Have any of you been taken advantage of by a banker?

It's funny, I'm a 5'11" 235 lb. Truck driver.

Nobody with a desk job is going to push me into anything. Specially a loan that has a floating interest rate.

Do you think some people are less informed?

Do you think it is their responsibility to know what they are signing before they buy a home?

I look at what happened in the mortgage banking industry and I can say I saw this coming a mile away.

15 years ago, they started doing this in the car business.

They were giving out loans to people who had no business buying a car without cash. But they'd give them loans at 28% interest if not higher in some cases.

When the buyer couldn't pay, the bank came and picked up the car.

In the past few years they began doing this to people looking for houses.

These people should have gotten apartments or mobile homes but we made special provisions for them.

Now it's backfired and is anyone surprised?

In America we earn our place in society. We work for what we get and are proud.

If we're not ready, we don't do it.

We live in a society that is in need of discipline. There's just no shame anymore.


Let the buyer beware.


Now our government is going after those who sold bad loans. And they should be locked up.

It's when the greed gets obscene that we all eventually have to pay for what these rats have done to the market.

These bankers who would sell a house to someone who's credit report shows they have virtually no income should be locked up for a long time.

Even worse there were "all interest loans" given out to people who don't qualify for that.

An all interest loan is for Millionairs who want to write off the interst on their home every year. [this is another reason why the income tax needs to go]

There's not a part in that post I don't completely agree with, and it's something I've been saying around here for a long time.

There's no excuse for signing your life away for 30 years, or what have you, and not knowing EXACTLY what you were signing. If you don't understand the specifics, you consult with someone who does. It's absolutely BEYOND me that anyone would sign a home mortgage and not be 100% informed.

It's also beyond me that someone would indebt themselves for 30 years without being as sure as possible that in, say, 10 years, they could probably still afford the mortgage. Barring any unforeseeable "acts of god" of course. I'd also say that it's foolish to mortgage a house without at least 20% down, and the ability to make more than the minimum payment for at least one quarter of each year. Why would you want to let the interest completely eat away at your savings and purchasing power later in life? I just don't get it.

This entire country needs an attitude adjustment in regards to finances. Call that liberal if you want, I don't care. We're economically fucked right now largely in part because of financial ignorance from the government, the private sector, and consumers.

Something has to change soon, or this experiment in liberty is going to be a footnote in history.

__________________
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is."

-Ronald Reagan

I was working as a Contractor in the years leading up to the housing crisis. I knew back them we were heading for trouble. We were building Houses that were selling for 3,4 even 5 hundred thousand dollars, that I knew damn well were not worth it. People just kept buying them anyways, counting on Interest rates to stay and the usually low rates they were at.

I have little pity for people who made unwise investments in homes and now want a bail out. I am sure some people were talked into it by less than honorable lenders, but I think most of the fault lies with the buyers and they should have to take their lumps.

I think as it always does the housing market will correct it's self. It is only a matter of time before people start waking up to the unbelievable deals that are now sitting on the market. I did, just 4 months ago I bought a new house for cash, at about 1/4 of what it was listed for 4 years ago.

There was no vested interest for lenders to CARE if the loans were dubious.

As long as the economy was humming, and the price of real estate crimbing, there was no vested interest for the buyers not to take loans which adjusted, either.

Remember how Reagan got all those silly "liberal" banking regulations off our backs, and then we had the saving and loan disaster?

Well lookie here, we're having still another economic meltdown because we decided to let the market do what the hell it wanted.

The sooner people understand that unbridled capitalism is a snake that eats itself, the sooner we can get back to a capitalist economy that won't get us into these disasters based on various kinds of tragedies of the common.

I saw an ad on tv the other day where some assclown said "A recent study indicates that the leading causes of debt are the use of credit and poor money management." I nearly fell off the couch laughing so hard.

Remember, Mortgage companies were being sued for discrimination when they rejected loan applications for minorities?
I think these civil rights groups should pay their fair share.

Red-lining is an interesting issue, but not relevant to the problem at hand, I think.

The problem here stems from no-income verification loans, with adjustable interest rates, and/or the fact that the formula approval ---even for those who did report incomes honestly -- has changed from a lower rate (about 25% of monthly income) to qualifiy to a higher one (about 33%).

I used to be a mortgage broker, BTW.

I got paid when a mortgage went through, so you can bet your ass I did everything I could to make sure that people looked good on paper.

People lied and I pretended to believe them, know what I mean?

There is some truth it it actually, Many of the people with problems paying their house payments, have all ready refinanced and folded credit card debt into their home loans.

Yes, no doubt there is SOME truth to that.

It's not the major problem though, I think.

I think the major problem is from people overreaching and the banks (and mortgage brokers like myself) having no vested interest in preventing dubious mortgages to be written.

I agree to some extent but there is such a thing a “deceptive business practices” and you do not have to technically tell an outright lie to justifiably get in trouble.

__________________
"Extremes to the right and left of any political dispute are always wrong."
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

I agree with this, I do however think most of the problem came from people buying well beyond their means.

I know. I laughed because it was a ridiculous statement of the obvious. Similar to when Joe Morgan says something like: The Tigers have been struggling to win games lately because they just haven't scored as many runs as their opponents.

Yes clearly many lenders made loans to people they knew would not be able to afford them if and when interest rates went up. I am not one who claims there are not predatory lenders. I just like the idea of personal responsablity. Most of those people knew damn well they were buying beyond their means. Maybe the felt entitled to do so, who knows. Point is we are now all being asked to pay for their unwise investments.

This would all be well and good, had the buyers been FORCED into signing those mortgages.

Sorry buddy, but you can't blame capitalism for the American consumer's IGNORANCE. Had home buyers used their fucking brains and made sure they understood the specifics of their loans, maybe number ONE, there wouldn't have been NEARLY this many bad mortgages, and number TWO, there wouldn't have been nearly this many defaults.

It's about being responsible as a consumer, not a brain dead moron. If you didn't do everything you could possibly do to be 100% informed about signing a life long mortgage, you're a brain dead idiot. Plain and simple. The fact that the banks took advantage of that is a by-product, because it should never have happened in the first place.

People ought to know by now that this boom and bust economy is never constant. You can NEVER be guaranteed that the value of your assets will continually rise.

Hopefully from here on out, consumers will be making sure they are informed. I'm not holding my breath, of course.

__________________
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is."

-Ronald Reagan

Now we have Charles Schumer.

Public enemy number 1.

This egomaniacle villain has taken it upon himself to cause mass hysteria by telling the public that Indymac Bank couldn't make good on accounts.

This caused a mass withdrawl.

He knows full well what the damage to the economy this causes and yet he proceeds to yell "we're all broke" in the bank's lobby.

Will he be held accountable?

Can they seize all of his income?

He's giving out privileged information isn't he?

Let's follow the money or lack of for a minute.

I understand and know Chuck's agenda.

He wants things to go badly for the American economy. Why?

Because then he can increase his political party's power by winning seats in both houses of congress.

These people want to "Change" what America is.

America is about personal freedom and the ability to realise one's dreams.

When these people get through with us. We'll all be equal: Equal and Permanently Poor.

I'll be clinging to my gun and God.