Jesse Jackson Plans Wall Street March on Foreclosure `Crisis'

Bloomberg reports:

Civil rights leaders including Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow PUSH coalition, plan to hold rallies in New York City's Wall Street district and at least six other cities to call for a corporate response to the ``crisis'' of surging home foreclosures.

As many as 2 million homes are at risk of foreclosure, Jackson said in a statement. The rallies will be held Dec. 10, and also sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and National Urban League. Other rallies will be held in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Detroit, New Orleans, Washington and Chicago.

Jackson's plans show how the increase in delinquencies on subprime mortgages, some of which were the product of what Federal Reserve officials said were ``lax'' lending practices, is capturing political attention. Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, a candidate for her party's presidential nomination, this week called for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures.

U.S. home foreclosures almost doubled in October from a year earlier as subprime borrowers failed to make higher payments on adjustable-rate mortgages, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc. said on Nov. 29.

The Fed has been blasted by lawmakers in Congress who accused the central bank of lax enforcement and foot-dragging on rules to protect consumers. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has pledged new consumer-protection rules by the end of the year.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is also negotiating a deal with banks, mortgage servicers and securities-industry lobbyists to fix some adjustable-rate subprime loans before they reset higher and trigger a wave of defaults.

Subprime mortgages typically offer a low introductory rate for the first two or three years. The rate then resets for the duration of the mortgage, usually 30 years. About 100,000 such loans will reset each month over the next two years, according to research by UBS AG.

How ironic,Jesse Jackson has always accused big banks of "redlining" poor communities.Now that the banks have made these risky loans to these communities that don't fit the normal risk parameters: Jesse's complaining that loans were made.Sounds like Jesse Jackson wants more money out of Citigroup in the form of a bigger donation to Operation PUSH???