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Book Review: "Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown"

by Nancy Mehegan

"Busted:  Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown"  by Edmund L. Andrews

A NY Times Economics Reporter Goes Bust

This interesting book gives the personal story of the "mortgage meltdown" of an economics reporter for the NY Times, Edmund Andrews.  Yes, an economics reporter!  It outlines how he bought a mortgage, and slowly began to sink in the mortgage quagmire, 4 months in arrears.

In his role as a NY Times reporter, Andrews actually spoke directly to well known figures.  He spoke to Alan Greenspan about the mortgage crisis and interjected his personal financial troubles and fear of foreclosure.  Andrews relates the conversation:

"First, Greenspan "looked appalled.  Then he looked perplexed. And for the first time that I could remember, his patient and gravelly voice turned curt and commanding. 'Why did you do it?' he asked, interrupting me in midsentence. I felt like a teenager who had just told his father he had crashed the family car."

Greenspan on regulation:  "best regulation was enlightened self-interest"

HUH???? 

What was so "enlightened" about the banks and mortgage lenders?

Andrews' financial troubles began in 2004 when, in the middle of divorcing his first wife, he and his future second  wife bought a house.

His home was $460,000.  Monthly alimony payments of $4,000, they had $50,000 credit card debt, an annual salary of $130,000.

No Loan Officer asked for Proof of Income

When he met with loan officers they did not require salary pay stubs or his federal tax return, a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy prevailed. Wha??  It really is ridiculous, if you think about it. 

How did it all happen?

1)  Andrews thought "he could beat the odds"

2)  A lax banking system irresponsibly provided a mortgage

3)  A regulatory system was dysfunctional

In the mortgage meltdown, some people thrived and others suffered.

"Busted" is a great inside view with the insights of an expert in economics.  Unusual look at the mortage crisis!

Eco(nomy) Terrorists Bush Etal Fear Mongerer

Ok, did you see the CNN story today in which the soon-to-be-evicted home owner chained herself to the porch post?  CNN Video In two ways people are starting to fight back: compassionately helping with the purchase like the Foreclosure Angel, and like today's direct opposition...a bit of Ghandi and Malcom X (one of my other heros!)

We need to fight. I have been so troubled in recent years at the passivity that the Bush Et Al fearmongering has produced. It is certainly time for us to fight back. If we are so lucky to have President Obama, perhaps we can begin to climb out of the bunker/hunker position that has been actively encouraged. Whether it has been a purposeful and planned means of citizen control we will not clearly know until the records are opened. But it is clear that many have bunker-hunkered down hoping that the storm would not damage them. And unfortunatly many many have been damaged.

The Arrow of Intention: Raven Brings the Message of Destruction, Depth, and ReBirth

The front bumper of my car, or what would be a bumper if there were still such car parts,

was struck by a raven this summer and crumpled.

The astounding part was that as I was driving, I saw the raven swoop down from high in the sky to my left and dive intentionally for my car. At first I thought to swerve, but too late. The raven hit head-on under the left headlight, but did not fly up again or under the car. And when I stopped to look back at what had happened, only a few black feathers were floating down to the road. There was no bloody body, no remains of any kind, except the few feathers and the dent in my car. How odd. How uncanny. How mysterious. And then I went on, as we are most of us wont to do when something strange happens.

I have remembered this incident from time to time now returned to the rush of school schedules, ungodly hours of breakfast and backpacks, and PTA meetings. And puzzled over it. What happened to that raven and what was it telling me?

Today, I feel compelled to consider that raven in the light of this moment of national peril and economic change that affects us all. And to consider the raven's message of full knowledge and that with knowledge we are protected and can emerge from this dark time into a better day.

The raven evokes most often the notion of death and darkness.

I think immediately of Poe and the line, "Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

But the true message of the raven is about unblinkering, really looking, really seeing all the IS.

It is a message that calls for us to journey to the dark depths in order to find the brighter heights.

The last 8 years of the Bush administration have been dark ones of war, death, environmental destruction, loss of world esteem, and now economic peril.

As a nation we have been schooled in a climate of fear and made afraid have ignored the evidence of our own eyes and experience.

I think that these 8 years are about more than just inept politics and wrong thinking.

Raven says wakeup.

Look at what IS and understand my message. You must see all that is dark and then you can choose a new path that might seem unknown and not fully marked out, but will lead to a rebirth and on a national scale to the rebirth/reorganization of America. It is ironic that our oil culture is based on a sticky dark substance, which is the residue of sunlight stored in trees and plants. It is a substance that has poisoned us and the planet.

Now if we heed raven’s message of full knowledge, we can choose the sun, wind, water and the very earth itself to provide us with a fantastic new society. A society that can indeed provide well for us all and without destroying the earth.

Raven hit me with an arrow of intention this summer.

And now in this dark hour, it is clear that we must do differently. I am excited about all that is to come from the best of our creative and dynamic energy.