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Borrowers exit troubled Obama mortgage program: This is very much a tie-in to yesterday’s post about the family struggling to keep a home they probably couldn’t afford.  Their plucky lawyer got them into Obama’s loan modification program, but, I argued, they were still in an untenable financial position.

This article tends to back me up.

More than a third of the 1.24 million borrowers who have enrolled in the $75 billion mortgage modification program have dropped out. That exceeds the number of people who have managed to have their loan payments reduced to help them keep their homes.

[…] A major reason so many have fallen out of the program is the Obama administration initially pressured banks to sign up borrowers without insisting first on proof of their income. When banks later moved to collect the information, many troubled homeowners were disqualified or dropped out.

[…] Even after their loans are modified, many borrowers are simply stuck with too much debt — from car loans to home equity loans to credit cards.

"The majority of these modifications aren’t going to be successful, […] Even after the permanent modification, you’re still looking at a very high debt burden."

And there you have it.  This will likely sound very elitist and heartless, but a lot of people need to face reality rather than desperately struggling to hang on to a McMansion they have no business living in.  Just because your loan gets modified, doesn’t automatically mean you‘ve started living within your means.

Often, there’s less stress in just admitting you purchased a home way above your income level.  In these cases, if you can’t sell, perhaps foreclosure would be better in the long run.  Otherwise, you continue paying larger-than-normal mortgage payments on a house you ultimately cannot keep.

More college-educated jump tracks to become skilled manual laborers: We’ve discussed this here before – in the U.S., college is traditionally defined as the one true goal, and anything less is considered…well, less.  This needs to change.

Economists and labor scholars […] point to policymakers, guidance counselors and parents who don’t value the trades and overvalue college as the gateway to success. As a result, American students come to trade apprenticeships relatively late, often after they’ve already tried college. The average age of the beginning apprentice in the United States is 25; in Germany, 18.

"It’s hard to get high school counselors to point anyone but their not-very-good students, or the ones in trouble, toward construction," said Dale Belman, a labor economist at Michigan State University. "Counselors want everyone to go to college. So now we’re getting more of the college-educated going into the trades."

In many cases, college is over-valued.  There are a lot of people who shouldn’t go to college because it’s not necessary for what they want to do with their lives.  But they feel pressured into it, and stumble out four years later, deeply in debt (or, worse, two years later, also in debt but with no degree).

This is symptomatic of how the U.S. has destroyed our manufacturing base.  We sent manufacturing overseas because the U.S. was going to embrace the “information economy,” where everyone worked in an office and no one ever got their hands dirty.  We need to raises our expectations and perception of the trades.

Consider:

Taylor was accepted into an apprentice program run by unions for plumbers, pipe fitters and sprinkler installers. He now works for a mid-size construction firm in Maryland and vacations in Europe.

Apprentices start out getting paid half the scale for experienced workers, with raises every six months. Ultimately, many make as much or more as they would in jobs requiring a college degree. Licensed journeymen can expect to be paid $65,000 to $85,000 a year, depending on overtime.

Makes you look at plumbers a little differently, doesn’t it?

Could It Be That the Best Chance to Save a Young Family From Foreclosure is a 28-Year-Old Pakistani American Playright-slash-Attorney who Learned Bankruptcy Law on the Internet?: This is an admittedly entertaining story of a rookie lawyer who sets out to save a family from foreclosure.  It details his months-long fight with Wells Fargo to get their mortgage loan modified.

He has a running metaphor in the article about wrestling with a sh*t-covered bear, and even throws in some references to Rocky along the way.  He’s writes it as the classic underdog story.

But there’s a problem – the homeowners admittedly bought a house they couldn’t afford, by filing a fraudulent loan application.

Adjustable interest rates were initially low, thereby enticing borrowers with a promise of low monthly payments. When asked what would happen if the rate "adjusted" and the payments increased, borrowers like the Lipkins were told, "Oh, don’t worry, by that time your property will have significantly appreciated. You can always refinance the loan and take money from the growing equity."

"We just did what the bank said to do," explained Natalie. "Our broker said, ‘Here, sign this paper and you’ll get the loan.’ So we did. We wouldn’t have qualified otherwise."

That same broker was the one who referred them to me to save their home from foreclosure.

On the stated-income loan, the bank claimed Carl was making $25,000 a month. In reality, Carl was netting a salary of $26,000—a year.

