That’s the plan touted over at “Paper Economy” — a blog billing itself as “A US Real Estate Bubble Blog.” But this blogger isn’t going after the bigwigs and Wall Street bonus babies; he wants some accountability from the freewheeling homeowners who got us into this mess.
Homeowners? Yup. He says that if homeowners facing bankrupcy and foreclosure want to be rescued by the government, they’re going to have to pay the piper. After all, if they hadn’t irresponsilby fudged the numbers to qualify for an absurdly large mortgage, the bubble wouldn’t have happened:
The overwhelming majority of “homeowners” who are now experiencing financial stress did NOT act responsibly.
Although many current financially strapped “homeowners” acted illegally in securing the financing with which to purchase their dream homes, just having stayed within legal bounds does NOT mean you acted responsibly.
Stated simply… if you cannot now afford your home and are falling behind on your payments, you made some sort of irresponsible mistake.
Further, many millions of Americans who may not be guilty of any specific instance of legally defined financial fraud are still at fault for defrauding our nation by living above their means when times were booming and becoming a serious liability when things went bust.
In this way they damaged our society at both ends and deserve neither rescue nor respect.
Interesting … I’m not 100% sure that I agree with his premise, but his solution actually deserves some thought:
I’d like to propose that every person that receives a federal mortgage bailout be clearly and publicly identified through a searchable database hosted at the Obama administrations Recovery.gov website.
Details listed should include the person’s full name, state and town of residence and the cost to the taxpayers of their individual rescue.
Second, all bailed-out persons should be required to perform community service proportionate to the cost of their rescue.
It certainly seems to have some merit above and beyond the “money for nothing” that seems to be flowing out of Washington these days. Plus, a lot of these homeowners are probably jobless or in danger of losing their jobs, anyway.
Not to mention, I’ll bet plenty of them live in neighbourhoods that are rapidly vacating — why not put bailed-out homeowners to work mowing the lawns and doing upkeep at the vacant houses next door, instead of letting them rot and decay?
Grant Hamilton
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