Well, if you’re interested, I believe our schooling systems are not much different from yours, swap Spanish for French and that’s pretty much it.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Funny you should mention floods, I think we had a small one not too long ago.
Thanks for clearing THAT up, Skippy.
I don’t feel you’ve shat on me at all. I feel that your post shat on people in this thread by ascribing to them views you don’t know that they hold and then sneering at them for claiming to be smarter than most people (which, to my knowledge, none of them have) while holding said views.
All I hear is opportunity knocking.
Well, no, the OP did not specifically say he held those views, it was a general comment about many people in a number of related threads. If it doesn’t apply to you(the general “you”), then don’t worry about it. This is the pit, can I throw in a general comment without expecting the Spanish Inquisition?
I don’t know if SmartAleq is one of those people or not, it doesn’t matter, I’m sorry I hurt her feelings, it wasn’t my intention.
Thanks, we cool! 
I guess people are wondering why you were to chicken shit to make your general comment where it might have reached the guilty parties. I notice you didn’t actually post in the “The (US) economy: What should be done?” thread you mention.
And it’s knocking “shave and a haircut”.
I think it’s interesting these are all taken as evidence of something the mortgage industry did, rather than the borrowers and/or potential buyers. How can you tell the difference?
If the prices didn’t rise in your neighborhood (which I don’t actually believe), then all that means is that prices should have fallen, but the slackened lending standards kept them artificially propped up. That is, they should have fallen years ago.
They’re not foreclosing on responsible borrowers. They’re foreclosing on people who (obviously) overpaid for those properties. . .I say “obviously” because they’re now unable to make their payments, hence, they overpaid.
The industry was not properly regulated by the government. A lack of federal regulation, combined with the ‘weak dollar’ policy, which means low interest rates, made home ownership seem more possible for many people. However it only seemed possible as it wasn’t actually possible. The sub-prime mortages are confusing. Now you may saw, well the borrower should understand the terms. Yes they should, but who explains the terms to them? The lender does. So what if the lender does not do a good job of explaining how their house payment will go from $500 to $1500, the lender did a ‘good enough’ job. No the government should have set regulations as to who would qualify for these loans.
Will all the extra buyes prices kept rising. This made owning a home seem like an even better deal. Hey that house has gone up $30,000 in value since a year ago. Buy it now! Flip this house! What could go wrong?
When banks compete, you win. yeah right. When banks compete they will do anything to win, from writing confusing fine print to flat out lying, to making a loan to someone who can’t afford it because hey, if they don’t pay we’ll own the house. Except with the house prices inflated, the value of the collateral is less than the loan and that’s why the banks are having huge losses.
Now all this mess is going to effect every person in America, not just the ones with the bad loans.
Not that they wouldn’t try of course. Mortgage brokers as a business class are complete unethical scum.
If they could create one, with money, I’m sure a lot of people would be very happy.
I’ve been very anti-mortgage industry in the GD threads. Damn you all for making me defend them here, DAMN you.
They can’t just conjure one up, but they could easily find a straw buyer if the money is right.