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What water have you been drinking? Any wrongs done to homebuyers in the housing debacle was all self-imposed. They are not "victims." Rather they are people who like most asleep Americans are... living beyond their means. My son and daughter-in-law first of all didn't become husband and wife until they were told it would be easier to buy a house as a couple rather than partners. They knew their income wasn't that high even combined but they went ahead anyway. Of course they lost the house and probably will never own another house. Those lending institutions were pushed by Congress(a la Barney Frank) to include more minority, lower income, etc., etc., etc. They knew these people would default. They were warned as far back as 2005 by the Bush Administration but instead pronounced it a good and viable program. Those are the perpertrators... NOT the lending institutions. Go figure that people don't check things out for themselves but instead listen to 30 second sound bites on TV to get an understanding.
1. The people you labled as victims are responsible for taking out the loans the could not repay. They were not forced to take these loans, they chose to. The responsibility lies with them.
2. The Good Samaritan in the bible used his own resources, of his own free will. The responsibility was the Good Samaritan's, and he did not place any of the buden he chose to undertake onto others. The so-called "Good Samaritans" you describe are taking money from other people and using it against their will, placing the burden entirely on the shoulders of others.
Because of these major flaws, your parable fails.
http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&hl=en&am... :
"Earlier this month, John Pistole, deputy director of the FBI, told Congress that the "exponential rise in mortgage-fraud investigations" is straining the agency's white-collar-crime section, forcing the agency to consider reassigning some agents from terrorism cases.
"The FBI received more than 66,000 reports from banks last year, compared with fewer than 7,000 in 2003. Those suspected-fraud reports capture a fraction of the problem. Only banks — not other types of lenders or real-estate professionals — are required to report suspicious activity."
I don't think there is any doubt that the banks and other mortgage companies did a great deal of overselling and, in fact, did not really know what they were doing or getting themselves and their customers into. They oversold not only to their customers but also to themselves. Capitalism doesn't work very well when the capitalists act like used car salesmen.
In any case, roads and bridges are public facilities. They are not a transfer of wealth from those who earn to those who made poor decisions. Your descent into hyperbole undermines any other credibility you may have had to begin with.
There is plenty of blame to go around, but I point to people who used their homes like an ATM, refinanced and got caught-up in declining home values. The sub-prime mess would have been contained had not everyone believed that home prices were going to appreciate at 10% per year.
Loco, your descent into personal attack undermines any integrity you might have had to begin with.
I presume that you think the bridge to nowhere was a good idea since it was to be a public facility.
It does not take "the brightest minds" to look at the bottom line of a loan and determine whether they can afford it. I do not know what drives your desire to completely eschew the personal responsibility a person has over their own decisions, and then make the jump that poor decisions somehow entitle a person to the wealth of others.
You mean the way you completely eschew the responsibility of lending institutions? I directed my comment at lending institutions and their responsibility. That in no way mean that I don't think the borrowers need to be responsible.
As is reflected in the Community Reinvestment
Act itself, the government neither authorized nor encouraged banks to make loans which violated their own loan policies. To try to claim that the financial institutions created the crisis just because of the government rather than because of the millions they were making by doing so is naive beyond belief.
Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac did nothing to cause the financial institutions to make loans which have now caused so many of them to land in the basement. They did that as adults who were supposed to be, what is that word?, oh, yes, responsible. It was the financial institutions, and not the government, which decided what loans those institutions would make, or decline to make.
I have no idea why you are so afraid to recognize the chief and critical role the financial institutions played in creating the mortgage loan crisis. It is really pitiful for anyone to claim that the poor, unsuspecting financial institutions were taken in by those mean people who were talked into buying a home. It's a little like "the devil made me do it". Actually, the devil involved here is colored greed. And it has worked. While the mortgagors lose their homes, the executives gain multi-millions for bringing this crisis down on the country. Seems a bit unfair.
They should not be rewarded for their poor choice with taxpayer money. I agree that neither should the lending institutions. They should have been allowed to fail, and the market work as intended. With the national government rewarding this type of behavior, it will only guarantee it to happen again.
It will also give the national government further control and ownership of these institutions, which beyond the unconstitutionality of such ownership, the national government has absolutely zero credibility in running traditionally private enterprises. We are only digging a deeper hole with current actions.