Reply #5: Bailouts for banks, free markets for us

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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bailouts-for-banks-free-markets-for-us-2011-04-12?link=home_carousel

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Hope Now, the industry program designed to reduce foreclosures, was supposed to be the bailout for the rest of us.

“Bailout” is probably the wrong word. For most homeowners facing default or foreclosure, the price of a loan modification is steep: ruined credit, fees, red tape and a less-than 50-50 chance they would receive a new mortgage that fit their budget.

Big banks got their cash immediately, and then government guarantees on any new debt they wanted to raise.

Now, it appears that the moral and economic gulf between the bailouts the banks got and the kind we’re getting is widening. A proposed settlement over foreclosure fraud between state attorneys general and big banks is tilted almost entirely toward the banking industry.