What?!? I am suppose to have sympathy???

[GTaudiophile]

CNN just interviewed a woman who recently received a letter from her bank warning her of foreclosure. Of course, in typical CNN fashion, they asked her what she would ask Obama to do next...

She said quite simply that she wants Obama to "stop all foreclosures."

How did this woman get to where she is?

She is a mother who works as a school bus driver.

How expensive is the house she bought?
























Wait for it...



















$800,000!!!

Yes, a mother who works as a school bus driver thought she could afford a $800,000 house!

Don't give me this BS that the Realtor/bank tricked her somehow. Oh wait, she probably couldn't read the contracts...

She can barely speak English.

Of course one is left to wonder if she's actually legal. But of course being an actual citizen is probably NOT a prerequisite for received stimulus/housing funds.

And CNN wants me to have sympathy???

 

[StageLeft]

LOL, what else can I really say? Well, I've heard of $35k/year buying a 700k house and this is around that scale.

Her house is probably worth half that now, epic!

 

[vi edit]

Money won't fix dumb.

 

[Genx87]

These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

CNN often does this. I also don't know what points they are really trying to make.

 

[Atreus21]

This is why I'll never run for public office. I can't stomach the idea of my constituency being anything like this.

I'm just going to stay home and play video games.

 

[palehorse]

sickening...

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

Don't you know? They ain't rich now, but they will be this year, cuz they gotz Barack Obama!

 

[DealMonkey]

People do dumb things every second of every day, so what? You also have to think about the underwriter on the opposite end of that loan. WTF was he thinking/smoking? Huh?

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

Don't you know? They ain't rich now, but they will be this year, cuz they gotz Barack Obama!

Take your racially charged bullshit elsewhere, honestly we're all tired of it.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

Don't you know? They ain't rich now, but they will be this year, cuz they gotz Barack Obama!

Take your racially charged bullshit elsewhere, honestly we're all tired of it.

Dude, these folk voted for your president and they expect payback...

 

[feralkid]

Thanks, GT...I'd been up for hours and still hadn't found anything to be outraged about.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

Don't you know? They ain't rich now, but they will be this year, cuz they gotz Barack Obama!

Take your racially charged bullshit elsewhere, honestly we're all tired of it.

WTF was racist about that? Nice drive by though....

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

Don't you know? They ain't rich now, but they will be this year, cuz they gotz Barack Obama!

:roll: For a guy who whines about Bush being criticized you sure are quick to blame Obama.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

Don't you know? They ain't rich now, but they will be this year, cuz they gotz Barack Obama!

:roll: For a guy who whines about Bush being criticized you sure are quick to blame Obama.

A. Obama is President now, last time I checked.
B. I didn't blame him for anything.

You lefties build the standard where anything that can go wrong was W's fault. Remember the 2000 recession and the 1999-2000 Enron fraud?

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

Don't you know? They ain't rich now, but they will be this year, cuz they gotz Barack Obama!

Take your racially charged bullshit elsewhere, honestly we're all tired of it.

WTF was racist about that? Nice drive by though....

Apparently the Obama cultists don't really like each other for some reason, or they don't like themselves. Their messiah was elected by race baiters.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
People do dumb things every second of every day, so what? You also have to think about the underwriter on the opposite end of that loan. WTF was he thinking/smoking? Huh?

Yeah, I'd say there's a lot of blame to go around. Yes it is stupid (I mean really, incredibly stupid) to think you can afford an $800k house on that kind of salary, but banks were just as culpable in taking on these risky loans. If I made a thread in ATOT about me loaning some deadbeat $10k and not getting paid back, I'm pretty sure the general consensus would be that I was an idiot and it is my fault for being so careless with my money.

 

[dullard]

No, you shouldn't have sympathy for her. She is the reason that she is having a problem and nothing that Obama does will help her - she can NEVER afford that house. Even a halt to foreclosures won't save her house. Every person in a failed mortgage bears significant responsibility in their problems. But, I want to comment on this quote:

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Don't give me this BS that the Realtor/bank tricked her somehow. Oh wait, she probably couldn't read the contracts...

Could you please answer this one question: Why after decades/centuries of mortgage lending did suddenly (in a time span of a year or two) millions of people make these individual poor decisions?

