Wow Robert. Were you always a socialist in capitalist clothing? Now you are blaming the lenders for duping and ensnaring purchasers. Really?? So when they bought the property or refinanced, they were forced by the lenders to sign the documents? Oh yeah, now I remember being in my bank and seeing all the loan officers packing heat. In fact, at my bank they installed a “rack” for the really thoughtful borrowers who weren’t sure they wanted to be duped.
Seriously Robert, get a clue. Is your position on this due to you having substantial real estate holdings that you are being negatively impacted by the cleansing process? If so, then you need to disclose that as you would expect other publications, who you have criticized for lack of transparency, to do.
EDITOR: Our real estate holdings were not impacted by “the cleansing process.” According to Stiglitz’s chapter “The Mortgage Scam” there were 100% non-recourse loans, mortgages with “teaser rates” whereby interest is low enough to qualify the buyer but then shoot up, negative-amortizatoin loans which allowed the buyer to choose how much to pay back, and “Liar loans”, so called because there was no verification of incomes stated on the application. Would those originating and selling the loans been likely to have done so if they had to own them and suffer the consequences of future default?
“Negative amortization” loans, “teaser rates” – Robert, you’re already talking way above your correspondent’s head, who knows only to shout “socialism!!!” as Rush and Glenn Beck have taught him. Unscrupulous lenders took advantage of suckers and your writer wants to blame the suckers completely and absolve the unscrupulous lenders.
Despite your editor’s note, you failed to address the issue raised.
No one forced anyone to buy a home, no one coerced buyer’s to select homes beyond their budget, no one held a gun to their heads or held family members as hostages until they signed their contracts.
Buyers and borrowers are responsible to do due diligence, to shop carefully, to read contracts, and to be sure they understand what they are signing.
Please stop making excuses for the stupid and the materialists.
I would have to ask the writer if he also feels the banks should have been bailed out. After all, who is processing mortgages everyday and who is taking out a mortgage for the first time? Certainly if the government can bail out the stupid, but professional money handlers, we can afford to help the inexperienced and duped homebuyers.
As a landlord I find the bank’s position weak. It’s been 10 years since we’ve had a bank ask for a credit reference on a tenant purchasing a house. Yet the banks are the first to cry for a bailout.