Now, loan fraud aside, I just have trouble with the resolution here.  In the end, the valiant attorney saves the family from foreclosure by getting their loan modified, but they’re still living in a house they can’t afford.  It was purchased at $585,000, then had its value reduced to $270,000.’

The Lipkins eventually have their loan payments reduced to – I think – reflect the new value of the house, but based on the income figures I see in the article, they still can’t afford it.  Even a $270,000 mortgage at prevailing interest rates is a really big monthly payment.

Early in the article, the wife says:

"I partially blame ourselves for this," Natalie added. "But then again, I also blame the economy. And I also blame the banks. Ever since we got in trouble, we’ve been trying to work with them! I want to keep my home. I want to stay in my home. I’ve tried to keep my home! I want to raise my children in my home."

It’s hard not to be sympathetic, but I think they’re fundamentally trying to keep something they can’t afford.  In the end, it seems like the lawyer gets them into a two-year loan modification program…but then what?  Aren’t they just delaying the inevitable?

I know that people desperately want to keep their homes, but you also have to take a step back and ask yourself if you can afford the home you’re in, even under the best of circumstances.

Update: an article was published the next day which completely reinforces my point: The Lipkins Are Not Alone.

Views Show How North Korea Policy Spread Misery: This article about the conditions in North Korea is just brutal.  How long will the population put up with this?  It seems quite obvious that their leader is mentally disturbed, yet they continue to allow him to govern and even set up a line of succession among his own family.

As if conditions weren’t bad enough historically, the arbitrary currency devaluation that happened last year destroyed the meager savings of most families.  It set of a furious bidding war for goods right before the currency was destroyed.  This section is particularly heart-breaking.

The three said they returned home with 66 pounds of rice, a pig’s head and 220 pounds of bean curd. The construction worker’s daughter had managed to purchase a small cutting board and a used pair of khaki pants. Together, he said, they spent the equivalent of $860 for items that would have cost less than $20 the day before.

His daughter tried to comfort him. “Father, I will keep this pair of pants until I die!” she pledged. He told her the cutting board would be her wedding gift.

“At that moment, I really wanted to kill myself,” he said.

What will it take for this regime to fail?  At what point does the citizenry say, “Enough!”

I look at this differently than Iraq, because North Korea has no appreciable exports or resources.  Iraq had oil, which provided a fantastic revenue stream to keep Hussein in power.  I can’t imagine the North Korean military would be able to mount much of a defense should the population rise up (hell, they’d probably join in), but perhaps I’m being naive.

So, why doesn’t the U.S. invade?  Lack of oil, probably.  And I don’t mean that in the sense that we’re only interested in protecting our own interests.  But lack of any real export means North Korea is broke and somewhat impotent.  Without significant resources, you can’t sponsor much terrorism.  Hussein was much scarier than Kim Jong-Il just because he had the resources to do something significant.  Unless a warship comes quite close to its borders, North Korea is more-or-less contained by his own poverty.

I think we can all agree this is insanely awesome.

Here’s a song I’ve sung to the girls since they were babies.  They have it memorized, and were singing it back to me this morning.

It’s sung to the chorus of ‘O Solo Mio (audio).  The endings of all the lines are greatly exaggerated, which I suspect is the part they like the most.

You are my babies-e-e-e-es,
And I love you so-o-o-o-o,
I love you so mu-u-u-u-uch,
That I stubbed my big toe-e-e-e.
Now my toe is ble-e-e-e-e-ding,
And my hairline is rece-e-e-e-eding,
But you are my babie-e-e-e-es,
And I love to so-o-o-o-o-o.

Pavarotti wishes he could sing like me.  The hack.

Marriage is a bundle.  It is, all at once, a contract, a romance, and a spiritual institution.  But I don’t think it’s going to stay this way.

Marriage is actually three structures, layered on top of one another.

1. As it’s most basic level, marriage is a contract.  When you get married, you are entering into a contractual relationship with someone else, and there are laws that govern this relationship.  In most cases, this is the only level the government cares about.
2. At the next level on top of that, for most people, marriage is a romance.  You love the person you’re marrying.  But, in reality, this is optional.  You don’t have to love this person, and with the exception of when it pertains to immigration fraud, the government doesn’t really care if you love your spouse. As far as the law is concerned, your actual feelings toward your spouse are incidental.
3. At the next level on top of that, marriage is a spiritual institution.  For Christians (or any religion, really), it’s a God-ordained structure that holds religious significance.  But, if you’re not a Christian, this doesn’t pertain to you, and like romance, the government could really care less about it.

