Brothern
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Unlike that recent Cindy McCain post, this is relevant to current politics. Someone dug up the terms of Obama's home loan for his Chicago house and found that his loan was ~ .3% less than the average loan terms in the Chicago area for that size of a loan.
Read the whole news post at WaPo's website http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR2008070103008_pf.html "WaPo" Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates. Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month. Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the rate was adjusted to account for a competing offer from another lender and other factors. "The Obamas have since had as much as $3 million invested through Northern Trust," he said in a statement. Modest adjustments in mortgage rates are common among financial institutions as they compete for business or develop relationships with wealthy families. But amid a national housing crisis, news of discounts offered to Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the banking committee, and Kent Conrad (D-N.D) by another lender, Countrywide Financial, has brought new scrutiny to the practice and has resulted in a preliminary Senate ethics committee inquiry into the Dodd and Conrad loans. Read whole article here A little more into the article, it focuses on the question that I want your comments on. Usually I don't have problems with life being "unfair" or others getting "special treatment". But it just might be a problem when [bipartisan] high ranking political officials are getting sweet heart deals from lenders when the Average Joes in this country aren't. Does that not constitute as some form of political bribery? [Edit: Anyone notice that I messed up Conrad's name?] |
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