Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So if you're not smart enough to "protect yourself" in areas you don't understand, you get what you deserve? Everyone needs to be an expert in all areas of all things in their life? Doctors, lawyers, mechanics - any skilled trade is free to sell you any service they can talk you into because you don't understand if they're selling you a bill of goods or not?
Redd, there is a thing called personal responsibility. If I want to take my car to a mechanic, it is my responsibility to find the most trustworthy and honest mechanic. That in many cases requires 2 or 3 estimates. If you don't do your due dilligence shame on you.
Housing is no different. If you go into making the largest purchase of your lifetime and your shocked that your 30k annual salary couldn't afford a 500k mortgage, you can't use ignorance as an excuse.
Redd, there is a thing called personal responsibility. If I want to take my car to a mechanic, it is my responsibility to find the most trustworthy and honest mechanic. That in many cases requires 2 or 3 estimates. If you don't do your due dilligence shame on you.
Housing is no different. If you go into making the largest purchase of your lifetime and your shocked that your 30k annual salary couldn't afford a 500k mortgage, you can't use ignorance as an excuse.
I am a bit disturbed that those who claim to be looking out for the so-called victims in this situation seemingly have no problem with insulting the ones they claim to be concerned about.
So I'm confused about this "personal responsibility" thing... are some people saying the Occupy Charlotte movement is simply about blaming the banks because people took mortgages they couldn't afford? Because I don't see that at all.
The subprime mess is just about shaken out by now. The people who "didn't deserve a mortgage" are out or are well on their way to being out. I mean, granted the banks are sitting on tons of inventory... but both sides signed an agreement (pay or the bank gets the asset). Pretty simple stuff.
The problem comes in AFTER that and the outright fraud committed by these financial firms after getting the note signed... you know, when the bad guy is out on the street with no credit. Yet, there's no investor risk on that bad lending decision because our tax dollars bailed it out.
Everyone CAN whine "woe is me" at the bank, but at the end of the day they lost the asset according to their signed agreement. So where is the responsibility on the financial firms who are getting exactly what should have been expected when making bad lending decisions - an overpriced house? What did they lose? Why do we blame the guy on the street for these banks being bad at business... actually WORSE - liars and cheats?
The Tea Party and the GOP have decided for many folks on this thread! Evidently if you are poor or ill-informed then you are responsible. If you are rich and super-smart you get out of jail free!
I keep seeing this mantra about people buying homes they couldn't afford...
WHAT ABOUT THE ALL THE PEOPLE WHO COULD AFFORD THEIR HOMES UNTIL THE ECONOMY TANKED AND THEY WERE AXED FROM THEIR JOB?!?
If I followed the logic put forth by some on this thread I might assume that they only suitable home buyers were those that can afford to buy a house outright with no mortgage... talk about a conundrum!
Look. No one is saying anything negative about folks who lost their jobs and couldn't take care of their families, or pay their mortgage or their car payment, etc.
They are not the people under discussion.
We have all hit on hard times - some of us are old enough to have hit on hard times in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s and the 90s. Some of us lost our jobs and couldn't replace them at periods b/f 2008. SOme of us lost everything trying to hold our lives together back then. If we lost our homes, our cars, our savings. . . no one was marching in the streets blaming the rich people for it, lol. It was crappy, it was the pits, but it was just life. You can't pay for stuff, YOU LOSE IT.
Now this is not hard. This is simple. We were all taught we don't buy things on credit that we can't pay for and if hard times hit and we can't pay for it - it goes bye bye.
What is being discussed are folks who signed on the dotted line for loans they couldn't afford at the time they signed them. They thought they would be REAL SMART and live in their dream house for a few years while paying INTEREST ONLY and then they would sell the house b/f the loan turned into a "real" mortgage with a "real" payment. The housing bubble hit and <oh crap!> no one would buy their house. Gosh! STUCK! Big plan for living high on the hog - FAIL!
Now that is who we are talking about and that scenario evidently occurred thousands and thousands of times, in every state in the Union.
Other variations on the theme were . . . folks who decided to refinance their primary residence and then use that cheap credit to buy a second home, using interest only loans on BOTH. They ended up losing BOTH homes.
There are other variations but surely you are getting the picture.
No one is saying a word except THIS SUCKS in re: to the millions of people who have lost their jobs - many of wh/ have been employed for YEARS. And the really sad part is - those jobs are not coming back! They have been off-shored!
I think we all agree - this country is in a mess. And yes, lending institutions set this whole economy up for a FALL. Well, what's his name (Raines?) at Fannie or Freddie or wherever those derivatives first got packaged set us up for a fall.
I am giving no one a pass! Everyone who participated in these financial schemes should be prosecuted. I think the fools who thought they would "beat the system" by taking out the loans have already suffered enough - but at the same time - they helped create a bad situation for the rest of us b/c they were greedy and foolish.
It took TWO PARTIES to do this tango, folks. Lenders can offer up tricky loans all day; they are just schemes til someone decides they can "beat the house" and rolls the dice by signing on the dotted line.
So I'm confused about this "personal responsibility" thing... are some people saying the Occupy Charlotte movement is simply about blaming the banks because people took mortgages they couldn't afford? Because I don't see that at all.
The subprime mess is just about shaken out by now. The people who "didn't deserve a mortgage" are out or are well on their way to being out. I mean, granted the banks are sitting on tons of inventory... but both sides signed an agreement (pay or the bank gets the asset). Pretty simple stuff.
