This is powerful. Obviously, Kristen and I are feeling quite fortunate that this isn’t our story. But for hundreds of thousands of Americans this is a video that reflects their life, their belongings, and their dreams. As Jake asks, is there a ministry opportunity here?
HT to Jake
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I have an ingenious new financial plan for Americans: Spend less than you make (and pay cash).
Tim, even people who lived within their means have gotten in trouble. If your house dropped in value 50% in 2 years, it wouldn’t matter how much Dave Ramsey/budgeting you did. With falling incomes and rising taxes, utilities, and an ARM that adjusts up… even families who had no debt eventually go under. It just happens a little faster for those who had student loans and credit cards.
It’s awful tough to label millions of people caught in this as bad money managers. Thing is, they are trapped and need help. They can’t even sell… so foreclosure is really the only option.
How sad, it breaks my heart. I know that many people should have never bought a house that was way over their budgets – but I also know too many people who through no fault of their own, lost jobs, and lost or may be losing their houses. We can’t be to quick to put the blame on the home owners without knowing their situation. Even then, tell me one person you know that hasn’t made a bad decision in their lives, some have bigger consequences than other that’s all. We need to be praying for these people and be listening to see if the Lord is prompting you to help out.
Oh yeah, I totally feel for those people and I’m sure there are people who are very wise with their money who are in trouble. Obviously, my comment above was a generality for all of America. We are consumers and a lot of us consume until it bites us in the butt (again, generally speaking).
That’s the thing. I think generally speaking, the people in trouble are just normal people like you and me. If a house takes 12-18 months to sell and you lose your job and need to move to find a new one in 1 month… no amount of pre-planning can account for 11-15 months of double mortgage payments. It’s a mess and its going to take some time to figure out exactly what happened. Bad lending is certainly part of it. Bad public policy that drove those decisions is likely part of it. Poor personal choice is likely part of it. A more transient culture seems like it is part of it. (30 year mortgage when you live somewhere 4-5 years is a bad idea.)
People in Detroit will tell you, this was coming for a long, long time. And with 10% of the US economy tied to automotive… that tanking spun things out of control in that region bigtime.
I’m defensive about the generality that people bought more house than they could afford. If people only bought things they could afford we wouldn’t have mortgages at all! The rich would rent to the poor. Without a debt class you have no middle class…
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