Hoax

[Handballer]

I received this email today: I guess its going around.

Subject: APPLEBEE'S - ENJOY! ($50.00)
APPLEBEE'S - ENJOY! ($50.00)
Have a great lunch!

Hope you enjoy your lunch on Applebee's!
My name is Bill Palmer, founder of Applebee's. In an attempt to get our
name out to more people in the rural communities where we are not
currently located, we are offering a! $50 gift certificate to anyone who
forwards this email to 9 of their friends. Just send this email to them
and you will receive an email back with a confirmation number to claim
your gift certificate.
! !
Sincerely
Bill Palmer
Founder of Applebee's Visit us at: www.applebees.com
<blockedhttp://www.applebees.com/>

I called one of our local Applebees to verify the $50 thing. When Applebees answered a recorded message said if I received an email about this to disreguard. The email is a hoax and they will not honor anything promised in the email. Their phone number is 888-59APPLE.

[Steadygain]

Actually that is part of the Hoax

The truth is : Applebees sent that email to a few thousand addresses totally picked at random...

There is an encrypted message beyond the surface and you must find and solve that 'secret message' to win. It is not easy to identify and so far very few have claimed the 'Real Offer'.

Facts are -- if you are one of the Lucky Few to get that email then study it carefully and try to find the hidden encrypted message. If you call in with 'That Message' --

They will send 9 (that's NINE) -- $50 gift certificates

And you can cash them in at any bank if you want the money instead

So don't give up folks -- cause this is a very rare opportunity

Don't believe me -- ask Bridgewaterbetty

[Buster]

Again, the master of Sarcasm is out in full bloom today

[James48843]

You need the secret decoder to figure out the message:

[Buster]

You need the secret decoder to figure out the message:

Awesome find..I remember that show...

[Frixxxx]

President Obama or your mom IS NOT asking you to refinance or stop paying your bills no matter what this says!

Hoax!

[Birchtree]

If you are a minority at risk candidate your home is already owned by a government entity - they will simply increase your welfare check to help you make your mortgage on the home you can't afford. It pays to be lazy in this country and vote the progressive party.

[crws]

If you are a minority at risk candidate your home is already owned by a government entity - they will simply increase your welfare check to help you make your mortgage on the home you can't afford. It pays to be lazy in this country and vote the progressive party.

since you brought that up-
Where are all the PMI players, supposed to insure the final 20% of loans?
I don't see any news about how the banks or the fed is collecting wads of cash
as a result of the home value declines these policies were put in place to protect lenders from...

BTW- is this the minority at risk program you're talking about?
c'mon Birch.... here's how it started!
and PS! Watch the whole frickin clip. It's all in there. Really. You're no dummy, this ain't no repub or dem finger pointing, he says it all. An epic example of the phrase "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions".

[Frixxxx]

since you brought that up-
Where are all the PMI players, supposed to insure the final 20% of loans?
I don't see any news about how the banks or the fed is collecting wads of cash
as a result of the home value declines these policies were put in place to protect lenders from...

BTW- is this the minority at risk program you're talking about?
c'mon Birch.... here's how it started!
and PS! Watch the whole frickin clip. It's all in there. Really. You're no dummy, this ain't no repub or dem finger pointing, he says it all. An epic example of the phrase "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions".

LOL, "qualified" home buyer.......it was the banks qualifying, no politician ever "qualified" someone for a loan......
BTW....I have said it before, but to stimulate the economy back in 1980, President Ronald Reagan helped legalize negative ammorization loans.....The BANKS used that to get us where we are today......Remember, "caveat emptor"? Your bank is responsible for where we are.

Paid for by the "freakin get a clue" project. Now everyone REALLY knows where the fault lies. WITH THE BANKS!

[crws]

LOL, "qualified" home buyer.......it was the banks qualifying, no politician ever "qualified" someone for a loan......
BTW....I have said it before, but to stimulate the economy back in 1980, President Ronald Reagan helped legalize negative ammorization loans.....The BANKS used that to get us where we are today......Remember, "caveat emptor"? Your bank is responsible for where we are.

Paid for by the "freakin get a clue" project. Now everyone REALLY knows where the fault lies. WITH THE BANKS!

-and mortgage brokers. They sold and resold mortgages like the hot potatoes they were, all the while pocketing commissions on every sale.
It was the ultimate Ponzi Scheme, endorsed and enabled by the Gov.
Just because the poor or low income families wanted a place to call their own like everybody else, and had the Gov's blessing to do so, does not make them the villain in a game where the ref's knew exactly what was happening.

