Fantastic job and much appreciated thanks to Chris Hayes and the Rachel Maddow Show team for covering the failure of the HAMP program.
He opens with MSNBC news clips from 2007 talking about the foreclosure crisis that was coming, and notes how even though the crisis is far worse in 2010 the mainstream media coverage has more or less disappeared. I like his metaphors of the HAMP waterfall of interest adjustments, term modification and principal reduction for underwater people as the equivalent of scuba gear, a snorkel, and actually pulling someone up from being underwater.
He is also right that this is at the administration’s feet. There’s no 60th vote with HAMP – the money was appropriated and almost none of it has been spent and the money that has been spent has been in the most bank friendly way possible.
And he ends with noting that if the 25 year-old community organizer Obama were around to see HAMP program, “I think he’d be disgusted.”
I talked about Warren and SIGTARP on the failure of HAMP here and the Forgotten Foreclosure Crisis Panel at Netroots here. David Dayen covers the latest data burying and PR campaigns for HAMP here.
If you missed it before, I also recently got the chance to discuss the financial reform bill with Chris Hayes for The Nation’s Breakdown podcast here. If you aren’t subscribing to The Breakdown, I highly recommend it.
Rortybomb 
They had a super cute cartoon over at Creditslips.org today. I’m guessing you already saw it Mike, but I wanted to be sure your readers didn’t miss it. It really makes me extremely angry Obama hasn’t nominated her. It’s a slap to the American people’s face, and I’ve lost all my enthusiasm for Obama with this last episode of dispassionate and apathetic leadership. He can count on someone else to vote for him in 2012 if he doesn’t choose her.
But this cartoon is good anyway. http://www.creditslips.org/.a/6a00d8341cf9b753ef0133f2ba3978970b-800wi
Please locate the promise from candiate Obama that he would stop the falling real estate market Then play it often and please enlist your fellow media coleagues to do so. Then candiate Obama stated upon his election he would be creating a system to reset mortage principles and setting new mortages for all homeowners at the current market value. If this was done earlier, perhaps housing would not have fallen so far. But if that clip could be shown, then perhaps our President might just see how he should take care of Main St. and understand that his cabinet and advisors are cozy with the organizations they have come from. The average American can not afford the loss of the investment their home represents in their net worth. They did not necessariary start out with a toxic loan, but they now have a home that is toxic to their financial future.
I saw Chris on RMS Friday. Good show! I am now disabled therefore, my income has drastically changed from when I bought my home in 2001 (resulting from a tumor that was removed when I was a kid). My local HUD approved credit agency estimated that 85% of my income goes toward my mortgage payment. I was qualified for the HAMP program. The first time Bank of America refused to assist me they said it was because I was late on one payment. I waited a year and tried again. The second time I was told that I had to be behind 3 payments to qualify for the program. The bank offered to give me an ARM instead. Of course I refused and continue to struggle with my mortgage. I have $20,000 in equity and only wanted to refinance the balance to lower my payment. I think the greedy bank could make more on my home if I defaulted and they were successful with foreclosure. Then of course I do live in the land of OZZZZZZZZZ (KS) and should not have expected anymore than I got. Shame on me!!!!
Chris & Rachel: After the HAMP was announced Wachovia said they’d have it ready in a couple weeks–then it was to be ready in summer, then they “couldn’t get the guidelines into the computer system without it crashing”…then it would be out in the fall. Line after line of BS then they told us with our HUD-sponsored counselor on conference call that we could apply for a MAP not HAMP because we weren’t in jeopardy of default just that our mortage was taking over 60 per cent of our income. Thomas Jefferson, FDR and now Obama could not get bankers to be fair. Seems that Wachovia under Wells mandate stonewalled because the program was voluntary and they did not need to mitigate foreclosures due to the infusion from TARP. They boasted in the fall ’08 that they’d fulfilled the minimum goal for HARP. Big crock…think Chris should assess some specific criterion-based blame on the banks not just on the Prez!!!
Patreus is NOT the Commander in Chief.. this would be Pres Obama
I am a huge fan of RMS, and Chris is a smart and able stand-in. But I must ask why he uses such similar body language and speech patterns as Rachel? It is a weird thing to behold. Am I the only one who notices this?