Who here thinks that a stern talking to from the President about renegotiating loans will send all those duly chastened financial giants out to be scrupulously honest? 

Or that they’ll find redemption in being fair and decent because now they have a "verbal agreement" to be good little lenders?

*crickets*

Not when there’s money to be made, right?  To wit:

…many mortgage companies are reluctant to give strapped homeowners a break because the companies collect lucrative fees on delinquent loans.

Even when borrowers stop paying, mortgage companies that service the loans collect fees out of the proceeds when homes are ultimately sold in foreclosure. So the longer borrowers remain delinquent, the greater the opportunities for these mortgage companies to extract revenue — fees for insurance, appraisals, title searches and legal services.

“It frustrates me when I see the government looking to the servicer for the solution, because it will never ever happen,” said Margery Golant, a Florida lawyer who defends homeowners against foreclosure and who worked in the law department of a major mortgage company, Ocwen Financial. “I don’t think they’re motivated to do modifications at all. They keep hitting the loan all the way through for junk fees. It’s a license to do whatever they want.”

But these companies wouldn’t jack up delinquency proceedings against good ole Americans just to collect more and more of these fees instead of renegotiating terms, now would they?

Not after asking those self-same Americans for bail-out money with the promise of renegotiating those loans and helping out the hurting public, now would they?

Nope, nothing to see here in the Fed’s first quarter sharp rise in delinquencies.

Just regular Americans watching everything they have worked their entire lives for sluice down the drain of lost jobs and inflexible financial giants.

But, in the short term?  Woo hoo — extra fees to inflate the bottom line!  We’ll leave the long-term financial drain to the next guy after cashing out the golden parachute! 

The fact that more and more middle class families are desperately seeking help at homeless shelters, food banks and job fairs? Who cares so long as your company’s financial bottom line stays solid. Innovation at all costs and full steam ahead, right?

More profits, and not having to lift a finger to help the little guy? Dude! It’s win-win!

He can fly! via Express Monorail.

Wheeeeeeeeee! 

– Via Duncan: Jobless Claims Rise 36,000 to 667,000; Durable Goods Orders Fall More Than Expected Down 5.2% (story developing).  More from Reuters via CNBC:

Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits increased to a seasonally adjusted 667,000 in the week ended Feb. 21 from a revised 631,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said. It was the highest reading since October 1982, when claims reached 695,000.

The year-long U.S. recession has savaged the labor market and sent the unemployment rate soaring, with some economists fearing it will pierce 9 percent in 2009 from 7.6 percent in January and mount further next year….

The four-week average of new jobless claims, a better gauge of underlying labor trends because it irons out week-to-week volatility, increased to 639,000 from 620,000 the week before….

Calculated Risk has more.

– New home sales fall to record low; prices tumble.  Calculated Risk has more.

– Reports offer snapshot of slowing economy.

– After everything else, AIG now considering breaking up to stay afloat.   

– For the econ wonks, the Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposal will be available online starting at 11 am ET.   Now, complete with real DOD action figures!  (as in budget numbers, not GI Joes…duh!)

(more…)

"This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes," Obama said in his speech to a joint session of Congress. 

Obama pointed to the increasing number of uninsured and rapidly rising health-care premiums, which he said was one reason small business closed their doors and corporations moved overseas.

Reuters reports that we spend more than $7,400 per person each year on health care in this country, which added up to more than 19 percent of 2009′s GDP.

Is this really the best we can do? No, it isn’t.

Howard Dean was on Hardball yesterday talking about health care reforms:  what that actually means in pragmatic terms, and why American businesses, individuals and doctors are drowning under the byzantine maze of hoop jumping that is our current system.

Dean made one thing crystal clear:  everyone — including folks at the Chamber of Commerce, medical professionals, and pharmaceutical companies — want reforms. The only folks standing in the way?  Insurance companies, who profit more from keeping things as they are. 

Currently in this country, 45 million people are uninsured.

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