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405 Comments
- inactive, on 03/17/2008, -42/+250it was nice at first when they were driving 50K+ SUVs bought with cheap loans and 200K+ houses with 3-5 year ARM low interest-only mortages. they were living large. now they live in tents. hm. no one forced them in these bad deals. they did it to themselves.
- inactive, on 03/17/2008, -20/+130I wanna know who held a gun to these peoples heads and FORCED them to buy expensive homes with ARM mortgages!
I was forced to buy a 47 inch Philips LCD HDTV the other day to watch DirecTV that was forced upon me...How can you say no???? - compulsive1, on 03/17/2008, -8/+101There is an old rule of thumb- you can afford a house that costs twice your family's yearly income. In the last 10 years mortgage companies started to give ever larger loans to people- to the point where the ratio of income to mortgage was reaching 10:1. CNN had a story not long ago where a single mom making $38k/year was given a $350k mortgage. WTF? she should live in an apartment or a $80k home. The bank had to know she will not be able to pay for it. The bank bought itself a nice home- that's all there is to it. Let the banks collapse if they can't get their money out of the properties they financed.
- inactive, on 03/17/2008, -14/+106That is NOT in LA, that is in Ontario, California.
And these people are HOMELESS individuals that came to Ontario looking for sanctuary because the City of Ontario set up this location ON THEIR OWN to shelter homeless FROM Ontario only, but now that it is becoming over crowded Ontario is checking everyone to make sure they were Ontario residents or else they have to go somewhere else.
The were NOT former home owners as this piece suggest, I dunno who did this piece but it is VERY skewed, and has NOTHING to do witht he economy, these people were homeless even before the economy was on a steep decline. - TheMadPoet, on 03/17/2008, -9/+66Welcome to the desert of the real.
- mikeyhell, on 03/17/2008, -6/+58At least they have tents. Most creditors would have taken that had they the opportunity.
- inactive, on 03/17/2008, -14/+61they couldn't persuade me because i am not an idiot.
- mille716, on 03/17/2008, -11/+57I'm not anti-Ron Paul or anything but I highly doubt Paul would have called for regulation on the mortage companies who were selling all the subprime loans. He's not really the "regulate big business" guy.
- reed311, on 03/17/2008, -3/+48This is not reflective of the entire US. The Los Angeles area is extremely expensive. The houses there are ridiculously expensive, to the point of absurdity. I know that everyone wants to live in the land of milk and honey, but this is what happens when you take out a loan that is beyond your means.
- loveforkarma, on 03/17/2008, -11/+55Did anyone else feel like this was a little exaggerated. It feels almost like propaganda, material for other countries to feast on.
- joel8x, on 03/17/2008, -7/+43This is ridiculous. Why can't they afford a small apartment? If they were homeowners and had a bad ARM, they should still be able to afford a roof over there head. There must be more to this.
- jbmcb, on 03/17/2008, -1/+32I suck at finance and even I knew that most of the ARMs were crap, that's why I didn't get one.
Really, the people who grabbed the ARMs are morons - I got a 30 year fixed in 2002 at a staggeringly low 6.5% - the ARMs at the time were around 5-5.5%. Usually 30-year fixed rates are between 10 and 12% !!!! So a bunch of idiots took an ARM over a guaranteed-insanely-low fixed to save one or two measly percentage points for a few years. Sorry, I have no sympathy for them. - apc3161, on 03/17/2008, -0/+31For every foreclosure there are two parties to directly blame and one party to indirectly blame.
---direct---
-People for taking out loans to buy houses they couldn't afford. Failing to take into consideration that interest rates were at an all time low and would rise in the future. Also for failing to take into consideration, that housing prices couldn't continue rising the way they were. Making financial decisions on that assumption was dumb.
-The banks and lenders are also responsible for giving out loans to people who wouldn't be able to continue making payments once the boom period of low rates and skyrocketing prices ended.
---indirect---
The Federal Reserve and our government for creating such low interest rates that would not have naturally come out. Their intervention in the marketplace helped create this problem. Lowering the rate so much cause people to be careless with money and resulted in a lot of mal-investment. The lower interest rates also boosted the quantity of loans people were taking out. People used this money to purchase home they wouldn't be able to later afford, etc etc.
A lot of people are to blame here. I'm very upset though that the government is bailing out the banks. Personally, I don't think any party should be bailed out. That is just punishing all the people who didn't make bad decisions, which is inherently unfair. But it is disgusting that the FED is about to bail out Bear Stearns by taking up all of the risk. Really makes me mad. - enki25, on 03/17/2008, -12/+41I agree, maybe we can setup huge "camps" to take care of these people and dispose of them in an orderly fashion. You know, "concentrate" them in a much smaller area so that we don't have to see them as we drive to work.
- mille716, on 03/17/2008, -33/+61Please. There has been more than enough evidence of these mortgage companies misleading people on how high the rates would go up to and people being pressured from getting fixed loans to ***** sub-prime loans. Of course it would be great if the buyers did more homework but make no mistake that this mortgage crisis was caused by the mortgage industry and the banks that bought the loans from them.
