Families brace for holidays without homes BOO F--KING HOO

[ItsTime]

Boo-f#cking-hoo

Seriously this is suppose to make me feel bad for these people? Sounds like they lived way above their means and now face the reality of living within their means. But since they were living above their means they are now living below.... :rolleyes:

Are these the types of assholes we are bailing out?



Families brace for holidays without a home
Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:54am EDT

By Lisa Baertlein

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif (Reuters) - A memento with Depression-era humor helps Kristin Bertrand keep perspective as her family braces for a Christmas holiday without their home.


The small ceramic dish she keeps from her grandfather reads: "Cheer up, things could be worse." Then, in smaller type: "So I cheered up and sure enough things got worse.
"

Just a few years ago, Kristin and her husband Mike Bertrand, 36, were confident they owned their own piece of the American dream. They pulled in $140,000 a year, owned a house, two cars, a telescope and other gadgets, and had season tickets to Disneyland for their two kids.


But since they lost their home in May, the Bertrands live in a sparsely furnished rental in Thousand Oaks, California, and have cut expenses to the bone.


They've sold Kristin's set of wedding rings, given up a car and the Disneyland passes to get back on their feet. The dish, taken when Kristin's 90-year-old grandfather moved to a nursing home, sits on the mantel as a reminder.


"It's going to be a lean holiday for us," said Kristin, 36, who said the family has put plans to visit relatives in Idaho on the back burner. "I think this year we need to lay low.
"

Adding to their worries as the holidays approach, Mike just learned that his consulting contract, the family's main income, will not be renewed at the end of October.


The Bertrands' story will be played out in many versions across the United States this holiday season, where several hundred thousand people who lost their homes to foreclosure try to redefine how they celebrate with their families.


For the Bertrands, and others, past splurges for special occasions have already been cut out of the household budget.


The Bertrands have kept their 13-year-old daughter McKaylee and 10-year-old son Taylor in the loop about their financial troubles all along. The kids have long stopped asking for money for clothes or fund-raisers, they said.


While the family had once taken McKaylee and a friend to Disneyland to celebrate her birthday, her latest party was held at home with a borrowed karaoke machine and a jump rope that guests fashioned from glow-in-the-dark necklaces.



http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE49T01O20081030

[torchbearer]

To add salt to that wound... the government is going to help out some and not others.
500,000 americans are currently in the process of foreclosure.
4,000,000 americans are currently at least one month behind on their payments.
The democratic congress wants to force lending companies to give them a better rate/smaller note at the expense of the tax payer.
Who gets in the bread line first?

[gls]

They now live in a [gasp!] apartment AND had to give up their Disneyland season passes? Oh the humanity!

[ItsTime]

To add salt to that wound... the government is going to help out some and not others.
500,000 americans are currently in the process of foreclosure.
4,000,000 americans are currently at least one month behind on their payments.
The democratic congress wants to force lending companies to give them a better rate/smaller note at the expense of the tax payer.
Who gets in the bread line first?


I know. I can not believe what I am seeing.


They now live in a [gasp!] apartment AND had to give up their Disneyland season passes? Oh the humanity!

This reminds me of part of a Walter Williams speech I watched the other day. He said something like "Capitalism's downfall is that it has been too successful. All the necessities of life are taken care of so we now think we can not live without nonessential items" (paraphrasing)

[satchelmcqueen]

140K a year??? and still lost their home???

the most ive ever made was 32k last year and on average 18k since 1994. i was smart and got something i could afford (while being looked down upon) a TRAILER and paid it off in 9 months. most of those who looked down on me for being a "trailer person" have now either lost their homes or are very behind.

sad for them, but you have to be real.

[dannno]

They now live in a [gasp!] apartment AND had to give up their Disneyland season passes? Oh the humanity!

Seriously. Thousand Oaks has got to be the most yuppified ignorant piece of shit town in all of Los Angeles County.

[ItsTime]

140K a year??? and still lost their home???

the most ive ever made was 32k last year and on average 18k since 1994. i was smart and got something i could afford (while being looked down upon) a TRAILER and paid it off in 9 months. most of those who looked down on me for being a "trailer person" have now either lost their homes or are very behind.

sad for them, but you have to be real.

No shame in a trailer. Living under your means will always leave you happy :D

[Crash Martinez]

Contained within this phrase, "lost their homes to foreclosure," is the huge lie of this bailout season.

Guess what?! It is thoroughly, entirely impossible to **LOSE** **YOUR** home to **FORECLOSURE** !!!

This article clearly makes the claim, "They. . . owned a house. . ." LIE!

