However, it's not his fault that Congress has defunded the Dodd-Frank act to the point of it being irrelevant. Obama doesn't control the power of the purse.
Funding ain't got shit to do with it being toothless.
Right, pal. How is the law supposed to be enforced if there's no funding allocated for its enforcement? Tell me, oh wise one, why should anyone worry about the cops if you know the cops aren't being paid to look for you?
Right, so let's just make it rain some more on some ineffective legislation that can in no way prevent another bubble. Sure bro. I know, if we showered some fucking cash on the SEC, dudes would stop watching porn at work and actually investigate shit after being reported on for years. WE NEED TO SPEND OUR WAY OUT OF THIS!!!!!
Are you serious? You can't be. The reason Dodd Frank is ineffective is because it's underfunded and toothless, thanks to the GOP. It can be extremely effective if implemented and funded the way it's supposed to be. What part of this are you not getting?
I mean, give me a break.
If you want to get into in specific parts of it that will be effective, please do detail. If you think that banks won't just find other ways to make money because of having to spinoff previously profitable segments, then keep dreaming. By forcing banks to reduce available profitable opportunities, all you are doing is making them concentrate into something else which will almost always result in another bubble.
Then you're going to have to rely on the government to actually do its job instead of sleeping at the wheel.
laserwolf's ass kinda missing oh i dont know #4 on that list. change harvey's statement to "among the biggest" i don't give a fuck. it's still a relevant point but i guess being a nitpicking fuck is more important.
You're amazing. You co-signed something that is provably wrong and you call it nitpicking when called out on it.. It wasn't a relevant point, it was an incorrect point.
Why can't you man up and admit when you make a mistake?
k, I WAS WRONG BROS. banks are only listed as #4 and clearly at that point exert no influence over the president.
You get an "A" for correcting your error. Good job.
You get an "F" for that BS at the end. No one said anything like that. You and Harvey love to make BS arguments against points no one makes. You need to work on that.
LOL, your homie LMJ is the god damn crown prince of that shit. i would never want to take credit for something that clearly belongs to someone else. nitpicking on some shit JUST TO BE RIGHT instead of going "oh hey you're a little off on that but clearly that money has bought some influence man!" is how an actual debate might be a little more effective.
LOL, your homie LMJ is the god damn crown prince of that shit. i would never want to take credit for something that clearly belongs to someone else. nitpicking on some shit JUST TO BE RIGHT instead of going "oh hey you're a little off on that but clearly that money has bought some influence man!" is how an actual debate might be a little more effective.
I don't know where you learned the rules of debate but when I learned them I was taught that being factually correct is more than a little important. Harvey said the banks were Obama's biggest contributors. They're at best a distant fourth. You're flailing like a spasmodic octopus here.
k
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
[
Right, Obama doesn't have the power to even count. But it's all Bush's fault.
This your guy is the devil, while our guy is a saint ish is soooooo painfully tired.
But I realize that hardcore Obama-philes actually believe that all the banker bail-out money has been paid back...which to most Americans is endlessly laughable.
Nah. What's really tired is folks, like you, that try to absolve the Bush Administration of all culpability. (Did somebody say white wash?) What's really tired is people, like you, who don't have a grasp on how much damage was done and think that Obama was supposed to snap his fingers as soon as he walk through the White House doors and solve everything with two snaps and a swirl.
Let me also give you the gasface for your "our guy's the devil, while your guy's the saint" BS. I've never said that, and have criticized Obama several times. So, keep blowtorching those strawman, pal. Keep arguing against points nobody is making in order to deflect from the real truth. Nice job,.
Oh, what's even more tired than the above is folks that don't understand that bank bail ou of 2008t HAPPENED UNDER BUSH!!! It was Bush's Treasury Secretary that got on TV waving a single page of paper saying that if Congress doesn't sign this paper, our country is finished (ala mushroom cloud). If there was anything laughable that lasts longer than "endlessly" this would be it. The people, like yourself, who can't grasp this concept of simple dates are disappointing to say the least.
What part 2008 was Bush do you find it hard to comprehend? The 2 or the 8? I mean a know Ron Paul lovers are slow on the uptake, but for christsake man, look at a calendar for once in your life.
1. Bush is the devil. We already know that. Noone named me is excusing him for any of his bs. May he burn in hell forever.
