Just when you would have thought that you heard the last regarding the banking industry, Massachusetts blowhard – no wise cracks  LOL – Barney Frank had to bring them back from the dead.

If I remember correctly, there was resolution regarding lenders and homeowners who had difficulties in keeping their mortgages current.  For whatever reason, Frank has decided to put the fear of Congress into the banks, threatening the banks with the revival of legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to write down a person’s monthly mortgage payment if the number of loan modifications remained low.  Frank went even further.

Frank, who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, also said that his committee would not consider any further legislation to help banks lend unless – according to Frank – there’s a significant increase in mortgage modifications.

All of this in the wake of a deal struck between Timothy “Turbotax” Geithner and two dozen mortgage companies; the agreement calls for a goal of adjusting approximately 500,000 loans by November 1.  This seems to leave a lot of uncertainty in the grand scheme of things.

You absolutely have to consider that of those targetd 500,000 mortgage holders, how many of them have no business getting modifications on their mortgages?  I am willing to bet you that there’s a good percentage of them who will eventually default, which is never a good sign.

I also wonder as to why Barney Frank is all of a sudden deciding to invoke this crap on these mortgage companies, banks and other lenders.  They’re trying to reverse what Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae started – which is that they made some pretty questionable loans, at the behest of Congress.  And Frank is trying to mess things up.  By the way, this is the same lawmaker who initiated the Freddie and Fannie mess.

To go a step further, it is hardly fair to these institutions to make these modifications, knowing that the mortgage holders more than likely will file for bankruptcy.  Which automatically is a loss leader for the lenders and mortgage companies not to mention that the value of the homes automatically decrease, as a result.

I think that it is in the best interest of Frank to leave these mortgage companies and other institutions alone and let them do their job.  They cannot be effective with his interference in their business.  If there’s at least one thing to be learned by Frank’s meddling, that is this: The Federal government has absolutely no business running anything that’s within the private sector.  As it were, they do a pretty shoddy job running the government; Frank’s threats of action just simply magnify everything that is wrong with our government.

Barney, all that we ask you to do is quit your annoying meddling and leave the mortgage companies, banks and other lenders alone.  But knowing you, that perhaps is asking entirely too much.