Where Do You Stand on the Bailout?

[ajmccarrell]

Originally Posted by GoS

I think it is the mortgage lenders' fault. They lied to and misled many innocent people to get them into this mess.

True, but people who can't budget also signed on the dotted line. I almost bought a house from one of these shady guys a year ago, the difference is that I said no to the pack of goods he was selling me. He wasn't following the laws regarding good faith estimates, but had I signed I also would be responsible because I didn't push him to provide backup for his loan. I took this guy on referral from a friend, yada yada.

We have a lot of people in this country who have no idea what they can really afford and want to buy things out of their price range. For example, I just sold a car. It was a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS. It was heavily modded, but I decided I needed to grow up and save on the car payment and buy a more adult car. You wouldn't believe how many half-price offers I got, or how many unemployed people wanted to make payments, etc. There were a ton of people who were getting loans but hadn't started the process, but wanted to fill out a bill of sale, etc. The problem is that as Americans, our purchasing habits are basically stupid. Just as these people wanted to buy a car out of their reach, lots of people were more than willing to sign up for the snake oil loans at teaser rates, figuring that they would never have to pay up eventually. Those people DO deserve to lose their homes and it was the bank's fault for lending to people who had no business buying homes, or for buying homes that were out of their league.