2. So you are saying no banking bail-outs have been issued under Obama? Sure, that shit started under Bush. But Obama picked up right where Bush left off (your dude is in a clip in this very thread saying how saving the banks was the right thing to do)...proving that on the most pressing issue of the day, there is no difference between Bush and Obama whatsoever. But dudes like you would have us believe that they are instead night and day. Not so at all, just like on war-mongering as well. I bet you were up in arms about Bush fabrciating a reason to invade Iraq, but then have nothing to say at all about Obama not even bothering to get Congress approval for his drone bombings and such. Point being, fuck the both of them. We need something new.
LOL, your homie LMJ is the god damn crown prince of that shit. i would never want to take credit for something that clearly belongs to someone else. nitpicking on some shit JUST TO BE RIGHT instead of going "oh hey you're a little off on that but clearly that money has bought some influence man!" is how an actual debate might be a little more effective.
I don't know where you learned the rules of debate but when I learned them I was taught that being factually correct is more than a little important. Harvey said the banks were Obama's biggest contributors. They're at best a distant fourth. You're flailing like a spasmodic octopus here.
I'm going to have to co-sign this post. Being factually correct in a debate or discussion on politics is paramount. At least to those that are intellectually honest. I'd probably leave out the octupus comment, but hey, creative license goes to the speaker.
As to details of Dodd Frank that Brian seems to want me to discuss, the clearest example is the failure to regulate derivative trading, i.e, the whole reason the economy imploded in 2008. Republicans have been stonewalling the implementation of this since day one. Another is the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. Also known in laymen's terms as the make mortgages understandable to the average person act. Again, no funding to implement thanks to the GOP.
Now Brian, if you want me to continue, you need to show me that you actually have some knowledge of what the Dodd Frank Bill contains. Your attitude that pointing out a factual inaccuracy is "nitpicking" is not encouraging.
[
Right, Obama doesn't have the power to even count. But it's all Bush's fault.
This your guy is the devil, while our guy is a saint ish is soooooo painfully tired.
But I realize that hardcore Obama-philes actually believe that all the banker bail-out money has been paid back...which to most Americans is endlessly laughable.
Nah. What's really tired is folks, like you, that try to absolve the Bush Administration of all culpability. (Did somebody say white wash?) What's really tired is people, like you, who don't have a grasp on how much damage was done and think that Obama was supposed to snap his fingers as soon as he walk through the White House doors and solve everything with two snaps and a swirl.
Let me also give you the gasface for your "our guy's the devil, while your guy's the saint" BS. I've never said that, and have criticized Obama several times. So, keep blowtorching those strawman, pal. Keep arguing against points nobody is making in order to deflect from the real truth. Nice job,.
Oh, what's even more tired than the above is folks that don't understand that bank bail ou of 2008t HAPPENED UNDER BUSH!!! It was Bush's Treasury Secretary that got on TV waving a single page of paper saying that if Congress doesn't sign this paper, our country is finished (ala mushroom cloud). If there was anything laughable that lasts longer than "endlessly" this would be it. The people, like yourself, who can't grasp this concept of simple dates are disappointing to say the least.
What part 2008 was Bush do you find it hard to comprehend? The 2 or the 8? I mean a know Ron Paul lovers are slow on the uptake, but for christsake man, look at a calendar for once in your life.
1. Bush is the devil. We already know that. Noone named me is excusing him for any of his bs. May he burn in hell forever.
2. So you are saying no banking bail-outs have been issued under Obama? Sure, that shit started under Bush. But Obama picked up right where Bush left off (your dude is in a clip in this very thread saying how saving the banks was the right thing to do)...proving that on the most pressing issue of the day, there is no difference between Bush and Obama whatsoever. But dudes like you would have us believe that they are instead night and day. Not so at all, just like on war-mongering as well. I bet you were up in arms about Bush fabrciating a reason to invade Iraq, but then have nothing to say at all about Obama not even bothering to get Congress approval for his drone bombings and such. Point being, fuck the both of them. We need something new.
1.) Ok, point made.
2) I never said that Harvey, however YOU mentioned the bank bailout of 2008. That was the topic being discussed, or so I thought. My bad for thinking when you were talking about the bank bailout of 2008, you meant all bank bailouts, ever. Now I know.