[Buster]

Just because the poor or low income families wanted a place to call their own like everybody else, and had the Gov's blessing to do so, does not make them the villain in a game

Check this out..Hypothetically:..I go into this Car dealership..and I see this awesome 2011 Cadillac CTS V version..6.2 L V8, 556 hp and happens to be the fastest production car in the world, my dream car..all for just under $70,000..out the door....After I wipe the drool off my chin the sales consultant charmingly assures me that ANYONE can afford this little gem with just the right creative financing...Well we head on over to his nice little office with two leather over stuffed guest chairs and a fancy glass top desk ..He computes some numbers based on what I have given him about me and my income bracket..and he comes up with a monthly payment that is over the top crazy..of course his facial reactions is completely like "no big deal".....I know in my heart of hearts that there is no way on God's green Earth that I can afford those payments and eat more than 3 meals a month (note: this all really happened today up to this point, the rest of this story is hypothetical)..But I sign my life away anyways and drive on down the road in my shiny new Cadillac..6 months later the repo-man pays a visit and the rest of the story is the same as everyone else that spent or bought beyond their means...Are they to blame too?..HELL YES!!! They knew better than to buy a house they can't afford...Stupid should be painful

[crws]

Check this out..Hypothetically:..I go into this Car dealership..and I see this awesome 2011 Cadillac CTS V version..6.2 L V8, 556 hp and happens to be the fastest production car in the world, my dream car..all for just under $70,000..out the door....After I wipe the drool off my chin the sales consultant charmingly assures me that ANYONE can afford this little gem with just the right creative financing...Well we head on over to his nice little office with two leather over stuffed guest chairs and a fancy glass top desk ..He computes some numbers based on what I have given him about me and my income bracket..and he comes up with a monthly payment that is over the top crazy..of course his facial reactions is completely like "no big deal".....I know in my heart of hearts that there is no way on God's green Earth that I can afford those payments and eat more than 3 meals a month (note: this all really happened today up to this point, the rest of this story is hypothetical)..But I sign my life away anyways and drive on down the road in my shiny new Cadillac..6 months later the repo-man pays a visit and the rest of the story is the same as everyone else that spent or bought beyond their means...Are they to blame too?..HELL YES!!! They knew better than to buy a house they can't afford...Stupid should be painful

I can't say I agree that "they knew better" about buying a house. First time buyers don't know squat about home ownership, interest only loans, or ARMs.
There was no "New Homeowner 101" class requirement as part of qualifying- just the same "sign here and it's yours" BS as your car dealer example (his commission check isn't tied to whether you loose the car).
Low initial payments, balloon payments, 5 year ARMs, anything was good to go so lenders (fly-by-nights like weeds) could get a gov incentivized loan on the books, wait a month for the swell of a hot market to inflate the value on paper, then sell the loan off anyway possible.

So now we need to sell cars.
You did see car dealerships were exempted from the consumer finance protection laws....
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/car...otections.html

Great analogy. Car bubble...coming up!

Well, I guess this socialist experiment in expanding home ownership failed:

"We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country.
And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home."

- President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/bu....18853088.html
And both Hank Paulson and his predecessor, John Snow, say the housing push went too far.

"The Bush administration took a lot of pride that home ownership had reached historic highs," Snow said during an interview. "But what we forgot in the process was that it has to be done in the context of people being able to afford their house. We now realize there was a high cost."

Bush pushed hard to expand home ownership, especially among minority groups, an initiative that dovetailed with both his ambition to expand Republican appeal and the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

It was June 17, 2002, a day Darrin West recalls as "the highlight of my life." Bush, in Atlanta to introduce a plan to increase the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million, was touring Park Place South, a development of starter homes in a neighborhood once marked by blight and crime.

West had patrolled there as a police officer, and now he was the proud owner of a $130,000 town house, bought with an adjustable-rate mortgage and a $20,000 government loan as his down payment - just the sort of creative public-private financing Bush was promoting.

"Part of economic security," Bush declared that day, "is owning your own home."

A lot has changed since then. West, beset by personal problems, has left Atlanta. Unable to sell his home for what he owed, he said, he gave it back to the bank last year. Like other communities across the United States, Park Place South has been hit with a foreclosure crisis affecting at least 10 percent of its 232 homes, according to Masharn Wilson, a developer who led Bush's tour. "I just don't think what he envisioned was actually carried out," she said.

Lawrence Lindsay, Bush's first chief economic adviser, said there was little impetus to raise alarms about the proliferation of easy credit that was helping Bush meet housing goals.

"No one wanted to stop that bubble," Lindsay said. "It would have conflicted with the president's own policies."
So Bush had to, in his words, "use the mighty muscle of the federal government" to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives. He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for low-income lending.

Concerned that down payments were a barrier, Bush persuaded Congress to spend as much as $200 million a year to help first-time buyers with down payments and closing costs.

And he pushed to allow first-time buyers to qualify for government insured mortgages with no money down. Republican congressional leaders and some housing advocates balked, arguing that homeowners with no stake in their investments would be more prone to walk away, as West did. Many economic experts, including some in the White House, now share that view.

The president also leaned on mortgage brokers and lenders to devise their own innovations. "Corporate America," he said, "has a responsibility to work to make America a compassionate place."

And corporate America, eyeing a lucrative market, delivered in ways Bush might not have expected, with a proliferation of too-good-to-be-true teaser rates and interest-only loans that were sold to investors in a loosely regulated environment. But Bush populated the financial system's alphabet soup of oversight agencies with people who, like him, wanted fewer rules, not more.

Bush unveiled a plan to increase home ownership by members of American ethnic minorities in a speech in Atlanta in June 2002.