Bye Bye Banks and Wall Street

[BarTopDancer]

What happened to the saying "when something is to good to be true it probably is?"

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

What happened to the saying "when something is to good to be true it probably is?"

What happened to it is that it's a nice little platitude, but reality is not platitudes. It's just a wee bit more complex than Bartlet's Book of Quotations.

Look what's happening. "Our economy is basically soun......what? It's the BANKS that are losing money?! Oh sh*t, open the coffers!!"

I can't possibly say this any more clearly - I do not want consumers who made poor decisions off the hook any more than I want the sheisters with the money off.

But the reality is, we're dug in deep and we're going to need to do some backfilling, to use a mediocre analogy. It'd be nice if they backfill and get the playing field back to even instead of digging the dirt from the low side onto the high side. Because as long as someone in a two sided deal has absolutely nothing to risk, people are going to get taken advantage of, putting the value of MY home at risk.

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

What happened to it is that it's a nice little platitude, but reality is not platitudes. It's just a wee bit more complex than Bartlet's Book of Quotations.

Thanks (and thanks to Alex and Moonie too). I am trying to understand this in the scope that it is. I get why it's happening, trying to understand the different thoughts of fixing it.

[The Lovely Mrs. tod]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

What happened to the saying "when something is to good to be true it probably is?"

No one makes a decision knowing it's the wrong one. Alex nailed the lenders' sales pitch perfectly. I can understand consumers feeling abused and resentful of the mere fact that the government is even considering bailing out the banks. Or home owners. But I doubt most of these people intended to default. Lenders refused to negotiate, they refused to modify, some lenders simply sold property without telling the homeowners until the sale was complete.

Had these lenders taken some responsibility for their part in this mess when it started to simmer instead of putting it on the back burner and pretending it wouldn't explode there's a distinct possibility that there would be no need for a bail out. This one was a bad deal, but, I think, it's inevitable that one will be necessary down the line.

[wendybeth]

Another problem adding fuel to the mortgage fire is the 2005 BAPCPA law, which severely limited a person's ability to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Credit card companies, etc, can garnish wages -which they do, leaving the debtor with little choice but to stop paying other things, like mortgages. It doesn't take much to find yourself in financial straits, especially not these days. Most people are a paycheck away from the poorhouse. Illness, layoffs.....anything can happen to any one of us here that would be our financial undoing, yet we are left twisting in the wind while the government takes our tax dollars and bails out the big boys. No wonder people are so pissed off.