Dateline is doing a special on how the mortgage mess happened. So they have this lady on who made $1600 per month, and she figured she could get a $250,000 mortgage that cost her $2100 per month. She says "It's not my fault because they told me I could afford it!" HOW IN THE FUCK DO YOU PLAN TO AFFORD IT DUMB ASS? Did you flunk 2nd grade math? The lender desersves to lose every damn penny they are loing too, and the broker should go to jail...but that lady was either criminal, stupid, or criminaly stupid too! We are all victims here in America. Wow.
There's blame on all sides of this one, IMO. Certainly she bares blame for this, but so does the guy who sold it to her. The system was broken when the companies selling loans didn't have any skin in the game if the person stopped paying.
AIG was the linchpin to this entire mess. Without default insurance, these toxic securities couldn't be sold.
The bailout of AIG is benefiting every firm that created and profited from the mortgage crisis, which has taken down the global economy. The bailout of AIG is one of the worst mistakes our government has ever made. Paulson and his little lackey, Geithner, and Bernanke are all major criminals.
When I was applying for my mortgage back in 2003, I noticed on the application (re-typed by the broker), that my truck payment was listed as $111 per month. It was actually $311 per month, I mentioned this, and the agent said, essentially "no big, deal, just a typo, etc." and they offered me an approval letter that was $70,000 MORE than what I applied for. I only borrowed 200k, and have made every payment since. It was the wild-fucking-west in the mortgage business back then, nobody cared, everybody lied, many got buried since.
I agree too. Ultimately its the responsibility of the buyer. It's simple math. If you make 2000/mo you just can't aford a 1500/mo mortgage.
That would mean taking personal responsibility which is becoming rarer in this country and is even rarer on ET.