Boo-Hoo Hoo You’re were a Jerk and Now your Losing Money

I find it wholly amusing that lately that so many mortgage companies are crying foul over the delinquency rates in America. In fact many may ask for government help to stay a float. Others (even clients of my own firm) are pulling out of many states completely in an attempt to even be able to continue operations. What I find most amusing is the sympathetic tone most business articles have toward these firms. And the fact that it is not every mortgage firm that is in trouble. In fact many well established institutions are not even close to being in trouble. They may not be making the banner money they were two years ago but they are certainly not looking to close up shop.

It is in fact the unscrupulous firms, those that preyed on people on the bottom, those that pushed the bubble hire and hire, all to line their own pockets with out concern for the future that are in the most trouble. In fact many of these firms “specialized” in “non-traditional” products for sub-prime or high risk borrowers. What then did they really expect? To continue to make three times the profits off the people that had ½ the expectations of paying? They took advantage of people, they did not do their own due diligence, and they did not want to do the work to build a solid investment basis. So why should people pity firms that are imploding because there devious plans back fired? What part of high-risk clients didn’t they understand? Why is it that people that made ridiculous profits for ½ a decade should now be let off the hook for the current crisis and possibly even helped to stay in business?

Really I think they should all go out of business. They knew what they were doing, they built an unsustainable model. This is what should happen to people that use un-ethical practices. I have no sympathy for people that pray on those who are having the hardest time in an effort to live an MTV life style. I am not anti business of course I just think that good business people are willing to put in the extra work and diligence to build up solid practices. They don’t try to make as much money as possible in the short term, and they don’t prey on those that are at the lowest level. You offer a good product or service, at a fair price, and treat your customers right. When these people have problems I may feel bad; but certainly not for all the sub-prime lenders.

The one part of this whole situation that is sad of course is all of the people losing their homes of course. These people should get government assistance. Not necessarily financial assistance, but possibly in legal relief. For instance any legislation that forces lenders to remove barriers from borrows being allowed to refinance would be a good first step. But really in the end you would hope market forces would force the lenders not yet out of business into automatically trying to help the customers refinance. The housing market is already slow and if a lot of foreclosed houses hit it then everyone will lose. But really it is time for those whining about falling “victim” to there own bad policies should bear the brunt of any part of the solution and no, no-one feels bad that you are now losing money because you tried to screw people.