Which is Moral: Survival or Profit?

I read an article that just had to be commented on. "Why there is nothing immoral about ditching your mortgage" www.thebigmoney.com... I want to share my thoughts and see what you have to say about this topic.

I posted a reply that states:

"Growing up in the 1970's, I knew it was expected of me to get a good job, spend a substantital amount of time to save up for a downpayment and the rest of my adult life paying off a mortgage on a home I could raise a family in. Back then, a decent functional home was priced equal to three years of my gross income. Somewhere along the line, the reasons to buy a home for someone like me got a bit hazy.

If we want to know the morality of walking away from a mortgage, we need look no further than Wall Street. For years, investing has been pounded in our heads. We have invested our retirement savings, our children's college funds, even our lives into this trend. Buying a home was once something you did to raise a family. It was personal, it was moral to make good on a promise. Then the mindset was coached into a change. Now, it is considered property investment, impersonal business deals where promises are made and broken all the time and nobody shed a tear until now.

Morality has nothing to do with walking away from a bad business deal. Corporations do it on Wall Street all the time. Buying a stock is a glorified way of providing a corporation a loan, right? Stockholders expect interest payments in the form of profit sharing just like banks want interest payments. It is how money is made and lost on Wall Street and in real estate. We pity those poor companies that try to block mergers or hang onto their own stocks that continues to fall but we point fingers at someone who walks away from a property because the stockholder says it is immoral to throw down the towel?

We need to get some things straight about who is walking away and why before we start throwing in the morality flag. Property purchasers are walking away from bad business deals that banks just happen to be invested in. Usually the poo rolls down hill but in this case it is hitting the fan and everybody is getting a whiff. It is that simple.

I say, do not interfere. The price of the stock will plummet but the need for the product will continue to rise. I predict a turn in the market where we see more homebuyers and less investment oriented purchases. Buying a home was a trend 40 years ago. It may have been slow and no "big" gains were made, but it was personal and promises were kept. It worked and a steady flow of interest payments were the result. No more get rich quick schemes on property; people will be buying and selling homes if we just sit back and wait."

I am a firm believer of making a little money where you can, but I draw the line on profiteering from what is necessary to survive. We have laws that prevent us from pitching a tent anywhere we please that leads me to believe housing is an area that should not be on the high end profit list. Just look at the mess that guy in Florida created when he busted into foreclosed properties to put families into them. I do not believe that was the smartest thing to do, break a law in order to serve society but it opened up a whole new thought wave: On an extremist level, are our laws designed to inhibit survival? What do you think about this?

[edit on 16-7-2010 by peggy m]

Good question. S&F

Profit is always at expense of someone.

Survival is an instinct.

Morality does not belong in a discussion of property ownership. A) The bank owns the deed and the corporations own the loan B) The state owns the land 3) The nation owns the right to all of it.

You will never own your land despite the lies you are told. So there is no morality availability to the citizen.

The 'law' as people are indoctrinated with it - it purely the rulers instructions to the serfs.

It is a complex set of rules which the owners write, and make people play by them. People think they must fight the controllers using the law, How is it possible they think they can win, when the owners wrote those rules for their own benefit?

As far as a mortgage obtained from a bank is concerned, people should understand that when a person hands over the ownership of the property to the bank, the bank provides nothing at all.

The bank firstly has no money, it borrows that from the Fed using your promise to pay the mortgage as collateral. Then it gives you money it borrowed from the Fed, which it is charged basically no interest on, it then charges you a higher rate. The Fed just prints up that money.

In other words the bank supplies nothing except freshly printed pieces of paper, that it in fact only borrowed in the first place - in exchange it gets real estate and your future labor. Tell me what is moral or equitable about that transaction?

The bank adds nothing of value, but gets rights to the property? It is fraud - walking away is completely morally justified. It is walking away from a fraudulent contract.

[edit on 16-7-2010 by Amagnon]

i don't think in terms of morals - ethics are within and morals are outside.

mor·al (môrl, mr-)
adj.
1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
2. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.
3. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
5. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.
6. Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty.

source

definition #3 is the one that applies most to the way that i, personally, understand morals.

eth·ic (thk)
n.
1.
a. A set of principles of right conduct.
b. A theory or a system of moral values

source

ethics are the core - what you do when no one is looking.
morals are concerned with appearances.

having said all that, i think that given the current economic situation in the U.S., do what is best for your own interests. as much as possible, keep your word, but don't forgo feeding yourself or your family in favor of lining the already gilded pockets of the financial prima-donnas. they won't go hungry no matter what - you shouldn't either.

the lenders are no longer ethical in their practices and they do not always go by the law. i know this from personal experience. it was greed that extended credit unwisely to many people who had no means to fulfill the obligations being handed to them on a platter underneath easy credit and money.
the big money corporations aren't losing anything by not getting the extra money in interest that they were banking on when they first started this mess.

