There has to be a better way to spend the taxpayer’s money to fight loan default and foreclosure

www.TBWSDailyShow.com

Listen to the “Think Big, Work Small” video podcast for 3-19-2012 and about 2 minutes into the 6 minute video, you will see a comical portrayal of the allocation of the government’s latest $42,000,000 infusion of cash into the cure for the foreclosure epidemic. It would be hilarious, except that it is true! The largest portion of the latest anti-foreclosure bailout is going into counselling! How do you counsel someone against depreciation and becoming upside down? against losing their job and becoming unemployed? against escalations in a bad mortgage? Please do not accept this pessimism as an endorsement for victimology or a mindset that the government should be our parachute and the safety net for all of our bad decisions or life’s curve balls. But if we can’t do any better with the taxpayer’s money than funding more ineffective public sector counselling, then wouldn’t that $42,000,000 accomplish more if we left it in the private sector to create private sector jobs? What do you do with these counsellors when the crisis ends? wouldn’t private sector hiring create more secure jobs that would help pay mortgages and stimulate home buyer again? Isn’t the private sector better at counselling when it comes to legal issues? Is there not a profession that has been in existence for several centuries whose job it is to advocate the needs of the underdog? The public counselling services with which I am familiar and with whom I sometimes contribute time to do public seminars are: (1) nearly unknown to the public; and (2) ultimately toothless and end up referring the borrower to an attorney for action anyway. To the extent they educate and promote effective self-help by the defaulting borrower, it is a good cause. But $30,000,000 worth of more public sector, knee-jerk, taxpayer funded governmental response? Enjoy the video before it is taken down!