As We The People take over

That's so laughable I don't even know where to begin...,..

Once again -- swindlers, liars, thieves, snake oil salesman -- they wouldn't exist if they didn't have DUMBASSES WHO ARE LOOKING TO GET RICH QUICK, GET THEIR PIECE OF THE PIE AND/OR ARE BLINDED BY THEIR GREED OR IGNORANCE OR BOTH to sell their line of horseshit to........

 

For the first in their lives, a large group of people -- who previously did not qualify for loans -- had the means to purchase a home for their family. They had the means to move their family out of an apartment/mobile home/whatever and live in a house, a place with a back yard and a front porch. They took that opportunity.

You refer to these people as idiots. Nice.

 

Enron screwed their employees from Maine to Spain.

S&Ls? Neil Bush, will you tear yourself away from that piece and face the jury, please?

The oil industry, subsizied up the ass?

Stop. Just stop.

 

And unfortunately for you - mommy always bails them out because the big players pay their re-election bills......

Which is yet again another example of how silly it is for democrats and republicans with incomes of $150,000 or less to sit around and argue about which party cares more about the "working man".........

There are two classes of people in this country -- the elite and the not-elite.

If you are in the former, you matter to politicians. If you are in the latter, you matter to the politicians only on election day because they need your vote to get back into office to continue to pander to the elite......

 

But clearly they didn't have the means. And now the rest of the country is paying the price.

 

No argument there. I just don't think there's been enough focus on the dream of buying a home. It's easy to sit back and criticize, but if I was living in a 3BR apartment, and some guy said I could move my family into a home for the same monthly bill, I don't know if I'd have the ability to say no.

 

They are no different than the people, who after obtaining a credit card with a high-limit for the first time, decided to max them out so they could get their piece of the pie --even though they KNEW they couldn't ever make the payments and had to go into default.

Look, I qualified for a loan that was about $50,000 more than the house I bought. Why didn't I take the biggest house? Simple --- because I knew even though I qualified for said loan, I wouldn't have been able to afford it and I would have been married to my mortgage.

The house I own is fine -- and I can still do things like take my kids out to eat, take them on some trips, golf and do so without missing my mortgage payments.

Just because you qualify for a loan doesn't mean you have to take it or max it out -- and the fact that many of these people didn't stop to think about the consequences of signing on the line for ONE SECOND tells me, yes, they are idiots.

One of the most important lessons my Dad taught me when I was young was this -- do not make any purchase of $100 or more without sleeping on it (unless it is an emergency item that you need that day, and even then you should step back and think about it).

I'd be willing to be if someone in these families sat down and thought about what their mortgage actually read -- and how much it would cost -- they'd have passed or waited for a better opportunity to purchase their home.

Again, I know it is no longer fashionable to champion personal responsibility -- but I can say without a doubt that every money problem I've ever had -- while bad luck was involved in some of them -- is a result of bad decisions I have made.

And I think that approach would solve a whole lot more than the blaming and finger pointing going on.

 

Good for you.

 

I don't believe that the argument (at least here) is that Joe Six Pack is innocent in all this. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to agree that there are many parties at fault (J6P, the financial industry, the regulators, etc).

Only one group made literally $100 billion in bonuses out of this in the past three years. They are clearly the most sophisticated and knew what toxic stew they were selling. This thread is about them. We've had other threads about Idiot Nation, and I have started them. This one is not for them.

 

Sure, you LOOK INTO IT.

But when you read things like, "rate has an adjustment cap of 6%" --- which means your 3% teaser rate can become 9% --- then you better have the ability to say no. And it won't be the bank's fault if you don't.

 

But that is the point -- if you think buying a home is not more than the monthly bill than you aren't capable of being a home owner because you are obviously clueless. I can't have much sympathy for that.

Again, it is like the guy who sees he can buy a Hummer for "only" $45 more per month than his Chevy Cavalier or whatever -- except that in order to get that price he had to take a 72-month financing package instead of a 48 month deal and the fact that his insurance is double what the Cavalier insurance would be and his gas is triple and every repair he needs is triple the cost as well and now he can't afford to make his payments......

Should the government bail him out?

 

You are probably right that this is not the thread to rip into idiot nation -- but the billionaires -- even the scandalous ones -- wouldn't be billionaires if it weren't for idiot nation's inability to control themselves......