Hi. This morning's Democracy Now features a debate on the politics of the Obama team, between Jeremy Skahill and David Corn. This morning's AlterNet features a critical Skahill piece, access to which I've appended, at the bottom on this mailing. Corn's much more supportive analysis is on MotherJones.com. I definitely suggest at least listening to today's discussion. Ed
http://www.truthout.org/111708A Stopping Foreclosures With the Right to Rent: by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t: November 17, 2008 Politicians often prefer complex solutions to simple problems. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the long list of complicated and convoluted proposals to address the country's foreclosure crisis. Millions of people face the loss of their homes over the next few years. While the politicians in Congress have developed a wide variety of complex schemes in order to hold back this flood of foreclosures, including one passed into law last summer that provided up to $300 billion guarantees for new mortgages on homes facing foreclosure, none have had much impact thus far. The unavoidable problem with these schemes is that it is difficult to design a plan that aids families facing foreclosure without giving an incentive to other homeowners to also default on their mortgage. In addition, it is hard to justify taxing the people who are struggling to keep up with their own mortgages in order to help those who default. It is even harder to justify taxing ordinary people to help out the bank executives, who issued hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans. As a result, to date these programs have not prevented a tidal wave of foreclosures and evictions. The number of foreclosure filings (there are typically two or more filing for every actual foreclosure) is now approaching 300,000 per month. For those not offended by simplicity, there is an easy solution. Congress can temporarily modify the rules on foreclosure to give families facing foreclosure the right to rent their homes at the market rate for a substantial period of time. Rep. Raul Grijalva proposed such a change in the Saving Family Homes Act, which would allow homeowners the option to remain as renters for up to 20 years following a foreclosure. This bill would immediately give families security in their home, so that if they like the home, the neighborhood, the school for their kids, they would have the option to stay in the house for a substantial period of time. This also has the great benefit for the neighborhood that homes will remain occupied. Perhaps more importantly, this change in foreclosure rules will give banks a real incentive to negotiate conditions under which homeowners can stay in their homes as owners. Banks do not want to become landlords. The bank will own the house after a foreclosure, but a house with a renter is worth much less to them than a house over which it has complete control. Giving the homeowner the right to stay as a renter hugely increases their bargaining power with the bank. The result of this change in foreclosure rules is that far more homeowners are likely to remain in their homes as owners. The beauty of this sort of proposal is that it is simple, can take effect immediately, it requires no taxpayer dollars and no new bureaucracy. It also is not giving anyone a big bonanza. Homeowners are not likely to line up for a process that could end up with them being renters. And the banks will obviously not be thrilled about a rule change that will leave them worse off in trying to squeeze money out of homeowners. While the basic point of the right to rent is simple, it can be extended in various ways to further aid homeowners. Bernard Wasow, at the Century Foundation, has proposed some additional measures to facilitate the transition to rental status or possibly a return to ownership. Daniel Alpert, of Westwood Capital, has a somewhat different version that creates a mechanism for homeowners to buy back their homes after five years. In short, if people want to add bells and whistles, it is easy to do so. But, the key to stopping people from being thrown out of their homes is simply to change the law that allows people to be thrown out of their homes. That one is so simple that even a policy wonk should be able to understand it. *** http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/rahm_emanuel_is_n o_reason_for_hope_or_celebration/0016892 Rahm Emanuel is no Reason for Hope or Celebration by Rabbi Michael Lerner The American Muslim: November 7, 2008 Election night tens of millions of us wept for joy. We sang the songs that we had sung as young men and women when we were fighting segregation in the south and then in the North, some of us being beaten, others jailed, some even killed. For the first time in three decades we could sing "Imagine" and "The Times They are a'Changing" without feeling that we were holding onto utopian fantasies that had been buried by the cynical realists who have shaped public discourse. How exciting to believe again in the possibility of America as the potential embodiment of our ideals for social justice, peace, and ecological sanity. We could hardly believe our own eyes -- we were living through the rebirth of a nation and its attempt to heal its racist past. So no wonder why many of us were shocked and deeply disappointed when we learned on Thursday that Congressman Rahm Emanuel was to be the Chief of Staff in the Obama White House. Emanuel, for those who don't recall, was the Congressman who traveled the country in 2006 finding "suitable" candidates in "swing districts" to run against Republican incumbents, and in many instances he succeeded. But his theory of how to succeed was destructive: he sought the most conservative possible candidates in each district, insisting that local Democratic Party organizations reject more liberal candidates who, he feared, might not win. There were many among the House Democrats who deplored this tactic. The main issue on the mind of the electorate was the war in Iraq, and public opinion had moved so far in opposition to that war that the Democratic leadership in the House was pushed to proclaim that it would cut off funding for the war if Democrats won control of Congress. Well, the outcome was that Democrats did win control, but since the candidates that Emanuel picked were more conservative and militarist than the mainstream of the Party, they were not reliable allies when it came to voting against war funding. Instead of cutting fund for the war, Nancy Pelosi's House increased the funding, explaining that they had to appear "responsible" in order to solidify their control of Congress in 2008. Clever? Not for the people, Americans and Iraqis, killed or wounded in the meantime. This was no mistake on Emanuel's part. Rahm Emanuel has a long history of militarist ideology behind him. His father was a member of the ultra-right-wing terrorist organization Etzel that killed British civilians as part of their anti-British struggle in Palestine in the 1940s. Emanuel, himself a citizen of Israel as well as the United States, has been one of several Congressional leaders enforcing the "Israel Lobby" concensus on the Democrats, in the process shutting out the peace voices that believe Israel's security would be better served by the U.S. putting pressure on Israel to end the Occupation, move the Wall to inside the pre-67 boundaries, and remove the settlers from the West Bank or tell them to live there as Palestinian citizens. It's not just the pro-peace and reconciliation forces that are unlikely to be given a serious hearing in a White House in which Rahm Emanuel controls who gets to talk to the President. Emanuel will almost certainly be protecting Obama from all of us spiritual progressives and those of us who describe ourselves as the Religious Left -- so that our commitment to single-payer universal health care, carbon taxes for environmental protection, a Homeland Security strategy based on generosity and implemented through a Global Marshall Plan, will be unlikely to get a serious hearing in the White House. When these issues were avoided by Obama during the campaign, most of us spiritual progressives told ourselves, "He's just being political, but once elected he'll reveal himself committed to the values that he whispered into our ears privately over the course of the past many years." The Rahm Emanuel selection is an early warning that the peace and justice agenda dropped by Obama after he won the Democratic nomination may be permanently on hold, and the progressives themselves may have to settle for "access" and flowery words at an inauguration address rather than the substance of change. For many of us, just the fact of having a brilliant young black man in the White House will be such a healing experience that we won't care about this newly emerging reality: unless Obama creates some other path to access and to public input into his policies by those of us who helped build his electoral success, or unless we organize to do so outside the framework of his campaign organization, we may be in for lots of disappointments. Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine www.tikkun.org, chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives *** ----- Original Message ----- From: "AlterNet Headlines" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 1:03 AM Subject: Obama Clings to Clintonites and Neocons | Pentagon Developing Killer Robots? | No Bailout for GM THIS IS CHANGE? 20 HAWKS, CLINTONITES AND NEOCONS TO WATCH FOR IN OBAMA'S WHITE HOUSE By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet A who's who guide to the people poised to shape Obama's foreign policy. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/107666/ ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
