Comments on: Let People (and companies) Fail!

By: rich

rich — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:08:49 +0000

I want this andI want that, however I can’t afford it. I pay my taxes, I pay my bills, and I don’t owe anybody anything. I put my 3 kids through college (paid for) Each1 has a 4 year degree. I will never have a lot money and I worked all my life.

By: cjlpn

cjlpn — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:01:47 +0000

I think the bail-out is giving people who bought homes they couldn’t afford, the ability to keep them. People like myself, who saved money and had enough intellegance to do the math before buying a home will be the ones to pay for this bail-out. It is the most unfair thing I have ever heard of. If people would have bought what they could have afford, instead of trying, not only to keep up with the Jones, but to be better than the Jones, they would not need our help.Let them foreclose. Teach them a lesson.Next they will want us to pay off their credit cards and car payments that I’m sure they have to go with their house payment. They should look at their debt, let go of all the extras they can live without and make a choice to keep their homes or rent.

By: runt

runt — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:29:57 +0000

I honestly agree with most of what’s been said. a government bail-out is just the lazy man’s solution. if people were smart, and planned ahead of time, they wouldn’t be in this predicament. MOST people aren’t going to take up a loan to get a super expensive car, so why do it with a house, when you can get one that’s affordable. you don’t need a BIG house. what use are you going to have of an empty room? just go and put your computer or whatever in your bedroom. you don’t need a seperate room for EVERYTHING.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 06:41:47 +0000

In 100% agreement with JLP. Most of these people got into mortgages and homes above their means because everyone held the fantasy land belief that home prices would continue to rise indefinitely, and they’d cash in. So what if you bought a house above your means, or took out equity loans on it? It would continue to go up in value and it didn’t matter that you couldn’t afford it or took out second mortgages, because you’d be able to sell it for more than you paid for it. What happened is when the dot-coms crashed, all the money and absurdity funneled into real estate.

Real estate will continue to decline for years to the tune of 50% – 80%….watch.

By: Maha

Maha — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:25:46 +0000

I grew up living in apartments, understood little to nothing about finances and house purchases, etc. Then at 23 (15 years ago), fresh out of college, got my first job offer, and then purchased a house with someone else. Despite the fact that I’d had very little financial experience, I did figure out that not being able to support a mortgage payment was not a good thing, and even worse, was getting into an ARM. I bought what I could afford, and that included enough to pay the remaining bills, not just the mortgage. So it really blows me away when all of these people who are going to depend on this bailout couldn’t figure out what I did when I was young and naive. I find it hard to believe they didn’t know what they were getting into. They don’t deserve this support. If they do, then I want compensation for our second mortgage, because we can’t sell that house because of what all these bailout-dependents have done to the housing market.

One last thing, I find it highly interesting that our govt manages to come up with money to assist these people, but can’t find the funding for our kids’ schools and education? Talk about top priorities.

By: Gerard

Gerard — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:43:59 +0000

No Mike, it’s not the same thing. The guy who’s house got flooded did not have anything to do with the flood. It was out of his control. Most, if not all, of the people in the housing mess are in the situation out of their own free will. Sure, they did not want to lose their houses but they went into the contract with their eyes wide open (and if they failed to do so, again, it’s their fault for not educating themselve). I see no reason to penalise the taxpayers and take money away from essential services such as schools, hospitals and emergency services to fund other people’s stupidity. I do hope that my government (no, I do not live in the US) has the sense to let people and companies FAIL.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:11:21 +0000

All you whiners (whaaaaaa bailout) I’ll bet when the guys house next door gets flooded you just sit and watch him loose his house instead of giving him a hand.This is the same thing as giving him a hand only done on a much larger more productive scale.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:30:19 +0000

All you people complaining that you bought only what you could afford and are whining about the bailout. Stop belly-aching. Mommy, why does he get all your love.. whaaaaa. Do you really want to trade places with people that are facing foreclosure just so you take a handout from the government? I’d rather my tax dollars were spent on keeping someone in their home than a damn turnip museum in Iowa.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:24:10 +0000

Hey Folks wake up. There is no such thing as a completely free market. Once we became a nation our founding fathers agreed to work together for the common good. We are a country of laws which dictate the market. Why isn’t cocaine allowed to be sold. Why isn’t prostitution allowed. For a society to function there is and must be a degree of “socialism”. While All the CEO’s/ boards of directors/ executive committees and politicians are stealing, its only a tiny drop in the bucket that is going to bailout families who bought homes they couldn’t afford. Most of te money will be going to the companies who gave the loans and bought the loans. By the way why did these homes all of a sudden become unaffordable. didn’t it have something to do with rising rates???? which I believe was caused by the feds deliberately. Correct me if i am wrong but the feds created this mess. everything was fine until the feds jacked up the rates to control inflation/cool the economy. they just overshot and now they are trying to remedy the situation.

By: jp

jp — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:55:53 +0000

I agree with the no bailout policy.

But let’s also be clear that this will impact more than just those who bought/sold poor loans. This will impact everyone, as this increases the lack of credit necessary for banks to loan money to companies and people. There are quite a few companies who cannot afford to expand/continune operations because they depend of easy credit. So we will see a few more business go away, and a few more jobs go away because of the lack of “cheap” loans.

For better or worse, our economy is built on cheap loans. I do believe this is the time to pay the reaper. I worry that for every rescue we permit, we’re actually enforcing behaviour that will lead to even more spectacular failures in the future.

RE: punishing the execs — I would agree Greg, the exec is not the scapegoat here. They did what they were supposed to do, they cranked up the value for shareholders. The did what the market asked of them. If you REALLY want to punish someone, why not pick on the congressional representatives who relaxed the laws we had in place to prevent these types of measures in the first place. The last time we allowed mortgage brokers to make these kinds of deals was the Great Depression. There was a VERY good reason why the laws that enforced giving people loans appropriate to their creditworthyness.