Millions of people all at once made the same bad mistake, mistakes that they often didn't make in the past. To me, the only way such a sudden and coordinated failure happen for millions of people is if the banks/other professionals made serious mistakes themselves. These bankers, realtors, analysts, insurers, investors, appraisers, etc all knew the contract terms very well - it is their job and they all speak english (and more importantly, they speak financial language). Yet they all still let idiots like that bus driver get a mortgage that could never realistically be paid off.

Yes, the idiots still should take serious blame for getting loans that they can't afford. But can you give me any explaination for the sudden failure of millions of loans that doesn't involve the "BS" you mentioned?

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: dullard
No, you shouldn't have sympathy for her. She is the reason that she is having a problem and nothing that Obama does will help her - she can NEVER afford that house. Even a halt to foreclosures won't save her house. Every person in a failed mortgage bears significant responsibility in their problems. But, I want to comment on this quote:

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Don't give me this BS that the Realtor/bank tricked her somehow. Oh wait, she probably couldn't read the contracts...

Could you please answer this one question: Why after decades/centuries of mortgage lending did suddenly (in a time span of a year or two) millions of people make these individual poor decisions?

Millions of people all at once made the same bad mistake, mistakes that they often didn't make in the past. To me, the only way such a sudden and coordinated failure happen for millions of people is if the banks/other professionals made serious mistakes themselves. These bankers, realtors, analysts, insurers, investors, appraisers, etc all knew the contract terms very well - it is their job and they all speak english (and more importantly, they speak financial language). Yet they all still let idiots like that bus driver get a mortgage that could never realistically be paid off.

Yes, the idiots still should take serious blame for getting loans that they can't afford. But can you give me any explaination for the sudden failure of millions of loans that doesn't involve the "BS" you mentioned?

Well, the subprime guy gave her the loan because he knew he could sell it, so with the buck not stopping at him, it's no surprise he made it. And up the chain it went until the loan ended up backing an investment that ultimately became grossly overpriced. At any point somebody could have said "This is crap, I'm not buying it", but if I could sell you a yellow stone for $15k because it looked like gold and even though I knew it wasn't gold and you knew it wasn't gold but you were going to sell it for $20k to the next guy, why not? The last person on the chain is truly the loser because he just spent tons on a yellow rock.

 

[DrPizza]

It's only partially her fault. Seriously, when she applied for a mortgage... "how much is the mortgage for?" "$800,000" "Your occupation?" "Bus driver" "Annual income?" "Oh, about $35,000, if I do a lot of field trips." "bwahahahahaha! Okay, who put you up to this? Was it John in accounting? Where's the camera. Am I on candid camera? Bwahahahahaha"

Instead, it was "Approved, Next. Woohoo! 2 more mortgages today and I get another bonus!"

 

[5to1baby1in5]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Genx87
These CNN stories are baffling. Not sure if they are supposed to gain our sympathy or point out how stupid people are. 3 weeks ago they had a story about tough times in the job market. Their example was a 24 year old kid who left his 55K\year job to sell houses in a housing implosion. Brilliant, simply brilliant! The other example was a chick who left an 80K\year job to go to law school. She didnt like Law school and when she tried to go back the job wasnt there anymore and was whining about a tough life. Leaves an 80K\ year job for school. What a spoiled dumbass.

If I didnt know better these stories could be lifted right from The Onion.

Don't you know? They ain't rich now, but they will be this year, cuz they gotz Barack Obama!

Take your racially charged bullshit elsewhere, honestly we're all tired of it.

WTF was racist about that? Nice drive by though....

Apparently the Obama cultists don't really like each other for some reason, or they don't like themselves. Their messiah was elected by race baiters.

Had to scroll back up to see if this was Moonbeam posting.

 

[CitizenKain]

Originally posted by: winnar111
Their messiah was elected by race baiters.

More stunning commentary from the most worthless person on this forum.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
It's only partially her fault. Seriously, when she applied for a mortgage... "how much is the mortgage for?" "$800,000" "Your occupation?" "Bus driver" "Annual income?" "Oh, about $35,000, if I do a lot of field trips." "bwahahahahaha! Okay, who put you up to this? Was it John in accounting? Where's the camera. Am I on candid camera? Bwahahahahaha"

Instead, it was "Approved, Next. Woohoo! 2 more mortgages today and I get another bonus!"

