That’s right - less than extremely bright people should suffer for not being as bright - or for not being smart enough to know when some smarter person is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

If you don’t understand something, ask questions. Ask your Realtor. Ask friends. Go online and do a little research. Ask the people at the bank. Ignorance is no excuse, because these folks don’t want mass foreclosures, because that means they’re not getting paid.

Ya know, Ron, some people weren’t brought up by people with good financial sense and would have no idea what are the right questions to even ask. My husband is a prime example. He was raised by people who would move in the middle of the night every time they couldn’t pay their bills. He was homeless once. When you’re raised by people like that, the world of mortgages and homeowners insurance and investments and all that jazz is completely overwhelming.

“What does this term mean?” is always a great starting question. Asking ANY question is better than signing your name to something you don’t understand.

I’m sorry, but I’m with Ron on this. There are certain priveledges which require a modicum of responsible behaviour. If you plan on owning your own home, you ought to plan on asking a few questions.

When you’re raised by people like that, the world of mortgages and homeowners insurance and investments and all that jazz is completely overwhelming.

It’s overwhelming for nearly everyone. That’s why you take baby steps, read books, go to the library, do research.

Don’t be sorry, Kat! It’s okay, I promise.

Lest anyone think I gave up on this argument, Ron and I are continuing it in IM.

Uh, oh, Kat. I’ll have to go with the line I’m taking with Ron over in the IM. You guys are coming from places of privilege that people like Jim can only imagine. Seriously, I don’t think you get the absolute depth of poverty that he came from. When I first met him he didn’t even have car insurance. I was completely appalled. His response? “It’s awfully expensive and my parents never had it, I dont’ see a point in it.”

That’s because they ran out on nearly all of their bills. When you’re raised by people who are even semi-financially responsible, you have a far better start on life than people like my husband did. And my husband is far from uniquie. I know a LOT of people like that.

I’m sorry, but I don’t buy the whole “you’re priviledged so you don’t get it.”

My father is the adopted son of a woman who emigrated to America, fleeing genocide in Armenia. She became a doctor here and adopted a series of children.

Still, she was always pisspoor (getting paid for her services with chickens and potatoes more than money) and my dad grew up dirt poor.

He still knew how to read and how to ask questions.

I’m sorry, but I don’t buy the whole “I never knew any better so I can’t educate myself now” argument.

Sure, I may have had a better START than your husband, but that doesn’t mean people like him don’t have access to libraries and other services.

Yeah, you and Ron are about a thousand times smarter than most of these people, also. I don’t think I can have this argument anymore because it requires me to trash people I love all for the sake of defending them. And no matter how I explain it or what I say, you’ll be sitting up there in positions of privilege with your noses up in the air because you haven’t walked a mile in their shoes.

Ivy,

I think that you should be careful with the “you don’t know what it’s like” comparisons, as you may not know what others have been through. And just because someone came from an uneducated background doesn’t mean that they should be excused for over-extending themselves financially. That’s not the way a free market works. If you want everyone to be protected from foreclosures than you’re going to have to do away with risk and free markets, which will just end up making everyone equal, but more specifically, equally miserable.

This isn’t any different from having a car payment. If you can’t pay for the car/house, then don’t buy it.

You know, a lot of people took out home equity loans for things like, paying for a medical emergency or paying for their kid’s college. They’re out of their homes now, too. It’s not always some greedy rube who just had to have the SUV and the new house and the new furniture.

God the compassion of the conservative mind, I’m just overwhelmed.

A lot of people were suckered in by high pressure salesmanship. Builders telling you this is your LAST chance for the American dream, there are 15 people who want this house — and in the supercharged market we’ve just been through, they were right.

This peak of foreclosures is a presumably new phenomenon or it wouldn’t being discussed.

I think if anything, the key to discovering why it’s occurring is to discover what’s changed.

God the compassion of the conservative mind, I’m just overwhelmed.

You do realise that comments like this get really old, right? There are a lot of us “conservatives” out here who’ve been talking about this problem for years. I’m one of them.

Just because I’m not willing to tar and feather all of corporate america while giving a pass to all of borrower america doesn’t mean that I’m not well aware of the intricacies of this problem.

