A Sense of Resentment Amid the 'For Sale' Signs

[kpete]

Source: Washington Post

A Sense of Resentment Amid the 'For Sale' Signs

By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 22, 2008; A01

The bailout doesn't smell right to the people of Manassas Park, where the foreclosure signs are as common as azaleas. They know all about bad debt here. This is a terrain of oversize dreams, misjudgment, financial calamity -- and empty houses. "Foreclosure. Foreclosure. Foreclosure," said Ed Merkle, 58, as he pointed to the "for sale" signs lining his street.

But Merkle, a defense contractor, said he has lived within his means in an era of easy credit. He didn't take on a huge loan even when his bank encouraged him to dream bigger.

"I've been financially responsible with my own money. Why should I now be responsible for the fact that you were not?" he said.

This may be a Main Street bailout backlash in the making. The details of the financial crisis are still hard for most people to follow -- what with talk of exotic "derivatives" known as "credit-default swaps" and so on -- but the central fact of the matter hasn't been lost on anyone in this Northern Virginia community: The taxpayers are on the hook for the bad judgment of others.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/21/AR2008092102534_pf.html

[trumad]

1. Mr. Merkle is simplistic in his views.

and he's a blame the consumer republican no doubt.

[YOY]

3. DC Area Defense Contractor

That pig knows where his slop comes from. See a McCain sign in DC? Either a fundie or a Defense Contractor who is still riding high on our need to feed the insatiable hunger.

[yardwork]

10. Really disgusting. He's got his dirty money from the blood of others

and he dares to accuse his neighbors of hubris?

Sickening.

[YOY]

11. That said they're not all pubs.

Sometimes people need jobs...and the need to put 'food on their family' overrides one's moral obligation.

You do see a strong right trend in them though.

[Lorien]

5. But he admits that the bank encouraged him to borrow more

and that was the problem; people everywhere were being told "you can AFFORD more! You'll build equity in no time and sell for a huge profit"! Most of us aren't economists; if a financial institution-people whose business is money-tries to convince a new home buyer that they can easily afford a $300k home on a 60k salary, more often than not the buyer will believe it because he or she simply trusts the bank to know how these things work. It happened to me when I bought my 155k home ten years ago. At the time I was making nearly as much each year, so the realtor kept trying to push 400k homes on me. I just didn't want anything that large or extravagant, so I didn't bite. But I might have if I had a family at the time. Selling a bad mortgage is selling a bad product. Didn't those who used to sell defective products usually get called out for doing so?

[YOY]

2. Although Mr. Merkle is hardly all heart and I disagree on most parts

I do think he points out the greed of the banks quite readily.

[On the Road]

4. The Fact That Banks Were Irresponsible

does not take away from the fact that a lot of consumers were irresponsible. And a lot weren't.

It's galling to take up the slack for people who overspent. But it shouldn't force the decision. The best interests of the country have to prevail.

[napi21]

6. There is a valid point there. I think Mr. Merkel is being too smug

about it, but there really are a lot of people who have been very cautious about overspending and didn't fall into the "buy bigger" push and are resentful of being saddled with the excesses of the fat cats on Wall Street.

I know I'm very angry that this BIG $$ OUTLAY could make it IMPOSSIBLE for President Obama to be able to get his HC Plan passed. For the first time, I really believed there was a very good chance we'd FINALLY get decent, affordable HC, and the Pubs seem to have succeeded in burying the Country so deep in debt, it CAN'T HAPPEN!

[madmom]

7. I always keep bringing this argument right back to those who

are losing the homes because they lost their jobs so CEOs could send said jobs over seas so said CEOs could get bigger profits so they could buy yet another house! With all the jobs lost I will wager that is a bigger part of the story than many want to admit.

[Doremus]

8. I'll bet he hates 'welfare queens' too.

Those exotic ARMs paid higher commissions than standard fixed rates.

There were armies of mortgage brokers, lenders and realtors pushing them as BETTER, MORE AFFORDABLE. Why pay more than you have to? You'll be making much more in 3 years!

The legions of hucksters were spurred on by the financial houses, bundlers, stockbrokers, CEOs and stockholders, who were only too happy to rush to the bank with hefty profits.

But the poor schmuck who listened to the counsel of paid professionals is the culpable one?

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:



Mr. "At the Public Teat Defense Contractor" can kiss my ass.

[Coventina]

9. As others have pointed out, mostly mis-placed blame.

The saddest part of all this is, we ALL are going to end up bailing out these firms, and yet most of the people with bad mortgages are still going to lose their houses anyway.

We won't be bailing out the suckers who bought more house than they could afford (at the urging of those who knew better), instead, we're bailing out the firms who took on those bad loans KNOWINGLY. And I'd bet my own house that those guys aren't going to be living in broken down vans down by the river.

That's what REALLY makes me mad.

:mad:

[Trillo]

12. Anyone who has any kind of mortgage spent more money than they have.

"If I spent more money than I have, I don't deserve to have somebody bail me out," said John Owens, 45, a developer who lives on Eagle Court, where three houses have gone through foreclosure.

The problem is that houses or condominiums are so expensive the only way for 98% of folks to buy them is to borrow. If you don't borrow, then fine, you rent. By renting, you spend the money that you could have saved to buy and pay cash at some future date down the road, perhaps in old-age.

Then, in order to save to pay cash for a home, the logical choice becomes living in the brush and either having a job for several decades, or being self-employed (but where does one store one's tools and computers while living in the brush?), but local police work hard against that, and there are obvious sanitation and communication-with-the-boss issues.

Essentially the model for citizens to follow is broken, and has been broken for quite some period of time. But the corporations are now too big to fail, so the answer is more and bigger bailouts than the corporate welfare of the last 20+ years (all the way back to Lincoln as near as I can tell) and the business class has made it clear that they will not tolerate 'the sight' of homeless folks.

Once we're all homeless, the corporations left standing will tell us how dirty and immoral we are, probably accuse us of being "savages" just as was done to the American Indians so many years ago. Why? Because that's what they've been telling us all along to manipulate and form us into what they wanted us to be. "Work Harder". "Get more education" (no matter how much education we already have) blah blah blah, all so the investor class could make a few pennies from the labor of others and the CEOs could live like kings by skimming the value of a mass of labor existing underneath them.

It's a broken system. It broke years and years ago, but it worked for a few, so nobody who mattered noticed it was broken for most.

[beachmom]

13. I say it takes two to tango. I will blame borrowers who took loans

beyond their means only IF coupled with blaming lenders who should have known better. The disaster only worked if both parties worked in concert of rank stupidity and unreality.