10-18-2011, 05:13 PM
(10-18-2011, 03:46 PM)kandrathe Wrote: I really can't blame the home purchasers who bought the products (even ARMS) since they had pretty good disclosure on what they were buying, and many people who I know who got burned by rising interest rates eventually either moved into a fixed rate mortgage or toughed it out until the interest rates tanked again. Most of the families I know who are suffering the risk of foreclosure are suffering from unemployment, or underemployment, rather than upside down mortgages (which really is where the customer walks away from their contractual obligation leaving the lender to foreclose on the "toxic asset").
Every single person, even high-school kids, knew the housing market boom was going to end any day and that prices would drop dramatically when it did. There wasn't a single person who wasn't aware of this. This was risky investment at it's finest, and those who choose to do it helped sink our ship. I'm not a banker, and I don't have much sympathy for the big banks, but even I can see where the blame should be distributed; 50/50. If you purchase knowingly risky good to try and sell them at a higher price with full knowledge that the prices are being artificially inflated and you could be stuck with the hot potato... what you turn around and blame the guy who handed you the hot potato, or you blame yourself for taking the potato in the first place?
"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." -Albert Einsetin