Can someone explain this, please?

They're forced to make risky loans. Under the Community Reinvestment Act if they don't get a certain grade or higher they wouldn't be able to open a new branch in that area. So if they want to open a new branch they have to make these loans. That's the government forcing banks to do something that they wouldn't do if they were following sound business practices. That's why the government should NOT be able to get involved in business. They have no clue the damage they're doing in the interest of buying votes.

A lender can find out almost anything he wants to know about you without your SS number. And an illegal alien can buy a phony SS card in any large city in the company. Birth certificates and passports are also readily available.

Many of our lenders were making no doc loans.

We’re going to find out a lot more about the corruption in this meltdown in the future. For now, we need to focus on fixing the problem.

The lenders were coerced into making bad loans by politicians. It seems they thought home ownership is a birthright, even if the “buyer” can’t pay for it. Now you and I are paying for it. This whole thing was welfare with a roof.

Right now you can a low interest rate on a home loan, but you may have to put 20 percent down.

You have hit on one of reasons the country is in such a mess. Sixty Minutes did a special on this a couple of weeks ago. They're called "no J.A.C." loans because they are given to people with no Job, no Assets, no Credit, and sure enough, true to their promise, they defaulted in record numbers leaving someone else holding the bag.

Stay tuned for the second phase of the bailout: The U.S. House of Representatives is voting tonight.

What good is a bailout? It prevents the cascading effect that the weak housing market starts. The last time something similar happened, it resulted in the Great Depression. President Obama and Congress are trying to prevent that possibility. The bailout has all the attractiveness of a "mud sandwich," as Congressman Boehner put it, but we all have to eat it in order to prevent something far worse.

O Sikander, O Sikander O Sikander, Jhaank Le Jhaank Le Apne Dil Ke Andar from Corporate

By getting the loan through Bank of America... since afterall you don't need an SSN for an account at BofA...

*Not sure if this is really true, just thought I would throw something out there*

It sounds exactly like nothing has changed. The mortgage companies took clinton's act and finagled it to work in their favor. They made huge sums of money but their own fancy mortgages did them in. They haven't learned a darn thing by the looks of this.

It's a scam. Even the psychic hotline requires a SSN these days.

Well, therein lies the problem, eh?

It actually started in the 80's with some deregulation that Reagan signed. Bush 41 ignored it... Clinton ignored it (the first sub-prime banks started going out of business in the mid 90's) and by the time Bush 43 came into office... well, he ignored it too!

The simple fact is, the government forced lenders to EQUALLY lend... even to people that maybe were not as credit worthy as their normal customers. Now, everyone expects the government (who caused the problem) is the answer...

In the words of Reagan... Government is not the solution to our problems... Government IS the problem!

It's called a stated income mortgage. You tell them your income (probably you'd have to make $100k a year to qualify), they verify it without running your credit, and that's about it.

Remember, this is a generic internet ad.

Just like its impossible to get a free iPod by selecting your pick of Coke or Pepsi.