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Dec. 3, 2023 - Stew Peters Show
57:24
Securing Futures: Navigating the Maze of Veterans' Home Loan Crises
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It seems that the government is going to be bailing out veterans and or the VA when it comes to VA home loan foreclosures.
The VA and the government have stepped in to save the day, or at least it seems that way.
Today, myself and our good friend Jason is going to have a conversation about such a thing, keeping in mind that this is kind of the realm that Jason has lived in and he's very knowledgeable.
So we are lucky to have him and his expertise here.
So stick with us.
Don't go away.
The conversation starts now.
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Okay, so earlier this week it was put out in the mainstream media, which is so great, we all know, that the VA is going to be bailed out or bailing out veterans who may be in forbearance on their VA home loans.
And there's a lot of questions surrounding whether or not this is going to be a good thing for veterans or a bad thing.
I guess the jury is still out, but We here at the Richard Leonard Show and the Stu Peters Network have questions.
And we are just lucky enough to have an expert such as this guy, Mr.
Jason Ouse.
How are you, sir?
Very good to yourself.
Very good.
Thank you for being here.
Let's jump right in.
Okay, so correct me if I'm wrong.
But the government is coming in to bail out veterans who may be in forbearance on their VA home loans, correct?
Depending upon which news outlet you read, there's a lot of conflicting information out there, and I think that's one of the larger worries here.
Actually, our mutual friend, Benjamin Krause, reached out to me yesterday asking me about this.
Or excuse me, it would have been earlier in the week when he did so.
But we've kind of been hitting it here this weekend, really trying to dial in on what is going on.
And I certainly think that anytime that there's, you know, very rapid movement at the VA that we, our veteran culture, our veteran group, we should be paying attention to it.
I don't know what's happening, but I certainly want to talk about it with you.
Well, I think that you're correct because anytime the VA starts to move very fast and it's making headlines and it is a topic that seemingly will impact many, many veterans who are using this program, Red flags go up for a lot of people, including the veterans that are using said service.
So let me just ask you, because full disclosure, I am not very versed in the financial world.
In fact, I refer to people like you and others that I know have experience to help guide me through these things.
So I'm going to, in a roundabout way, or actually very directly, ask you to guide us through this conversation.
When you saw this, and Ben brought it to your attention, what was the first red flag that instantly popped up in your mind?
Because I know that there was one instantly that was raised.
Well, it brought me back to the COVID forbearance, where they just decided, nope, you don't need to be making payments.
I understand people were in pretty tough spots.
I mean, a lot of people were put in places where they couldn't go to work, they couldn't pay their bills, and that was based upon a big government decision.
So I understand that.
But there's always going to be a byproduct.
And it just so happened that I did spend some time in banking on the foreclosure side of the banking business.
And so I have a rudimentary understanding.
So getting back to your expert, I don't like that word expert.
And it certainly, no worries.
But in the last four years, five years, you know, I've been talking to my friends that are still in the industry asking them, well, how is this forbearance thing actually rolling out?
Because a lot of people don't know too, with the VA home loans, that's a home loan guarantee that's provided to the servicer who actually carries your note, right?
And so the first thing that I read, which I pulled up here, and so I keep glancing at it, the headline from NPR was, the VA stops foreclosures for thousands of veterans after NPR investigation.
Okay, was it because of the investigation?
I find that highly unlikely.
I'm fairly certain there were some ripples.
People have been trying to figure this thing out for some time because a mortgage is a contract.
It's a covenant, right?
Can't be just adjusted on the fly.
The government tells lenders how they can lend, the parameters in which loans can be made, and how they're executed.
You do have a little bit of leeway as a servicer on how you're going to deal with discharging debt or dealing with the foreclosure side of things.
But all of these mechanisms are kind of, they're already in place.
So when you have the VA, if they did, because they're the only ones refer to the, they're saying that literally the VA specifically said to stop foreclosures to all servicers for VA loan, Guaranteurs that were delinquent or otherwise, which again, there's a whole host of different verbiage there that dials into where you're at in the foreclosure pipeline.
But basically, it is my understanding that anytime the government says anything, then I look to the agencies or the groups that kind of oversee each organization.
I don't know, division of our economy.
Like, in this instance, it would be the brokers, the American Bankers Association, any of the other nationals or semi-local organizations to see if they had anything to say.
And they were all pretty quiet, Richie.
Well, that would lead me to believe that There's treachery afoot of some sort.
But let's real quick, just for the audience sake, just put out what the proposal is.