A lot of people were suckered in by high pressure salesmanship.

And a lot of other people were greedy and eagerly overextended themselves.

The existence of one anecdote does not negate the truth of another.

I think if anything, the key to discovering why it’s occurring is to discover what’s changed.

Dolphin,

We’re talking about it a lot over at Aunt B.’s. And I’ve resisted pointing political fingers. But if this whole “you conservatives” chat keeps up, I will gladly start mentioning names and dates that have widely been acknowledged as creating and perpetuating the problem.

This has been a topic of conversation amongst many for years. Not just liberals.

Okay, this is the last I’m going to say on the subject because obviously it’s a very sore subject for me and it’s making me pissier than I need to be.

People who don’t pay their bills get foreclosed upon. I’m fine with that. From my own experience, I know lenders work with you to be able to keep your house. If you get foreclosed on, it’s really a last resort. I get that.

What I don’t get is the fact that lenders are allowed to get away with shady lending practices. They *don’t* always tell you everything you need to know, and many people- and this is my point I’m trying to make over here, poorly worded as it is, because this is an emotional issue for me- many people who come from a background like my husband’s are just so grateful that they are approved for a loan, they don’t ask questions. Or they don’t want to look stupid. Or whatever.

The smug attitude of “well, they should have asked” is what has me so pissed off here. Just because you are smart enough to ask, doesn’t mean everyone is.

I was going to delete my shitty comment directed at Kat, but instead I’ll apologize. Sorry, Kat. Like I said, this is coming from a very emotional place.

My intelligence doesn’t encourage or prevent me from asking questions about what I’m signing my name to, be it loan papers or the EULA for World of Warcraft (speaking of things that make loans look simple and idiot-proof).

I think I can understand a little from both sides. I don’t think ignorance or familial situations excuse poor financial decisions, but I can see how it would make it more difficult.

The basic thing is, regardless of the sins of your parents, you shouldn’t make big purchases without getting an understanding of what you are doing. Really, you shouldn’t do anything without having an understanding of what you are doing. That’s irresponsible. And it seems to me, that one would want to understand the consequences of their decisions before they make them.

No problem. This is emotional for everyone. I’m trying not to write long-winded comments, but I think I have to.

—

I’m NOT saying that if you got defrauded by a mortgage company that it’s your fault. That’s like saying that if you got raped it’s your fault.

What I’m trying to communicate is that, like rapists, there ARE predatory lenders out there. But just as not every man is a rapist, not every lender is predatory.

And just as I would advise women to carry mace and learn to fight back, I advise people who are borrowing money to ask a lot of questions.

I know mace and karate aren’t foolproof. I know asking isn’t foolproof, either.

But it can help. That’s all I’m trying to say.

Especially in light of the regulations which essentially allowed financial rapists free reign from 1996 onward.

There’s a reason I left the banking industry.

Ron, it’s not what you know about a certain subject (buying a house, WoW, etc.), it’s knowing to ask a question–any question–in the first place. It’s a little idealistic to think that everyone figures these things out on their own if they grow up surrounded by adults who never did.

Public schools?

Public schools?

Not to turn on you, Ron, but I don’t remember the public schools teaching this type of thing directly.

I think they should, of course.

But I’m not aware of any “basic money management” courses being taught in any public school situation.

I’m with Ivy here. To me, it’s too easy to see this as a confluence of all the worst traits of poor people used against them. My people don’t ask questions. Asking questions, especially if you’re a man is a sign of weakness and when you’re negotiating for something like a house or other important item, you don’t want to look weak. Also, couple that with being taught to respect and not question authority… I just think you guys are acting like it’s so easy and obvious how to keep yourself from being taken advantage of, when there are some real cultural barriers in place for folks that are really hard to overcome.

And I also agree with Coble that, if we start looking at when things started to go poorly for people, Clinton’s administration is not going to smell like roses. The 90s might have been great for most of the country. It wasn’t so hot for my people, then or now.

And not everyone is born with a “question everything” mentality.

