Posted By: Brenda Exum  on Wednesday, March 05, 2008

the man on the right is a good example of consumers today . This is what's wrong with society today . People spend money on what they want instead of what they need . Don't worry about tomorrow , the hard working taxpayers will bail us out and they'll be ok and who cares if the stupid taxpayers can't afford food , decent housing , medicine , and utilities and the daily necessities . God help the lower and middle class working fool.

Posted By: Joan  on Wednesday, March 05, 2008

I agree with Glennis and also believe that a mortgage is a legal contract between the people signing the loan and the people loaning the money.  If one cannot renegotiate their own contracts, congress has no business stepping in to do it.  Where will it end?



I find it offensive that I may have to pay for someone else's poor financial choices when I am working hard and making good choices with my money. Live within your means!

Posted By: Laura  on Wednesday, March 05, 2008

A lot of people went for those subprime lender's promises that they could easily refinance in a few years (maybe even after the house had gained a little equity). Now, after housing prices have taken a nose-dive no one wants to refinance a house for more than it is worth. This leads to forclosure which drives all of our housing prices even lower. We all lose. If we want to get out of this possible recession, people need to help eachother and not selfishly look the other way. That is the problem with a lot of our present policies, they only look at the short-term. We sometimes need to do something for others to get something back, like a better economy.

Posted By: A Voter  on Wednesday, March 05, 2008

I would've loved a bigger house or maybe one that needed less work.  My wife and I decided that we couldn't afford it.  I could've gotten a lower interest rate if I went with an ARM but again they adjust UP as well as down, I wasn't willing to gamble it so I got a slightly higher fixed rate. Now I'm expected to pay for others houses who couldn't afford it but went ahead anyway.  The problem isn't selfishly looking the other way, it's no individual accountability.  The selfish ones are the ones that took on more than they could handle and need others to bail them out.

Posted By: G Holleran  on Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Interest rates in NZ never got lower than 7% more around 8% median prices are around 400,000 but in Auckland  house in this  bracket are not up to much, more like $500,000 for a reasonable family home and a million for a good place (comparable to one I had in California).

Govt here do not subsidise nor do they bail out. Mortgage amounts on a family home are higher than those mentioned in the article. When USA sneezes we catch a cold. Mismanagement and ruinous wars through history cause crises like this.

The way out is not to subsidise but to rebuild the conomy form what ahs been done to it! Over to you Obama??????????

Posted By: James  on Wednesday, March 05, 2008

I'm a web developer, a programmer and a graphic artist. I'm not a lawyer or a banker. I have to rely on the knowledge and professionalism, and mutual-best-interests of financial experts whenever I venture in to the lands of Finance. Many people in my position were promised, and not-quite-promised garnished with a side of legal-disclaimer, that ARMs did only go down, that they could afford more than they really could, and that the market would continue to balloon.

I, however, have a healthy skepticism about that "mutual-best-interest" thing. I also know that the guy I'm talking to at the bank is under certain pressures to produce "Sales" and to "Improve the bottom line", often at my expense. The person I'm talking to could be the best person in the world, but if they don't treat me like cattle they get fired, and they've got a family to feed too.

Grand Upshot: I and other people like me who are not financially savvy must rely on people who we cannot rely on. Add to that the levels of legalese and contract-legalese used often against the interests of the consumer, and we get people signing themselves to contracts that they do not fully understand.



Besides, the cartoon isn't so much about the guy blowing the tax rebate on an iPhone as it is that our own government is telling us to buy iPhones with it.



Meanwhile I continue to rent an apartment until the happy day I can just pay cash for a house.....



My $0.02.