From what I understood, they're proposing to do something similar to the COVID forbearance where they're gonna take whatever amount of payments it is and roll it on to the end of your loan, which then gives you the freedom of however many months to not make your payment.
But what you're saying, if I understand you correctly, is That mortgages don't work that way.
That's not how a contract works.
The bank is expecting to be paid every month.
If they roll my payment for my mortgage to the end of my mortgage, who's paying those forgiven months of, or rolled to the end payments?
Who's making those?
Well, that's just it.
There's still incurred costs.
It's just like all of us, right?
Just because I don't live in my house, but I have my heat and my air conditioning on, it's not like because I'm not there, it didn't cost me something.
So all those pieces of paper, all those mortgages, there is a true dollar cost.
When I started reading into this, if you went back to COVID forbearance, you had mechanisms that were put in place to create what would in essence be junior positions, enforceable positions to make loans to the borrower to make whole the provider of the original mortgage.
Or that senior loan that was in place that you were delinquent on, right?
Now, if you're going to do that, that's wonderful, right?
That's an enforceable track and action.
That means that if the government is putting money on the table in place of what they did to those borrowers to make that good, The junior position then is an enforceable position that at the absolution of the contract, either the payoff of the contract or the sale of the asset, that that junior position can be satisfied in full with the resources or the dollars that are being paid in or collected at closing, right?
Sounds like it should work that way.
It's connected to asset.
It would just be, you know, like any other loan that you would have, right?
It has to be connected to that asset so you have some type of protection to make the loan.
You know, it's not like giving the loan to your buddy.
I mean that, you know, here's a couple hundred bucks, but I promise you if I called you up and I'm like, hey Richie, I need 40 grand for a truck, you're gonna wanna be in some type of position where if I don't pay you, you end up with a truck, right?
Right, yeah, absolutely.
So banks and anybody that's involved in a financial transaction like this would want to have some type of guarantee that they are going to be locked in on that asset, that they are at least in line.
Now, as we read through, it doesn't look like the mechanism is in place to have an enforceable action for this VA potential payoff.
And again, I am speaking Based upon only the things that I've read.
Because I assume doing something like this, you would guess that you would be able to go to one place and see it all.
And I'm sorry, I'm talking with my hands below the camera, but it's really bothering me right now.
That's okay.
This whole thing.
And so, taking these bits and pieces, it seems to me that if I were to read, or just speaking based upon what I've read, this almost feels like a bail-in to the bank to make the banks whole, to make the borrower's whole, you know, get the loan back on track.
And then, in essence, an unenforceable or an unenforceable action that the borrower would then owe the VA money.
I don't understand how that can possibly work, right?
So if the VA is paying money...
Wait a minute.
I'm sorry to cut you off.
Now, this is a very elementary view because I'm not versed in this, but it sounds like this is going to work out in a way for the government to be paid more money.
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No, no, no, no, no, no.
Okay.
No, it doesn't look like it's something where, you know, the government would be getting paid back.
Because, I mean, then you'd be in, what, you know, China-like, where our government would be in the business of making loans direct to its citizens, collecting interest.
I don't think that that's a path that they want to travel down, even though there were some inferences to it.
That's not what it looks like, but, you know, time will tell.
That would be a problem.
Right?
Well, think about it again, going back to that loaning money, right?
And so you made the initial loan to me for $40,000 and then I hit one of our battle buddies up for another $5,000 on that same thing to make you and I whole on our deal.
And now he and I just have an agreement that I'm going to pay him that $5,000 randomly.
But he's not attached to title on that truck.
It just comes down to me and him.
And if there is a mechanism in place where I can pay him dollar for dollar what came in, that's a unique position to have the government in, isn't it?
It would seem that way.
But let me ask you this also.
Isn't the whole point...
Of me using the benefit of a VA loan that if, for whatever reason, I default on it, I lose my job or I get sick or I get injured, whatever the case may be, and I can't pay, that the VA is then going to make the bank whole.
Isn't that the whole point?
And it kind of sounds like what's going on here or potentially proposed to what's going on here, but there's always a but.
But there's other stuff following it, right?
Because the whole point of the program, right, is that if I default, the VA covers me.
That's why banks apparently should be considering veterans or VA loans because it's a guaranteed payoff if I don't pay.
Right.
So the question is, Okay, if you're going to tell me that my next three payments will be rolled into the end of my 30-year mortgage, so my mortgage is now 30 years and three months, and the VA or anybody is going to cover these three payments on the front end, That's how the program is supposed to work if I default and just leave the house.
