Saturday, July 14, 2007

Sub-Prime Mortgages - Taking Responsbility

Recently, the government proposed to protect people from sub-prime mortgage mistakes they have made. While the intentions are good, it is impossible for the government to keep protecting us from our financial mistakes.
  1. The government (and taxpayers) can't afford it.
  2. It provides a false sense of security that may cause people to take more risks.
  3. It's not the business of the federal government to offset major personal finance mistakes.
That's why I'm impressed that the banking industry decided to take on the sub-prime mortgage issues on their own. Citigroup and Bank of America have set up a fund to help sub-prime mortgagees at risk for foreclosure. While this won't solve everyone's issues, it's a start to have those that made ill-advise mortgage decisions or used ill-advised mortgage products take responsibility for their situation.

For more on Reflections and Musings , check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2007 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree with you on this subject. Some of the subprime buyers are flippers. They push up the price and sell the houses for a big profit.

some buyers are innocent but some are just greedy and speculative flippers.

using the same analogy, the government will help the people with huge credit card debt. This is not the right way to help people take on their own fiscal responsibility. What about the LBO corporates take on? Should government bail out the companies because of bad corporate debts?

Thanks,

goldfish

Super Saver said...

Goldfish,

Agree. "Personal responsibility" doesn't seem to be people's vocabularies any more :-)