3) Don't change the subject to foreign affairs, please. This is a thread about the economy. Let's stay on topic. Is that fair? For the record, I actually supported the invasion of Iraq at the time. I was a scared kid living in DC on 9/11 who bought the whole BS laid out for the country. I regret supporting the invasion, but I know better now. But, back to the topic at hand....
Another is the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. Also known in laymen's terms as the make mortgages understandable to the average person act. Again, no funding to implement thanks to the GOP.
I'll have to say that after working in the mortgage industry for many years I doubt this act would do what it's called on to do. There were disclosures out the wazoo already designed to do the same thing, and those didn't work. I suppose it doesn't hurt to tinker with the machinery, but trust me - borrowers really tend not to give a shit as long as they get what they want - the house or the cash out.
This is suggesting that borrowers didn't have guns to their heads.....or bothered to read the contracts......or were too dumb to understand what they were getting themselves in to.
Another is the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. Also known in laymen's terms as the make mortgages understandable to the average person act. Again, no funding to implement thanks to the GOP.
I'll have to say that after working in the mortgage industry for many years I doubt this act would do what it's called on to do. There were disclosures out the wazoo already designed to do the same thing, and those didn't work. I suppose it doesn't hurt to tinker with the machinery, but trust me - borrowers really tend not to give a shit as long as they get what they want - the house or the cash out.
This is suggesting that borrowers didn't have guns to their heads.....or bothered to read the contracts......or were too dumb to understand what they were getting themselves in to.
Outrageous!
I'll defer to Frankie a bit due to his experience in the industry, but your assertion that contracts, even those that are "read" are not complicated, and that only people who are stupid couldn't understand them is what's outrageous. It's the lenders job to secure the loan by any means necessary, and lenders worth there salt will secure the loan with borrower in default upon signing the contract. They do this by making the contract so dense with legalese that only those with representation can truly understand the contract.
Not everyone can afford a lawyer to look over a mortgage. I know, I know. Who do they think they are taking out a mortgage then. Well, surely we can agree that predatory lending exists. We can also agree that peoples' desires to own a home may lead to them making decisions they wouldn't or shouldn't make. Maybe we disagree about whether the lenders have any cupalbility in preying on these desires and gaming the system by making the mortgages so complex. I think they have some, maybe you dont.
wow, this thread got shitty since last i checked in. i went to nyc on wednesday for the big march. it was interesting to be a seemingly leaderless protest. no speakers or set agenda. at times it felt a little too amorphous, maybe because i am used to the laundry list of speakers and crowd management. crowd control was provided by the cops, who very effectively controlled the physical flow of people...frustrating at times. but things were generally peaceful. one enormous dude was telling every cop they should be monitoring the people on Wall street since they are responsible for cops losing their pensions and not having a contract (i dont know much about the validity of this)...but he actually engaged several cops in conversations and agreement about it.
the scene in Liberty Park was worthwhile to check out. on the surface a lot of scattered encampments, but as you walked around, you realized one was a medical area, there was a generator powered media center, and right in the middle, a highly functional kitchen, prepping feeding and cleaning around the clock. i bumped into old friends, saw some famous faces, was impressed by many things and disappointed by other things. i hope they stay a long time
gnight
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
So I guess Occupy Austin was just a one day thing. Drove by City Hall this morning and there were only like a dozen people out there. I imagine the protest that went on inside of City Hall yesterday, which was directed at keeping the city from allowing developers to build on our aquifer, was more productive.
Not everyone can afford a lawyer to look over a mortgage. I know, I know. Who do they think they are taking out a mortgage then. Well, surely we can agree that predatory lending exists. We can also agree that peoples' desires to own a home may lead to them making decisions they wouldn't or shouldn't make. Maybe we disagree about whether the lenders have any cupalbility in preying on these desires and gaming the system by making the mortgages so complex. I think they have some, maybe you dont.
I've purchased a few houses and have never had a lawyer look over the mortgage.....but I did make sure I had the answers, in writing, to some very simple questions.
1) What is the value of the home according to an independent appraiser and based on previous and neighborhood sales prices. All free public info.
2) How much is my down payment?
3) What will my monthly payment be over the course of the 30 year loan.
4) What are my property taxes and the history of those taxes increasing.
5) What is my interest rate and how much interest will I pay over the course of the mortgage.