- cutething, on 03/17/2008, -2/+25I agree and disagree with this one; yeah, a lot of people really lack common sense when it comes to financial responsibility. However, no one is telling people how to manage their *****. Parents are going into debt and their kids have no idea that that ISN'T okay. Unfortunately, common sense isn't so common and companies are taking advantage of that. Just because people *should* know better doesn't mean the companies exploiting them are faultless.
- jmpeagle, on 03/17/2008, -6/+29did they lack the capacity to read the contract put before them?
- BetterOffEd, on 03/17/2008, -2/+24READ your mortgage. UNDERSTAND its terms. If you can't do THAT at the very least, you shouldn't own a home to begin with.
"Misleading?" We are "misled" by advertisers and marketers constantly every day. Think before you act. - FongoBongo, on 03/17/2008, -3/+24Unfortunately this is the result when people live out of their economic means. I know its their fault since this is a matter of choice, but you have to acknowledge the fact that banks and their lending practices are what contributed to this mess in the first place. Right now, we have to go into a recession to ride this one out. The current "stimulus practices" are just delaying the inevitable and fueling the bubble which is about to explode in an orgy of monetary fillibuster
- diulei, on 03/17/2008, -2/+21Hm, maybe you're right on the SUVs, but I'd triple that price on houses.
- Tonorific, on 03/17/2008, -11/+29Most people that got in over their heads have no one to blame but themselves. A lot of people that got burned, let greed guide them rather than common sense. In California 40% of homes sold during the boom were sold to people not planning on living in these homes, speculators. At some point you need to be smarter than a sheep.
- nymphetamine, on 03/17/2008, -22/+40I heard that when Ron Paul dies, he will come back to save us from our sins.
- incendiarylvr, on 03/17/2008, -1/+19Tragic. Yes, these people made poor choices, but they were preyed upon by corportions. They signed contracts they didn't understand, and evidence has surface there was foul play from the mortgage companies. Ameriquest was sued because their loan officers lied to customers in addittion to falsifying documents.
Have some sympathy. The government will bail out big business as we have seen, but the regime is more than happy to allow the middle class to be trampled on. Who will bail THEM out? - jmpeagle, on 03/17/2008, -3/+21if you sign a contract that YOU DON'T understand, then that is 100% your own fault
- browwiw, on 03/17/2008, -6/+23I love how all the self-important little ***** on here making noises about "personal responsibility" and "why can't they afford to rent" are probably a bunch of hypocritical little ***** that live at home and have never had to worry about a mortgage or rent payment in their life. They're probably still driving the car mommy and daddy bought them at graduation.
- jmpeagle, on 03/17/2008, -2/+19honestly, this is a problem of education. People refuse to educate themselves on the matter. They do not do their homework. It's a problem that cannot and will not ever go away. Many people are fiscally retarded. History may not repeat but it certainly rhymes and no amount of regulation can stop it. Children need to be taught financial responsibility.
- kindpastor, on 03/17/2008, -2/+19What loophole? The Mortage rate was an ARM, that stands for ADJUSTABLE RATE MORTAGE, AKA, the RATE ADJUSTS. If these people could not figure that out then they are absolute *****.
- Hillsfar, on 03/17/2008, -1/+18I'm sorry people can't figure our your sarcasm. I dugg ya.
- ralphthemagi, on 03/17/2008, -1/+17Because once your credit gets ***** like that no one will rent to you.
- Lurker28, on 03/17/2008, -2/+17Cancer and Heart Attacks are quite a bit different then 20-40 minutes of homework on mortgage rates and loans. Cancer can be genetic as well as heart attacks (regardless of weight or eating habits). That is a very poor analogy, it would be more like someone allowing a 16 year old child to drive their brand new 80,000 dollar Dodge Viper....you know the risks, and you took the chance.
I am 24 years old, I own my own business and have my own house. I was offered many different loans, but I took a day or two to look over the loans and found what I could afford (what was in my means for my credit score as well as my DTI) and what was realistic. I ended up going with a fixed thirty year mortgage with a 6.1 % interest rate. It did not take my very long to look up the "gist" of what each loan was about. - inactive, on 03/17/2008, -2/+17Let's call these Bushtowns. The word might stick around a while, a great legacy for a departing president loser.
- manmademark, on 03/17/2008, -5/+20This story is total ***** propaganda. The story didn't focus on these folks losing their jobs, or falling under on payments due to inflation, apparently one couple lost their income because the bacon-getter became ill and the other guy who lost his house must be retarded. He sold his home, got that? So he obviously had some money, so why wouldn't he go live in an apartment or something until he got himself straightened out? Whatever he spend his cash on was obviously a poor decision and his position now speaks heaps about it. The U.S. economy is bad, but hell not even the bums hold up signs reading "will work for food" so we're not doing THAT bad. Now the only question I have to ask myself is why is the BBC trying to paint the picture that the U.S. is turning into a 3rd world country.
- Tonorific, on 03/17/2008, -3/+18here here, me neither. I didn't buy, I rented through out the 'housing boom' most of my co-workers that bought were under the false impression that if they didn't buy now they'd never own a home. Total *****, once they got in, they used their house like an ATM machine and re-financed every year. Pulling equity out, blowing the cash. It was 90% greed and 10% ignorance. You can't just blame the loan sharks.
