CNBC blames victim

[girl gone mad]

excerpted from:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Tech-consumers-could-use-a/story.aspx?guid={1197454F-AABB-47E9-AE02-9FE1A98CD868}">Can anyone save the consumer? (E.U. helps with chargers, but CNBC hurts with comments)
By John C. Dvorak


(snip)

CNBC blames victim

Even with the current meltdown, there was a recent incident on CNBC when public blame was thrown at those hapless folks who bought into the housing boom with subprime mortgages.

They were idiots. They were losers. They deserve the worst that can happen to them.

Yuppie floor traders cheered Rick Santelli on the network Thursday as he berated the stimulus package, blaming the whole meltdown on the people who could not afford their mortgages.

This shameless grandstanding is part of the problem. If there were consumer-protection laws in place to prevent these onerous mortgages, none of this would have happened. Did anyone mention that?

People buying homes under pressure from sales folks are not in the same league as professional investors. They shouldn't be treated like dirt because they did what they thought was a good idea.

While everyone at CNBC sniggered over this tirade, it was hardly anything positive. It shows how low we have sunk, the general disdain for the American middle class.

(snip)

[stray cat]

1. Interest only loans, loans for downpayments and variable interest loans

could all be made illegal - it would prevent many from getting houses who might be capably of payments but it would also prevent people from making bad decisions.

If I run up a 20,000 dollar credit card bill I can't pay is it my fault or the credit card companies fault?

[JanMichael]

6. it is partially the company's fault if you don't have the

salary necessary to support that type of limit.

[Deja Q]

2. Dvorak is, as usual, on the ball.

Loved his articles for years.

The American consumer has been the odd man out with almost everything having to do with technology. Licenses are onerous and essentially tell customers to screw themselves, both with software and hardware.
To make matters worse, licenses can be changed at will and too bad if you don't like the change -- even after you bought and licensed the product.
If the product does not work as advertised, that's too bad because the license says it doesn't actually have to work that well. There's no protection against any of this, as consumers are left with no recourse.
The telecommunications sector is as bad or worse. There, users are left with no recourse if there is an issue with a phone bill or calls that are disputed.

Apple is no different to Microsoft in that aspect and, let's face it, Linux is a gamble. (Fedora being more stable but lacks basic multimedia functionality and SUSE is unstable garbage; it used to be a good distribution. Never cared for Fedora, what with its firewall being disabled by default, what with them being the most popular distro and all... A rock, hard place, and herpes hosted hooker, does it matter which one is which?)

[sweettater]

3. More responsiblity

is the key. Home buyers with no down payment and a mortgage payment they can't afford, sorry I can't feel sorry for them. My husband and I lived very modestly until we were able to "afford" a home. The problem today is most couples have to have it all now. Even if lenders were loaning all this money can't folks realize what they are getting into? You must live within your means.

[Raven]

4. I'm a real estate lawyer and I don't know of one single person who

took out one of those toxic mortgages who wasn't convinced that they would be able to make the payments. These people were good, honest, hard working folks who were seduced into these loans by the banks and mortgage brokers. When they asked about the bump up in the interest rate they were told not to worry...they could refinance their way around it.

Somehow we feel sorry for Madoff's wealthy victems but have no sympathy for regular people who thought they were doing the right thing.

I bought a house in 1980 for $100K and sold it in 2004 for $700K. That is what the market looked like. The young couple who bought my house are probably upside down on their mortgage now.

[madrchsod]

5. rickie and his freinds are whiny little bitches who could`t make it in the real world.

they lived the high life on the backs of those people who were conned into those mortgages. now they will actually have to work for their money and if they lose they`ll be down and out just like those people they blame for their problems.

[boobooday]

7. Pay no attention to that usury that is rampant all around you

Blame the victim is right.

[corpseratemedia]

8. the M$$M needs reminding that others started having problems

paying their mortgage when their middle-income jobs got OUTSOURCED


cnbc doesn't talk about that because slave-trading lined their wallets

[blueworld]

9. Why aren't Bernie's clients vilified for irresponsibility the same way?

I agree with previous posters who've stated that the banks were supposed to screen out bad risks - this blaming the victim crap really gets under my skin. Why did a mortgage applicant have to submit to months of fees & paperwork?

However, there's a large difference when discussing those poor folks who lost money with Madoff. It appears that Bernie didn't file a single investment transaction on his clients' behalf for over 13 years. What investigating did his clients do? What statements were they looking at? Didn't they research thoroughly to see where their millions were going, or did they just believe ol' Bernie had a "secret formula"?

I don't think any victim should be blamed, but it strikes me as the height of hypocrisy that if I bought a house in good faith 5 years ago and am now facing bankruptcy & devastation, CNBC says I'm irresponsible. However if I'm related to Spielberg & I sink millions in Bernie's Bling Investments without doing any research, I'm a poor victim of an evil huckster.

Quite a double standard, I think.