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Gawain

Extreme Makeover House Faces Foreclosure

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According to the Boston Herald they took the loan out to invest in a construction business and used the house as a collateral...:S



Soooooo stupid.... [:/]
"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

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Well, there are several solutions:

First: Don't buy a house that doesn't fit one or all of these parameters--total house value not exceeding 3. income (with 20% down), or mortgage payments not exceeding 25% of take-home pay, on a 15 year fixed (after 20% down).

Second: Don't squander gifts (like this family did).

Third: Get more than one opinion in making major purchases/life decisions.

The scenario I parodied from the Dave Ramsey radio program is not uncommon, and it often does not reflect "poor" people, as you noted.

It does show that great marketing, coupled with bad, stupid decisions does amazing things. In the end, it's the consumer that signs their name.

Individual responsibility







Sounds to me like they are paying the "stupid" tax.

I see it at the dz all the time. Buying gear and jumps on CC.

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You have to want, then research by any means necessary, and be willing to be the "black sheep" and break away from the mold life has thrown your way. (ever gone back and see some relative glare daggers at you for succeeding?)



Concur strongly with your final assertion.

Doesn’t seem to be limited to any racial or geographic or avocation group either.

E.g., In (then-Illinois State) Sen Obama’s first Congressional election attempts, he challenged incumbant Illinois Congressional Rep Bobby Rush. Rush used Obama’s position as an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School to label him an “egghead” and an “elitist.” One can observe much the same on this site when “Professor” is used as a pejorative. We do it too.

I would speculate it’s exacerbated by late 20th/early 21st Century anti-intellectualism and elevation of the pridefully ignorant jerk as epitome of ‘cool’.

So, yes a 'culture' that does not value education -- whether inner city anti-intellectualism or rejection of education for women in religious Islamic states -- tends to have higher levels of poverty. (Interestingly, to me, the more secular Islamic states, e.g., Turkey and Indonesia have higher levels of education for both sexes. The exception is Iran.)

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

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Nothing is one option. (What countries' economies most look like that course of action?)


Duh! That would be the USA:|

Hmmm ... actually I wasn't thinking of the USA but Pinochet's Chile in which total unrestricted/unregulated free market economics were imposed (i.e,. Keynesian neo-liberalism/Milton Friedman/"Chicago boys") that led to no real economic growth btw 1973 & 1990; an 18% decline in real mean salaries, adjusted for inflation; a 30% decline in median salaries between 1973 & 1990; and increases in poverty, from
Among *many* critical differences, Pinochet imposed free-market economics in a repressive dictatorship, whereas the free-market economy of the US has checks and balances of electorate of represenative democracy and mitigating influences of regulatory frameworks. (... a good example of a comment [jcd11235] made a couple weeks (?) back that economic and political systems are not the same.)

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

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... you hear some caller in this vein: "...well, you know, life just sort of happened to us, we bought a house for $300K, have a HELOC for $50K, then we bought two new cars, owe $40K, and then we cycled credit card debt, and owe $17K."

Dave: "what's your household income?"

Caller: "oh, about $42K per year."



The situation in which you describe -- while it may not reflect choices I would prefer -- does not indicate folks who were "poor".



The scenario related above may more represent 'average' people, in fact.

What do you (general, rather than specific, "you") do about it?
Nothing is one option. (What countries' economies most look like that course of action?)
How did the 'average'-esque household get to this situation? Less to blame and more to learn so as to try to decrease likelihood of repetition.

As we all know pointing out problems is easy. Coming up with and implementing executable solutions is a whole 'nother endeavor.



Well, there are several solutions:



Individual responsibility.



Much like [VTmotoMike08], you’ve identified another problem: personal responsibility or more specifically, a lack of individual responsibility.

If we add greed, animosity/hatred, and apathy, we have the four mongrel dogs of mediocrity, who are led by the 5th – stupidity … and are probably attributable for 75% of human history. (They are the less sexy metaphorical cousins lap dogs to 4 horseman of the Apocalypse.)

What is/are the policy solution to lack of personal responsibility? In resolving the mortgage crisis? Retroactively? Proactively? In the pending banking crisis? To consumerism?

As I wrote before I went off into the backwoods of northern Michigan, for the last 25 or so years, consumerism and demand for new services has driven the US economy - the average consumers have spent largely without negative consequences for the overall economy. (Due to globalization, it's actually been good for the US economy & average consumers.) The crescendo of that 25 years of spending, in which barriers were progressively lifted (used to be called regulatory influences), is the subprime mortgage crisis.

As long as the number of "average" households being irresponsible was some low number, it was absorbable by the economy. The "do nothing" scenario has the potential to lead to a tipping point in which the entire economy is negatively impacted, along with a lot of average people who didn't make poor decisions.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

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