On today's Planet Money:
-- Three months ago, Jeff Neilsen sat in his Salt Lake City living room and listened to President Obama announce a new program for homeowners who need to rework their mortgages. He applied to his lender, Wells Fargo, and heard almost nothing. Julia Gordon of the Center for Responsible Lending says his experience is all too typical. She suggests the system is plainly broken.
-- In the U.S., 6 million homeowners are flirting with foreclosure. NPR's Chris Arnold reports that in half those cases, foreclosure appears to benefit no one involved — not the families and not the banks. With Alex Blumberg, he visits one loan servicer, Ocwen, that reworks 75 percent of its troubled mortgages, as opposed to the industry average of 10 percent. (Chris and Alex produced a segment about this for This American Life.)
-- Firefighter Bob Greiner works at a station in the Chicago suburb of Niles, where he reports a remarkable change since the recession began.
Bonus: You've been approved!
Download the podcast; or subscribe. Intro music: Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook/ Flickr.
Jessie Sackett writes from Durham, N.C.:
My economic indicator this week is 2: That's the number of new credit card offers I got in the mail this week, the first I've received in probably a year. I don't know if it's because credit is loosening, or if it's because I've been saving more and working hard to pay down my balances, and have therefore improved my credit score and become a more attractive borrower...but either way it felt like 2005 again!
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