So now the question is, now you've rolled my payments.
I don't have to pay them, but somebody has to because the bank wants their money.
So where is that money coming from?
Is that our tax dollars being used again?
And then when I make those payments at the end of my mortgage, do those three months of payments that the government made for me go back to them?
I would assume.
There would be no way around that.
But if they don't have an enforceable action, who's to say?
You know, but I don't think we're talking about something here, bud, where it's three months.
I mean, we are talking about forbearance that goes back years.
Oh, okay.
Right?
So, one of the things I tried and tried and tried to find were stats and figures.
You know, I love those, Richie.
Word data driven.
Data-driven, gotta have numbers.
Numbers don't lie, people do, right?
So, and again, and amongst all of these different articles I was able to get to, I wasn't able to find out how far people were in the rears on these particular loans, but I did see something interesting where they were kind of changing what they noted as delinquency.
Delinquency, in my experience, had been 31 days or longer.
It looks like they've changed that.
It could be 90.
It could be 180.
Maybe with COVID forbearance, it could be delinquent.
It could be anything from 31 days or on.
Or maybe they're even setting the marker at 181.
I don't know.
And nobody's saying that specifically.
However, what they did say was just at VA that that pipeline potentially was 32,000 to 36,000 individuals impacted.
Holy cow.
Now, the biggest number that I saw was 154,000 in another article.
So, I just want to use that smaller number for this purpose, right?
And we know it's not three months.
You know, the likelihood of somebody who's in this situation, it's been a great deal of time.
And hopefully for the veterans affected, there have been some things that have occurred, or maybe we're looking at a snippet of time where payments weren't made, you know, during the process and now they've picked back up.
But, you know, the way that banking works, you cannot, you can't take payments past the payment date and not apply them to the oldest.
Payments do, if that makes sense.
It does, yeah.
Yeah, you can't just, you know, it's just like, you know, with any loan that you have, the dollars that are applied are applied to the oldest, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
So if you just have this weird mulligan time, you know, how are the banks dealing with it?
And I guess it's not for me to know nor really care about.
But I think the dollar figure we're looking at here is quite large for somebody to make a snap decision on, right?
Yes, I agree.
And that...
When you explain it that way, that raises a couple red flags for me.
Number one, who's paying this money and where is it going?
And so maybe that's something we need to research.
But more importantly, and some people are probably going to disagree with me on this one, I struggle with whether or not this is going to be helpful For the veterans that are in this position, right?
And let me explain.
It will be helpful for them because now their loan is current.
They don't have to worry about losing their home potentially, but What worries me is the potential enabling feature of this type of thing, right?
Because as much as we talk about how we need to clean up our own backyard and we need to be responsible for ourselves and how veterans, you know, we have benefits for a reason, right?
Because we chose to sacrifice and potentially lose everything, including our lives, for this country.
But When we start putting veterans into a position where they have some shortcomings or something happened out of their control and now they find themselves in this position where they can't pay their mortgage because they can't work the same job due to an injury or sickness or whatever the case may be.
Is it helpful to let these types of things just, okay, well, don't worry about it.
We'll roll it on to the end of your loan.
And then it's all good.
We don't want to put veterans into a mindset or into a habit of saying, well, crap, I'm in trouble now.
Hopefully the VA will come bail me out and I don't got to worry about it.
And if this becomes a trend down the road, let's say that this happens every 12 years, just arbitrary number.
Well, veterans aren't stupid, right?
I mean, if there is a way for us to get something, we're going to get it.
I mean, that's proven to be true over all these years.
But what are we doing for helping these men and women to still stay accountable?
Because I believe that to a certain extent, you, Jason, me, Ben Krause, anybody else that is doing work to better the lives of veterans, to bring awareness to the issues, part of the thing we struggle with is enabling behavior.
And so, yes, it's great that veterans will get a break on this, but do we want to start a trend where we just allow it to happen with no end?
Kind of like you and I talked about the other day in the country of Kuwait where the emir, like the king or the sultan or whatever you want to call them, they just forgive debt.
And so you can have all this debt, and at some point, the government says, well, you know, you owe $800,000 on your house and your two vehicles and your cabin.
Altogether, it's 800 grand.
Don't worry about it.
We got it.
I don't know if that's helpful for us as a country, but more importantly, for our community, right, our culture, if that makes sense.
Well, yeah, and I think it does, but, you know, as a taxpayer, too, you know, I want to be pretty mindful about how our tax dollars are spent as well.
Absolutely.
