Listen to the punditry's assessment of "who is to blame" for the current economic decline we're suffering.
It's the banks' fault.
It's George Bush's fault.
It's the Democrats' fault.
It's the Federal Reserve's fault.
Hell, Ralph Nader even manages to blame Ayn Rand some 27 years after her death.
Some friendly advice, America...
If you want to find the real cause of the economic collapse, the average Joe need only look in the mirror.
Real wages have been flat since the 1960s, but housing prices exploded in an obvious bubble.
But you still signed mortgages that you didn't bother to read or understand, with terms that you couldn't pay. Why?
Because you didn't want to think about it.
Flat wages didn't prevent you from increasing your tastes in automobiles, going from 0.9 per household to 1.6 in just 15 years -- and the average cost of those automobiles doubling in real terms in that timeline.
Flat wages didn't stop you from ballooning your credit card debt for stuff you didn't need.
And stop insisting that you were hoodwinked and "weren't warned."
People pointed out for YEARS that there was a housing bubble.
Friends and family who were more economically prudent reminded you that it might not be a good idea to borrow $1 million to buy a small home in California when you only make 10% of the total principle and had no down payment at all.
When Uncle Ed advised that the $70,000 wedding you were planning in the Bahamas, paid for with HELOC money you "took out of the house" was a bad idea, he was a "party pooper."
When Suze Orman said that "you can't afford that," you turned off the cable TV ($150 a month), grabbed your $500 iPhone ($160 a month), grabbed the credit card (29.99% APR), and headed down to the Christiana Mall to spend, spend, spend! And when you hit your limit at the Swarowski store, you called MBNA on the spot and requested a credit limit increase.
You didn't brag about how much money you saved, how you reduced prices on everyday items to increase savings, or even how much money you made. Instead, you bragged at parties about your credit score -- a meaningless number that assesses nothing other than how much money you can BORROW.
You dug yourselves into a hole you couldn't get out of, while having a negative savings rate. You bolstered your standard of living, temporarily, on debt that you had NO IDEA how to repay. People who warned you about it were killjoys and curmudgeons and besides, if things went bad, the government would fix it, right?
None of the groups or individuals blamed -- Bush, Clinton, Greenspan, Rand, the Democrats, the Republicans, the banks, the Illuminati, Britney Spears -- forced you to do that. None of them forced you to sign suicidal mortgage contracts, or borrow $100K on your credit cards.
You decided, against good sense, to do it, because "everyone else was doing it."
The situation is not the fault of those who didn't protect idiots from themselves. It's the fault of the idiots who got into the mess in the first place. That would be, with rather rare exceptions, most of us.
3 comments:
Wow, you exonerated everyone except the little guy, which of course is most everyone. No one else has any culpability except the little guy.
There is something that borders on the misanthropic about your attitude. It's offensive.
"The little guy" who happened to get into a debt mire, for the most part, knew what he was getting into.
Did someone force "the little guy" to borrow $50K to buy a Chrysler 300C? Did someone force him to sign a mortgage he couldn't afford? Did someone compel him to go on $50,000 vacations?
Nope.
He did so willingly.
He said "please, Mr. Banker, rape me!"
He said "I don't care about the consequences!"
He said to his friends and family, who warned him off this idiocy at every turn, "GO TO HELL! I WANT IT! I DON'T CARE ABOUT TOMORROW!"
And now he's a "victim," and silly lefties are demanding that other guys who didn't make those mistakes pay to bail out the idiots.
And the entire basis of their argument is that it's "offensive" that fools who willingly signed suicidal contracts and refused to consider the consequences should have to bear the primary brunt of that decision, rather than prey upon the shrunken savings and incomes of little guys who didn't go on a debt binge.
Manufactured leftist "offense" is damn cheap. I think they're selling it at WalMart these days.
Brian,
I applaud your attitude towards this spending binge. I make $100,000 a year, well slightly more than that, yet I only purchased a $133,000 home because I realized that even if I lost my job I could afford 3 more years of mortgage payments when I searched for a new job. I also find it amusing that so many people who lost their homes are blaming the government and banks, they were praising those same institutions only several years ago when they were able to purchase homes they couldn't afford, while signing balloon and other interest based loans they could never afford. Its these "Sub-Prime Americans" who got us into this mess. Personally I saw we throw them in cheap housing and take their leftover money to bail us out. It sickens me.
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