Look, as I read what Ivy wrote, she isn’t talking about poverty excusing ignorance. She’s talking about the way that someone who has grown up surrounded by irresponsibility, even though that person grows up to be responsible, honestly doesn’t know all the ins and outs of the hoops a responsible person has to jump through. The moral requirements? Sure, that’s easy. That someone might take advantage of your attempt to do the right thing? That can be news, if you grew up in a place where no one did try to do the right thing.

Look, my great-grandfather was a failure and deadbeat whose cousins pooled their money to send him to America and told him never to come back. My grandfather was 10 at the time, and his father put him to work in a factory right away, a 10-year-old supporting the family while his father sat on his ass in cafés all day feeling cultured or whatever it was he felt. So my grandfather learned from this not to pull your kids out of school, to let them get educated, to look after them financially. But that didn’t mean that he knew that his son, my father, might need pencils or notebooks, or that moving every three months (to get the month’s free rent that you used to get when housing was too plentiful) so that my father went to several schools a year might not be the best educational support.

If you grow up completely outside the world of people who pay their bills, how are you going to know what’s involved in paying them, even if you are too moral to skip out on them?

My own father had to quit school at 12 years of age to help financially support his family. (He was literally born in a holler outside of Hazard Ky. Not quite known for it’s culture of intellectualism. When he was five the family moved to Cincinnati.) His first job was setting up pins in a bowling alley, 10 cents a game, he made. this was about 1940. He had 8 brothers and sisters. He was one of the oldest. When he came of age, he joined the Navy. Was discharged in SanDiego, met my mother and got married. Without an education, but with a strong work ethic, he got a job with a company he eventually retired from some 40 years later. That one job of his, working only 40 hours a week, paid enough for him to support a family of 4, plus pets. He bought the house I grew up in, and we always had two fairly new cars. He didn’t get his GED until I was 14. Then he went on to get a degree in Business. Still, for all that he was good at, he was always being taken advantage of financially. If you don’t have a license in something like realty, there comes a point where you just have to trust the person you’re dealing with. My father was burned a couple times by unscrupulous people, and so he didn’t have much to retire on. The only thing that saved him was that the house he bought in 1964 for 18,000 was worth 300,000 when he sold it.

My father was not smart, but he worked his ass off, and that compensated for it somewhat. Still, it really pisses me off too, that people will claim that being taken advantage of was my father’s fault. My father, for all his faults, was at least more ethical than the jerks that ripped him off, just cause they could. There is no law that says a person has to take advantage of another’s weakness.

nm, thanks so much for totally “getting” what I was trying to say and explaining it better than I could.

Kevin, that is really interesting…my mother grew up in a holler in Eastern KY w/ 8 brothers & sisters and then moved to Covington (right across the river from Cincinnati) when she was young, too.

Her daddy was a coal miner.

Still, our roots are very similar.

I know mentally handicapped people who can live on their own and pay their own bills. If they can do it, a person of average or below average intelligence can read a bill statement, write out a check, and mail said check off with a stamp stuck on it. I don’t see how this is impossible, unless you’re spending tons more money than you’re bringing in. They tell you how to pay your bill on the bill.

…how are you going to know what’s involved in paying them, even if you are too moral to skip out on them?

Evidently, I’m not understanding the rocket science behind this whole discussion.

You simply work, put your money in a bank account, do not spend more than you bring in, get your bills in the mail, write a check for the amount of the bill, put a stamp on it and mail it.

What am I missing here?

doh…evidently Ron & I are on the same wavelength…which is a very frightening thought within itself.

Some of my family worked in the coal mines too. My grandfather on my father’s side was the blacksheep of his family, which happened to own a mine. If not for my grandfathers “drinkin’ and whorinand disowned and written out of the family wills, we would have been from money. Funny how things work out.

Ron, I’ve known of mentally handicapped people who were forced to become wards of the state because they couldn’t keep up with their bills. All because they were victimized by unscrupulous lenders.

Kevin,
That’s sadly a very common story with families in the Appalachian region where there is so much poverty and desperation.

My grandfather was a heavy drinker, as were all of my 4 uncles…and had they not drank their success away, they all would have been very successful musicians here in Nashville.

Indeed…it is sad.

My point is if I know mentally handicapped people who can do it, a person of normal intelligence can learn how to manage their finances so that the numbers going in are equal to the numbers going out. It’s far from rocket surgery.

