Just stop paying your mortgage

[patientrenter]

arraya,

I only post late at night, so I apologize if this response to your post is repetitive – I can’t recall the last late-night ‘conversation’ I had with you.

Picking on Paulson or some other financial intermediaries as the root cause of this mess is probably not correct. I think history will show that it was millions upon millions of homeowners who wanted to ‘save’ for retirement using a free lunch method – borrowing other people’s money and using it to buy assets that only increase in price – that drove the madness of the last 5 years.

In truth, I think baby boomers looking for the free lunch way to save for retirement are the root cause of our repeated asset price bubbles in the last 10 years. Unfortunately, they are a big enough group to vote the Congress that accommodates them, and the Administration that accommodates them. All the other groups (mortgage brokers, investment bankers, regulators, real estate agents, stockbrokers etc.) are just following the money incentives to please the boomers.

I could be wrong, but I think we’ll only know for sure when history is written 20 or more years from now.

[CA renter]

In truth, I think baby boomers looking for the free lunch way to save for retirement are the root cause of our repeated asset price bubbles in the last 10 years.
—————–

IMHO, there’s cause and effect. Which is the cause and which the effect?

The Boomers (and plenty of Gen X and Y who joined them) could not have done this if the road wasn’t paved for them already.

If people were required to have 20% down; 30-yr, fully-amortized fixed rate mortgages; and max DTI ratios of 28/33% on **proven** income; plus six months’ reserves, etc., we would not have had this bubble.

Over the past twenty+ years, the answer to every problem in our economy has been to inflate our way out via credit/debt expansion, thanks to Greenspan.

If someone offered you a chance to make a million bucks, risk-free, would you take it? That’s how this was seen (and they’re being proven correct with all the bailouts to save the over-extended idiots). A free call option on housing. You win, and walk away with all the dough. You lose, and since borrowers didn’t have to put a single cent of their own money into it, they lose absolutely nothing. Maybe we’re the fools for not doing it, too.

[CA renter]

In truth, I think baby boomers looking for the free lunch way to save for retirement are the root cause of our repeated asset price bubbles in the last 10 years.
—————–

IMHO, there’s cause and effect. Which is the cause and which the effect?

The Boomers (and plenty of Gen X and Y who joined them) could not have done this if the road wasn’t paved for them already.

If people were required to have 20% down; 30-yr, fully-amortized fixed rate mortgages; and max DTI ratios of 28/33% on **proven** income; plus six months’ reserves, etc., we would not have had this bubble.

Over the past twenty+ years, the answer to every problem in our economy has been to inflate our way out via credit/debt expansion, thanks to Greenspan.

If someone offered you a chance to make a million bucks, risk-free, would you take it? That’s how this was seen (and they’re being proven correct with all the bailouts to save the over-extended idiots). A free call option on housing. You win, and walk away with all the dough. You lose, and since borrowers didn’t have to put a single cent of their own money into it, they lose absolutely nothing. Maybe we’re the fools for not doing it, too.

[CA renter]

In truth, I think baby boomers looking for the free lunch way to save for retirement are the root cause of our repeated asset price bubbles in the last 10 years.
—————–

IMHO, there’s cause and effect. Which is the cause and which the effect?

The Boomers (and plenty of Gen X and Y who joined them) could not have done this if the road wasn’t paved for them already.

If people were required to have 20% down; 30-yr, fully-amortized fixed rate mortgages; and max DTI ratios of 28/33% on **proven** income; plus six months’ reserves, etc., we would not have had this bubble.

Over the past twenty+ years, the answer to every problem in our economy has been to inflate our way out via credit/debt expansion, thanks to Greenspan.

If someone offered you a chance to make a million bucks, risk-free, would you take it? That’s how this was seen (and they’re being proven correct with all the bailouts to save the over-extended idiots). A free call option on housing. You win, and walk away with all the dough. You lose, and since borrowers didn’t have to put a single cent of their own money into it, they lose absolutely nothing. Maybe we’re the fools for not doing it, too.

