It is not that simple.It started with Barney Franks saying Banks were discriminating against the poor by not giving them loans to buy homes. It went down hill from there and greed took over and our wonderful politicians stood by and watched it all happen without sounding any alarms. Now we are between a rock and a hard place and we have to do something. Doing nothing would/could mean a world recession. I do not want 1929 to happen in 2009. Peace

It’s some kind of a law in this country, every 10 yrs. every one has to forget how a Ponzi scheme works. Now it’s hiding behind the name, derivatives.The seller derives as many dollars as the market will bear, the buyer derives a box of paper.

That’s the million dollar question. Trouble is, the major players in this fiasco are the ones who hold millions of dollars of retirement dollars for a lot of “Boomers” of which I am one. I don’t like this any more than the next guy, but I don’t want to see what I worked for for thirty five years dissolve before my eyes. I would love to say, dump the bums who were responsible for this, but will I lose everything I worked so long for? That’s the question the congress, and all Americans are wrestling around with right now.

In my fairy tale land, this is the solution that plays out:
The banks go broke and go to the government for a bailout
The government says, ‘you need a $700 billion loan? Let’s look over your situation and see what we can do. hmmmm….. approved loans many times when you shouldn’t have. That’s very bad business practice, you know?’
The bank says, ‘yes, we know. BUT we OVERCHARGED on inflated interest to make money!’
The government responds, ‘that worked well for you now, didn’t it?’
The bank drops his head down in shame and says, ‘well no. It didn’t. We didn’t realize if they couldn’t afford the original mortgages, how could they afford the inflated interest we charged them afdter they were locked in. It was a bad decision on our part.’
‘Ya think?’, the goverment replies. ‘You have made many poor decisions in the past, and now you want to come to us, the government, and want to use the taxpayers money to get you out of trouble. Many of the taxpayers are the ones you shouldn’t have approved in the first place or you have turned them down totally. I’m sorry, but you’re too high a risk at this time. We can’t take a chance. But please feel free to take a few pens on your way out. And thank you for visiting your local government’.

Community Redevelopment Act + artificially low interest rates (thanks to the Federal Reserve) + interest-only ARMs + TV shows like “Flip This House” + people not reading the fine print and figuring out things for themselves = The Horrible Situation In Which We Find Ourselves.

No,
They where told to make home loans more affordable by congress. People got nailed with adjustable interest rates, so when the Fed raises interest rates, their mortgage went up.

It is the home owner who borrowed more than he could afford fault.

Oh let’s not forget all the “irregularities” on the books…. and in accounting terms irregularities on a large scale means embezzlement and other sorts of illegal activity.

But to be honest I doubt it was the folks that were buying their first home were the ones to blame so much as it was the bankers themselves pushing people into more expensive homes then they wanted anyway. I’ve talked to many people that have tried to get loans only to be told “the home wasn’t valuable enough for them to be bothered with” forcing them to go look for a more expensive one.

All in all I think the whole thing is a major scam played on us by the big bankers.

It was the politicians basically forcing the mortgage companies to write bad loans to begin with. Under a Biden sponsored bill, any mortgage company refusing to write people with questionable credit would be denied access to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Of course the polticians never talk about it, since they all voted for it.

Yes and no. The Community Redevelopment Act kind of encouraged lenders to book these bad loans. I do think some lenders got overzealous but ultimately I blame Congress and I don’t just mean the current one..

Some retired banker’s are laughing out loud.