Paulson: Many Foreclosures Can’t Be Prevented

WASHINGTON (AP) — Faced with record-high foreclosures, the Bush administration has been scrambling to help some distressed homeowners stay in their homes but many others can’t be saved, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday.

Lax lending standards that accompanied the once high-flying housing market allowed people to buy homes they could not afford and those people will lose them, Paulson said.

“Many of today’s unusually high number of foreclosures are not preventable,” he said in prepared remarks to a mortgage-lending forum meeting in Arlington, Va.