- kb29, on 03/17/2008, -5/+19Oh *****...they're Hoover---Bushvilles.
- nickbetzold, on 03/17/2008, -5/+18No, but he is the only consistently principled critic of the Federal Reserve and its policy of monetary easing that is the cause of the real estate bubble. People who think his idea of abolishing the Federal Reserve Bank should study why Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson both abolished the first 2 central banks that were set up just like ours--privately owned, but with the ability to print money and control our currency.
- antonio97b, on 03/17/2008, -4/+17We are back to Hoovervilles.
- StaticThunder, on 03/17/2008, -1/+13Oh what a load of *****. What pamphlet on how to buy a house doesn't mention if you are at all unsure about any of the terms of the loan, consult an attorney.
Who in their right mind signs away $600+k without taking the simple precaution of forking $100 to an independent expert for their opinion?
I am having a real hard time feeling any sympathy for people with two good arms and two good legs and half a brain who only are working one day a week, if that. This is social Darwin made manifest. These people were never that bright, and yes, they got taken for a ride to serve as a warning to the rest of us. - shcforward, on 03/17/2008, -0/+12Good posting. The bad loan on houses is a huge issue. If you read books like "The Two-Income Trap," you can see that they kind of predicted this problem would fall hard on women. Women in generally are much more willing to pay extra to get a house of their dreams - even if they can only afford it if nothing ever goes wrong. However, jobs don't last forever (and that is ok), so when a family that has taken out loans based on the belief that they will have two incomes coming in has a family member lose a job, the only option is bankruptcy. Interesting note, whether or not you are a woman is now one of the best predictors of if you will file for bankruptcy in your lifetime.
It's a shame. - inactive, on 03/17/2008, -8/+19BURY as Innacurate, I live in Los Angeles, this is NOT Los Angeles, it is a county 40. Miles East of Los Angeles, these are you typical Drunks/White Trash people.
I agree that the economy is ***** up but this story has NOTHING to do with that, these people were not or never were home owners, I seen a story on this Empty Lot on ABC 7 in Los Angeles, and that story is more true that anything the BBC is saying about it.
It seems that they're trying to make the US look bad by going to Ontario and saying that a bunch of BUMS are "former home owners, who lost everything to banks" which is a ***** lie.
Bury as Innacturate. - Pimpin-Assassin, on 03/17/2008, -2/+13I live in LA and I've never seen this.
- sjbdallas, on 03/17/2008, -23/+34What does this have to do with the real estate crisis? These people don't have jobs or cars so they're living in tents. They apparently couldn't afford their homes at any price so that has nothing to do with the mortgage fiasco.
- dshey, on 03/17/2008, -0/+11as opposed to the American Propaganda? Like, not mentioning it at all?
- inactive, on 03/17/2008, -1/+11So many of these comments seem to be from isolated folks who feel untouchable, but the wave of economic fury has just begun. If anyone of you were able to climb deeper into the minds of the string pullers you'd be white faced. JP Morgan buying Sters is out of desperation. The economic model isn't working because the variables changed due to the poor judgment of a few men. Rome went from an Empire, a city of over a million people to a city of about 12,000 in less than a year. They thought they were invincible and had a much better track record for their arrogance that the new country of USA. Pride cometh before a fall.
- xXIrsotehkewlXx, on 03/17/2008, -0/+10You do have to love a network that has to say "We're fair and balanced" in their own Promos. It is getting to the point where it sounds like they are trying to convince themselves.
- tzisc, on 03/17/2008, -5/+14if thomas jefferson and andrew jackson had their way, we would all be small farmers living off our land. which would be sweet in its own right, but i'm not sure that's the best argument for abolishing the federal reserve
- jaydoj, on 03/17/2008, -0/+9Typical comment about Americans. I live in AZ and the offers that some real estate brokers threw out there were rediculous, it's all about bottom line. Point all the fingers you want at banks, mortgage dealers or brokers, but if you sign that contract, you should know what you're getting into. Here in America we have a problem about not living within our means, and it's silly to think that we aren't smart enough to put ourselves in situations that we can manage, silly but true. I am not a home owner, and probably won't be for quite some time. It's not that I don't have the means, I just think that it's something to really consider and think about before you jump into it. Just my two cents
- VladislavIII, on 03/17/2008, -6/+14Yeah, the face that regular Americans so fanatically support lassez-faire economics is one of the greatest scams in America. You'll see the same people who are struggling to keep their homes ranting about how 'socialists' are ***** up Europe.
- djAnakin, on 03/17/2008, -6/+14They were pretty much tricked into getting these mortgages by the lenders. The lenders are to blame here. Why no one is doing anything about it is beyond me.
- inactive, on 03/17/2008, -4/+12So you would just skim through a contract for something that will cost several times more than what you make in a year?
- rmxz, on 03/17/2008, -0/+7So many people used to talk about the USA needing affordable housing.
Wouldn't a lot of foreclosures and a drop in housing prices be exactly the solution to the "no affordable housing" problem? -
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