And, you know, I just ran quick here on my calculator, and so using the low-end figures at 36,000 people at just saying $6,000 of forbearance dollars that are owed, that's 216 million.
Very quickly, if you look at the larger number, and let's just say it was the $155,000, which is roughly five times $216,000, that's over a billion dollars that's being cycled through VA to those servicers who have had those loans.
Now, I think that $6,000 figure is probably quite small.
But the other challenge here, Ricky, and the thing that...
What bothers me the most is that likely each of these servicers would have, they have some type of mechanism in place to deal with this.
Could this be something, hopefully we're just hearing about it now and this is just some rumbling and talking as they try to figure it out, but will VA Engage with the American Bankers Association and a lot of the big boys at the big banks to understand different ways to maybe We can create a facilitation where those banks end up carrying that burden of making things right.
Because we're already guaranteeing the loan in whole, but maybe we can allow them the flexibility to come up with some creative ways to create junior positions that still lock the money against the asset.
And then if the VA had to, to make some things whole, make smaller payments.
We always see that they kind of seem to overdo the things they do quickly.
And so I would just, you know, I would hope that they're going to actually talk to people in the finance world to understand how that works before they start writing checks to bail veterans out just because you can bail out veterans and people seem to have a very short memory on if it was a good or a bad thing.
That's kind of my problem.
Yeah, and I agree with that.
But I also wonder, could this lead to things like the VA home loan program going away?
And why?
Why did we end up in this place, right?
Because for me, and we're running short on time in this segment, so I'll get off my soapbox quick.
But for me, this is great.
Potentially, this has the potential to be a great thing for the veterans that need it.
But what concerns me is, and maybe it's still early in the process, what concerns me is, are we going to have conversations as a culture, as a government, as just a country of people about how veterans got here?
How did we get to a point where 155,000 veterans are defaulting on their home loans?
When we live in a country that no matter where you walk, no matter where you go, if the topic of veterans and home loans and benefits and all the bullshit that they've been through comes up and people will openly say, well, you know what?
That's ridiculous.
Veterans should never have to pay taxes.
They shouldn't have to pay for their housing.
They shouldn't have to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
There's all kinds of things that veterans shouldn't have to be responsible for.
Okay, great.
But that's not the case, right?
We are responsible for a lot of stuff.
Jason, you gotta pay your bills, I gotta pay mine.
We all do.
So the question is, once this gets figured out, what is the conversation gonna be about how veterans got here and what are we gonna do to ensure that 155,000 veterans aren't gonna lose their home to whatever reason it was they got there?
Because we talk all the time.
Our government talks all the time about veterans programs.
How are we going to slow down the suicide number?
How are we going to get recruiting numbers up?
How are we going to stop talking about how we hate our dicks and we're going to put vaginas on our male soldiers?
You know, all those things.
But nobody wants to talk about how we got there and how to fix the damn problem.
And now I'm upset about it.
And I didn't even really know all that much about it when we started.
So that's just something to chew on though, right?
Because...
At the end of the day, it's a problem.
If there's a way for our government and the VA and the veterans to work together to solve it, to get people back to good with a good plan, great.
But how do we not get here again, is the question.
So chew on that for a minute.
Everyone stick with us.
We'll be right back.
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Hey folks, welcome back here to the next segment of the show.
When we ended the last segment, I was a little heated, right?
Because I feel that there's other things to talk about that have to do with this topic.
Oh, and before we continue, before we continue real quick, Jason, I noticed you removed your hat.
So I think it's a good time to address what the hell's going on on my face.
Because I've gotten a lot of questions.
Maybe some of you don't care, but I think it's important to point out that I got into quite a battle with my razor and had to just remove most of my facial hair.
And I understand it probably looks a little weird, but it's what I got for now until it grows in, much like Jason's rolling with slick top until it grows back in.
So we're both here hairless.
Anyway, moving forward, let's shift the conversation, right, Jason?
Because I think that we could talk ad nauseum about the pitfalls of this whole ordeal.
But I think it's important to talk about maybe for a few minutes about how veterans maybe got here, right?
Because at the end of the last segment, we were talking about what's the plan to not get here again?
Well, I think it's hard to come up with a solution for how to not get there again if we don't have any idea about how they may have got there.
And I think that it's important to note also that we don't know, right?
We don't have any concrete data or information about how veterans got into this position.
And if the number is roughly or could be upwards of 155,000 veterans, what the hell is going on?
And how did we get here to begin with?
So, of course we want to talk about how to not get back there, but how did we get here?
And there's probably a lot of ideas.
