Mortgage Crisis
Here is a story that perfectly captures liberal theme. The piece is about a suburb in Cleveland that has turned in to a ghost town as home owner are evicted when they can’t make their payments. Towards the liberal reporter quotes locals.
Laura Johnston, 50, says that her street — about 10 minutes away by car — was alive two years ago. Today, half the houses are abandoned.
More quoting here.
“Folks could not afford their payments. They were asked to pay loans which doubled. They could not afford it, some lost their job. Lenders were greedy. They threw them out of their homes,” she told AFP.
For county treasurer Jim Rokakis, the greed of the banks is to blame for this man-made disaster.
“All you needed was a pulse to buy a house. Some loans were written with no money down, no proof of buyer’s incomes. They did not even check what people were saying. Most of those folks were jobless,” he said in an interview.
The theme being that the greedy bankers take advantage of poor unemployed people. This truly is a liberal theme. Capitalism’s greed drives bankers to trick poor people into borrowing money they have no hope of paying back. Effectively we have greed abusing the poor. It does not get more liberal than that.
But what about the conservative theme. By the story’s own admission many of these people were unemployed. What were they doing signing off on loans they knew they could not possibly pay. Where is the personal responsibility in that? Why didn’t this reporter get a local saying well these people knew they couldn’t afford the loans but decide to get them anyway. I’m sure there are plenty of people willing to aim contempt at those foolish enough to take subprime loans. Why is that not a theme of this story.
By they way, framing on this story is important because its will help dictate what kind of policy will come out of it. Personally, I would like to see the state take a hand off approach to this problem. Those foolish enough to sign off on loans they could not afford should recieve no help. Companies that go out of business because of the fools that default on their loans should also receive no assistance. Seems to me everyone is guilty and therefore everyone can deal with the consequence of their decisions.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I have to agree with you here, Steven. The last thing we need is a bailout on either side. It sucks that people are losing their homes, but if we try to help them we will indirectly be endorsing these kinds of poor mortgage practices. Banks lose money on foreclosures, so they need to take a hit to encourage them to be smarter about lending money next time. And these people need to learn to read and understand what they are signing.
Now if there is a clear case of fraud, that is another thing. But I’m sure that a majority of these cases were simply the result of ignorance.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
personal responsibility? bah!
January 28th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
The only problem is that someone eing evicted next door to you lowers the value of your house by a significant degree, even if you’re being a perfectly responsible, fiscally sound individual. While I agree that both the lenders and the borrowers are being idiots here, the fact is that their actions are tanking the economy and screwing over people who weren’t involved in any way with their dealings. Your free-market model doesn’t have any way of adressing this type of problem, beyond saying ’sucks to be you’; which is why a lot of people feel the government should step in.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The State, led by your own GW didn’t take a hands off approach. They lowered interest rates, tried to bail people out and now are looking for an economic stimulus plan.
Why not be critical of the government? Why not ask what is wrong with the pres arguing for an economic stimulus plan that is needed because people didn’t abide by the responsibility that he provided?