You simply work, put your money in a bank account, do not spend more than you bring in, get your bills in the mail, write a check for the amount of the bill, put a stamp on it and mail it.

Paying bills isn’t the problem. The problem is when you have things like balloon payments, or have to pay points on a loan, or like how my mortgage has gone up more than $300 since I got the loan 3 years ago. When you understand those things, you budget for them, it’s no problem. When you don’t, you might suddenly be facing payments you have no money to pay.

It’s funny how people with X income can qualify for X+ credit, especially credit cards. The customer may not know his own limits, but the friggin lender sure does. There is quite a profit to be made on foreclosures, and people having to sell off all their possessions to pay off bills, and file for bankruptcy, etc.

How about them fancy car title loans? Give a guy a 200 dollar loan against his car, which is worth 2000 dollars. He can’t pay the loan, and you get to keep the car. Yeah, that’s some business ethic.

When I bought my house, I “qualified” for a 150,000 loan. When I asked what the payment would be, they told me and I immediately knew I wouldn’t be able to afford that monthly payment. So I bought a much lower priced home than what I qualified for…and because I knew I could not predict where the interest rates would go in the years to come, I chose a FIXED rate loan. That way, I always knew what my payment would be and that, if I kept my current income range, I would be able to afford the payment. It’s simple math. I make “x” each month, my house payment is “x” and so since the most important thing is keeping my home, I make sure I make that payment *first and foremost*, even if I run into a problem with another bill.

I’m not trying to be self-righteous here, as I most certainly have weaknesses in other areas of my finances…but I’m not being duped, I know that if I buy a laptop, it will be on a credit card because I don’t make enough to pay cash. That is my fault, not my lender’s.

I have a FIXED rate loan as well, Ginger, and my payment has STILL gone up more that $300 a month. According to those bastards at my mortgage company it’s because of some deficit with my escrow, which they STILL have not explained satisfactorily.

Damn, girl…my payment has fluctuated about $20 up and down due to the escrow fund.

$300 is outrageous. Ride their ASSES until you get your answers.

Ginger/Ron: how do you know that there will be an electric bill every month, if no one you live with has ever paid one? How do you know that your taxes will increase as your house gets reassessed, if no one you live with have ever paid taxes or owned property that went up in value? How do you know that some lenders may not be on the up-and-up if you and your family have never qualified for a loan before? It’s true that it isn’t hard to learn these things, but you mention them as if people are born knowing them. They’re not, and though most of us learn them from our parents, not everyone’s parents teach them, even by example.

Plus, Ron, those MBD people you refer to had help: they had someone figure out that these folks would need to know how to manage, teach them what they would need to know, and check back after them. I had an uncle with MBD who managed just fine, but his parents spent years figuring out what he would need to know once they weren’t around and teaching him. Plus, he couldn’t look ahead, plan for contingencies, or work out problems. We used to get calls in the middle of the night (because he didn’t understand time zones) because a bill payment hadn’t been applied right and he didn’t know what to do about it.

I have a FIXED rate loan as well, Ginger, and my payment has STILL gone up more that $300 a month. According to those bastards at my mortgage company it’s because of some deficit with my escrow, which they STILL have not explained satisfactorily.

Your mortgage is PITI or Principle, Interest, Tax and Insurance.

The Principle will never change.
The Interest will never change on a Fixed Rate mortgage.

The Taxes and Insurance, however, are both subject to change and NOT fixed.

Ivy, like many people in the area you were probably hit hard by the sudden increase in property taxes a year or two ago.

Part of your money sits in escrow (on hold) for your property taxes.

Your mortgage lender gets a bill once a year for those property taxes, and they pay that bill.

A year (or two) ago, property taxes in this area went up. Ours went from $1200 a year to about $2000 a year. We only had $1200 set aside. So when the tax bill came to the mortgage company they paid the $2K bill, but then we had a DOUBLE UP on our mortgage–one increase to meet the new tax rate, and then another increase to pay the mortgage company back for the shortfall in escrow.

So that’s very likely what happened to you.

Another thing that has probably happened is that homeowners’ insurance rates have increased a great deal over the past 3 years. As property values increase, it is more expensive to replace any destroyed property so the premiums go up.

So, yes, it is possible for even a FIXED RATE mortgage to increase or decrease in payments.

The only thing “fixed” is the rate of interest.

Ginger/Ron: how do you know that there will be an electric bill every month, if no one you live with has ever paid one?

you may not know the first month, but you’ll find out pretty darn quick after that, I assure you.

And while I know there are people who have been lied to, cheated, taken advantage of and what not, I still think it’s no crime to expect a little bit of accountability from a person who enters into a contract.

It’s true that it isn’t hard to learn these things, but you mention them as if people are born knowing them.

I certainly wasn’t born knowing them. My father took care of everything. To the point that when he was killed, my mother didn’t even know how to write a check properly.

I had to learn it all by asking questions, making mistakes, and learning from my mistakes (like running my credit card too high). This is the kind of stuff that you do not need a degree for…trust me, they didn’t cover home finance in college. Yeah, I could do accounting for a business, but not a simple budget for myself…I had to learn it.

So, no, I’m not presuming people are born with the knowledge. I wasn’t.

That’s the think Kat - why on earth are you going to the extreme and saying that these people didn’t exercise even “a little bit of accountability. That statement puts you squarely in the [Just editing this little tiny part out because of the whole no name calling thing ~Ivy] category. You have no idea what those people who have lost homes have gone through. You act like these people never made payment one. On their behalf, I’d like to tell you to go jump in a lake.

You have no idea what those people who have lost homes have gone through.

Ah! ha hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Once again, the lack of knowledge you have about my life, coupled with the presumptions thereof, is wholly revealing.

Yeah, I do know.

On their behalf, I’d like to tell you to go jump in a lake.

I’ll remember that next time you start talking about your take on Christianity.

My sentiments pretty much line up with both Kevin’s and Ivy’s. I come from a really blue-collar background, and I don’t think it’s fair to place blame on people for not knowing what they don’t know, as if they are inherently deserving of ruin because someone else was smarter than them and duped them.

At the same time, I’ve taken graduate-level finance and accounting and I still have “math is hard” moments when doing the hypothetical mortgage calculations.

I agree with you 100%, Samantha Y.

I was raised in a blue collar family. I was the first to ever go to college in my family, too.

Just so y’all know, I have no idea what a balloon payment is. I’d have to read up on it.

I don’t think it’s fair to place blame on people for not knowing what they don’t know, as if they are inherently deserving of ruin because someone else was smarter than them and duped them.

Again, that’s not what I’m saying.

I’m reacting to the people who think that ALL ..

oh nevermind. why repeat myself when no one is REALLY listening?

…as if they are inherently deserving of ruin because someone else was smarter than them and duped them.

Also, I for one, am certainly not saying they are deserving of ruin. I am saying that it is important for people to take responsibility and ask questions & learn as much as possible. It isn’t like I haven’t been duped before. We all have gotta do the best we can, ya know?

Comment deleted because of name calling. Sorry, guys, personal attacks aren’t allowed here, yo. ~Ivy

But Ginger, you are doing the same as Kat, and assuming that these people did not do all they could to prevent being ripped off. You have no idea, and really shouldn’t comment.

Kat, we are listening to you, and what we are hearing is REALLY ugly.

Comment deleted because of responding to personal attacks. It’s hot and we all need a pool, if all the houses with pools aren’t foreclosed on or anything. ~Ivy

You have no idea, and really shouldn’t comment.

Kevin, with all due respect (I mean, really…we could be related, after all)…please don’t tell a person that they shouldn’t comment. Anybody can comment anything they want as long as it isn’t lewd or personally attacking a particular person.

Even if I’m wrong, I have a right to comment.

On their behalf, I’d like to tell you to go jump in a lake.

Kevin, I know you directed this at Kat, but would you tell me to go jump in a lake? It’s ridiculously hot, man, I burned my feet standing on my SHADED porch.

That’s right, I’m derailing the thread entirely. I’m just that kinda girl.

*SNORK*

Ivy, I love you, man.

:-*

No, wait, the nearest lake is Percy Priest and that lake is naaaasty. Better tell me to jump in a pool, or the shower, or something.