I got a few.
Jason, do you have a few?
Give us one.
One idea you think about how veterans got to this area of their life.
The cycle of poverty.
The same thing that we've talked about numerous times.
Not knowing how to watch your own pocketbook.
Okay.
So, financial literacy.
Financial literacy, as we have talked about on this show, is a problem for veterans.
And why is it a problem for veterans?
Because of the way that life is structured in the military, maybe.
Maybe they weren't taught as young adults or children the value of a dollar and how to, for every five dollars you earn, put two away, or something like that.
What do you think, Jason?
How do you think, okay, financial literacy aside, cycle of poverty aside, what are some things maybe that got us into this position?
Well, I will say one that gets me often, and my wife would vouch for this, is impulse control, right?
I have terrible impulse control.
And we did chat momentarily about this, but there is also a certain subset of members of the military that are always going to gain the system.
If it was working your way out of KP or guard duty, they kind of always figured out a way to make things happen to their advantage.
And I'm not saying that's a large percentage.
I have no idea.
But my gut would tell me that there would be some of that too.
Well, and I think that that opinion or that type of opinion comes from the school of We've been there, done that, right?
If it wasn't you and it wasn't me, then we served with somebody who was just making ungodly decisions with the little bit of money or a lot of money that they had, no matter what it is.
And people always talk about Americans, in general, seem to live beyond their means.
That's why we're never satisfied and that's why we're always looking for a better paying job and because new ads come out, it's Christmas time, now you want this thing and that widget and this thing and the other thing.
Well, I can spend $2,000 buying these cool gadgets or toys that I like and I'll worry about paying my mortgage later.
It's a VA loan maybe and something will come about or whatever the case may be.
But I also share the same downfall in that respect as you is impulse control.
In fact, when you said that I was I was channeling my spidey senses to see if my wife was somewhere around giving you signals like, hey, that's him too.
But it's true.
It's very true.
And I think that we get that way.
We get to that place because when you are raised in the military...
There's a lot of things that you don't have to pay for.
As a young soldier, if I live in the barracks and I'm making $4,500 a month or $3,500 a month or even $2,200 a month, But I don't have a mortgage.
I don't have rent.
I don't have to pay for food.
I really got to just worry about my car note and my PlayStation 5 and whatever civilian clothes that I may want to wear when I'm not working because the army gives me uniforms.
And I don't know that we have, that situation in particular is probably pretty prominent because there isn't a whole lot of education when you leave the military about how that is not going to work in civilian life.
Right.
So, the question becomes, again, how do we not get here again?
But we have to recognize how we got here in the first place.
My father is a person that kind of lives on this phrase, that you don't know where you're going or where you're at if you don't know where you've been.
Right?
It's kind of a way of saying, don't forget where you came from.
Yeah.
And I think that that may be a way that we got into this situation.
Yeah, it's possible.
Um, I don't know.
My gut tells me that there's got to be one overlying reason, and I don't know what that is.
Again, I wish I had something to look at, to go back to, to say this is why I feel this way, or this is what it is.
I certainly think the advantageous side is happening probably more so than anything else.
That's just what my gut tells me.
Yeah, and you're probably right.
And I'm sure that the government would say, well, you know, when we were working through COVID and, you know, these are the things that worked and this will probably work very well for the veteran community in this instance.
But let's talk about that.
Let's talk about how and why veterans may just take advantage of the situation, right?
What a terribly foolish thing to do.
I mean, I don't care if you're a Republican, Democrat, liberal, or conservative.
There wasn't an outlet out there while this forbearance was being rolled out where they did not give you pause.
I mean, Dave Ramsey, I don't know what people's personal insight on him is.
I'm sure he's wise in certain things, but in certain things he's come up quite short.
But he was sounding the alarm bells, do not, proceed with caution, you know, do everything in your power except.
Those are phrases to come out of his mouth or a roundabout phrasing out of what he had to say that should have stopped people from pursuing that forbearance.
Because I think the VA side is one side, but there's certainly all federal loans were allowed this forbearance.
And I think it actually trickled into the other side of the marketplace.
So I still don't even know how far this forbearance spread.
There were enough people at least, you know, pumping the brakes on and throwing up the red lights to say proceed with caution.
Well, Dave Ramsey is somebody that my wife enjoys listening to every now and then, but I will say that there are times where she does say, well, you know, it sounds good, but I don't know if that would work very well.
And if there's one person in my household that is the genius with money that doesn't really suffer from impulse control like you and I do, it is my wife, a thousand percent.
