Recently, a friend of mine held forth that all Americans should be introspective concerning the causes of the financial meltdown our country is going through. Her implication, as I saw it, was that maybe each of us shared a small part of the blame. (It turns out that wasn't exactly what she meant, but it was all I needed to go off like a Roman candle, short-fused curmudgeon that I am.)
Are we all to blame for what is happening?
Well, it sure is hard to feel that way if you:
1) Own only one piece of property and live in it year round
2) Have twice as much equity in the property as you owe on the mortgage
3) Have never even come close to defaulting on the mortgage
4) pay all your bills on time and have a good credit rating
It also seems altogether reasonable to point the finger of blame at the bad actors:
1) The home buyers who wanted that big house, vacation home, or investment property they really could not afford
2) The greedy lenders who loaned them the money anyway
3) The Wall Streeters who took those mortgages and connived and created convoluted mortgage backed securities with which they could speculate, even though they were so complex they could not be valued accurately on any company's books
4) The government regulators who utterly failed to stop all this dangerous activity
I reckon I'll stand by this judgment until someone can convince me otherwise. And I'll continue to reject the notion that ALL of us are somehow to blame.
It is also difficult to refrain from noting on whose watch this all happened. I think millions of Americans must feel the same way.
The piper will be paid on November 4th.
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1 comment:
I agree. Can I stand next to you? While I have a home bigger than I "need," I didn't buy more than I could afford, my credit is around 800, my bills get paid on time, and I pay cash (or its equivalent) for everything except transportation and housing. And for the record, if I could have found a smaller house to buy, I would have. If you want a newer house in Virginia, your options are townhouse or mongo-house. There's nothing in between. Starter homes are a thing of the past, I guess, which is one of the problems with today's economic landscape. Since I don't anything remotely resembles apartment living, we had to go with mongo-house. And until we have the disposable income, there are rooms that will remain unfurnished. How's that for financial responsibility?
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