Law Students

Frustration

By Andrea

I'm not going to write the 5000-word post I probably could write, but the current national conviction that Obama's homeowner rescue plan rewards nothing but "bad behavior" is making me apoplectic. I feel like as of a few weeks ago, everyone managed to agree that banks and lenders have been engaging in greedy, ethically suspect behavior for years, and that obviously millions of people are out of work and that sort of puts a hurt on your monthly bills, even if you have saved something.

And I felt like there was a smaller, but reasonably-sized subset of rational people of all political persuasions who acknowledged that many, many people were swindled into their current mortgages - they were offered subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages when they were eligible for better, they were pressured into bad terms by people who took advantage of their ignorance of the process and the market, they were pressured into taking out home equity loans by people who promised them the moon, and lenders baldly lied and bizarrely inflated incomes on applications. And so on. Thousands of people were victims of predatory lending at its worst. That doesn't mean some people shouldn't have "known better." But a lot of people got straight-up cheated, and I felt like at least some people acknowledged that.

And then in the last week, I feel like it's all disappeared. We've all decided that anyone in foreclosure is a cheating idiot looking for a handout, and the only question is whether we should go ahead and reward their "bad behavior" anyway because it's dragging down our property values. I've heard this from both talking heads and friends I thought would have longer memories.

Attack the merits of the plan if you want.That's just good politics.  But be honest about who's getting their homes taken away. And I hope you don't lose your job, have a medical emergency, or get cheated and then suffer through crowds of people wagging their fingers at you.

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on February 24, 2009 (boomark / email).