Roughly three months after Senate lawmakers killed legislation empowering homeowners to escape foreclosure through bankruptcy, some upper-chamber Democrats are looking to revive the corpse. They hope to pressure the White House into spending valuable political capital on a cause fallen by the wayside.
Up to now, More…
Hoping to bring “cramdown” legislation back onto Congress’ radar, a House Judiciary subpanel met this afternoon to re-examine whether bankruptcy judges should be empowered to alter mortgage loans in order to prevent foreclosures.
Witnesses included the obligatory consumer advocates, a conservative think-tanker and a university professor. But the Treasury More…
Robert Reich, economist and former Clinton administration labor secretary, doesn’t think much of General Motors expected bankruptcy filing today, as the nation’s largest automaker prepares for a de facto government rescue and takeover. If the United States really wanted to help GM, Reich wrote in an op/ed for More…
The real risk to the future of General Motors (other than the unpopular vehicles) is that a bankruptcy and reorganization process would not be quick, in what’s called a 363 sale, but would go through a standard Chapter 11 reorganization, which could take several years. A long and drawn out More…
The Washington Post reports that the Detroit automaker is on its way to joining Chrysler in bankruptcy proceedings:
The Obama administration is preparing to send General Motors into bankruptcy as early as the end of next week under a plan that would give the automaker tens
Though mortgage bankruptcy reform has been a central component of the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention strategy, the White House all but abandoned the proposal in the days leading up to last week’s Senate vote, providing some Democrats with the political cover to kill the bill and leaving supporters scratching their More…
It comes as no surprise that the hedge funds in control of Chrysler’s debt are lashing out at President Obama for fingering them yesterday as the primary reason a Chrysler bailout deal fell through. Indeed, The Washington Post has an eye-opening piece this morning about how those secretive More…
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) took to the Senate floor on Thursday and talked about the implications of Congress’ cave to the banks on his mortgage “cramdown” proposal, which would have allowed bankruptcy judges to reduce loan amounts and keep borrowers out of foreclosure and in their homes. Durbin eloquently summed More…
A central element of the Democrats’ strategy to stabilize the economy — empowering homeowners to prevent foreclosures through bankruptcy — has hit a wall in the Senate, where fierce opposition from the finance industry is threatening to kill the proposal this week.
Despite major concessions to the banks at the More…
James Scurlock, director of “Maxed Out,” a groundbreaking documentary on consumer debt, steps up to defend TARP oversight panel head Elizabeth Warren today in The Big Money. Scurlock says that “no one grasps the true nature of our hard times” better than Warren, a longtime scholar of More…
rss