(Put post title here) How could you not know that this is the exact thing that would happen with the economic exploitation that was perpetrated on the citizenry during the Bush administration?
I too looked at houses during the real estate boom. I chose one that I thought would be a good investment, though the owner seemed by his terms and demands to be...well a bit of a dick. i made my offer in good faith and proceeded to apply for a mortgage.
Then I got a set of paperwork from the ubiquitous Counrtywide. I sat down and began to read this little missive they'd sent. Very shortly thereafter I started running across terms like ARM, and "after (such and such) amount of time payments may be adjusted, blalh blah blah. I called my broker.
"Is this an adjustable rate mortgage?" Yes, she replied, that's what will work best for you on this property."
"Oh really? Well, I thank you for your time and effort, but I think I'll pass on your kind offer to sell me into indentured servitude to Countrywide."
But this buying a house thing is an extremely emotional decision and a lot of people don't think it through rationally when making it. Such is apparently the case with Deborah Goldring, subject of the CNN article I read yesterday.
Now, in her defense she made all the right choices, she played by all the rules, she did what she was told. And she got screwed anyway. After her husband got sick and they found themselves destitute after using all their savings to pay for his care, she then found herself widowed, and facing foreclosure on a house she'd been in nearly 30 years.
I have to wonder if this would have happened of she'd been white.
I think the most wrenching moment of reading that article was not when she talked of losing her husband, nor of being forced to ask her daughter for $100 to pay a bill. No it was when she lamented the loss of her checkbook.
Here's a basic tool we all use daily and most definitely take for granted, and she no longer has one.
This woman is 58 years old, she has no more chances in this country to recover from the economic ruin that was forced on her by greed.
And what do we do? Those of us fortunate souls who were lucky enough to be born white? We don't even have to be smart, just white, and we get mostly whatever we want. Deborah? She gets what most black people in this country get...bupkus.
Our elected representatives sit on their hands and spend our money and their time wrangling over tax cuts for the rich, and all the while trying their damndest to take more of what little we have left.
For our part we give them control of our civil liberties, our freedoms, and certainly our future.
We might think the Deborah Goldrings of this world are few and far between, but when they come for us there'll be no one left to stop them. And make no mistake, they ARE coming.
Now why would that be?
And so it goes:
