Re: Home Foreclosures: Crisis Is Only Getting Deeper, conservatives echo Custer, indians, what indians?

On Wed, 14 May 2008 20:52:42 -0700, Video61 wrote:

> On May 14, 9:21 pm, James Dale Guckert <RichGan...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> In article <03LWj.5665$hv2.4...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>
>>  "Patriot" <liber...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> > Dumb ****ing idiots shouldn't have bought a home that they couldn't
afford.
>>
>> > Now that's common sense!
>>
>> "Common sense" at the time undermined your premise, "Patriot."  Common
>> sense also said quite loudly at the time that if you take a
low-interest
>> (at the time) loan on a house that EVERYONE is telling you is only
going
>> to become worth more than your purchase price (income!)--and quickly at
>> that... and EVERYONE is telling you that you can refinance the loan
>> (reduced liability!) before the reset kicks in so you can continue to
>> repay the mortgage... and EVERYONE felt safe assuming that the equity
in
>> the home would always exceed the loan itself... then there was not much
>> reason to believe that you cannot afford a home with a tiny down
>> payment, no do***entation of income, and an adjustable rate.  Meanwhile
>> there was no reason not to take out a low-interest (at the time) HELOC
>> and use that money to buy BSC shares on margin (more income!).
>> Meanwhile the lenders KNEW they could then break up the loan into neat
>> little packages and sell them to other financial institutions who
didn't
>> care about the fundamentals because the financial market was just
peachy.
>>
>> Cluster****: The American Way!
>> --
>> James Guckert / Rich Gannon / Whore for Bush
> 
>  nice overview, and quite correct. the blame the little guy crowd is
> either ignorant, or stupid. probably both. the applicants were
> encouraged to do what they did, by the mortgage brokers and banks. the
> little guys only wanted to own a home. speculators smelled easy money.

That analysis is simply wrong.  If you didn't buy a house you were going
to be financial road kill.  That explains why a lot of people who really
did not want to own a house bought them.  The brokers would have created
these mortgages using blow up dolls if they could have gotten away with
it.  The people who really could not really afford to do these deals
but who did want to own a home were just pawns in the greed game.  

But ask yourself if those that could not afford it were actually harmed. 
They had no money to invest in a down payment and they are not at risk of
losing such.  If the bankruptcy laws were as they were before the
Republicans took over the government, and if the IRS could not tax the
imputed income from just walking away from the mortgage then the shysters
would have to EAT the loses and the price of housing would fall to where
working Americans that actually WANT to own a home might well be able to
afford it.   I see no upside to "keeping" people in homes that are priced
too high.  The bankruptcy laws must be changed.

-- 
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org/extend