President Mortgage Counselor

I wasn’t yet thirty years old when I bought my house, entering into a loan that would more than double my age if by some miracle of not wanting to ever move I were to pay it off. The paperwork required to apply for and then close on the loan was voluminous. It’s wasn’t easy and although the title company representative wanted to go home for the day and encouraged me to skip it, I read the entirety of the documentation. What do I want, a cookie? Of course not, I did what I was supposed to. Indubitably there was a lot of paperwork; it was for a contract with a shelf life of thirty years, 38.46% of the average life expectancy in this country. The most difficult part was the number of pages and the redundancy. There was a lot of legalese but even though I am not a lawyer, there was enough material there to make sense to a layman.

Today, for the umpteenth time during his term, the President offered up a personal story because, apparently, he can personally relate to anything that ever happens to anyone and is an expert on how everyone should do everything. The subject du jour was the difficulty of mortgage contracts and the introduction of a new boondoggle, the so-called “Homeowners Bill of Rights”. At one point during this introduhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifction:

“The president recalled his and First Lady Michelle Obama's experience buying their first home together - a process he described, humorously, as so complicated that the two of them would end up looking through the forms and asking "what does this phrase mean?" … "And that's, you know, for two trained lawyers," he laughed.”

So funny. As if the only reason there are foreclosures is because mortgage forms are too difficult and not at all to do with some people buying things that they can’t afford. As if the President and First Lady were mortgage lawyers in their previous careers. I don’t recall reading that in their qualifications. There are so many legal subjects and there aren’t any lawyers that specialize in everything. Because the profession relies on reading comprehension and because there is sooooooo much law, thanks to politicians simpatico with the President, it’s impossible for a lawyer to understand every subject. But, the thing is, it’s not that hard. There’s just a lot of reading in the mortgage process. Blaming the process is lazy and protects the irresponsible who didn’t even bother to read and comprehend it before signing.

2012 being an election year, the purported “Homeowners Bill of Rights” is nothing but a redistribution scheme vote buying device under the ruse of “caring”. Contract law is complicated and the reason why mortgage contracts are so long is because of that complexity, because of the law, of which the President happens to be in charge of the Executive Branch of. And introducing feel-good legislation that will only end up costing homeowners who pay their bills because they bought something they can afford because they won’t be eligible for the program. Yes there are unfortunate circumstances and exceptions but those cases make up a negligible percentage of who will take advantage of their neighbors by this program. You’re welcome. Of course, the President will take credit, and it will only cost more billions this country doesn’t have. Whatever, as long as he retains power for another four years.