Night of the Living Debt

You can always tell the terrorist by his cologne and the watch on his wrist.

-- Clutch, Power Player

You know, as a responsible property owner -- that is, someone who followed the rate market, refinanced only as needed, and did not use the HELOC as a goddamned vacation/plasma-flatscreen fund, and kept things up on a single income at that -- I'm inclined to say screw the underwater crowd.

However, two things: one, moral superiority is no insurance against things like your own property value tanking because too many of your bozo neighbors lost their houses and flooded the market; two, bankers have no room to cry over the mess they helped create, perpetuate, and got bailed out at the top for.

The banking lobby says it could accept the bill as is, on one condition: that it apply only to new loans. In its current form, it applies to any existing loan.

“We really don’t want the legislature redoing contracts,” said Mr. Brown of the California Bankers Association. “That sends a bad signal to investors, to markets and to those whom we extended the credit.”

Whatever the fate of this particular bill, the issue of responsibility for debt is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. New government-mandated modification programs that for the first time will reduce borrowers’ debts will go into effect this fall, sparking another round of debate about who gets help and who does not.

“We’re a little in the Wild West here,” said Paul Leonard, California office director of the Center for Responsible Lending. “People are struggling with what it means to uphold the terms of your mortgage contract and what it means to walk away. There are no tried and true rules.”

This is no different than what goes on on Wall Street -- financial weasels generate a bunch of contract shenanigans to reel in the suckers, get the taxpayers to bail them out when the suckers live down to their names, and piss and moan about "responsible lending", aka legalized usury, permanent penury, etc. There's a moral hazard all the way around here; they fool no one.

The hell with it, bring back the mortgage sluts and start the fun machine all over again. Beats the hell out of this bullshit. We all might as well just open our wallets and dump them into a pile in the middle of the room.