Foreclosures Are Often In Lenders’ Best Interest
Numbers Work Against Government Efforts To Help Homeowners
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Government initiatives to stem the country’s mounting foreclosures are hampered because banks and other lenders in many cases have more financial incentive to let borrowers lose their homes than to work out settlements, some economists have concluded.
Policymakers often say it’s a good deal for lenders to cut borrowers a break on mortgage payments to keep them in their homes. But, according to researchers and industry experts, foreclosing can be more profitable.The problem is that modifying mortgages is profitable to banks for only one set of distressed borrowers, while lenders are actually dealing with three very different types.
With Stubborn Unrest in Swat, Landowners Remain in Exile
By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: July 27, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Even as hundreds of thousands of people stream back to the Swat Valley after months of fighting, one important group is conspicuously absent: the wealthy landowners who fled the Taliban in fear and are the economic pillar of the rural society.
The reluctance of the landowners to return is a significant blow to the Pakistani military’s campaign to restore Swat as a stable, prosperous part of Pakistan, and it presents a continuing opportunity for the Taliban to reshape the valley to their advantage.About four dozen landlords were singled out over the past two years by the militants in a strategy intended to foment a class struggle. In some areas, the Taliban rewarded the landless peasants with profits of the crops of the landlords. Some resentful peasants even signed up as the Taliban’s shock troops.