Deputies refuse to evict 103 year old woman

[Russell Kanning]

i am picturing if you tried to kick them out, that daughter would be hitting you with a purse .... a purse full of borrowed money from a bank somewhere, so it could hurt

[lildog]

They will read a story like this and see the banks as villains, and the government as saviors, when the government created the rules and playing field that allows the fraudulent practice in the first place.

And, in some cases, actually mandated the fraudulent practices, in order to meet standards the government set.

I'd like to share an article I put up in my column a while back:
http://www.nhinsider.com/richard-barnes/2008/10/3/the-banking-problem-history-1999.html

In it I quote an article from 1999 point out the pending banking problem back then and even explain what's causing it.

To sum it up for those who don't feel like reading it all...
Clinton signed a law forcing banks to give loans equally to minorities proportional to their numbers.  Democrats claimed the banks were racist by turning down minorities who weren't qualifying at the same rates.  Now being a business, the banks didn't want to give out LESS loans so instead they gave out more loans to people who didn't qualify.
This caused two problems...
First was more loans were being defaulted on leading to the banks to go back to the government who forced them to give the loans in the first place and asked for a bail out.
Second was with more loans being given the housing market took off faster then it otherwise should have causing housing prices to jump.

The second problem in turn lead to people taking out even larger loans to be able to afford a house which the banks gladly gave knowing they could always go back to the government again when the loans turned sour.



Now clearly if these women were in their house 50+ years then I doubt this was the case in their situation.

[KBCraig]

Now clearly if these women were in their house 50+ years then I doubt this was the case in their situation.

I've never heard of a 50+ year mortgage, so chances are this was a new mortgage. Not long ago, there were a lot of TV ads targeting seniors, promising free money under reverse mortgage plans. Or, there could have been a mortgage taken to secure other debts, such as medical bills.

[littlehawk]

Maybe not a 50 year mortgage, but it's possible she could have refinanced and stretched out her note. I know peeps who will die before they can ay off their homes. The term "mortgage" is derivied from French roots meaning "pledge to the death."   

[MaineShark]

Lieing with the sole purpose of deceiving others is wrong. Period. The average commoner is trusting. People who lie know this and take advantage of them. It appears your moral values differ from mine.

In this case (lieing to others to gain a profit) it is nothing more than pure theft.

There's a difference between lying and salesmanship.  "Oh, you own a business?  Well, if you had a house like this, you'd have space for an office, and you could save money by not having to rent an office elsewhere, so your business would do better" is salesmanship.  "If you buy this house, your business is guaranteed to do better" is lying.  Just because someone describes something in glowing terms, or such, does not automatically make him a liar.

You're totally right, but we're sitting around the living room discussing a perfect world over a few beers. In the real world, I would take issue with the idea that technically honest, yet intentionally misleading, sales pitches are "non-fraudulent". In the current sales environment, your Everyman assumes the banker is telling the truth, because the government wouldn't possibly let them lie, would it? If they weren't on the up-and-up, the government would shut them down, right?

You and I know the real answer, but Everyman still trusts the government.

So long as that mindset rules the day, I'm inclined to cut some slack to people who are taken advantage of by being overly trusting in con artists who are officially licensed by the government to perpetrate their frauds.

But, again, it depends upon whether or not there was actually any fraud.  There are a lot of folks who bit off more than they could chew, without any fraud on the part of the salespeople.

Maybe not a 50 year mortgage, but it's possible she could have refinanced and stretched out her note. I know peeps who will die before they can ay off their homes. The term "mortgage" is derivied from French roots meaning "pledge to the death."   

Except, of course, that the "death" referenced in the etymology of that word is the "death" of the note, or the "death" of the borrower's claim to the collateral.  All it means is that the lender is given a lien against the collateral, and the lien can be satisfied by either repaying the note, or by foreclosure upon the collateral, either of which "kills" the lien.  It's a 15th/16th-century term, pointing out the difference between this sort of loan, and peonage to a feudal lord, in which case the lord would purchase the property for you, and you would pay him every year, forever - the contract between you would never die.  It's talking about how much better the mortgage is, since it has a defined end.