| Re: Are consumer to blame at all for mortgage/financial crisis ? |
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Group: alt.philosophy · Group Profile
Author: SeanSean Date: Sep 19, 2008 22:25
> I'm not trying to blame the consumer. A lot of people were taken
> advantage of when buying homes and all that.
>
> My wife and I bought our first home in November at a Fixed rate. We're
> not financial geniuses, but we know enough not to get into something
> that doesn't make sense.
>
> But apparently a LOT of people bought homes with adjustable rate
> mortgages. I mean, when I was in my early twenties, one of the first
> things I was taught was you NEVER buy adjustable rate. It's the worst
> thing you could do was all I ever heard.
>
> I know there's a lot of shady dealings on wall street, and while they
> take 99%% of the blame, along with government not regulating, i would
> think 1%% belongs to the stupid people that bought those 1500 sq ft new
> construction homes or adjustable rate mortgages.
This is another example of how the US system exists in a bubble vs the rest
of the world.
It also speaks to the lie that the US is about "free markets" not being
controlled by Govt, when the opposite is more true relative to the rest of
the western world.
Untill the late 80's in Australia you couldn;t obtain a fixed rate home
mortgage. Still today fixed rates are not given over 10 years time frame, a
decade agao you could get a max of a 5 year term, and the majority of
housing loans are still variable. I think it;s similar in other nations.
No other western nation has anything like freedie mac, or fanny may, or the
Govt imposed system of Home Mortgages, that in essence precludes the US
Banking system from operating freely within a the Home lending Market. It
also has the effect of restriciting the amount of capital available in the
system to offer home mortages, therefore, many can't get loans who otherwise
would.
If you thought about it, if the majority of homes were under variable
interst rates, then they would have been paying interest at less than 1%% for
most of this decade.
All of this is a part of the current crisis occuring. It;'s been coming for
a long time.
Good luck, no other nation has your current situation to deal with. It's the
chickens coming home to roost in this shell and pea game. Don't believe
everything you've been told about how good things are, or how well they are
run in your so called "capitalist free enterprise free market system". Very
little of it is actually "free". And being Repub or Demo, has very very
little to do with it.
cheers
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