@Phil@freeatlantis.comI don't really understand the thinking behind this. If people borrow more money than they can afford to pay back, how is that not their fault alone? Sure it's a risk to the lender, but it should stop there. It's not like buyers are being forced to take out loans that they can't afford. We have reached a time when being irresponsible, is somebody else's fault.
@KeepTakingTheSoma@spinster.xyzRemember the old adage:
If I owe the bank £100 I can't pay back, I have a problem.
If I owe the bank £100,000 I can't pay back, the bank has a problem.
@KeepTakingTheSoma
Well I know that banks are scummy, but they mostly get away with that because government bails them out and creates a moral hazzard.
I still don't accept that irresponsible debt is the lenders fault.
Though I do accept that ultimately the government distorts the marked and messes up all the signals and exacerbates the problems.
@KeepTakingTheSoma@spinster.xyzBut we cannot trust banks right now with digital currency on the horizon and Blackrock and their cronies buying up the world.
@KeepTakingTheSoma I agree that banks shouldn't be trusted. I have all kinds of personal mitigation strageties as a result.
But, the government agency that is supposedly regulating them, isn't any more worthy of trust than the banks.
This is the struggle of our time, you can't really trust any institution.
@KeepTakingTheSoma @Phil A long time ago, some internet wonk said we've always had information overload, we just had better filters. We've always had corrupt institutions, we just had better blinders.
@KeepTakingTheSoma@spinster.xyzI get the impression today that they rub our noses in it and remind us that there's nothing we can do about it.
I completely understand why the French sent their elite parasite entitled class to the guillotine.
@Phil This is the kind of behavior that caused the housing market crash of 2007, 2008. The borrowers should be held to pay the debt but the lender should not be allowed to cook the books or lie to consumers to get the debt. That market crash was hard on our economy we should avoid it in the future.
The banks commited fraud when they re-sold the debt, not when they issued it. Government was at the root of that disaster too, it implemented policies that practicularly made high risk loans a requirement.
@Phil The fraud was not the problem, the "subprime" loans that they sold was. The govt had requirements on banks to have a certain percentage of the money they lent out on hand. Bush changed that and lenders went crazy with cheap money and gave anyone a loan. Housing prices sky rocketed. When enough of those people could not pay, the market crashed. Obama reinstated a similar rule and shortly after congress repealed it. If the prime went low enough again, we will have the same problem.