Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
I don't disagree that those things happened. Just like I don't disagree that people attempt to scam other people into achieving dreams they can't afford. Sadly, that will always be with us. But all of the above would have been impossible without the buyer's signature on the dotted line promising to repay.
A scam is bad enough when you've been truly fooled by the scammer. But when you already know it's over your head, but you do it anyway because of your own greed to obtain more than you can afford, there's a lot less sympathy in my view. And when you walk away from it afterwards and put your bad judgment on the backs of those of us who DO pay their bills, one could argue that person is no different than the scammer who scammed them.
Carl
There was/is a certain percentage of that. There are also plenty of people who bought homes at the market price that is well above today's values they could afford and then lost their jobs as a result of the fallout of the above impacting companies and businesses and subsequently were stuck with homes they were under water on even with substantial equity and were forced to short or foreclose. These were honest people doing their best and got caught up in the mess created by others and now have the bad credit as a result that as you indicated will further cripple them in recovering their careers and lives. THIS is the real devastation of the housing bust. What do you tell them?
It's too easy to look at the ends of the bell curve and make summary statements about the causes of this disaster. I think the whole story is a lot more grey with a lot of truly innocent victims with repercussions that have rippled throughout society and the perps happily enjoying their ill gotten riches at the expense of the nations future economic well being.