The Candy Crappin' Unicorn™'s "Plan"

The Financial Times reports: Obama home rescue plan welcomed.

The US Treasury on Wednesday unveiled the details of Barack Obama’s housing ­rescue plan, which will pay mortgage servicers to modify troubled home loans while reducing borrowers’ interest rates to as low as 2 per cent.

In an effort to ensure that a relaxation of mortgage terms is only given to borrowers who need them, those hoping to qualify for changes will have to fully document their income and sign an affidavit declaring financial hardship.

Servicers, which collect home loan payments and work with troubled borrowers, will have to conduct detailed assessments of a borrower’s ability to pay and adhere to strict reporting requirements in order to collect incentive payments from the Treasury. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-run mortgage financiers, will administer the programme to ensure that servicers only receive payments for successful mortgage modifications.

This is one of the most cynical ploys the EE has ever seen.

Even if these people could pay, they are far better off just handing the keys back to the bank and buying a place in the future. No amount of "interest-rate differential" for five years can make up for the fundamental fact that prices are collapsing.

In fact, they are far better off just walking away, and not looking back.

What this really is is a plan to keep the people who are already in "financial hardship" in hock to the bank. Simply put, they are mortgage slaves who are toiling away month after month to keep their bank in solvency. If they just walked away, they would be able to rent for less, and have a lot more disposable income to boot which they could save to buy a house in the future.

If this be liberalism from the Candy-Crappin' Unicorn™ then the EE has no fuckin' clue what the "right-wing" really looks like.

This is about as illiberal a plan as it gets, and since the EE is really a pragmatic "liberal" at heart, this really pisses him off!