So now as we look at our financial situation we know they will be after us.  We need to get our income down.  We have no dependants since our kids are now grown.  All of our bills are paid.  We're starting to plan on making less money by 2010.  That's when we figure people like us are going to get hit.

Too bad.  But that's the way it has to be.  We don't want to work for the government and that's exactly what will happen if we keep our income at the level it is today.  And it's not that high but high enough to be in trouble.  They will just come in and swoop it up.

All those years of barely making it and finally getting the three kids schooled and on their own and now we have to go below the line once again so the government won't take our hard earned dollars. 

I won't deny I can be greedy sometimes with materialistic things, but at 33 I  have yet to own a home because I know I can not afford one and will not attempt to mess with that kind of situation. I took a chance with the car that I have and it has not been easy so I can only imaging what a house would be like.

The lenders have lots of blame to accept for thinking about more profit and less about the future consequences of these practices, but like you, I can't ignore the people who had the choice to say no, to educate themselves, to have enough common sense to know they could not afford these homes.

The only solution I can think of to keep the money flowing and help the economy back on it's feet was that someone had to take the hit, someone had to lose in this shameful game of chance. I chose the lenders to be the losers. Why? Well, if we cvhose to make the home owners the losers, they would lose the houses, the banks would not have their loans paid and now we have people who are homeless or paying rent in a smaller place, a lender with and unpaid loan and a house they can't sell, everyone lsoes here. But if the lenders take the hit, make the loans smaller (25 to 45% lower) they may lose money in the process, but at least the homeowners would still be able to pay the load (whats's left of it), have a place to live, the banks would still havemoney coming in and they would not have a house sitting out there unsold.

Of course, this is not a well thought out plan but more of a start to a concept which it's my opinion the only way out of this dilema. In other words, our Gov't is currently fighting to keep both homeowners and lenders from paying the ultimate price for this shameful mistake, but in the end the current methods are only delaying the end and setting it up to be worse than it would have been.

who are those average joes? none of my friends take loans they can not afford.

Yes, some people made the biggest mistakes of their lives and are now paying for it, and so is everyone else. But they are not the only ones who were greedy, the mortgage companies were, the lenders, the banks, fudging documents and pretending someone making 20k could afford a mortgage for more than 2000 monthly!  Come on. They dropped the ball and if they didn't approve all those documents, none of this would be going on. But all that is spilt milk.  The things done in the dark comes to light, as it should. But we all paying for it!

You mean NOT paying for it, the bank is paying for it, the american taxpayer is paying for it, they are not paying for it, they just give back the house that they shouldn't have owned in the first place, while we the taxpayer cover their mistake.

And no there was no issue of banks "fudging documents", it was LEGISLATORS who decided even people who can't afford housing must be given one. So they made fannie mae, a federal agency, buy up those bad loans from banks, in other words, telling the banks "you lend them all this money, we will use taxpayer money to cover those loans"

The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) (NYSE: FNM), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a stockholder-owned corporation chartered by Congress in 1968 as a government sponsored enterprise (GSE), but founded in 1938 during theGreat Depression. The corporation's purpose is to purchase and securitize mortgages in order to ensure that funds are consistently available to the institutions that lend money to home buyers.

aren't you like still in High School? 

yes, well put.  It's like the lightbulb was switched to the on position and now we see the mess we're in.  A while back one of my sons made a comment that maybe he should run out and quickly buy a house he can't afford right now.  At least he could either live rent free for a few months until they kick him out or the government bails him out.   Of course he would never do that.  He was just trying to make a point. 

well there was some of that going on as well.  There was alot of pressure to get people into these homes and the lenders did indeed do some fudging of the numbers.  But my contention is the Homeowners should realize what's going on and know they really can't afford that big house in front of them.  They didn't have to sign those erroneous ducuments.  Doing so implicates them just as much. 

I turn 25 in may, I have moved out of my parents house when I was 19.

I am wondering though, saying that all my friends and collegues are responsible individuals who don't borrow beyond their means make me... a child?

Are you saying only children know responsibility and once you are an adult suddenly it all poofs out of existance and you are borrowing wildly and wasting money you don't have? 

The dirty little secret the incompetent press and equally incompetent Pres. leave out of all this is, it wasn't simply fraud or overly stretched plastic that sent us where we are today.  It is the natural consequence of the market correcting itself.

When a business is riding on the value of it's assets, but in a few short months those assets lose 75-80% of their value, there is no "business as usual".

But, add to that all the things you mentioned, and you have well... what we have today.

This isn't the first time the incompetent press has used the faces of the downtrodden to prove how bad things are...

During the depression... Yeah, The Great One!  There was never a time when more people were out of work than there were working.  The value of the dollar was higher then than during any of the "high" points since.  Most Americans were still buying new cars.. in fact, the auto industry didn't slow down during that decade.

They do it all the time, and usually I feel nothing but scorn for the so called downtrodden... from the "poor" american girl detained in argentina for 10 years for SMUGGLING COCAIN! (she admitted it) because she "really needed the money, and this black guy with a lot of bling convinced her to"

To so called "poor" people who took out two mortgages on their MOTHERS home and then blew all the money on junk (and didn't work, that was their sole income) and now they are getting evicted.

They dig so deep down the barrel to find the dredges of society making such horrendeous choices that it is not only pathetic, but the damant for pity and generousity towards those individuals insults me as a hard working honest individual.

In our earlier discussions you led me to believe (or I misinterpreted) that you hadn't turned 19 yet so I was thinking you were young....but have to say you sure did sound older than a teen. 

No I was saying that if you were only a teen or High Schooler still of course your peers wouldn't be taking out loans they couldn't pay off.  They weren't old enough to live life yet.  So I was saying...."like No duh!  Aren't you still in H.S.?) (sarcasm)  

No, but maybe that's not far off........lately it does seem as tho the kids have one up on the adults when it comes to spending.  At least the kids understand that when the piggy bank is dry they need to go fill it up before they can spend anymore. 

the press uses anything and anyone to get their point across and advance their agenda.  I just read a book called "Never Surrender" by a three star retired General and he went to some length to speak about how basically the press is running our country now.  Many decisions over the last 20 or so years have been a result of fear of the media. 

exactly.  Nobody seems to speak about this little secret. 

exactly.  Even the hard working honest individual most of the time is smart enough to have money put aside for these type of trying times. 

Alot of this does come down to choices we make.  There are exceptions of course and those are the ones I'm interesting in helping.....the mom and dad who both lose their jobs.  The family who is getting behind because their child has serious illness, the mom whose husband left her high and dry with a few kids.......an elderly lady living alone with only SS income doing her best to make it stretch, etc. 

the rest I think we should let them dig themselves out of the hole they smugly put themselves in even when others warned them to stop digging.  Afterall they were just playing in the dirt not realizing the whole thing was about to cave in on their fun. 

Pretty much all problems can be traced to greed...or sex.

~Zoo

Comfort, Convenience & Sex... The holy trinity of Western Culture.

Well put; help those who really deserve help, but most have dug themselves into a hole knowingly and can dig themselves out with taxpayer aid.

wow Zoo are you turning biblical on me now? 

The bible puts it this way:

the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh. 

Pretty much what you said. 

not sex itself, but sex based greed