A nation fit to be slaves

I came across this in an article advocating for a nationwide freeze on foreclosures--not just for 90 days, but for at least a year:

In December Mabuhay [a community non-profit organization] sponsored a "foreclosure clinic" at a community college in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo, which despite its small size--its population is about 112,000--boasted the tenth-highest foreclosure rate in the country at the time. About 150 anxious homeowners showed up, clutching thick folders of financial documents, waiting to speak with mortgage counselors. Their stories were painfully similar: one couple was struggling to pay an interest rate of 16 percent; another was unable to make $4,300 monthly payments and owed $630,000 on a home worth $370,000; another, in their mid-60s, had resigned themselves to losing the home in which they'd lived for twenty-three years and spending their retirement in a motor home.

If anything, these anecdotes show why we need more foreclosures, and sooner rather than later. By law, the couple struggling to pay that 16% interest rate was provided with documentation showing that figure in large print boxed in a nice big table--but they were too busy picking out drapes and planning trips to Home Depot to look at the table. The family with a $630K mortgage on a $370K home definitely signed up for negative amortization, meaning they were way, way, way out of their price range from the start and knew it.

But my absolute favorite is the supposed tear-jerker of a couple who have somehow managed to live in a house for 23 years but still failed to pay down their mortgage to the point where they are in danger of foreclosure now. Instead, my guess is that they plundered all the equity that should have been there long ago with home equity loans, and so they are back where they started 23 years ago.

The foreclosure process is there for a reason--to force people who can't face facts out to free up the property for someone who can pay for it. I know it's sad, and I know it sucks, but houses are just things. The sooner we start thinking of them as such, the quicker we can get out of this mess.