Obama’s plan for underwater homeowners; relieving student loan debt; Michele Bachmann’s errors of fact

Mixed-up mortgages

Re “Obama aims to ramp up mortgage aid,” Oct. 24

President Obama is painfully and pathetically late in finally turning the administration’s attention to the millions of Americans who lost value on their homes overnight because of big-finance greed.

It’s plain disgusting to see the too-big-to-fail banks get bailed out with taxpayer money three years ago, and now, as election time gets closer, the little people who’ve lost their homes and their jobs finally get a handout. And we bought Obama’s spirited slogans of change in 2008.

Fool us once, Mr. President, but not twice.

Jim Gould

Burbank

Principal reductions for underwater homeowners are the only answer to the foreclosure crisis.

Let’s hope the administration applies Harvard economist Martin Feldstein’s solution, with one caveat: He recommends reducing mortgage principals to no more than 110% of the properties’ values. Why hold homeowners’ heads underwater? Make it 90% as an incentive to keep them in their homes.

There’s an added economic bonus: The difference in the mortgage payments no longer flowing to the lenders will now flow into the economy.

John Stickler

Murrieta

Re “State is wooed in mortgage deal,” Business, Oct. 22

So we may strong-arm the banks into coughing up $5 billion to refinance 300,000 underwater mortgages.

What happens when these homeowners come above water? Do they give something back to the banks? How about ruling out those who put nothing down?

And if state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris does investigate all aspects of mortgage fraud, I expect she will target loan applicants who may have falsified income information. But I doubt that is part of the program.

Bob Filacchione

Fullerton

Relieve student loan debt?

Re “Student loans add to angst of occupiers,” Oct. 26

As a law school graduate who has defaulted on more than $100,000 of federal and private student loans, as much as I’d like to participate in occupying Wall Street, I fear that if I do attend, my emotions will get the best of me and I may wind up behind bars. How else can I be heard, then? I suppose by writing this letter.

Since 1998, federal student loans have been deemed non-dischargeable in bankruptcy unless you could prove a substantial “hardship,” which isn’t easy to do. Since 2005, private student loans have also been non-discharge- able.

This country needs to revert to the bankruptcy laws in place before 1998 by allowing those who go bankrupt to discharge their student debt. The banks had their bailouts; it’s time for ours.

Greg Diamond

Los Angeles

They say work hard in school, go to college, get a good job, buy a house and reach for a slice of the American dream. At least that is what I was told. The defaulting on student loans is another sign of the erosion of the middle class.

I am sure Republicans would respond with “Nonsense, there are plenty of jobs out there. But not in your field of study and probably at the local Wal-Mart or Target. One more thing: It’s not full time, either.”

Bruce Henry

Oxnard

Bachmann’s errors of fact

Re “Bachmann’s facts often aren’t,” Oct. 24

Your recent article on GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann gives the lie to John Keats’ often-quoted statement “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”

But there is an upside: By deviating so spectacularly from established norms of truthfulness, perhaps the toothsome candidate from Minnesota will weaken somewhat our society’s obsession with physical beauty.

John Kerridge

Del Mar, Calif.

Do we need another president who says inaccurate, misleading or wildly untrue statements? Or have we learned a lesson from someone else after hearing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and connections to Al Qaeda?

M.O. Conoley

Santa Barbara

Missing school

Re “An education gap for illegal migrants’ kids,” Oct. 23

This preoccupation with how we are to properly educate the children of illegal immigrants is preposterous. Researching their problem is not what we should be spending our dollars on.

The study’s suggestion that we help these parents gain legal status so that their children would “try hard to make their parents proud” has no basis.

I agree with Lupe Moreno of the group Latino Americans for Immigration Reform, who believes undocumented migrants should be deported. The study says this is unrealistic.

What’s unrealistic are those who then “blamed schools for failing to help the children of illegal immigrants graduate.” What is realistic is for those illegal immigrants who blame the schools for failing to help their children to take their kids back to their home country for schooling.

Ron Nelson

Venice

A banking rule

Re “ ‘Blame the banks’ overkill,” Editorial, Oct. 24

The city of L.A.’s “responsible banking” ordinance is a measured response to institutions that have caused immeasurable harm to our community. It makes sense that the city, as a customer, gets the most bang for its buck when it comes to the business it does with our money.

The sky will not fall when big banks make their activities more transparent, but it will allow the city to reward those that help us recover from economic meltdown. Why wouldn’t we want to know whether banks with which the city is considering doing business are lending to small businesses?

Big businesses fight transparency by saying new regulations will cost more, but they adjust once the rules change. This will be no different.

Wendy Braitman

Los Angeles

Shameful loan

Re “Need money? Try City Hall,” Column, Oct. 23

Thanks to Steve Lopez for his most informative article on the taxpayer-financed $2.6-million loan to Harold & Belle’s Creole Restaurant. I am so sick and tired of reading about our well-intended tax dollars being used for something other than good intent.

How sad that the few who have the power, and usually plenty of their own money, can make such a decision. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Tami Guttman

Sherman Oaks

Speed the train

Re “Bullet train plan would leave path of destruction,” Oct. 23

This article doesn’t trust readers to make up their own minds. Instead, it reads as a laundry list of every possible worst-case scenario and presents none of the benefits to “some of the most depressed cities in California.”

Not a word about the number of jobs associated with the largest infrastructure project in the country. They number in the hundreds of thousands.

Not a word about air quality. A major new mode of transportation will pull greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicles off the road.

And not a word about connections, about how someone in Bakersfield can travel into Los Angeles for a morning meeting and make it back before lunch without spending hours in traffic.

Californians recognized years ago that high-speed rail is necessary if our transportation infrastructure is going to keep up with our population. We’re following their direction.

Thomas J. Umberg

Sacramento

The writer chairs the California High-Speed Rail Authority.