So, I don't know if...
If there is a really good answer about how we got to this place.
But the question is, how do we not get back?
And I think that that remains yet to be seen.
Yeah, likely.
But we're also talking about something quite unprecedented.
I can't think of a time where they've ever created any type of a moratorium on something that large, right?
There's certainly never been a time where, you know, maybe with the exception of paying taxes on certain things for a month or two, Really nothing like this has ever occurred.
So we're certainly in uncharted waters, which is why I want to give federal government the benefit of the doubt that they're trying to roll out something that's going to work because they had to do something.
Doing nothing is a decision, but that also was going to force the hand of a lot of people, a lot of servicers to To have to put into action, you know, the follow-through plan of what not paying your bills looks like.
And that was something that I don't think anybody could stomach either.
You know, I think how do we get, you know, how do we stay out of this place?
Maybe, you know, Don't create moratoriums like this anymore.
Ensure people are doing the right thing.
I mean, I know you and I, I can speak for both of us on this one.
We didn't miss paying a bill during COVID, right?
Were things tighter, tougher?
I mean, I was in a construction business, or am, and things changed on a dime.
A lot of our work came out of foreclosures.
And so, you know, we had to restructure and do everything possible.
And, you know, we were fortunate enough to be in a position to be able to remedy the ship with a little bit of help.
And that was a blessing.
So, you know, this blessing right now looks like it may be a little bit of a curse on the back end, but maybe the end of the ship ride brings it into a safe harbor.
I don't know.
Well, and you might be right on, but I think also, man, that this is a perfect opportunity, and it almost came out of my mouth about four minutes ago, and I stopped myself because I don't want to do that, but it might also be a perfect opportunity for us to cast a little shade on our own community, right?
In the interest of fairness to everybody that shares space in this country, I think that it's important that we identify where we as veterans, as a community, as the warrior culture has come up short.
And when you brought up the idea that there just might be people taking advantage of this whole thing, I instantly agreed with you, right?
I mean, because we all know those guys and gals that we served with, like you were saying, that found a way to make the situation work out into their advantage, even if it wasn't for the common good.
But I think in this situation, when we're talking about, and you and I were speaking offline about what the real numbers probably were, which we should probably put out because, you know, we don't want to dumb it down, but If we are, as a culture, taking advantage of a system that is going to raise taxes and make things harder for our neighbors, then we're in the wrong.
And like I was explaining to you, if I decide that I can't make my payments on my house, I'm sick or I lost my job, whatever the case may be, And the government's going to tell me, well, Mr.
Leonard, it's okay.
We have a plan for you.
We're going to take your three months or 10 months or 15 or 24 months or whatever that amount of time is.
We'll roll that on the back end and just don't worry about it.
Get yourself on your feet.
Make payments when you can.
And by this date, we need to be caught up.
And that's the plan that we have for you.
Okay, great.
But...
If my neighbor across the street or my mother who's not a veteran or anybody else is going to end up paying, for arbitrary numbers sake, $5,000 extra a year in taxes because me and my battle buddies decided that we're going to buy a $90,000 truck and not pay our mortgage instead of a $40,000 truck that we can afford.
Well, that's not fair, right?
And the whole reason for us to join the military and serve our country is for the common good.
So if we're taking advantage of a situation and we're screwing over our neighbors...
Well, that doesn't live up to the core values that we were taught that were piss-pounded into our heads at basic training.
In fact, if you got them wrong, you're going to be really effing tired and really cold, right?
So they made sure that you learned them.
And so why would those things like integrity, right?
It becomes the first thing that comes to my mind.
Why would we take advantage of a system that's going to F over our neighbors, right?
Right?
That's not serving the common good, and that's what we're here for.
And so, you know, I'm sorry if you're a veteran or a service member and you don't like those words, but I'm more comfortable telling you, other veterans, too frickin' bad if you don't like it.
Do the right thing, right?
I think that as a culture, we do or should hold ourselves to a higher standard.
If I have to leave my house and I lose it because I can't pay for whatever reason, well, I guess I gotta just take the big green weenie, right?
And deal with it and figure it out.
But my neighbor shouldn't have to deal with it.
Right.
Or you're in a position, there's other things that you can do, right?
There's other actions.
It's not like you have to allow your house to go away into foreclosure.
You can decide maybe it's too much house.
Maybe the payment is just too high.
Maybe this is something not sustainable.
Um, You can sell your house.
You can move into a more affordable house.
You can move into a more affordable area.