Your link isn't working. I think you meant to link to this article:

www.thebigmoney.com...

Go Ahead, Walk Away
There is nothing immoral about ditching your mortgage.
By Mark Gimein
Posted Thursday, October 8, 2009 - 6:18am

2 years ago I was a landlord w/ 4 properties. I lived in one of the homes w/ a paying roomate, the rest were rented for top dollar. Taxes, mortgage, and insurance included I was paying $2500 OVER what my tenants paid me. READ: monthly loss which I had to pay in through my heavily taxed self-employed business. If I had paid off my mortgages I would have eventually paid well over a million dollars for 4 houses probably worth less than $400k; if you count taxes and insurance the number jumps to $3m by the end of the payoff term.

I'm a talented freelance carpenter with no employees. I can cut boards as fast as I like and I'll still never break supposed "poverty level".

In the end I was over it. I skipped on the mortgages, gave no forwarding address to the creditors, and let my tenants ride free until the foreclosures came through. Now I actually hold cash... though I have no credit, no bank account, no perks that come along w/ "bills", ie no cell phone... no concrete place to live.

I live a life of buried mayo jars and frequent living situation changes. I kind of like it... though I would like more stability for my family. Stability, however, is not worth letting tptb bilk my earnings through relentless taxation, zionist mortgages, and the raping of the insurance industry.

I pay rent through trade work barter these days; it works for me.

For now my faith is in: buried mayo jars, locked band top drums on friendly land, and the home of those I serve with my working hands.

Exemplary people understand matters of justice.
Small people understand matters of profit.
Good people can stand alone without fear
and leave society without distress.

Thomas Cleary - The Essential Confucius

Sri Oracle

[edit on 16-7-2010 by Sri Oracle]

reply to post by zroth


Thank you. I knew in the backwards region of my brain that this topic did not concern morality. You put the entire real estae ideal into words that I was barely wrapping my mind around. This is, unfortunately, a reality. People who are taking out mortgages will never really own the property, so this makes it a matter of walking away from something that will never be owned in the sense of ownership being something that cannot be taken without force.

Is it safe to assume that home buying is an illusion? I say yes. If a buy a car and pay cash, that car is mine, no matter what I decide to do with it and the only time I have extra fees is when I want to move it from one location to another. If I buy a house, do I have that same authority of ownership? Yes, of course I do, but I must have a place to put that house and that is where the conspiracy reins supreme.

I can't put my house anywhere I want, can I? What if I bought 1 acre of land to put my house on? I looked into that and I could not find one acre of land anywhere in the world that I would be the sole indisputable owner of. Everywhere I checked, government owns land, homebuyers pay rents in the form of property taxes and if you make a fatal mistake of getting a mortgage...?

If I buy a piece of land and pay the purchase price with cash, put my house on that land, and fail to pay my rents (you may call it taxes, I call it rents) for the land, the government will take my house and I will lose everything I sunk into attaching the house to a physical location.

Whether I think I own the house, the land, the car, what ever, if I owe money on it, it is rents! Right? Rent to own on some things purchased with credit but as for housing; it is rent to rent with the illusion of owning. Right?

Is is moral to pay for something I already paid for? Is it moral to just walk away when I realize I am further behind than I was when I first began?

reply to post by queenannie38


Bravo! When I was a student, philosophy was not one of my better subjects because of the confusion of something good may be immoral but ethical and something bad may be both moral and ethical while something that really doesn't concern me is moral but not ethical. I gave up trying to figure it out because morality makes aboslutely no sense, because I am an outsider to the social norms dictating morality.

Ethics is little better when integrity and honesty are thrown into the trash. Ethics is just a set of moral standards only it does not have to threaten with heaven and hell when a person dies. But still, it threatens.

Honesty and integrity, on the other hand appear to be forgotten idealswith our Universal Ethics and Plato form of morality. Fine print in a legal document full of a foreign language is not that much higher than what criminals do to steal, scam, and coerce.

reply to post by peggy m


It is sad. I am always torn when I think about the rules to the game we play. I want a future for my children but I do not want them to trade their humanity to join the collective material gang.