6) What kind of insurance is available for me to purchase in case of death, illness, etc.
Then decide if I can afford it and sign my name to a contract which states I understand and will be responsible to live up to the contract with the penalty of foreclosure if I don't.
Sure, there are a few other important clauses/issues but those six should cover most of what caused 2.8 million forclosures last year in the U.S. and I don't think these are very complicated or difficult to deal with.
If there are specific "tricks" or clauses put in mortgages that are not addressed above and could lead to foreclosure I'd like to learn what they are.
There were almost two million cars repossessed in the U.S. last year.....I assume some think that the car salesmen and auto companies were "predatory" in their selling of these vehicles. I place 100% of the responsibilty on the car buyer.
The U.S. has a combined credit card debt of almost $800 billion dollars...the "predatory" credit card companies send people unsolicited credit cards.....but once you make the decision to use that card you are the one responsible for paying your bills.....I don't see how you can blame someone other than yourself if you don't or can't pay.
I don't like nor support any of the "bail-outs" that banks and corporations have received in the recent past but I understand why they were necessary.
Are banks, credit card companies, auto dealers, etc. sleazy.....sure.
Is it their fault you signed a contract to spend money that you can not pay....not in my opinion.
But I also think that a drug user is responsible for their drug use, not the drug dealer....I blame the gambler not the casino.
Maybe we can get "spending money beyond one's means" classified as an illness and forgive them morally and fiscally for a behavior they just can't control.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Credit card companies seem to reserve the ability to raise interest rates however they see fit...and anything over say 15% in this market should be labeled as criminal. Not enough people clamoring over that nowadays IMO. If the Fed is going to be in charge of establishing the prime rate, then there should be limits set on lenders charging double, triple, quadruple, and beyond of that standard.
Credit card companies seem to reserve the ability to raise interest rates however they see fit...and anything over say 15% in this market should be labeled as criminal. Not enough people clamoring over that nowadays IMO. If the Fed is going to be in charge of establishing the prime rate, then there should be limits set on lenders charging double, triple, quadruple, and beyond of that standard.
If there are specific "tricks" or clauses put in mortgages that are not addressed above and could lead to foreclosure I'd like to learn what they are.
I haven't been following this thread so I apologize if these were addressed already. Here's a couple of examples from people I know.
A friend of mine, an older gentleman that I buy a lot of records from, was offered a refinancing deal on his home that would give him some (much needed) cash up front that he was planning on reinvesting in the property. What he did not understand was that the low rate he was signing on for would change after a certain time frame. He was not advised of this by the lender, and while he knows a lot about records, while he's owned businesses and worked his whole life, while he put himself through college at a time when most of his peers were lucky to have a high school education, he wasn't slick enough at reading the fine print to catch this. So within a year or two, his rates skyrocketed and he found that he did not have the money to pay his own mortgage on a house he had owned for over a decade, that was totally affordable up until that point. I believe this is called a "variable rate" mortgage. They are one of the big reasons people have lost their houses.
Then there's a good friend of my wife's, who spoke at our wedding, married with two kids. She taught special ed in the Richmond, CA public school system which, if you know Richmond and you know special ed, is grounds for sainthood. Her husband worked in HR for Kaiser. They weren't rich but they were comfortably middle class. At the height of the housing bubble, they could barely afford anything, and their budget was $450,000. They ended up buying a nice house for about that amount; it was unfortunately located in a kind of sketchy part of East Oakland. As my wife was telling it to me at the time, I expressed skepticism, knowing the area fairly well and thinking that couldn't be a good value. But even I could admit that their options were few. Houses were selling for ridiculous amounts of money and everybody really did think that this was the new normal. If you wanted to live in the central part of the Bay Area, you needed to either have a shit ton of money or make some serious sacrifices. They made a good go of it and got to know their neighbors, watched ball games and hosted block parties together, and raised their kids the best they knew how, being liberal Bay Areans and thinking, "so what we live in East Oakland. These are good people just like us."
The housing market crashed, and their otherwise-fine house is now valued somewhere around $150,000. They walked away from the mortgage and my wife's friend declared bankruptcy. She and her husband have since divorced. But to me, the only thing they did wrong was to believe what was conventional wisdom at the time, that the prices were the prices. The only reason they were foreclosed upon was that they just couldn't bring themselves to throw away half a million dollars on a house that was only worth a third of that. They didn't make a promise to pay what they couldn't; they were sold a bill of goods by the real estate industry that made money hand over fist during this time on the relative naivete of otherwise responsible people.