I think that over the next 20 years, the concept of “marriage” is going to “unbundle.”  The government will get out of the marriage business.  Because, in the end, the government doesn’t care about “marriage” as a whole, it only cares about the contractual, legal part of it.  So the government is going to isolate that, and leave the rest of it up for individual interpretation or semantics – if you want to call your domestic partnership a “marriage,” go right ahead.

What I predict we’re going to see if that the government is going to genericize marriage down a contractual basis, perhaps discarding the name “marriage” altogether, in favor of something like “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships.”  These could be between a man and a woman, two men, or two women.  This legal structure will govern things like inheritance, benefits, medical authority, etc.  All the things that are handled by the bundle of “marriage” today.

So, if this happens between two people of the same sex, is this “gay marriage”?  It could be, but this concept of a domestic partnership doesn’t care – remember, it does not look past the first layer, so it doesn’t care about romantic intent.  In the end, it’s just a contract between two humans, and for legal purposes, anything on top of that is just…fluff.

Take two spinsters, Alice and Lois.  They are both heterosexual, but Alice never married and Lois was widowed a decade ago.  They are wonderful friends and move in together in their declining years, in order to provide security and companionship to each other.  They share expenses, share a home, and trust each other with their affairs.  To ensure various legal rights, they enter into a domestic partnership.

Now, this clearly isn’t gay marriage – both women are heterosexual, after all.  So…how would it be perceived?  Two women are living together, protected by a legal institution.  Would people currently against gay marriage protest against this?  Well, how could they?  It’s not “marriage.”  It’s just a contractual, legal relationship.

If this type of thing were banned, because it smells like gay marriage, then is that really fair to Alice and Lois?  They’re straight, remember, and just for fun, let’s pretend that they’re both rabidly homophobic.  They just want the legal rights, without any of the romantic or spiritual undertones.

So, if this happens, what would happen to traditional notion of marriage?  I suspect, it will become the province of the church.  Insofar as the government cares, your relationship with your spouse would be a just “domestic partnership.”  The other two layers don’t matter to Uncle Sam.

• The romantic aspect of it is something between the two people – it can’t be legally codified, so the government doesn’t care.  If you love your partner, great.
• The spiritual aspect of it would between the two people and the church.  That can’t be legally codified either, and the government is constitutionally prevented from taking endorsing that anyway.  If you want God’s blessing, awesome, go get it.

Is this good?  Is this right?  It depends on who you ask.  But, we’ve discussed here before the fact that gay marriage, in whatever form, is going to become the law of all 50 states eventually – it’s just a matter of changing attitudes.  The current generation has been raised in a different culture, and the generation after them will be as well, and so on, and so on.  Like it or not, it’s going to happen.

What it will do is strip virtually all of the current spiritual significance out of marriage for most everyone.  While you can get married at a Justice of the Peace now, in common culture, the concept of getting married in a church has naturally intertwined the legal and spiritual aspects.  That will be stripped away, and many people will find that they have the the legal rights and the romance, so they don’t need the spirituality.  Getting married in a church will decline to the fringes of the “quaint” or “religious.”

I’m a traditionalist, so I’m a little dismayed by this.  Perhaps I just haven’t changed as fast as the culture, but a big, built-in part of me just can’t bear to think this will happen.

But I’m pretty sure it will, no matter what anyone believes or wants.

Lack of desire brings end to JaMarcus Russell’s Raiders career: This is an utterly devastating critique of the JaMarcus Russell era in Oakland.  It’s worth reading, even if you don’t follow football.

I always assumed the problem with Russell was work ethic, but this guy did some research and confirmed it.  It’s a sickening tale confirming everything you fear about entitled young athletes who suddenly come into a lot of money.

There’s almost too much to quote here, but this three paragraph stretch was enough to make me nauseous, both as a fan of the Raiders, and just as a fan of a productive society and pulling your own weight in general.

