Posted on 07/29/2008 3:55:16 AM PDT by suspects
Call it the “Extreme Rake-Over: Taxpayer Edition.”
Three years ago, Patricia and Milton Harper were handed the keys to their brand-new, 4BR dream home on ABC-TV. When Ty Pennington handed them the keys, he also gave the Harpers $250,000 to cover taxes and maintenance for the next 25 years.
Three years later, the home is in foreclosure and scheduled for auction - another “casualty” of the mortgage crisis.
A free house, a sack of dough, and the Harpers still managed to get $450,000 in debt and lose their home? They are the poster couple for the $300 billion mortgage bailout plan.
According to neighbors, the couple borrowed a lot to start a business but - as one delicately put it - “they were never good with money.”
We all know people like that. Heck, during my misspent youth I was a person like that. But that doesn’t fit the media’s narrative for the government bailout plan.
No, according to the mainstream media, responsible citizens were sitting in their bungalows, clipping coupons and knitting their own clothing, when they were set upon by Wall Street sharks and sleazy mortgage sellers who duped poor Ma and Pa into buying a McMansion they couldn’t afford. And now these solid citizens are being tossed into the gutter by greedy banks and a heartless Bush administration.
That’s certainly how The Boston Globe-Democrat told the story of “Taunton mother Carlene Balderrama.” In the Globe-Democrat’s version, Balderrama “killed herself an hour and a half before her home had been scheduled to go up for foreclosure auction.” She died of shame, the paper suggested, having hidden the foreclosure notices from her husband.
“What gets us so angry is that people blame themselves,” said Boston housing activist Bruce Marks. “They can’t see past their sense of responsibility..."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
How many times are you willing to pay for someone else’s mistakes? Bail them out now and they have no consequences for being stupid and/or greedy. I agree that it’s affected the entire economy but what is the solution when they’re being taught there’s no consequences?
This isn’t school, it’s the economy.
However, if you want to teach these folks a lesson, it just may be the most expensive lesson in history. Far more expensive than a bail out.
Bailout the idiot lenders and borrowers and you WILL have to do it again.
They are being foreclosed because they used the home as collateral on a small business loan (the small business must have failed as many of those startups do). They would have been able to pay the mortgage but were not able to pay the non-mortgage loan along with it. I’m guessing that the foreclosure would not fall under any mortgage bailout because of the nature of the loan that triggered the foreclosure.
Don’t bail them out and the economy has a good chance of tanking.
You think Pelosi et al won’t force the economy to tank anyway? And Obamas bill will be the final blow.
This makes me sick. I have been a physician for 23 years and finally had saved my money and decided to build on and redo my 1970’s 35,000 dollar home. I ended up borrowing 100,000 and that makes me nervous. How in heck can these fools waste money like that and people like me have to bail them out. I am furious. Yea I have a nice 4,500 square foot home NOW but I earned every penny.
I cannot tell you how pissed I am at GWB and GOP Congressmen for bailing out these irresponsible Americans on the backs of the rest of the US. Makes we want to tell McCain to go to hell. They (except the GOP Congressmen that DID vote against it) can all go to hell.
Says who. Ever heard of “moral hazard”?
I can’t imagine the consequences of letting deadbeat home owners losing their homes being as bad as a multi-trillion dollar bail out.
Give a man a house, and he will break out the windows.
I can’t imagine the consequences of letting deadbeat home owners losing their homes being as bad as a multi-trillion dollar bail out.
If it were just a few thousand, then it wouldn’t be bad at all. But it isn’t just a few thousand. And it will be very, very bad indeed.
No it won’t. The irresponsible will suffer their consequences. Home prices will fall and new home buyers will finally be able to find affordable housing. I don’t consider that “bad”. Nothing is as bad as larger and even more intrusive government. Something George Bush just can’t seem to get, running one of the most intrusive and largest governments of the United States.
A) Even those who played by the rules will see their home prices fall in a dramatic way. This will bring about changes in many, many neighborhoods. Solidly middleclass nieghborhoods could drift down to lower income. A lot of these houses will convert to Section 8 “investment properties.”
B) Mortgages will be significantly more difficult to obtain.
C) The recession will be deeper and longer than originally anticipated.
D)More bank failures and more FDIC insurance money paid out.
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