If they owned that house, they would still be in it to this day. I could be one of the “several hundred thousand people who lost their (sic) homes to foreclosure,” if I were stupid enough to occupy a home I couldn’t afford and thereby assume it was mine!

Yeah… these people are not the “less fortunate” among us just because they were once able to masquerade as the more fortunate!

[smithtg]

Contained within this phrase, "lost their homes to foreclosure," is the huge lie of this bailout season.

Guess what?! It is thoroughly, entirely impossible to **LOSE** **YOUR** home to **FORECLOSURE** !!!

This article clearly makes the claim, "They. . . owned a house. . ." LIE!

If they owned that house, they would still be in it to this day. I could be one of the “several hundred thousand people who lost their (sic) homes to foreclosure,” if I were stupid enough to occupy a home I couldn’t afford and thereby assume it was mine!

Yeah… these people are not the “less fortunate” among us just because they were once able to masquerade as the more fortunate!

notice how the article fails to mention how much they overpaid for their home. If it did, it would be way to obvious that even at 140K, they should not even had paid that much

[roho76]

I understand where you are all coming from, but the majority of Americans didn't know how mortgages work (of course this is no excuse) and trusted that their mortgage broker did and that they were acting in the best interest of their client. A lot of Americans were taken advantage of by predatory lending. With some of these Hybrid mortgages and the creative financing that came about over the last decade most people were just excited about owning a home, a dear in the headlights if you will, and placed trust into the person packaging their mortgage. That is why they hire these people to do it for them, it is the basis of Capitalism, paying for a service that you have no time to meddle with. That is why CEO's don't mow there lawn but they will file a lawsuit against a landscape company if they come home and their lawn is on fire because they fucked it up.

But this is not a time to be rude and nasty to those who are experiencing financial woes right now. I know a lot of people who are losing their homes right now in Detroit not because they were living above their means but because they lost their jobs due to outsourcing. What we must realize is that this is the Governments fault, period. They knew exactly what they were doing, this was certainly not a mistake. This is how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It's systematic in it's nature. They took advantage of uneducated Americans. Most people learn by going face first into a wall but that doesn't mean we should cut off their face just so they don't hit it again on the wall.

The best we can hope for is that Americans take an active interest in mortgages and finances and never repeat this mistake again. But being jerks to those who are in troubled times right now will not advance our message. We need to be compassionate if we are going to garner any more minds in the liberty movement. Also I would have to believe that there are even some here on this forum that are experiencing problems right now but are to ashamed to admit it because they fear ridicule like this.

[tmosley]

I don't think people on here should be so smug about people being put out into the streets. It's sad, not funny.

Predatory lending and a permissive environment are enough to lead even smart people into making stupid choices. When I was buying my home, I could have EASILY fallen for any number of the tactics that the bankers used on these people. I was lucky in that I was looking for a home with some land fairly close to town, and the closest one with more than an acre was a trailer home. I would have bought anything in my price range had it been large enough and close enough. Happily, it was fairly cheap, and I had a fairly honest lender, so I got a 30 year fixed mortgage. Unfortunately, they talked me out of making a down payment even though I had the money, so I'm still paying $20/month for mortgage insurance, even though I paid it down quite quickly (it will be paid off in a leisurely ten years, quicker if I make higher payments, which would be very easy, but I'm working my way out from under credit card debt and student loans first).

But seriously, don't blame the victim. They were lied to for the most part. We all were. Just because some of us are able to see through the lies NOW doesn't mean that you are any better than anyone else. As a group, we need to get over ourselves and focus on the future, rather than ridiculing others for mistakes they made in the past.

[Crash Martinez]

That's true, and you're right to rebuke us for being too harsh on people in that situation.

I only intended to point out that the opposite treatment, i.e. the "sob story" as seen above, is also quite inappropriate, especially as it has been used to justify theft in the name of compassion (as theft often is).

[Wendi]

I never did get to go to Disneyland as a kid. But my parents paid off the mortgage & I didn't have to worry about losing my house because of their irresponsibility, either.

I'm sorry, but I have very little sympathy for folks who spent money they didn't have and are now paying the price for it. Especially not when there are homes right here in my neighborhood that were destroyed by Ike, and families that owned them are also "facing the holidays without their homes."

[jonhowe]

I don't think people on here should be so smug about people being put out into the streets. It's sad, not funny.




No Disney Land = the streets?