[CA renter]

In truth, I think baby boomers looking for the free lunch way to save for retirement are the root cause of our repeated asset price bubbles in the last 10 years.
—————–

IMHO, there’s cause and effect. Which is the cause and which the effect?

The Boomers (and plenty of Gen X and Y who joined them) could not have done this if the road wasn’t paved for them already.

If people were required to have 20% down; 30-yr, fully-amortized fixed rate mortgages; and max DTI ratios of 28/33% on **proven** income; plus six months’ reserves, etc., we would not have had this bubble.

Over the past twenty+ years, the answer to every problem in our economy has been to inflate our way out via credit/debt expansion, thanks to Greenspan.

If someone offered you a chance to make a million bucks, risk-free, would you take it? That’s how this was seen (and they’re being proven correct with all the bailouts to save the over-extended idiots). A free call option on housing. You win, and walk away with all the dough. You lose, and since borrowers didn’t have to put a single cent of their own money into it, they lose absolutely nothing. Maybe we’re the fools for not doing it, too.

[CA renter]

In truth, I think baby boomers looking for the free lunch way to save for retirement are the root cause of our repeated asset price bubbles in the last 10 years.
—————–

IMHO, there’s cause and effect. Which is the cause and which the effect?

The Boomers (and plenty of Gen X and Y who joined them) could not have done this if the road wasn’t paved for them already.

If people were required to have 20% down; 30-yr, fully-amortized fixed rate mortgages; and max DTI ratios of 28/33% on **proven** income; plus six months’ reserves, etc., we would not have had this bubble.

Over the past twenty+ years, the answer to every problem in our economy has been to inflate our way out via credit/debt expansion, thanks to Greenspan.

If someone offered you a chance to make a million bucks, risk-free, would you take it? That’s how this was seen (and they’re being proven correct with all the bailouts to save the over-extended idiots). A free call option on housing. You win, and walk away with all the dough. You lose, and since borrowers didn’t have to put a single cent of their own money into it, they lose absolutely nothing. Maybe we’re the fools for not doing it, too.

[Shadowfax]

I am so pissed that the system is rewarding greed, at one end of the spectrum, and stupidity (and greed) at the other end! While the frugal and sensible are F*&$ED AGAIN!

[Shadowfax]

I am so pissed that the system is rewarding greed, at one end of the spectrum, and stupidity (and greed) at the other end! While the frugal and sensible are F*&$ED AGAIN!

[Shadowfax]

I am so pissed that the system is rewarding greed, at one end of the spectrum, and stupidity (and greed) at the other end! While the frugal and sensible are F*&$ED AGAIN!

[Shadowfax]

I am so pissed that the system is rewarding greed, at one end of the spectrum, and stupidity (and greed) at the other end! While the frugal and sensible are F*&$ED AGAIN!

[Shadowfax]

I am so pissed that the system is rewarding greed, at one end of the spectrum, and stupidity (and greed) at the other end! While the frugal and sensible are F*&$ED AGAIN!

[Arraya]

PR-No doubt that every American that took part was in some way, shape or form and to some degree is culpable. That I think is indisputable and you won’t get an argument from me. And we will pay collectively for everybody’s sins. My point is that we had mechanisms in place and supposedly responsible people in charge. Not people that feed and encourage peoples greed and fill their head full of fairy tails such as home prices never go down and all that other nonsense. It was a mass delusion put forth by the financial industry and Fed, amplified by the media and allowed to happen by certain politicians, people in the financial industry and orchestrated by the FED , IMO.

What I am specifically looking at is who benefited the most. Hank Paulson made about 700 million while in charge of Goldman Sachs. We sent China 700-800 billion a year during boom times. With that fake wealth the built up their manufacturing base and stockpiled commodities as we hollowed out our economy. In other words turned it into something real when Americans went shopping. Heck, even after tragedy GWB was telling us to send money overseas.

I think maybe we just have been a little naive to call our leaders incompetent, that narrative also makes us feel superior because many of us saw this coming and we get to say “I told you so, look at me I’m smarter than Alan Greenspan”. But just maybe they are extremely competently but they just have different goals than us. Or maybe I’m wrong and Paulson’s trips to China and China being the inadvertent biggest beneficiary of the housing bubble is just coincidence. Either way I think it is something to ponder.

