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I worked at a bank. We introduced “real time approval” for Home Equity Loans in 1997. We were one of the first to do it over the phone. I had no idea how any of this stuff worked.

A couple years later I went to the President of the Bank and told him how people wanted 100%-125% (of equity) loans because home prices were exploding. Other banks were offering them, but we stuck with 80% loans. We were losing business.

He looked at me and said, “This is all going to end badly. We probably shouldn’t be doing 80%, but here we are.” And then he went on to explain how all of this stuff was going to caused a bubble in all of the markets.

At the time, publicly traded banks were under significant pressure to keep earnings very high—and this was one way to do it: Write a mortgage, collect all the fees, and sell them before you had to service it. Rinse and repeat.

We couldn’t keep up and remain “sane.” We were sold in 2003. But I watched the failures of 2008 and thanked God I had moved most of my investments into more secure products.

I have the same feeling today. I’ve seen the value of my home increase about 25% in the last couple of years. And even now, when the market is easing…it is up about 10% this year alone.

We are approaching another “winter season” financially. The same number of people are ignoring the “screams.”