WNYC Story on NYC Housing Crisis

Ah yes. Feed off the misery of others.

"Stupid" is too strong a word for elderly homeowners who have owned their own homes most of their lives. Many of these financial instruments that they are trying to use to finance their old age are totally new and unfamiliar to them, leaving them easy prey for con artists. Naive, perhaps? But they certainly don't deserve to lose their home over it.

It's one thing to gain a home because of other people's financial mistakes, but it's just downright loathsome to profit because some other people got taken advantage of by criminals.

Look, I have no sympathy for those who buy too much house just because they can. I strongly suspect my brother may be one of those.

But we are talking about elderly homeowners who may have needed to take out second mortgages to pay for medical bills or whatnot, not wouldbe financially irresponsible yuppies. The debt instruments of today are FAR more sophisticated than those that existed when they bought the house and I'm sorry, when you are in the middle of a health crisis, dealing with unfamiliar debt instruments, you DON'T make the best decisions, and that's what these CRIMINALS are taking advantage of. They are making the best decisions they can with the tiny bit of information they have available to them and it's biting them in the ass.

Though I do think this crisis does have a few lesssons that we can all learn from, such as Never Get An Adjustable Rate Mortgage.