There is a beauty in simple living and sages of yesterday spoke volumes in single sentences.

“For it is in giving that we receive.” St. Francis of Assisi

I'm glad we crossed paths.

creply to post by peggy m


Thanks for the post.

It seems to me that a more relevant question is: Is taxation moral?

It certainly is not lawful under common law.

In a just, moral society I think a debate about whether profit is moral or not would be irrelevant.

The problem we have is that there is only an illusion that we live in a democracy, or that there is a free market, or that we have freedom of choice.

Taxation is a feudal, fascist, exploitative nstrument for defrauding the majority of people from the fruits of their labour.

In such a system the many work hard to make the very few very rich. This is totally immoral and criminal.

Remove the Federal Reserve, remove taxation, purge the corruption and facism which exists in all levels of governments, create a moral society where Governmens have to exemplify the highest moal standards and integrity and where they lead by example. Likewise for the justice system. Separate Government from Commerce and Corporation, and separate it from religion, Re-establish the people as the overseers of government, and the question of individual profit will barely arise.

To enter into the debate without examining the context is to focus on the trees instead of the wood. If ever there was a time when we need to think outside of the Matrix, this is it.

I refuse to enter into discussion on the terms set by the criminal cabal.
All roads lead to Rome - or in this case, the evil corruption of the few. It is their corruption which creates all this suffering and financial anxiety and stress.

Because this economic slavery has been going on for so long, the majority of people accept it as 'the way the world is', or 'the norm'. We need to change our idea of what is normal...we are being seriously and violently abused, and it is time to see that and step out of their Matrix and think beyond the limited and limiting options imposed by the evil few on the ordinary, good people, whose country it is. Were it not for the prison and corruption they have created for us - we would live in abundance and freedom and peace.

Originally posted by wcitizen

Is taxation moral?

From the Biblical viewpoint, usury is a heinous sin.

Source

In my opinion this is the primary motivation to forcing a new age religion and replacing God with currency in the modern era.

You do not have to believe in the almighty but the bible is a storehouse of lessons learned during the project of humanity.

Originally posted by wcitizen
creply to post by peggy m

 

Because this economic slavery has been going on for so long, the majority of people accept it as 'the way the world is', or 'the norm'. We need to change our idea of what is normal...we are being seriously and violently abused, and it is time to see that and step out of their Matrix and think beyond the limited and limiting options imposed by the evil few on the ordinary, good people, whose country it is. Were it not for the prison and corruption they have created for us - we would live in abundance and freedom and peace.

I am aware that our economy is set up to promote what I call the "dollar" slave serving the elite. But these slaves serve many masters, including other slaves. Unfortunately, when I enter this "slave" premise into a discussion to support what another person is saying about the economy, that preson will take insult and accuse me of playng the conspiracy card. People do not want to admit that they have been misled to support a slave style system.

Social norms is a tragic topic. It is powered by perception. 100,000 years ago, the soical norm was to sleep when one was tired and forage for food when one was hungry. We think it odd for someone to live that way today and have convinced ourselves that it is wrong. 5,000 years ago the social norm was to migrate where food was plenty and climate was agreeable. Today, we find that behavior wrong and have instigated policing policies to stop migration. 2,000 years ago, the social norm was to stone a woman to death for adultery. For some societies that behavior is no longer appropriate and now we are pushing to make it a world-wide social norm to end stoning.

Morality is pure perception that can be manipulated. An action is neither moral or immoral but our current beliefs make it one or the other. People claim it is our morality that separates us from the animals. I disagree. I claim it is our ability to construct reason.

It is these reasons we have constructed in our minds that allow billions of people to serve a handful of masters. The housing situation is just one of thousands of issues that make absolutely no sense applied to a physical reality. People need shelter from the elements. That is survival. Unfortunately, people have constructed reasons allowing them to believe that their survival depends on someone else. They do not know what freeedom is because they have never experienced it.

Then again, who wants to go back to the stoneage where survival of the fittest was the social norm? I am prepared for it but I admit, I have grown accustomed to my carefree lifestyle where I don't have to worry about foraging for food or migrating with my temporary shelter to a more agreeable climate while I push out ten babies hoping at least one will survive.

I agree to give my sweat and body to survive. I would be sweating and using my body anyway to survive if society wasn't here. Just don't piss in the wind telling me it's rain just so I'll share my umbrella. And don't sell me something I need to survive and tell me later that it's immoral to find a cheaper price to pay.