Shit is fucked up. Good for you that you are smart enough to see through it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't change the system for, and protect, those of us who aren't quite as sharp.
I guess the second example isn't so much exposing a "trick" as it is a general indictment of the industry. Whatever. This whole "I don't know much but I know not to spend frivolously on a credit card" is cute but doesn't really get at the problems that currently plague our country.
Back to your regularly scheduled program
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
See, how does a variable rate go up during a time when the prime rate has only gone down?
Shit is fucked up. Good for you that you are smart enough to see through it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't change the system for, and protect, those of us who aren't quite as sharp.
I don't consider those six simple things I stated as something you need to be particularly "smart" to do....nor do I consider myself any "smarter" than the next guy. Your friend in example #1 would have avoided his problem by asking those six questions.....if he didn't even ask those obviious one's he went in to the deal totally blind and can only blame himself....buyer beware.
The minute I buy a car and drive off the lot the value goes down.....based on your example if after one year of payments my car's value is less than what I owe I should just stop paying and have it repossessed.
Life's not fair...there are no guarantees that your investments will not go down in value.....that's why I don't play the stock market.
I have a friend who bought a house, paid it off in full and it burned down. He didn't have insurance coverage and lost everything....it's a very sad story as were the two you told above....but who's to "blame"?
Shit is fucked up. Good for you that you are smart enough to see through it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't change the system for, and protect, those of us who aren't quite as sharp.
I don't consider those six simple things I stated as something you need to be particularly "smart" to do....nor do I consider myself any "smarter" than the next guy. Your friend in example #1 would have avoided his problem by asking those six questions.....if he didn't even ask those obviious one's he went in to the deal totally blind and can only blame himself....buyer beware.
I'm not going to get into the back and forth, but he thought he was refinancing at a certain rate. He believed he understood what that rate was. He did not understand that it was going to change, nor was he informed of that tidbit of info. Hindsight is 20/20 but if you ask "what is the rate?" and the lender says, "5%", then I think that satisfies your question. You don't say, "but what will it be in 3 years?" because your understanding of it is that the rate is the rate. Their understanding of it, on the other hand, is that the rate is not the rate. Like a slick midtown salesman might say, "this is today price. Tomorrow? different price." This shouldn't be the way real estate business is conducted and shame on you for blaming the victims.
These deals were pushed door-to-door in black and lower-middle class towns across Long Island. It's called "predatory lending". There's a long history of it in the United States. I encourage you to read about it.
Comments
Then you're going to have to rely on the government to actually do its job instead of sleeping at the wheel.
1. Bush is the devil. We already know that. Noone named me is excusing him for any of his bs. May he burn in hell forever.
2. So you are saying no banking bail-outs have been issued under Obama? Sure, that shit started under Bush. But Obama picked up right where Bush left off (your dude is in a clip in this very thread saying how saving the banks was the right thing to do)...proving that on the most pressing issue of the day, there is no difference between Bush and Obama whatsoever. But dudes like you would have us believe that they are instead night and day. Not so at all, just like on war-mongering as well. I bet you were up in arms about Bush fabrciating a reason to invade Iraq, but then have nothing to say at all about Obama not even bothering to get Congress approval for his drone bombings and such. Point being, fuck the both of them. We need something new.
The dude in the video I posted had a job in a construction union and made $7.00 something an hour.
Uh Huh
Dude is out there representing the 99%....me and you.
Has it occurred to you that he is a plant to make the OWS look bad?
That did occur to me.....he looks like a Tea Partier in Liberal drag.
I also saw photos of fake cops....what is this world coming to?
This guy is not quite all there and will probably have a short life
Exactly what "rule" do you think I'm trying to prove?
Dude was just as entertaining as "Joe The Plumber" and the "Get A Brain Morans!" guys.
What rule did they prove?
Which one was more entertaining?
I'm going to have to co-sign this post. Being factually correct in a debate or discussion on politics is paramount. At least to those that are intellectually honest. I'd probably leave out the octupus comment, but hey, creative license goes to the speaker.
