Re:Raspberry Pi faces distribution troubles over CE certific...
by retube on Thursday March 29, 2012 @08:51AM
(#3770839)
Sure, I realise the fruit-picker example is extreme. But it was the sub-prime / alt-a mortgage market that imploded with default rates in some pools hitting 90%. But yes of course everyone jumped on the bandwagon across all of society - I'm not for a minute attempting to blame "poor" people for being financially irresponsible - far from it - I realise there was a complex interplay between the lenders/brokers/borrowers, the banks that securitised the pools and the people that bought the end product.
My point is that the rules and regulation around mortgage lenders and lending were lax to the point of non-existence and that penalising banks (most of whom didn't originate these mortgages in the first place) is just easy scape goating and is exacerbating the very issues it's trying to solve.
Re:Raspberry Pi faces distribution troubles over CE certific...
by yardie on Thursday March 29, 2012 @06:23PM
(#3773420)
You and I know it's an extreme example but there are lots of people that honestly believe the mortgage crisis was caused by poor people getting mortgages. Then they reference some civil rights era act that they believe forces the banks to lower their lending standards. In fact the law says you can't deny loans based on where the applicant lives (aka, redlining).
This was one of the root causes but there were many. You should take a step back and really understand what happened. In fact fruit pickers weren't the problem at all. They never applied for those loans and the ones that did were in the minority. No, what you had were a bunch of middle-class people with houses buying up investment property to secure their future.
The condo I used to live in (in Miami) had a 50% occupation rate and it wasn't occupied by fruit pickers. Instead you had doctors, lawyers, and even hackers looking for a 2nd or 3rd or 4th home to rent out. And they all had good credit.
Everyone likes to think it was poor people buying up McMansions (and I don't doubt there were some) but the mortgage crisis was caused by normal people who were way over leveraged and a Fed that let it continue until it collapsed. This