[Arraya]

PR-No doubt that every American that took part was in some way, shape or form and to some degree is culpable. That I think is indisputable and you won’t get an argument from me. And we will pay collectively for everybody’s sins. My point is that we had mechanisms in place and supposedly responsible people in charge. Not people that feed and encourage peoples greed and fill their head full of fairy tails such as home prices never go down and all that other nonsense. It was a mass delusion put forth by the financial industry and Fed, amplified by the media and allowed to happen by certain politicians, people in the financial industry and orchestrated by the FED , IMO.

What I am specifically looking at is who benefited the most. Hank Paulson made about 700 million while in charge of Goldman Sachs. We sent China 700-800 billion a year during boom times. With that fake wealth the built up their manufacturing base and stockpiled commodities as we hollowed out our economy. In other words turned it into something real when Americans went shopping. Heck, even after tragedy GWB was telling us to send money overseas.

I think maybe we just have been a little naive to call our leaders incompetent, that narrative also makes us feel superior because many of us saw this coming and we get to say “I told you so, look at me I’m smarter than Alan Greenspan”. But just maybe they are extremely competently but they just have different goals than us. Or maybe I’m wrong and Paulson’s trips to China and China being the inadvertent biggest beneficiary of the housing bubble is just coincidence. Either way I think it is something to ponder.

[Arraya]

PR-No doubt that every American that took part was in some way, shape or form and to some degree is culpable. That I think is indisputable and you won’t get an argument from me. And we will pay collectively for everybody’s sins. My point is that we had mechanisms in place and supposedly responsible people in charge. Not people that feed and encourage peoples greed and fill their head full of fairy tails such as home prices never go down and all that other nonsense. It was a mass delusion put forth by the financial industry and Fed, amplified by the media and allowed to happen by certain politicians, people in the financial industry and orchestrated by the FED , IMO.

What I am specifically looking at is who benefited the most. Hank Paulson made about 700 million while in charge of Goldman Sachs. We sent China 700-800 billion a year during boom times. With that fake wealth the built up their manufacturing base and stockpiled commodities as we hollowed out our economy. In other words turned it into something real when Americans went shopping. Heck, even after tragedy GWB was telling us to send money overseas.

I think maybe we just have been a little naive to call our leaders incompetent, that narrative also makes us feel superior because many of us saw this coming and we get to say “I told you so, look at me I’m smarter than Alan Greenspan”. But just maybe they are extremely competently but they just have different goals than us. Or maybe I’m wrong and Paulson’s trips to China and China being the inadvertent biggest beneficiary of the housing bubble is just coincidence. Either way I think it is something to ponder.

[Arraya]

PR-No doubt that every American that took part was in some way, shape or form and to some degree is culpable. That I think is indisputable and you won’t get an argument from me. And we will pay collectively for everybody’s sins. My point is that we had mechanisms in place and supposedly responsible people in charge. Not people that feed and encourage peoples greed and fill their head full of fairy tails such as home prices never go down and all that other nonsense. It was a mass delusion put forth by the financial industry and Fed, amplified by the media and allowed to happen by certain politicians, people in the financial industry and orchestrated by the FED , IMO.

What I am specifically looking at is who benefited the most. Hank Paulson made about 700 million while in charge of Goldman Sachs. We sent China 700-800 billion a year during boom times. With that fake wealth the built up their manufacturing base and stockpiled commodities as we hollowed out our economy. In other words turned it into something real when Americans went shopping. Heck, even after tragedy GWB was telling us to send money overseas.

I think maybe we just have been a little naive to call our leaders incompetent, that narrative also makes us feel superior because many of us saw this coming and we get to say “I told you so, look at me I’m smarter than Alan Greenspan”. But just maybe they are extremely competently but they just have different goals than us. Or maybe I’m wrong and Paulson’s trips to China and China being the inadvertent biggest beneficiary of the housing bubble is just coincidence. Either way I think it is something to ponder.

[Author]

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