posted on Feb, 20 2009 @ 11:06 AM
Things are pretty emotional right now cause we're all so much at-risk. But stop and think. If we don't stop the housing plunge we will never be
able to turn the economy around. No existing homeowner will be able to sell their homes as there will be no buyers. More homes will be foreclosed.
There will be more empty houses on the market further driving the housing market into oblivion. Along with it construction, home furnishings,
landscaping, local governments (as property taxes vanish), etc. All these former homeowners will now need to rent. Rental units will start to become
scarce, rents will go up and the people at the bottom of the food chain will be homeless. The increase in homelessness will put yet more strain on
local governments, health care, etc.
So what can you do? Stimulating the housing market by helping out first time home buyers isn't a bad deal (given the alternative). As long as
people have the wherewithall to make their mortgage payments, giving them a little more downpayment is a farsight cheaper than what will happen in the
other scenario.
Although Santelli and others have railed against the idea, helping out existing homeowners to keep them in their homes (and their houses off the
already drowning housing market) is also necessary. Contrary to the rantings of some imbeciles here and elsewhere, homeowners didn't create this
mess but they are the ones suffereing the greatest damage from it.
So there isn't anything wrong with your colleague taking part in this program. It's why the program was created: to incent/help qualified people
to buy homes at a time when we desperately need homebuyers.
Or we can just let thye whole thing come down and take 0our chances. But if we were going to go that route we should have BEFORE we gave Wall Street,
the banks, the auto industry, the airlines, etc. the hundreds of billions we shelled out to prop up their industries.