Originally posted by Afterthought
reply to post by XPLodER
Hi, XPlodER. Nice to see you join the discussion. 
Nice graph! I hadn't seen that before.
Some people will always believe that the bank can do no wrong and everyone who got booted from their homes are deadbeats. 
I'm so happy that some of us aren't drinking the kool-aid.
Why is it one or the other? Why does this topic always end in some nihilist conclusion with absolutely no middle ground? The banks are corrupt,
greedy, unethical, and the vast majority of the bank execs get away with things on a daily basis that would end in a prison term for you and I.
Having said that, what is the reason for a loan modification? The reason, or purpose, is to lower one's payment, from something they can't afford,
to something that they can afford. Why can't the person afford it? Well, extreme circumstances aside, or those out of one's control (loss of job,
unforeseen medical expenses, etc...) a lot of people bought homes that they had no chance of affording. They were told things like "Take an interst
only loan... then refi in a year". People also bought houses they couldn't afford longterm because they thought that the equity would explode over
the course of a couple of years and then they would sell for a massive profit... but then the market crashed, and all of those irresponsible people
lost those homes. That is their fault. All of the mortgage backed securities, blah blah, are completely irrelevant IF the home owner is paying the
mortgage payment, but because a person that makes $60,000 a year decided that it would be a good idea to take out a loan on a $500,000 house they
can't afford it.
The banks are certainly at fault for allowing stated income loans, meaning that if a borrower had great credit they could just "state" what their
income was with no proof, and guess what... A lot of people lied about that. So is that the bank's fault? No... it is the borrowers fault for
lying. Again, both the borrowers and the banks are equally responsible for this mess, extreme circumstances aside. A bank doesn't have to modify a
loan, that is just a courtesy they decide to offer, mainly because it costs a bank a lot of money to foreclose on a property. Now I know... I'm just
some hack for the big banks... no, in fact my house just got foreclosed on last month, but that's my fault for taking out a loan that I was pretty
sure that I couldn't afford. I knew it at the time, but I still did it. There is a lot of corruption in the banking industry, but most of that
starts in Washington D.C., promoted by the very politicans that most of these ignorant OWS morons vote for... and guess what, next election they will
stand in line, with all of their cool and hip Che shirts on (with no real idea of who he was), and their cliche 1968 signs and mis-informed, idiotic
Ed Schultz talking points and vote for them again. The real truth is that this housing crisis and sub-prime loans would have never happened had
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd not jammed a law down the banks throats that all but forced them to loan money to poor people, you know, in the interest
of fairness.
