The Farmers Are Fine -- Save the Homeowners

It's heresy when we talk about extended several billion dollars to help homeowners struggling with mortgages that they were encouraged to take by the Fed, which loved the exotic ways to get more people to buy homes.

But it's patriotism when it comes to giving $100 billion a year to farmers for a safety net.

The most bedraggled and helpless part of the economy -- the Florida/California housing debacle -- gets no attention, and there's scorn for those who want to help them.

The contingent in this country that is making more money than anyone except the investment bankers and private-equity kings -- the farmers -- are getting their usual bailout (talk about an oxymoron) from Congress. Business as usual.

How can this be? How can we look at a mismatch, with farmers being paid excessively to grow corn for ethanol and then getting subsidies anyway, and homeowners who are struggling to keep their homes lacking any sort of break from Congress, and not marvel about how wrong things are in this country?

Oh, sure, there were speculators buying homes, but how many of these people are left holding homes? By nature, a speculator doesn't live in the home. As soon as the equity gets wiped out, a speculator walks away from the property.

That's what's haunting the industry now in a sort of acid reflux of homes. The people who are left either got fooled by mortgage companies with hidden fees or didn't understand that the Fed could raise rates so fast that the readjustments would drive so many into bankruptcy who bought between 2005 and 2007. (Oh, and those who think it is all the fault of the homeowner, did you watch TV during that period? Did you see the myriad ads saying that you could buy a house with no money down? People, rightly or wrongly, are drawn to that. Don't make them all out to be savvy bettors on the direction of home prices. These are people, like you and I, who never mind getting something that sounds free, and the pressure on the salespeople not to explain the real terms was great.)

Farmers, on the other hand, a small contingent located in a few states -- and it is small -- are getting handouts that if applied to California and Florida could put an end to the worst housing depreciation spiral since the depression.

Of course, the farmers will do excellently and buy more seeds from Monsanto (MON - commentary - Cramer's Take) and more farm equipment from Deere (DE - commentary - Cramer's Take) and more fertilizer from Mosaic (MOS - commentary - Cramer's Take), Potash (POT - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Agrium (AGU - commentary - Cramer's Take). That's a positive.

But the struggling homeowner? He gets nothing. And the tax incentives we need to clear out the inventory? Not even thought about.

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