The problem comes in AFTER that and the outright fraud committed by these financial firms after getting the note signed... you know, when the bad guy is out on the street with no credit. Yet, there's no investor risk on that bad lending decision because our tax dollars bailed it out.
Everyone CAN whine "woe is me" at the bank, but at the end of the day they lost the asset according to their signed agreement. So where is the responsibility on the financial firms who are getting exactly what should have been expected when making bad lending decisions - an overpriced house? What did they lose? Why do we blame the guy on the street for these banks being bad at business... actually WORSE - liars and cheats?
Boggles my mind.
You can't cheat someone unless they agree to be your victim - something that is very easy to do when people are greedy and have stars in their eyes and think they are getting "something for nothing."
Here is the thing, Mikey. I think we all want to see people PROSECUTED for setting the whole financial/lending mess up to begin with. They should be prosecuted. But they didn't do anything that wasn't legal (or let's say - was illegal - there is a difference).
SO . . . who should be held responsible for THAT? POLITICIANS and the LOBBYISTS who funded campaigns in order to buy influence.
I have changed my mind about this OCCUPY movement. I think it is a microcosm of society - folks are suffering and they are simply coming together to say WE ARE SUFFERING. Of course, there are variations on that theme . . . I think it is rather remarkable that folks are coming together in their misery. I would like to see this become something meaningful that leads to change in laws and prosecution of white collar criminals.
My objection is . . . wasted effort unless there is something ACTIONABLE about the gatherings - they need a message other than WE ARE SUFFERING. We all know we are suffering! Talking to ourselves is not getting a SOLUTION to the suffering.
When groups don't have a SOLUTION to offer, then it becomes nothing more than a pity party. Messages don't have to be complicated! They could be such things as:
1. change the lobbyist laws
2. overhaul the IRS
3. change trade agreements
Now those are concrete solutions that folks can actually address. If anything is going to CHANGE, looks like folks would have learned that campaign slogans ("Hope and Change") don't mean squat unless it is understood what the CHANGE involves.
I hope this evolves into a crowd with a VOICE; a group with a MISSION; Not just an excuse to play drums and sing and pontificate about how the downtrodden would be fine if the rich were thrown in the Bastille
So I'm confused about this "personal responsibility" thing... are some people saying the Occupy Charlotte movement is simply about blaming the banks because people took mortgages they couldn't afford? Because I don't see that at all.
The subprime mess is just about shaken out by now. The people who "didn't deserve a mortgage" are out or are well on their way to being out. I mean, granted the banks are sitting on tons of inventory... but both sides signed an agreement (pay or the bank gets the asset). Pretty simple stuff.
The problem comes in AFTER that and the outright fraud committed by these financial firms after getting the note signed... you know, when the bad guy is out on the street with no credit. Yet, there's no investor risk on that bad lending decision because our tax dollars bailed it out.
Everyone CAN whine "woe is me" at the bank, but at the end of the day they lost the asset according to their signed agreement. So where is the responsibility on the financial firms who are getting exactly what should have been expected when making bad lending decisions - an overpriced house? What did they lose? Why do we blame the guy on the street for these banks being bad at business... actually WORSE - liars and cheats?
Boggles my mind.
Mikey, they never really owned that asset because they never had any equity in it (not literally, but you get my point). I fault the buyer mostly, but the lenders/realtors/appraisors all had their hands in this mess too.... So the bank gets a house that their stuck with (and try to sell as a foreclosure) which lowers home values....
Which then gets to the question of how to apportion that stupidity.
In virtually every other legal arena the party who writes the contract
is the one who is presumed to actually understand the meaning of it best.
Where does that leave the loan officers? and the appraisers?
and the loan bundlers? and the real estate agents? and the flippers too?
The next question is about the aspect of the dealings that was not merely stupidity
but actually intentional and duplicitous.
This aspect is the core of the argument and the outrage
against the higher echelons of Wall Street and the Banking industry.
hth
And I get that. You put it all very succinctly (thank you!)
I also get that the fools and risk-takers whose homes went into foreclosure (and please note: I AM NOT TALKIN ABOUT FOLKS WHO LOST THEIR HOMES DUE TO JOB LOSS!!!) . . . they are responsible for screwing up home values all over this country. But how can you hold those people responsible when those were personal loans? You can't.
However, banks that were unreasonable about helping the folks who COULD HAVE MADE PAYMENTS and stayed in their homes created a helluva situation for the rest of us who own property.
It seems to me, the homeowners who signed wacky loans - they have paid a price w/ hits to their credit. The banks? They not only set up the loans and approved them . . . they now "own" hundreds of thousands of houses across this country . . .and those empty houses have affected the rest of our property values. When the equity went down in MY home, that affected ME and MY NEIGHBORS. This scenario has occurred in all 50 states, in nearly every neighborhood.
So, yes, someone should be held responsible for (1) bundling those "bad" loans together and selling as derivatives globally and (2) someone should be held responsible for punitive banking/lending policies, from not cooperating with folks who wanted to restructure their loans to jacking up interest rates on credit cards and adding fees on every itty bitty transaction. Shame on them! They recouped their losses and moved right on.
But those regs that have allowed banks to impose usury and draconian interest rates and fees on charge cards, for ex - CONGRESS PASSED THOSE REGS THAT ALLOW IT! So this needs to be changed. This is one of the things OccupyWallStreet should be addressing. It would assist millions of folks in this country - and our CONGRESSMEN and SENATORS helped create THAT burden.
THey should answer for it - and change the laws!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
