Just 13 years ago
when Wall Street and the Banks tried to destroy the American economy the United States Congress and President George W Bush pushed thru a (then) mind-numbingly large ($700 Billion) rescue package in the Troubled Asset Relief Act of 2008 in just weeks.
The sad truth is, though, that was merely ONE bailout of the banks and Wall Street.
ProPublica has a Bailout Timeline that will give you NIGHTMARES. https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/main/timeline.
NOTE: at that URL you can peruse the LIST of the details of each of the bailouts which here are only noted by amount and date.
2008
October
- Bailouts: 8 payments for $115B
November
- Bailouts: 46 payments for $90.3B
December
- Bailouts: 166 payments for $65.4B
- Revenue: 1 payment for $172M
2009
January
- Bailouts: 150 payments for $43.3B
February
- Bailouts: 109 payments for $31.3B
March
- Bailouts: 68 payments for $77.8B
- Refunds: 5 payments for $353M
- Revenue: 2 payments for $395M
April
- Bailouts: 50 payments for $26.1B
- Refunds: 6 payments for $684M
- Revenue: 2 payments for $995K
May
- Bailouts: 57 payments for $48.2B
- Refunds: 9 payments for $735M
- Revenue: 565 payments for $5.92B
June
- Bailouts: 43 payments for $27.5B
- Refunds: 12 payments for $68.4B
- Revenue: 27 payments for $2.31B
July
- Bailouts: 27 payments for $10.2B
- Refunds: 5 payments for $2.19B
- Revenue: 17 payments for $2.58B
August
- Bailouts: 18 payments for $13.2B
- Refunds: 3 payments for $140M
- Revenue: 598 payments for $3.03B
September
- Bailouts: 31 payments for $2.79B
- Refunds: 7 payments for $404M
- Revenue: 17 payments for $2.6B
October
- Bailouts: 19 payments for $12.6B
- Refunds: 3 payments for $88.4M
- Revenue: 12 payments for $609M
November
- Bailouts: 18 payments for $18.4B
- Refunds: 10 payments for $369M
- Revenue: 596 payments for $1.89B
December
- Bailouts: 53 payments for $7.47B
- Refunds: 15 payments for $91.9B
- Revenue: 42 payments for $4.44B
2010
January
- Bailouts: 5 payments for $455M
- Refunds: 7 payments for $449M
- Revenue: 23 payments for $127M
February
- Bailouts: 2 payments for $16.1B
- Refunds: 7 payments for $8B
- Revenue: 584 payments for $758M
March
- Bailouts: 3 payments for $31M
- Refunds: 9 payments for $7.21B
- Revenue: 10 payments for $4.54B
That list continues until the current date, the latest bailout was May of 2020 for $190 K (seems picayune compared to those older amounts, right?).
Today 11 million families got another reprieve from eviction
But that is just a stop-gap save, pushing off D-Day for 60 days, by (of all agencies) the CDC, arguing that the federal government cannot put millions of people on the streets in the midst of a pandemic, it would be a public health hazard. 60-day eviction moratorium for most renters.
The people saved the banks and Wall Street in the fall of 2008 and the spring of 2009, there is no doubt. They’ve been saving all kinds of big economic and business entities ever since (see that Pro-publica timeline).
How about Congress and President Biden ask the Banks to return the favor and do something BIG for owners of rental properties, so that THEY can stop trying to turf out millions of families?
The banks could take every mortgage on rental property and stop the clock from January 2020 until January of 2022, meaning stop accruing interest on those loans and leave the principle due as it was as of January 1, 2020.
Would it cost them a lot of money? Yes, but only temporarily, those loans would resume on Jan 1, 2022 and the mortgagees would just pay two years longer than they would have on the life of the loans.
County tax assessors could do the same, just put their property tax payments in abeyance for the two years and resume them as of Jan 1, 2022.
Thus the owners of the rental property would bear no financial burden for the two years — and in return their renters wouldn’t owe a penny in back rent.
I’m sure there are plenty of things I’ve missed, but I owned rental real estate in the past and if this had happened to me, I would have been HAPPY to take this deal and not have to evict my renters.