Wednesday, May 30, 2007

It's Called "Sub Prime" for a Reason

My favorite is the left wing spin on foreclosures. In true leftist form they shift the blame from the person who most deserves it (the sub prime borrower too stupid to take the time to realize what they were getting into) and blames it on "evil greedy capitalist mortgage companies" that took advantage of these poor souls.

Now, I'm no big fan of mortgage brokers. Truth is, I will even go so far as to say some of them probably did outright lie or fail to mention some of the key aspects of how ARM's and reverse amortization loans work, and furthermore I hold them as one of the key villains that caused this housing bubble. But please, could you leftists just once, JUST ONCE tell people they're responsible for their own actions? Huh? Could you just leave the land of "Make Believe" and join us in the real world for 5 minutes? Could you just be truthful and say, "look, numskull, didn't it bother you that you could afford this house and this car for this meager of a payment? Didn't you bother to read or at least understand what you were getting into?"

No, of course not. That would not get them votes. That would be true, genuine leadership, but it wouldn't get you votes.

No, if you want votes, take a class of people, stupid or not, and explain the reason their lives suck isn't because of the stupid decisions they've made in the past. No, blame it on boogie men.

"Big Oil"

"Corporate America"

"George Bush"

"Global Warming."

And then tell them they're victims and entitled to recompense (meanwhile telling them they're incapable of ever achieving true success on their own because the world is stacked against them, condemning them to futility and dependency on the government). It is a classic play from the play book of the left.

Regardless, much as I'd like to rip on leftists all day, I do take some sadistic joy in seeing the banks and financial institutions that made loans to these morons and somehow didn't think it would come back to bite them in the ass. They keep floating around this statistic that the majority of sub prime lenders still pay their bills on time, which is true;

It's just the trend that bothers me (chart from WSJ).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes, because the machinations of interest rates are easy for everyone, especially the math anxious (you know, almost everyone) to understand, especially when they are young and poor and have been taught to expect the so-called "american dream" regardless of their financial reality. I don't know about you, but I'm a math nerd and I still find these topics confusing and I think that's deliberate. Banks and stockbrokers create an environment where only they understand the rules, and I'm sure you are aware that they talk people into these deals. Also, the sub-prime word itself is problematic, as that word used to be used in almost the opposite context. Damn those people for wanting a home and not having a lawyer and accountant to advise them! Hope is truly a terrible thing, isn't it?

Jim said...

To Above: So we are all suppose to endure economic collapse in order to avoid hurting the feelz of the morons who can't do math and have no business owning a house?