Ok, I'm Done With Being Nice

MESA, Ariz. — She had seen the advertisements for the new government program offering relief. She had heard President Obama promise that help was on the way for homeowners like her, people who had lost jobs and could no longer make their mortgage payments.

But when Eileen Ulery called her mortgage company — Countrywide, now part of Bank of America — the bank did not offer to alter her mortgage. Rather, the bank tried to sell her a new loan with a slightly lower monthly payment while asking her to pay $13,000 toward the principal and a fresh $5,000 in fees.

Sounds like a hitpiece on the banks, right?  Well, it is.  Let's keep going:

Ms. Ulery, 63, is the face of the latest wave of troubled American homeowners, a surge of people in financial danger not because of reckless gambling on real estate, but because of lost income.

Far from being one of those who used easy-money loans to speculate on homes proliferating across the desert soil of greater Phoenix, she has lived in the same modest, stucco-sided condo in suburban Mesa for a dozen years. She bought the two-bedroom home in 1997 for $77,500.

That's a lie, and a lie that they "bust" themselves on almost immediately!  Oh sure, the original purchase was quite prudent, but look at what happened NEXT!

Like tens of millions of other American homeowners, she added to her mortgage balance as the value of her condo swelled, at one point exceeding $200,000. She refinanced to pay off some credit cards and settle into a 30-year, fixed-rate loan. Later, she took out a home equity line of credit to buy a new Hyundai. She refinanced again in 2007, borrowing $20,000, mostly for a new roof.

Ah, so now the truth comes out!  Her house is now worth $122,000, or nearly double what she paid for it in 1997, but she used it as an ATM machine to live extravagantly, running the mortgage balance up to a clean double, or $143,000.

That is, this "responsible" woman spent, over ten years, more than $70,000 in excess of what she made!

To which she poses her own question: What sort of deal is it for the American taxpayer? As she sees it, the same banks that generated the mortgage crisis are now getting public money to fix it, while doing little more than seeking new fees.

“I don’t think the government gets it,” she said. “These are the same people you couldn’t trust before.”

Oh, I get it, but neither you or The New York Times does.

See, we are here because people at all levels of society, including you, Ms. Ulery, seem to think you can spend more than you make.

You did it.

The government, both state and federal, is doing it.

The New York Times is holding you forth as a paragon of virtue, and a "victim" of the evil banking system.

It sucks that you've got an employment problem Ms. Ulery, but that's not the reason you're in trouble and about to lose your house.

No, the reason you're about to lose your house is because you treated your home as a permanent and inexhaustible ATM machine - a demonstrably unsafe, unsound and FRAPPING IDIOTIC act.

Now you want to whine about the just and expected outcome of your choices - your credit card being paid off from that ATM machine that allowed you to live beyond your means, your new car (instead of a used, far cheaper car) and your lack of saving for that new roof (you blew the money on your credit card instead!)

IMHO you, Ms. Ulery and The New York Times, are the poster children for the puerile and outrageous behavior that CREATED this mess, and your whining about it deserves to be met with derision, loud jeers and permanent unemployment - absolutely NOBODY should employ anyone who is this stupid - ever.  Nor should they buy or advertise in The New York Times.

I'm tired of this  and IMHO it is long past the time when the honest and responsible citizens of this nation should rise up and demand that absolutely nobody, whether it be a state, local or federal government, a business or a homeowner get one thin frapping dime of "asssitance" if they have intentionally spent beyond their means and tried to play "perpetual ATM" - whether it was with a house, a commercial piece of real estate or taxpayer-funded debt offerings.

'Nuff said.

Disclosure: Short Ms. Ulery up to my neck.