You know, and that's, again, this kind of like cycles back into that first half of this conversation too.
You know, who wants to give up a 2% to 3% loan to get a 6% to 7% loan?
Exactly.
Right.
You know, I mean, there is that thing.
And so that's why every time I say something, I almost want to say the exact opposite because, I don't understand what they're doing.
I don't understand how the people that are in the situation got there.
And so we're kind of talking about every possible angle and direction that you can come at on this one.
And I think very quickly now this The discussion point is coming to fruition.
I don't think this is going to take a long time.
We're actually going to see what the program looks like.
And I think this is something we should revisit because then the data will be out and we can really look at it and then we have something meaningful to talk about and then direct, you know, our conversations towards the good, the bad and the ugly.
Right now, we're everywhere, man.
This is a hard one to discuss.
Yeah.
Well, because I think that there's so many ways in which we could talk about that we got here.
And there's so many ways that we could talk about maybe to alleviate the problem and make it more fair for the people that are paying their bills.
And maybe they're taking better care of themselves so they don't get sick, or they're being more careful so they don't get hurt, or whatever the case may be, right?
I mean, we could put ourselves in a bubble, right?
And then we'd never get hurt, we'd never get sick, we'll make all our bills and there won't be a problem.
But that's not how reality works.
Those of us in our culture know that we do stupid shit.
You know, I mean, it's not out of the ordinary for a veteran to go out and buy five or six go-karts and crash them.
Or something like that, you know, just because...
The really cool people that are doing that, Richard, like super cool people do that.
Yeah.
Well, I'm aware.
I'm aware of that.
Super cool.
But those super cool people are also in a position to afford it and still pay their mortgage.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, and that's, you know, I think there's a lot of civilians that are, you know, if they're listening right now and they're hearing this, I mean, we've got that particular moniker, the Blue Falcon, you know, and just because you're out of the military doesn't mean you're not going to be one.
And so for those of you that don't know, I don't know the other way to say it.
Maybe Richie's got that and I'll leave it off to you.
But, you know, this is, don't be that guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don't be that guy.
And have some integrity and own up to your situation.
Because the truth is that if you are a veteran and you're in this situation, sometimes it's as easy as swallowing your damn pride and saying you need help.
Right?
And just saying, hey man, this career path didn't work out, my wife got sick, whatever the case may be.
I just need help getting back on my feet.
I need a new job.
I need help with a vehicle.
Whatever the case may be, there are people out there that want to do the right thing and help you out, but silent mouths don't get fed.
And so if nobody knows that you're in trouble until it's too late, how can anybody help you?
And then you have no reason to bitch that there was no help for you if you don't ask for it.
And so, Jason, you're right.
Don't be the Buddy Effer, right?
The Blue Falcon.
Don't be that guy.
Right.
Well, and I have to assume, I mean, when I worked in the banking system, there were a lot of modification programs that were put in place.
Pre-COVID, you know, these were things that stretched back to the 2008-2009 crisis.
And so there are opportunities and places for you to go.
And of course, you know, certain criteria need to be met, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But hopefully that's where big daddy government comes in to help, is by creating a little more flexibility in the policy and protocol and that assistance that the servicer can provide, right?
Because they're also hamstrung by the rules that they have to live under.
And so it's not always as simple as the action of government writing checks.
Sometimes it's just allowing the banks to do something that's beneficial for both the borrower and the bank.
And now you've created a situation where you've got three winners.
The taxpayers aren't on the hook for the dollars that have to get paid into the banks.
The borrowers are on the hook for the money that they rightfully owed.
Well, that seems like a pretty simple win-win-win to me.
Yes.
And let's also not And at the risk of getting political in this conversation, let's also not discount the issue we have with our economy in general, which may be part of the cause of this thing.
When it costs you an extra $30 a week to fill your tank, and it costs you an extra $2 to get a carton of eggs, bread is 50 cents more per loaf, all those things, it makes it harder to make your big payments.
You might be onto something there.
Because I think that would be an interesting point to look at is to see during the initial onset of forbearance, how long that pipeline was open for, number one, and then see at what point people were going delinquent, you know, and again, we're using a phrase that they can just change the definition for, but delinquency, then look at where they're at in the foreclosure pipeline now and say, well, where did the actual problem happen?
Did it truly happen?
Under the COVID moratorium?
Or is this something that's actually happening because of economic pressures that we're facing?
Well, I would think that there's a good chance that it's both.
Right?
You get punched with the left jab and the right hook.
Here it comes.
Yeah.