Said one league source with first-hand knowledge of Russell’s tenure in Oakland: "He just refused to work at it. That sums up the whole thing. He was in love with the idea of being a wealthy young guy, but he has no drive to be a great quarterback. He’s a young guy who came into a lot of money and notoriety by virtue of being the No. 1 pick. But in that situation, unless you have that special motivation, what’s the point of working hard? If you already have the money, the only thing that keeps you improving is the work ethic.

Leagues sources said from start to finish in Oakland, the light never remotely started to come on for Russell as a Raider. His maturity level never ticked upward in a hopeful fashion, and his work habits (or lack thereof) never changed. He wore out something of a path between Oakland and Las Vegas (at least in terms of the flight path), but he flat out refused to wear out much of anything on the practice field or in the weight room. Russell was in love with the lifestyle of being an NFL player, but he was never in love with the game or what it takes to play it.

When I asked a league source what Russell struggled with the most in Oakland, what part of his game, the answer was devastating: "Everything. Every aspect of the position,” the source said. "If you had a checklist of everything you want your quarterback to do, he chose not to do it. He chose not to study, not to work out, not to be communicative with teammates, not to exhibit leadership, not to get himself into shape.

When everything is over, this is a guy the Raiders will have paid an average of $14 million a year.

In my mind, there is no question that Russell is the biggest draft bust in NFL history, eclipsing even Ryan Leaf by a long shot.

How I Went 24 Hours Without Spending Any Money…In New York City: This is a guest op-end in HuffPo from a woman who trying to accomplish the most shocking thing ever – not spend money for a day.

What would be it like to go a day without spending any money? I’ve thought about this before but I’ve never considered actually trying it. I couldn’t imagine going a day without spending a single penny — is that even possible? How would I get from A to B? What about food? Turns out, a day of living expense free is possible and you’d be surprised by the overwhelming sense of satisfaction and feeling of elation that comes from it.

So, you know what she did?  She ate a bowl of cereal at home for breakfast.  She packed a lunch.  She walked to work.  Then she came home and made dinner.

Dear God…the horror.  The article is so absurd, it’s almost parody.  It’s something I would expect from The Onion, really.  The woman comes off as spoiled and vapid (not to mention a horrible writer – it reads like a 10th-grade essay).

Of course, Reddit had a field day with it, posted as “Oblivious, entitled woman proud about going 24 hours without spending any money.”  A selection of the comments.

She spends more money in one day than I do most weeks. Why does she feel walking twenty minutes to work, cooking dinner, and packing a lunch are unsustainable? This broad obviously lives in a completely different class than I do.

[…] she seemed to think her elaborate spending was ‘just how New Yorkers live’. There’s a huge population of people working in NYC, even mid-town Manhattan, making $10/hour or less doing things like bussing tables, sweeping floors, opening doors.

[…] when the world goes down sh*t creek these are the people who will die first

[…] the fact that she had a 20 minute walk to work, but would rather spend 5-10 dollars on a cab ride is what got me.

[…] I read the first paragraph and I had to leave. I was already disgusted at how ignorant someone could be.

[…] Wait a second. This couldn’t be true. The human brain has brought us to the moon, let us split an atom, and clone a sheep. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that you could go an entire 24 hours using things you’d purchased the day before and actually preparing them yourself (mixing ready made pasta, with ready made pasta sauce, no less).

Ms. Alexa, on behalf of the people of earth, I salute you. You have achieved the dreams of our forefathers, I bow down to you in worship and humbly offer up to you any of my mere mortal possession I have collected throughout my life. You, Ms. Alexa, are God.

And the best one:

i’m going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet

Here are the results of a poll by The Economist that asked Americans where the government should cut spending.  The exact question was:

If government spending is reduced in order to balance the budget, which of the following government programs should receive lower federal funding than they currently do?

Respondents could check more than one.  (I assume they had to pick at least one.)

The results?  The only option with more than 29% was “Foreign Aid,” which is such a small part of the budget that it’s barely even worth bothering with.

The biggest line items in the budget are Social Security and Medicare.  They both got 7%, so only one person in every fourteen is prepared to cut those.  Surprising, 22% were willing to cut National Defense, which is far higher than I thought, but still less than one person in four.

In the end, everyone says we need “smaller government,” but this poll proves as a country, we don’t really mean it.  There are some really hard choices we have to make as a society.  I’ve always suspected we were incapable of actually making those choices, and this poll seems to confirm that.