, from North Korea to Iran, with whom Obama believes he should grit his teeth and engage in the interest of U.S. security. To avoid doing in Latin America what he deems sensible in the Middle East and Asia would repeat Washington's careless habit of treating the continent in ways that helped give rise to the Castros and Chávezes in the first place. The best way to disarm...