[geeks] [rescue] E250 temperatures

[Dan Sikorski]

Dr. Robert Pasken wrote:
>> I agree with about 95% of what you said. Yes they bought homes that were
> sold for more that than their value and they couldn't afford. Yes they 
> were
> setup for failure. Yes they should lose the However, and this is a big
> however, those people were sold a very big lie. When my wife I bought 
> our home
> we came to the bank well prepared. We had built a spreadsheet that had 
> both
> assets and liabilities, income, expected taxes and insuranace. We  
> were told
> by the bank that our assumptions were wrong. They spent several hours 
> telling
> us what assumptions we should be using. The bank told us we could afford
> monthly payments 4 times larger than we calculated we could afford. 
> Based on
> the bankers insistence that we could afford much larger payments than 
> we felt
> confortable with we changed banks. If we came as well prepared as we 
> did with
> a very careful analysis of our finances, how will some without PhD's in
> mathemtaics computer science, meteorology and finance fare against a 
> banker
> who tells them that they can afford more?  This particularly true 
> since the
> the bank officers salary was strictly dependent on how many mortgages 
> they
> were able to make each month.The home loan industry sold the amereican
> consumer a bill of goods and now they want to be bailed out. My 
> comment is too
> bad so sad, you screwed up and now you have to pay the proce. 

When i bought my house, i told my lenders not to approve me for any more 
than what i was willing to pay.  I knew what my upper limit was and 
didn't care about anything else.  They listened, but the two lenders 
that I talked to were a credit union, and an indirect relative.  I 
agree, those who bought more than they could afford should fall on their 
asses, and if their collective failure causes lender failure, they 
should be punished for taking bad risks as well.  You'll notice that not 
all lenders are failing, either.  Wells Fargo and JP Morgan/Chase are 
doing ok through all of this because they didn't take on the high risk 
loans.  In the end, the fools lose, weather they were the borrower or 
the lender.

    -Dan Sikorski