No sense of foreclosure here

Want to get a sense of how bad the mortgage crisis in the States still is?

An economics reporter for the New York Times has written a lengthy feature on how he, with almost no income, qualified for a half-million-dollar loan, ended up refinancing $50,000 in credit card and other debt, and finally defaulted on his house. Or, well, tried to. Good read:

But in 2004, I joined millions of otherwise-sane Americans in what we now know was a catastrophic binge on overpriced real estate and reckless mortgages. Nobody duped or hypnotized me. Like so many others — borrowers, lenders and the Wall Street dealmakers behind them — I just thought I could beat the odds. We all had our reasons. The brokers and dealmakers were scoring huge commissions. Ordinary homebuyers were stretching to get into first houses, or bigger houses, or better neighborhoods. Some were greedy, some were desperate and some were deceived.

As for me, I had two utterly compelling reasons for taking the plunge: the money was there, and I was in love.

My Personal Credit Crisis — the New York Times.