Thank you for being a voice of sanity in an overly sanctimonious thread.
Very good, hard-working people got caught in a trap that was set by the powers-that-be. I refuse to judge those people en masse by calling them greedy good-for-nothings. When they have to tap into their savings, retirement, loans from family and so on just to pay a mortgage on a house that was over-valued when they bought it, they’re sacrificing their future and any financial security they might have. THE DAMN HOUSE ISN’T WORTH IT.
The large banks and lending companies were bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars. No one is coming to the rescue of these poor souls, so if they have nothing to lose, they are far better off if they just move on and try to start a new chapter in their lives.
Amen.
They may have been hard working, but they weren't very smart financially.
And you just said it.
For the last seven years, the press has been buzzing with news of the "housing bubble". Anyone who bought a house in that time could not have gotten away from the understanding that their house's value was going to drop. If a person bought before that, they're probably breaking even right about now. We bought five years ago and had no doubt that our house's value was going down. People knew darn well what they were doing.
The large banks and lending companies were bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars.
And who's paying for that? *We* are. *All* of us are. Even the poorest person in the country pays hidden taxes on everything they buy - gasoline, electricity, clothes, food - it's taxed on one level or another. We're a country going broke and we must get a handle on this crap now. We can't afford to keep paying for individuals' mistakes.