Yeah, not a fan of commuting.

Ah. Folks who lost their home to the bank deserved it. Folks who lost their home to communism are victims. Gotcha.

Well, you tell me: If someone can't or won't pay the mortgage they took on, what should the lender do about it? The house is collateral for the loan.
 

Uhhh, yeah. Surely you can see the difference, or perhaps are being deliberately obtuse.

 

Perhaps you should study up on the whole subprime mortgage business, then you'd at least have an informed opinion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

Oh, OK. So it is all the fault of the big, bad lender. I know about it, bud - but apparently you don't ascribe any responsibility to the borrower.

From your link:

An increase in loan incentives such as easy initial terms and a long-term trend of rising housing prices had encouraged borrowers to assume risky mortgages in the anticipation that they would be able to quickly refinance at easier terms.

Put another way, borrowers were greedy, went-all in for a the big house they should have had the good sense to know they couldn't afford (risky mortgage), then got burned. Smart people live within their means and listen to the warning bells.

"When something seems too good to be true, it usually is"

Words to live by, mate. One must be smart about one's own money.
 

"Smart people live within their means and listen to the warning bells."

Not when you're 'too big to fail'. You still just don't get it, do you?

One must be smart, but there's a level of trust given to the lenders to lend responsibly. We're always told to aspire for bigger and better, if that looks within reach because the banks are willing to lend the sorts of money required to get the bigger and better house then it becomes normal.

There will always be the assumption that if the banks are willing to lend such quantities then the banks can afford it, and they've done the relevant financial analysis of the applicant to make sure they can afford it too.

I do agree there should be a level of personal responsibility with all this, but the banks shouldn't have been lending in the way they were in the first place.

"the banks shouldn't have been lending in the way they were in the first place"

That's the understatement of the century. I'm amazed Fixrman doesn't rejoice in the fact it was largely Bill Clinton's fault, but then he's probably ignorant of it.

It would be moronic to say the least that it is largely Bill Clinton's fault because it is WAY more complicated than that.

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877322,00.html