As the Watson’s Girl says…

“It’s hot, and you need a pool!”

Wow. Baby Jesus cried at 4:05.

Kat, I am trying to hear you out. I just happen to think there’s a point after which it’s more complicated than a lack of “personal responsibility” or a failure to educate one’s self that results in debt problems, especially with such complicated debt as a mortgage.

Okay, guys, I feel a little bad because I had a part in this. But let’s all calm down and not get ugly with each other. Like I’ve said before, if anyone is going to be personally attacking anyone on this site, it’s me. No name calling, or I will punch you in the nose.

Well, it’s a good think I deleted several comments I wrote but didn’t send. It was about to get real personal. Cause really, even though Kat and Ginger (hi cousin) were talking about real people. And so it really was personal. And talking down about people who are not here to defend themselves from accusations of this kind is really bad form. IMHO

Kevin, I see where you’re going with that and I understand. However, one commenter *here* can’t attack another commenter *here*. If Kat had called you Satan’s own fuckpony, I totally would have deleted that too. Y’all are both my homies and I can’t have you guys calling each other names. Then it would be like hanging out with my kids, and I internet to escape my kids, yo.

Thing is, Kevin, you were making a general discussion with many facets personal. That’s the problem.

You misread–intentionally or not–comments made in a general sense in order to infer a cause for you to launch into one of your pet issues.

And you eagerly insulted while you did so.

That right there is bad form.

My new life’s goal is to call someone “Satan’s own fuckpony.”

My new life’s goal is to call someone “Satan’s own fuckpony.”

I would like to point out that said phrase originated with *me*, thank you very much.

I am personally proud of having invented a cuss that IVY stole.

That’s like inventing a robotic woman for Charlie Sheen. Or something.

The balloon payment is the last payment of your loan that may or may not be more or less than your usual monthly payments. And balloon knot is a slang term for the anus.

And to think, I really toned it down in an attempt to be respectful. I blame the influence of my neighborhood. Verbally, it was such kid gloves, with respect to what usually goes on around me. I’m trying anyway.

A “balloon payment” is also something that some employers promise you in your contract.

It’s become very fashionable, and I urge people to steer away from them completely–both on the borrower side and the employee side.

If you don’t have the money to make the payments now, don’t undertake the loan.

Likewise if your company doesn’t have enough money to pay you the full salary now, don’t take the job.

If you do take the loan, save up for the balloon payment consistently during the life of the loan.

If you do take the job, don’t count on the balloon payment to be there at the end of the contract.

And to think, I really toned it down in an attempt to be respectful.

That is completely disingenuous. You don’t call someone a name like that and then get all “I was being respectful!”

Please.

All I can say is, come hang out with some of my homeless associates, people who really don’t give a flip about anything or anyone, to understand what I mean. Really, some of the stuff they say even makes me cringe - even after years of exposure to it. I’m just saying…

Yoiks. We had a series of fires to fight at work today so I missed out on all the name-calling here at MCB. And now I’ll never know what he called her or she called him. Sniff.

But it’s been an interesting thread to wade through. This is obviously as emotional an issue as bankruptcy, which never fails to bring out extreme viewpoints.

Ginger, you are right, you have the right to comment on anything. And I don’t really think I meant that. It was more like literary filler, just to finish out the sentence. it rolls off the tough so easily.

tongue* and so do my typos.

Wow.
This thread is smoking.
I dig it when this happens.

It has been duly noted that “Satan’s Own Fuckpony” would be a great name for a rock band.

h/t: Rachel

Heh.

This peak of foreclosures is a presumably new phenomenon or it wouldn’t being discussed.

It’s not that new. Look at 1929, for example.

Just because a lender will send a credit card to a dog doesn’t mean they bear any responsibility whatever in the debts the dog (who doesn’t have much financial sense, I might add… can your dog do math?) might run up.

Corporations are never in any way to blame. Never.
.

What I don’t get is the fact that lenders are allowed to get away with shady lending practices. They *don’t* always tell you everything you need to know

Correctamundo!

Of course, if we keep losing that “nation of laws” shit at the current rate, that will not matter much, either.
.

