10-07-2011, 05:53 PM
RgrF wrote:
The conservative mind set sees "abuse of credit", the reality is that much money was made by people who decided to "market' that credit as a commodity to be exchanged.
While it's true that folks shouldn't buy property or other things they cannot afford, it's more true that financial institutions should not have abandoned their fiduciary responsibility by granting loans to anyone who could not reasonably be expected to repay those loans.
To place the onus on those who accepted these loan offers is to deny the responsibility of the lending agents.
I didn't blame anyone. Either way it's abuse of credit. The middle class may look increasingly different, but it's going to persist. Yes, it fueled apple's explosive growth, but that was then. People may have less to spend on luxuries like the iPhone. Life will go on. But trying to maintain the drunken-sailor consumerism most of us participated in is going to make things more difficult for us, and our children. Fwiw, I could give you a hundred examples from my own experience where home equity loans, an 8th credit card, etc. provided the means to buy stuff like iPhones. I think it might be hard to argue our economy has been fueled by legit disposable income. kj.