Quote:
Originally Posted by Istok
No need for name calling. This credit crisis gets everyones blood boiling especially with the bailout but we can remain civil about this.
There is an element of greed involved here. People bought beyond their means and did not ask questions about the financing.
Think about it this way if everyone was selling the Apple Iphone for $500 and someone you do not know offered it to you for $200 you would be suspicious right? You would wonder if it is used, broken, refurbished or stolen. You would ask questions and do a close up of the product and test it. Now this is a $500 item compared to a $500,000 house which is 1000 times the cost. Ok you can't do 1000 times the research but shouldn't you do at least 10 times the research? You could talk to a few more brokers or loan agents, read a book, talk to some friends even the government has great education for first time buyers. All people saw was square footage, granite counters, wood floors, Jacuzzi tubs and location location location. Greed drove them to get a loan at all costs even if it was for a variable rate loan that they could barely afford at that time not to mention now. People were blinded by the need to show off a nice new homes to friends, family, coworkers, fellow church members, you name it.
Come one Suburbanite, don't tell me you do not know someone who invited you to their nice new house and you know they were living above their means. They were all smiles and just so eager to show off their affluence. You know roughly how much they make and it was too little and they had one of those zero down, variable rate loans that allowed them to buy more due to the low rate. What did you do? You bought where it was feasible and within your means and now you are doing fine.
I do not feel pity for an adult that spends more time researching what type of television to buy than what home to buy and how to buy it.
Secondly it is not the end of the world. You move to an apartment, save your money and in five years you could afford something granted with a higher rate due to your bad credit. After making payments for a year or so you can refinance and lower your rate. So you will just have to save your money, like the rest of us, for a few years to afford a house.
|
The difference is, your average person understands an ipod. This stuff is written in a specific jargon to make it hard to comprehend. You're right, upon close inspection and research one perhaps could realize the inevitable, or, these are high risk candidates anyways, people with poor credit, for them this could've been their only chance to buy a house or get a loan. But this isn't the problem. The problem is two fold. First, geniuses like Emi here has no clue about the whats or whys of our economy, and instead of finding out, speculate and offer tradition, predictable, misinformation that then spreads to other morons. The second problem, is that it is evident to me, that the banks knew EXACTLY what they were doing, and that being the case, one can no blame a collection of individual people for the problems. Like I talk about in the race forum, the public and private are incommensurable, just because every action is the responsibility of an individual doesn't mean group behavior doesn't have a direct statistical correlation to concrete events taking place. For exmaple, poverty increases one's probability of being violent, but violent people are still responsible for their own actions. Yes, one on one, these people individually should've paid more attention, but the big crime is the one committed by people counting on the lack of diligence of others.