Posted by: liz
Comment: #1
Fri Sep 26, 2008 4:23 PM
Need and greed. A volatile combination. My experience is when I went looking for a house at a price that would give me a comfortable mortgage, everyone and I mean everyone, real estate companies, lenders, builders, all wanted me to spend more. "You earn enough to afford a house of this size and a payment of this amount. In fact, you could even get a house THIS size and still meet your obligations". My experience was not extraordinary. The lenders, the entire financial sector, treated their business as a carnival, they were the ringers and the spinmeisters, we were the yokels. They appealed to our need and greed with their own need and greed. With their higher education, specialized knowledge, and let's not forget the specialized "language"that lawyers and bankers use, we yokels tried to make sense of our mortgage and loan contracts, written in a language no lay person can understand. These contracts clearly place all the high cards on the lenders side. They figured they had a win-win. If the yokel can meet his obligation, they win. If the yokel can't, they pocket whatever he paid, then resell it at the inflated housing prices, kaching! Win!!Yokels may not understand all the legalese double speak, but we get it, too. Can't meet the payment, credit ruined, the bank will foreclose, how you going to get a decent rental with bad credit? We comforted ourselves having to walk away from our obligation knowing when we walked into it the cards were stacked against us, especially if we failed.
As for the rest of your article, you are the spinmeister and I'd love to know what planet you're on. I'm sure people throughout the globe who are affected by this economic fallout would love for you to explain from your very high perch, how this is their fault and not the fault of the fatcats receiving the big money and fat bonuses paid to them by us to ensure someone was watching the henhouse.
|
- 
- 
- 