I would say it's entirely her fault that she's going to lose her house, and it's entirely the fault of the bank and mortgage broker that the bank is going to lose an assload of money.

 

[Lemon law]

Ok OK, point taken, both the lender and the the borrower were dumber than boxes of rocks.

From my jaded point of view, since I was not a party to this mutual stupidity, I have to ask why should it effect me?
But it does effect me because this stupidity now requires a massive bail out, its depressed the value of the house I own,
its badly hurt the economy and employment, threatens to throw this country into a depression, so I have to want some sort of solution that will fix the damages.

Somehow merely being selectively outraged over individual stupidities does not change the overall reality that the past cannot be changed. We are in a fine fix now and how do we get out of it is the only question to ask now.

 

[BigDH01]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
People do dumb things every second of every day, so what? You also have to think about the underwriter on the opposite end of that loan. WTF was he thinking/smoking? Huh?

Why did the broker make a poor choice? They are not on the hook when the loan goes sour.

Here are some first-person scenarios for fun:

I'm an aspiring entrepreneur. I just left my steady job working for the man to become a mortgage broker. After a few weeks of classes, etc, I'm ready to go. My pay isn't actually based on the quality of the loans I originate, just the size and quantity. Basically, I reap rewards with no risk. If a maid claims she can pay the 800k mortgage on her salary, who am I to question it? If we have to fudge the app a bit, so be it. It's not like anyone is actually checking those things anyway. I make 3x what I did before and all I have to do is encourage people to buy their American dream while explaining to them how this market will continue forever. Who cares if it does, as long as I get mine?

Meanwhile, investors were buying them while the train was rolling because they were providing good returns and greedy people demanded abnormally high returns. People at the top could likely see what was coming but so what? If I'm a CEO, I take my millions in compensation and stick it in a bank. When (if) I get fired, I'll simply land a CEO position at some other corporation who's board is populated by people I play golf with every other Tuesday. I got mine.

If I'm a large stockholder in one of these banks then I'm either rich enough that it doesn't matter or I'm an institutional holder. If I'm representing an institution (pension fund, etc) then I'm just toying with other people's money. I'm likely making millions myself as I've shown such great returns over the last few years investing in banks buying crappy assets. When I get fired, I'll just land another director position elsewhere as I'm in the same golf party mentioned above. It's nice to decide each other's salaries. I got mine.

Now, I'm a recent buyer. There is real estate mania happening around me and I need to buy another Hummer and earn a 20% return for holding a home in Phoenix for 3 weeks. I'll lie on my application (no one checks it anyway) and get an IO or ARM mortgage for 100% or more of the home's appraised value. If by some miracle, homes can't appreciate 50% a year into eternity, then so what? I've got no skin in the game so I'll just mail the keys to the bank and tell them to have a nice day. I'll take a hit to my credit, so my score will be the same as 50% of the population's now, but I'll either stay in the home I'm in or move into a rental where it doesn't really matter anyway. Hey, can't make money without taking a few risks (again, with other people's money). As long as I get mine.

Now, I'm a politician. It doesn't really matter what I said to get elected as the single greatest determining factor in election campaigns is money spent. It matters how I raised money. Sure, I need to throw the constituents a bone or two every now and then. Maybe I'll pick on CEOs of banks for awhile, but not too much. After all, these people paid for my (re-)election campaign and I play golf with them on Tuesdays. It makes for good TV, but I don't want these people not inviting me to their plush villas for free wine and caviar. Yes, people may be suffering but my salary is guaranteed and when I leave here I'll be given a job at one the of companies that I inevitably vote to bail out. I get mine.

Then there's the rest of us. The suckers. We are renters, we are long term homeowners, we are taxpayers. We don't mingle with the elite as we're too busy working to pay the bills. More importantly, we are divided. We Republicans hate the lazy poor and we Democrats hate the cheating rich. In the end, it doesn't matter. Just like the circuses in Rome, the cheating rich give the lazy poor what they want on purpose. It's to distract us. If the lazy poor were genuinely poor and without TV and entertainment, they might question the position of the cheating rich. So while the elite have the average suckers pointing fingers at each other, they make off with our country and leave us with the bill. I guess we got our's too.