Modified Mortgages, Unions Losses and Hurricane Insurance
The White House pushes mortgage companies to “modify” more home loans, while the number of defaults continues to rise.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) announces she will not support the union-backed Employee Free Choice Act, potentially sealing its fate for the current Congress.
Florida state legislators move to shield taxpayers from massive insurance liabilities in the case of a major hurricane.
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1. FINANCE
The White House pushes mortgage companies to “modify” more home loans, while the number of defaults continues to rise.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on who is supporting the push:
“The bill to allow mortgage servicers to abrogate the contractual rights of investors is backed by ACORN. ACORN, a beneficiary of the economy-shrinking $800 billion stimulus package, helped spawn the mortgage crisis by promoting ‘liar loans.’ It has also engaged in extensive financial fraud and vote fraud. The Obama Administration has chosen ACORN to help conduct the 2010 census, which will be used to reallocate seats in Congress.”
2. BUSINESS
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) announces she will not support the union-backed Employee Free Choice Act, potentially sealing its fate for the current Congress.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Editorial Director Ivan Osorio on the real goals of the legislation:
“Unions argue that EFCA is necessary because secret ballot elections, the method by which most workplaces are organized today, are time consuming and cumbersome. In reality, organized labor sees this bill as a powerful tool with which to revive its decades of membership decline. EFCA would allow unions to undertake more aggressive organizing campaigns—at the expense of individual workers’ privacy and freedom of association, as well as employers’ freedom of contract.”
3. INSURANCE
Florida state legislators move to shield taxpayers from massive insurance liabilities in the case of a major hurricane.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Florida Insurance Project Director Christian Cámara on why these bills are a step in the right direction:
“A free-market approach is the only long-term solution to the state’s insurance crisis, and these bills take that approach. These proposals would transfer a substantial portion of hurricane risk away from taxpayers, and would expand Floridians’ ability to make their own decisions when it comes to the rates they pay and the companies they buy from.”
Listen to LibertyWeek, the CEI podcast, here.