On ineffectual politics, and sublimal entitlement mentality...

I was disgusted, reading the article in BusinessWeek about attempts after attempts in Washington (including Chris Dodd and Hank Paulson) to try to head off the current housing foreclosure crisis, but unfailingly, their attempts fell far short of the goal, reducing it to nothing more than window-dressing (like the Hope For Homewoners program which aimed to help with 400,000 loans, but ended with with a ridiculous 25 refinanced loans instead).

I was equally disgusted, though, by the supposedly horror stories of homeowners who face foreclosure due to their stupid decision to assume a mortgage that they wouldn't have been able to afford (other than the sunniest-day scenario of "property prices keep going up+mortgage rate remains low+their incomes keep coming in"). In the end, one of the homeowners who was still unable to pay a mark-down mortgage payment, remarked that they still couldn't afford the re-adjusted lower mortgage, but a "All we want is a mortgage we can afford."!!!

Albeit fully admitting their own stupidity, the homeowners interviewed by the article, much like the banking industry who still refuses to face up to the reality that they would have to lose alot of skin in this crisis, are still in denial that they shouldn't be in that big house in the first place, and it's not their right to keep/stay in that house, simply because another stupid banker write them a loan. If they couldn't and can't afford the loan, they should just get out.

While I see sadness in these people's lives, and I can appreciate one's hope and dream in owning their own home, I stick by my parents' ethics which is that we shouldn't afford something that we can't afford.