Easy credit of dubious worth isn’t some new and unparalleled scandal; in fact, our nation’s economy was built upon it. [New York Times Magazine]
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Check out this little bit of math … from the NY Times story.
2nd Paragraph: “Like so many families, they stretched to buy their first home. In the red-hot housing market at the time, they put no money down and got a mortgage for its entire $180,000 price tag.”
So, by my math, this family has a $180,000 mortgage.
But, they refinanced their credit card debt (thus, saving THOUSANDS of dollars in high credit card debt interest).
“But the monthly payments on the $230,000 mortgage were $1,800, 40 percent higher than the first mortgage, and headed even higher.
So, the mortgage is now $50,000 higher than when they started.
But, they have no credit card debt any more and thus, no monthly payments for that high-interest debt, so … there should be no problem right?
“So they decided to let the house go,” the Times informs us.
No … what these scumbags did was to screw those who gave them credit on the promise they would pay it back.
They’re just ordinary deadbeats. (Exceptional only in that they have a friend who works at The Times who is helping them pull off this scam.)