And so, I also don't want to end this conversation in giving people the idea, and us have the idea, Jason, that All of this could have been avoided by the borrower, right?
I am well aware that there are unforeseen issues that happen to people.
There's emergencies, things that you don't foresee coming up that just change life, right?
Life happens.
Right.
But if it is true that part of this problem is due to overwhelming inflation, And the invasion we're experiencing at the southern border, which stops the transport of goods and makes that more expensive, then part of the issue is we need to vote differently, which is a whole other conversation because there are many people watching and who say, well, it doesn't matter how you vote because our votes don't count.
It doesn't mean shit.
So maybe that's true, too.
But at the end of the day, If life in general is that much more expensive, now that we've talked about this for almost a whole hour and it's becoming a little more clear, if we got here because life is expensive and we all have kids to raise,
we have family, aging parents to take care of, we have our own homes to look after, we got jobs to get to, we got vehicles, we got our own health to look after, if all of it is so much more expensive than Then of course this is going to be an issue.
And so that makes me think, again, like we've talked about in past shows, and again, I want to make it clear every time, not to get very political, but is this by governmental design?
And if it is, if veterans aren't the only population that are experiencing this, and maybe, Jason, like you and I have talked about many times, not on the show, offline, in the garage over a seltzer, Maybe this is a litmus test for how the government is going to handle everybody's foreclosures, right?
Because why not test it on the veterans first?
It's the smallest demographic population of people in our country.
They're highly vulnerable because all of our information is right at the fingertips of any government official.
Your Social Security, all that stuff, it's all in there, right?
Like, if you're a veteran and you buy LifeLock, it's a waste of money, in my opinion, because your Social Security number is probably on 19,000 pieces of paper that is everywhere in the world, right?
But again, that's a whole other show.
So, I mean, just all things to chew on.
And I want to point out that the whole purpose of this show is not to tell people How to feel and what the problem is.
The whole point of these conversations that you and I have and that I have with other people that come on the show is to give you, the audience, something to think about, right?
To further the conversation, maybe to help you make a decision on how you're going to move forward with who you support leading you in your local community, all those things.
And so none of this is like concrete, this is what happened.
But from the experience of somebody like you, Jason, who has experience in the industry, and we both have a lot of experience working in and around and with veterans, we just have an opinion.
So, take none of it as the gospel, but probably some pretty good information to chew on and think about.
Jason, we have about a minute and 10 seconds left.
I'm going to let you have the last word before we close out the show.
Go ahead.
Whatever you got.
Thanks for doing that again.
I really appreciate that.
Every time, buddy.
Well, yeah, I know.
I guess as we continually look down these paths and just see, you know, are they really using this to help out veterans?
Is this a starting off point for something bigger that they're going to roll out?
I hope we can all take a couple of minutes just to think about the bigger pictures that are going on in our globe, the things that are happening in our country, and hopefully we can all...
I hate this.
You take this.
Please cut all this out.
Well, we can't, so we're going to roll with it.
Well, there you go.
So, I just hope that they can't take the veteran community again and put us out in front and use us as the guinea pig to try to roll out something bigger than it need be.
I guess that's what I was getting at, but this one really bugs me, so that's where I'm at.
Well, but see, and here's the thing, bro, and I'm going to tell you straight up on camera for everyone to see, this is why I love this format.
This is why I love this platform, and I love that you and I can have these conversations, and me and whoever else, and you and I and a whole group of people, we can have these conversations.
Because, to be honest with you folks, this is something that really pisses off The veteran community who are really looking to do good for our whole population of people.
Not just civilians, not just veterans, but everybody.
And so at the end of the day, this whole thing is very multifaceted, it seems, and it remains yet to be seen what the real motivation is.
But don't ever lose sight of the fact that At some point, we're going to have to just take care of each other.
And knowing how we got to where we're going to be, when and if that ever happens, is important.
And that's why these conversations are important, this show is important, this platform, the Stu Peters Network is important.
All those things.
Because this is not a conversation you're going to see on Fox News, Newsmax, certainly not CNN or MSNBC. But it's real.
And it's a real problem.
And so here we are, right?
And it just goes to show you, I mean, Jason, you're frustrated, right?
And lost your words.
It happens.
So please forgive us, but it's something that we both care about deeply because the ramifications on this could be insurmountable to not just the veteran population, but everybody.
And so with that said, we've run out of time.
I really want to thank you guys for joining us.
Jason, thank you for your time.
You look very frustrated.
We'll address that off camera.
But I love you, brother.
Thank you for joining us, everybody.
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