As to details of Dodd Frank that Brian seems to want me to discuss, the clearest example is the failure to regulate derivative trading, i.e, the whole reason the economy imploded in 2008. Republicans have been stonewalling the implementation of this since day one. Another is the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. Also known in laymen's terms as the make mortgages understandable to the average person act. Again, no funding to implement thanks to the GOP.
Now Brian, if you want me to continue, you need to show me that you actually have some knowledge of what the Dodd Frank Bill contains. Your attitude that pointing out a factual inaccuracy is "nitpicking" is not encouraging.
1.) Ok, point made.
2) I never said that Harvey, however YOU mentioned the bank bailout of 2008. That was the topic being discussed, or so I thought. My bad for thinking when you were talking about the bank bailout of 2008, you meant all bank bailouts, ever. Now I know.
3) Don't change the subject to foreign affairs, please. This is a thread about the economy. Let's stay on topic. Is that fair? For the record, I actually supported the invasion of Iraq at the time. I was a scared kid living in DC on 9/11 who bought the whole BS laid out for the country. I regret supporting the invasion, but I know better now. But, back to the topic at hand....
This is suggesting that borrowers didn't have guns to their heads.....or bothered to read the contracts......or were too dumb to understand what they were getting themselves in to.
Outrageous!
I'll defer to Frankie a bit due to his experience in the industry, but your assertion that contracts, even those that are "read" are not complicated, and that only people who are stupid couldn't understand them is what's outrageous. It's the lenders job to secure the loan by any means necessary, and lenders worth there salt will secure the loan with borrower in default upon signing the contract. They do this by making the contract so dense with legalese that only those with representation can truly understand the contract.
Not everyone can afford a lawyer to look over a mortgage. I know, I know. Who do they think they are taking out a mortgage then. Well, surely we can agree that predatory lending exists. We can also agree that peoples' desires to own a home may lead to them making decisions they wouldn't or shouldn't make. Maybe we disagree about whether the lenders have any cupalbility in preying on these desires and gaming the system by making the mortgages so complex. I think they have some, maybe you dont.
These companies had companies set up falsifying hundreds of thousands of documents.
I'm sure Rock feels the same way about old people who are taken advantage of with scams...
Which is most likely illegal.
Looks like an out of work actor to me. As does the "Jew", who appears to be wearing a halloween wig with attached yamaka.
the scene in Liberty Park was worthwhile to check out. on the surface a lot of scattered encampments, but as you walked around, you realized one was a medical area, there was a generator powered media center, and right in the middle, a highly functional kitchen, prepping feeding and cleaning around the clock. i bumped into old friends, saw some famous faces, was impressed by many things and disappointed by other things. i hope they stay a long time
gnight
I've purchased a few houses and have never had a lawyer look over the mortgage.....but I did make sure I had the answers, in writing, to some very simple questions.
1) What is the value of the home according to an independent appraiser and based on previous and neighborhood sales prices. All free public info.
2) How much is my down payment?
3) What will my monthly payment be over the course of the 30 year loan.
4) What are my property taxes and the history of those taxes increasing.
5) What is my interest rate and how much interest will I pay over the course of the mortgage.
6) What kind of insurance is available for me to purchase in case of death, illness, etc.
Then decide if I can afford it and sign my name to a contract which states I understand and will be responsible to live up to the contract with the penalty of foreclosure if I don't.
Sure, there are a few other important clauses/issues but those six should cover most of what caused 2.8 million forclosures last year in the U.S. and I don't think these are very complicated or difficult to deal with.
If there are specific "tricks" or clauses put in mortgages that are not addressed above and could lead to foreclosure I'd like to learn what they are.
There were almost two million cars repossessed in the U.S. last year.....I assume some think that the car salesmen and auto companies were "predatory" in their selling of these vehicles. I place 100% of the responsibilty on the car buyer.
The U.S. has a combined credit card debt of almost $800 billion dollars...the "predatory" credit card companies send people unsolicited credit cards.....but once you make the decision to use that card you are the one responsible for paying your bills.....I don't see how you can blame someone other than yourself if you don't or can't pay.
I don't like nor support any of the "bail-outs" that banks and corporations have received in the recent past but I understand why they were necessary.
Are banks, credit card companies, auto dealers, etc. sleazy.....sure.
