Why not solve the mortgage crisis by giving money to homeowners?

[$tevie]

The reasoning seems to be that helping the individual homeowners will ultimately help the financial institutions. So tax money is still bailing out these institutions, it's just disguised as a warm-and-fuzzy.

I dislike the way people insist on injecting morality into these equations. "Bad companies deserve to die" and "Bad homeowners deserve to be foreclosed upon" and other such malarkey. Capitalism is not a moral belief system and it's really stupid to suddenly try to act like it is.

[mattkime]

$tevie wrote: I dislike the way people insist on injecting morality into these equations. "Bad companies deserve to die" and "Bad homeowners deserve to be foreclosed upon" and other such malarkey. Capitalism is not a moral belief system and it's really stupid to suddenly try to act like it is.

I certainly agree that too much concern with morality isn't helpful but we do need to consider the winners and losers of considered responses.

while capitalism isn't a moral belief system, it does rest on a system of beliefs. (almost all of which have been thoroughly tested)

[Black Landlord]

Rick-o wrote: Why not just loan the money to these thieves with a substantial interest rate? You know, just like they have treated us working class sons of bitches for years and years. But we know that's never going to happen.

Yeah, why not, actually?

[$tevie]

mattkime wrote: I certainly agree that too much concern with morality isn't helpful but we do need to consider the winners and losers of considered responses.

while capitalism isn't a moral belief system, it does rest on a system of beliefs. (almost all of which have been thoroughly tested)

However, I don't believe that "good" and "evil" has been tested -- and if it was, I happen to believe that "evil" would prove to have been successful more often than we might like.

The idea of trying to determine which home owners are worthy of being saved and which ones should be allowed to go under is so nutty that it completely destroys any idea of attacking the problem from that direction. And god forbid we help everyone, then the folks who aren't in trouble at all will get a mad on. So in other words, the concept is just a fairy tale.

[guitarist]

When responsible borrowers are punished for the misdeeds of irresponsible ones, moral outrage is not unwarranted. Replace "bad company" or "bad homeowner" with "bad decision". Bad companies who make bad decisions do deserve to die, or be penalized. Just as good decisions should be rewarded. Bad homeowners (borrowers with risky credit) deserve to be foreclosed upon. Not as moral punishment, but as a natural consequence of the terms of the contract they voluntarily accepted responsibility for. Asking responsible (good) borrowers to buy irresponsible (bad) borrowers a house? This will understandably be viewed as a morally offensive, as well as economically offensive idea. But no worse than asking taxpayers to reward the bad decisions of failing financial institutions.

[$tevie]

You would rather have the economy go down the crapper than risk "helping" someone who was "bad". I can't buy into that.

[OWC Jamie]

think they'd pay for an illlegal alien to do my windows ?

[guitarist]

If we want to voluntarily risk "helping" someone who's bad, or suffered a misfortune, or even help someone who willfully did something stupid or reckless, no one is stopping us. As a society, we do it all the time. Generously.

Having our future earnings seized, fed through a bureaucracy, and distributed to bad or unfortunate people, to paper over these failures, that's a different story.

You don't have to buy into it. You won't have a choice. The rest of us will take money out of your pocket to pay for it whether you agree or not.

[$tevie]

Wait, they are not going to give the money to the homeowners. So the question is moot.

[guitarist]

Oh, now it's moot. Whether we bail out borrowers or lenders is moot, we're taking your money either way.


You'd think a house full of crazy people would be depressing. It's actually really fun.