Questions Remain Unanswered by Murphy

In a recent Hartford Courant story concerning Representative Chris Murphy’s mortgage issue, Courant columnist Jon Lender writes there are details of the loan still shrouded in mystery.

Mr. Murphy, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be relinquished by Joe Lieberman, has claimed he missed “several” payments on his mortgage. The lapses of memory did not prevent him from receiving favorable credit from a Webster Bank, although Mr. Murphy, a lawyer, had been sued for non-payment of his mortgage.

One of the more important detail yet unknown is how many payments Mr. Murphy missed. The term “several” is non-specific.

“Among the details still unknown,” Mr. Lender writes, “publicly are: the number of monthly payments Murphy missed leading to the 2007 foreclosure action; how much money he was in arrears by; and whether he was keeping up with payments on a concurrent Webster Bank second mortgage.”

The rate given Mr. Murphy was high for someone who had missed “several” mortgage payments, and the favorable rate given to Mr. Murphy required “a top credit score, and total loans and credit lines that did not exceed 80 percent of the value of the house…

“But whatever marks were on Murphy's credit from the missed payments and lawsuits, a Webster official said that at the time of the loan, the bank's underwriting policy when considering joint applications from married couples was to consider the credit score for the more-creditworthy spouse.

“Without being more specific, Robert Guenther, Webster's senior vice president for public affairs, said Cathy Murphy had good credit — and a higher credit score than her husband.”

Mr. Murphy’s campaign appears to be unwilling to furnish the missing details. Even so, he received from the Courant’s editorial department a review at least as favorable as that of the bank in question.

Comments

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Powell, the JI, And Economic literacy

Powell, Pesci Substack The Journal Inquirer (JI), one of the last independent newspapers in Connecticut, is now a part of the Hearst Media chain. Hearst has been growing by leaps and bounds in the state during the last decade. At the same time, many newspapers in Connecticut have shrunk in size, the result, some people seem to think, of ad revenue smaller newspapers have lost to internet sites and a declining newspaper reading public. Surviving papers are now seeking to recover the lost revenue by erecting “pay walls.” Like most besieged businesses, newspapers also are attempting to recoup lost revenue through staff reductions, reductions in the size of the product – both candy bars and newspapers are much smaller than they had been in the past – and sell-offs to larger chains that operate according to the social Darwinian principles of monopolistic “red in tooth and claw” giant corporations. The first principle of the successful mega-firm is: Buy out your predator before he swallows

Down The Rabbit Hole, A Book Review

Down the Rabbit Hole How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime by Brent McCall & Michael Liebowitz Available at Amazon Price: $12.95/softcover, 337 pages “ Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime ,” a penological eye-opener, is written by two Connecticut prisoners, Brent McCall and Michael Liebowitz. Their book is an analytical work, not merely a page-turner prison drama, and it provides serious answers to the question: Why is reoffending a more likely outcome than rehabilitation in the wake of a prison sentence? The multiple answers to this central question are not at all obvious. Before picking up the book, the reader would be well advised to shed his preconceptions and also slough off the highly misleading claims of prison officials concerning the efficacy of programs developed by dusty old experts who have never had an honest discussion with a real convict. Some of the experts are more convincing cons than the cons, p

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Search This Blog