[Mini-Me]

I understand where you are all coming from, but the majority of Americans didn't know how mortgages work (of course this is no excuse) and trusted that their mortgage broker did and that they were acting in the best interest of their client. A lot of Americans were taken advantage of by predatory lending. With some of these Hybrid mortgages and the creative financing that came about over the last decade most people were just excited about owning a home, a dear in the headlights if you will, and placed trust into the person packaging their mortgage. That is why they hire these people to do it for them, it is the basis of Capitalism, paying for a service that you have no time to meddle with. That is why CEO's don't mow there lawn but they will file a lawsuit against a landscape company if they come home and their lawn is on fire because they fucked it up.

But this is not a time to be rude and nasty to those who are experiencing financial woes right now. I know a lot of people who are losing their homes right now in Detroit not because they were living above their means but because they lost their jobs due to outsourcing. What we must realize is that this is the Governments fault, period. They knew exactly what they were doing, this was certainly not a mistake. This is how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It's systematic in it's nature. They took advantage of uneducated Americans. Most people learn by going face first into a wall but that doesn't mean we should cut off their face just so they don't hit it again on the wall.

The best we can hope for is that Americans take an active interest in mortgages and finances and never repeat this mistake again. But being jerks to those who are in troubled times right now will not advance our message. We need to be compassionate if we are going to garner any more minds in the liberty movement. Also I would have to believe that there are even some here on this forum that are experiencing problems right now but are to ashamed to admit it because they fear ridicule like this.


I don't think people on here should be so smug about people being put out into the streets. It's sad, not funny.

Predatory lending and a permissive environment are enough to lead even smart people into making stupid choices. When I was buying my home, I could have EASILY fallen for any number of the tactics that the bankers used on these people. I was lucky in that I was looking for a home with some land fairly close to town, and the closest one with more than an acre was a trailer home. I would have bought anything in my price range had it been large enough and close enough. Happily, it was fairly cheap, and I had a fairly honest lender, so I got a 30 year fixed mortgage. Unfortunately, they talked me out of making a down payment even though I had the money, so I'm still paying $20/month for mortgage insurance, even though I paid it down quite quickly (it will be paid off in a leisurely ten years, quicker if I make higher payments, which would be very easy, but I'm working my way out from under credit card debt and student loans first).

But seriously, don't blame the victim. They were lied to for the most part. We all were. Just because some of us are able to see through the lies NOW doesn't mean that you are any better than anyone else. As a group, we need to get over ourselves and focus on the future, rather than ridiculing others for mistakes they made in the past.

I agree...there's a time and place for schadenfreude, and this isn't it. A lot of people were living beyond their means and had it coming to them, but that doesn't mean everyone did (widespread layoffs due to the poor economic conditions the government created, etc.) Plus, unsympathetic attitudes will not breed sympathy for our cause of liberty, either. That said, the comments about the Disney Land tickets are funny, and I'll give those a pass. ;)

[satchelmcqueen]

No shame in a trailer. Living under your means will always leave you happy :D

thanks.

i am happy knowing im free of home debt. i would like a house, but thats 10 years away, and i plan to build it myself at that. i figure for 50k or so in todays money i can build a 2 story w/basement at 30X30' and be good to go. :)

[NewEnd]

What they can't afford a trailer park?
Some peopel really need to learn some humility.

I remember, once I went out with an over tanned princess, and we picked up a friend from a trailer park.... I kid you not, this overtanned princess started to bawl, called her boyfriend, and had him come pick her up. She was terrified.


EDIT: Woah, I posted this before I read the responses... great minds.

[sailor]

The indignation of some of you would be better spent elsewhere. These people are not the enemy.

[devil21]

I have no sympathy for those that lived above their means and ended up in that position. Job cuts and outsourcing is not the same issue as not doing due diligence to understand the mortgage terms or even having some common sense. It's people like that family that bought 2 cars, Disney passes, and a big new house instead of buying smaller and saving money that are at the heart of this meltdown. How big of a flat screen plasma TV do you guess they also owned? How many computers and other high end electronics? How many steak dinners out? It's a problem much bigger than just bad mortgages.

I lived in Northern VA up until early 2006. Long before I "woke up" to Ron Paul I could easily see that the housing market was seriously amiss. Prices on existing townhouses doubled in 3 years. I got the hell out of there. Sure enough, if I had lived beyond my *meager $75K per year salary* and bought a house with an interest-only ARM mortgage, I would now be one of the statistics. I could easily see that it just didn't add up and a bust was coming. There's some common sense involved and it seems to be becoming less and less common.

[NewEnd]

The indignation of some of you would be better spent elsewhere. These people are not the enemy.

actually, the over investment of people thinking they can flip houses, and people living beyond their means, hurt all of us. They need to be taught a lesson, those of us that are responsible should not be forced to help them, especially when they look down on us with their eyeballs that are swimming in debt.