Is it their fault you signed a contract to spend money that you can not pay....not in my opinion.
But I also think that a drug user is responsible for their drug use, not the drug dealer....I blame the gambler not the casino.
Maybe we can get "spending money beyond one's means" classified as an illness and forgive them morally and fiscally for a behavior they just can't control.
I agree
I haven't been following this thread so I apologize if these were addressed already. Here's a couple of examples from people I know.
A friend of mine, an older gentleman that I buy a lot of records from, was offered a refinancing deal on his home that would give him some (much needed) cash up front that he was planning on reinvesting in the property. What he did not understand was that the low rate he was signing on for would change after a certain time frame. He was not advised of this by the lender, and while he knows a lot about records, while he's owned businesses and worked his whole life, while he put himself through college at a time when most of his peers were lucky to have a high school education, he wasn't slick enough at reading the fine print to catch this. So within a year or two, his rates skyrocketed and he found that he did not have the money to pay his own mortgage on a house he had owned for over a decade, that was totally affordable up until that point. I believe this is called a "variable rate" mortgage. They are one of the big reasons people have lost their houses.
Then there's a good friend of my wife's, who spoke at our wedding, married with two kids. She taught special ed in the Richmond, CA public school system which, if you know Richmond and you know special ed, is grounds for sainthood. Her husband worked in HR for Kaiser. They weren't rich but they were comfortably middle class. At the height of the housing bubble, they could barely afford anything, and their budget was $450,000. They ended up buying a nice house for about that amount; it was unfortunately located in a kind of sketchy part of East Oakland. As my wife was telling it to me at the time, I expressed skepticism, knowing the area fairly well and thinking that couldn't be a good value. But even I could admit that their options were few. Houses were selling for ridiculous amounts of money and everybody really did think that this was the new normal. If you wanted to live in the central part of the Bay Area, you needed to either have a shit ton of money or make some serious sacrifices. They made a good go of it and got to know their neighbors, watched ball games and hosted block parties together, and raised their kids the best they knew how, being liberal Bay Areans and thinking, "so what we live in East Oakland. These are good people just like us."
The housing market crashed, and their otherwise-fine house is now valued somewhere around $150,000. They walked away from the mortgage and my wife's friend declared bankruptcy. She and her husband have since divorced. But to me, the only thing they did wrong was to believe what was conventional wisdom at the time, that the prices were the prices. The only reason they were foreclosed upon was that they just couldn't bring themselves to throw away half a million dollars on a house that was only worth a third of that. They didn't make a promise to pay what they couldn't; they were sold a bill of goods by the real estate industry that made money hand over fist during this time on the relative naivete of otherwise responsible people.
Shit is fucked up. Good for you that you are smart enough to see through it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't change the system for, and protect, those of us who aren't quite as sharp.
Back to your regularly scheduled program
I don't consider those six simple things I stated as something you need to be particularly "smart" to do....nor do I consider myself any "smarter" than the next guy. Your friend in example #1 would have avoided his problem by asking those six questions.....if he didn't even ask those obviious one's he went in to the deal totally blind and can only blame himself....buyer beware.
The minute I buy a car and drive off the lot the value goes down.....based on your example if after one year of payments my car's value is less than what I owe I should just stop paying and have it repossessed.
Life's not fair...there are no guarantees that your investments will not go down in value.....that's why I don't play the stock market.
I have a friend who bought a house, paid it off in full and it burned down. He didn't have insurance coverage and lost everything....it's a very sad story as were the two you told above....but who's to "blame"?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html
I'm not going to get into the back and forth, but he thought he was refinancing at a certain rate. He believed he understood what that rate was. He did not understand that it was going to change, nor was he informed of that tidbit of info. Hindsight is 20/20 but if you ask "what is the rate?" and the lender says, "5%", then I think that satisfies your question. You don't say, "but what will it be in 3 years?" because your understanding of it is that the rate is the rate. Their understanding of it, on the other hand, is that the rate is not the rate. Like a slick midtown salesman might say, "this is today price. Tomorrow? different price." This shouldn't be the way real estate business is conducted and shame on you for blaming the victims.
These deals were pushed door-to-door in black and lower-middle class towns across Long Island. It's called "predatory lending". There's a long history of it in the United States. I encourage you to read about it.