I agree with JP (get out your cameras!)
-
If a company makes a shady loan, and they get defaulted on, the risk should be all theirs (no bailouts). The forecloseure should have some kind of “stupid” penalty for the lender attached, the difference going to an emergency escrow fund to help others who are facing backruptcy, due to shady loans.
-
We’d just need to find a governmental agency that is trustworthy (HA!) to certify that a loan is “shady”.
-
That would stop the shady loans quick.

Yes, congrats on a smokin’ thread
MCB is #1

We’d just need to find a governmental agency that is trustworthy (HA!) to certify that a loan is “shady”.

there’s a greek guy who’s been wandering around greece with a lantern for the last three thousand years looking for an honest man. Maybe the two of you could pair up in the search? {snork}

If a company makes a shady loan, and they get defaulted on, the risk should be all theirs (no bailouts).

Well, we all agree on that one.

The problem is with the companies who bought the companies which made the shady loans and weren’t aware that some of those loans were shady.

And since those shady loans were passed off onto MUTUAL FUNDS in many cases, many of the people who bought shady loans are folks with that type of loan in their 401(k) plan.

Without some type of intervention there could well be a lot of “you and me”s who lose tens of thousands from their retirement plans.

What do we do then? Keep in mind that the assponies who passed off bad loans for good are long gone to the Caymans with their money and trophy spouses.

The Ass Ponys [sic] actually is the name of a band. A good one, too.

I feel like I came across as uncompassionate in this thread, but that wasn’t what I was trying to be… my point of view in the thread was that I felt like if we continue to make excuses for people who get in over their heads, nobody will be held accountable for their own actions. However, it goes without saying that the crooked lenders MUST be stopped and put out of business.

Ivy gave me more insight when we had dinner. (As you can imagine…hee!)

This is what is so cool about blogs. You learn others’ viewpoints and can adjust your thinking if need be.

I think our great legislators to the East (Campfield and Duncan) should attempt to pass a law that limits our mortgage and financial liability/responsibility until we are of a suitable and arbitrary government determined age to deal with it. Oh thank you nanny state! Thank you!

Sarcasm aside, I agree most with Ginger over all. I have a mortgage based on what I could afford, not what they would lend me. I read “Mortgages for Dummies”, researched and talked to many people for information and advice. There is a huge difference in the financial decisions made by people based on the “payment plan” instead of the “purchase plan”. And as a friend that is a bankruptcy lawyer explained to me, “in the end, you owe someone the money and they want it.”

The problem with the “just educate yourself and purchase accordingly” mindset is that it is based on a false assumption, that is, if two people read or hear the same thing, that they will both use that knowledge similarly. They will not. Again, I have to reference my time as a salesman, and I am not proud of that time in my life. I was able to control the deal 90% of the time, with Doctors, lawyers, school teachers, managers, etc, because of two things. One is the PROCESS, it is designed to confuse and to give the seller the upper hand. The other is, believe it or not, the ability to gain trust. Think about it. I was able to meet a complete stranger, and in the course of roughly 90 minutes, close him on a 20k to 60k transaction. He or she bought me first. Then, what I tell them is more palatable. I was very good. Some, if not most of these people, could have driven away with a much better deal, both on price, and on terms.

The other thing I have to say is that there are many stupid people sharing the planet with us. Nice, hardworking, devoted, trustworthy people, but just dumb as a bag of dicks. I remember my wife coming home from her shift in the E.R. and just bawling her eyes out, because she met a family who just had no skills or intelligence to deal with the crisis they were facing. These people get victimized every time they do business with ANY commissioned salesperson. It’s a jungle out there.

…just dumb as a bag of dicks.

I, um, …never mind.

[…] exaggeration but bear with me).  They are most definitely in it for the money.  Ivy commented on Music City Bloggers about how unscrupulous her agent was (and I told her that I was absolutely appalled at what he did […]

[…] sales and the recent increase in foreclosures. When you read the comments at Tiny Cats Pants and Music City Bloggers, you are left with the impression that the sky is falling and that what is happening is […]

[…] over the thread at Music City Bloggers about mortgage foreclosures and such, I’m struck by a disparity I notice in the voices of the regulars there and in other online […]

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