Top members of the Mortgage Bankers Association arrived in town for the start of the trade group’s annual policy conference today. And so did the protesters.
A group calling itself “the Ad Hoc National Network to Stop Foreclosures & Evictions” organized a downtown protest to coincide with the MBA conference, papering the District with yellow-and-black posters weeks beforehand that detailed the time and place.
The group is demonstrating against the MBA – “the biggest national lobby of all banks” – because they and other predatory lenders continue to get bailed out by the government while they’re busy kicking regular folks out of their homes, the organizers say. The group is calling on policymakers to mandate a freeze on all foreclosures and evictions.
The mantra: people need to get bailed out, not bankers.
The event kicked off at 3 p.m. in front of the Washington Court Hotel on New Jersey Avenue, NW, not far from the Capitol.
Politico’s John Bresnahan reports a diverse group of about 75 protesters had gathered as of 4 p.m. Speakers invoked Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington, he said.
"If they can take are homes away, they can do anything," said one speaker. "We will not be the path of least resistance."
Bresnahan also tells the Crypt that there’s the police are standing buy with a bus, but that’s not fazing the protesters: "We aren't afraid of the police," said one. "Where are we going to go? We haven't even got homes to go to,” said another.
The ad hoc network includes anti-war activists, civil rights and consumer groups and even the Hip Hop Caucus.
Part of the problem with these protests is the attitude of the protesters. They operate under the illusion that mortgage companies make home loans because they want to take away people's homes, which is, of course, silly. Having been in the banking business I can guarantee you there's much more profit in making good loans that people repay on time rather than going through the legal hassle of foreclosure.
I'll agree that predatory lending was wrong and should be punished, but much of the mortgage problems that we're having now are self-inflicted by the homeowners themselves. They took out loans with teaser rates or interest only plans that they couldn't afford once the loans became fully amortized. Should the banks have stopped them from making those deals? Probably, but the Dems in Congress had been pressuring lending institutions for years to make more loans available in areas where they were reluctant to lend.There's plenty of blame to go around.
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