millions are now facing the dilemma of making house payments on a property that is not worth what is being paid.
.
after originally promising to repay the bank, is there a "moral" obligation to continue in a dwelling, even at a loss ... or is it best to exercise the "legal" right of foreclosure and pay the consequences ?.
Didn't I mention that I was a GB member before I left?
You are too funny!
Just because *everybody's doing it* doesn't make *it* a good idea.
If you are unhappy with the bail outs, tell your Congress Person. Or Senator.
BTW, I was making a conjecture that you don't have any ethics. I never assaulted your character. You assumed I did.
millions are now facing the dilemma of making house payments on a property that is not worth what is being paid.
.
after originally promising to repay the bank, is there a "moral" obligation to continue in a dwelling, even at a loss ... or is it best to exercise the "legal" right of foreclosure and pay the consequences ?.
Follow-up:
After paying my mortgage faithfully for an "underwater" property, should financial institutions be entitled to tax money I have paid in order to compensate them for losses incurred due to their own mismanagement? Is that "ethical"?
What does one have to do with the other?
If I pay my car payment faithfully (or my credit card bill), should a financial institution be entitled to tax money I paid in order to compensate them for losses incurred due to their own mismanagement?
Is that ethical?
Who the *F* cares?
It's way too late to be worrying about it at this point.
You just pointed out that you faithfully have paid your mortgage.
So, you just want to walk away because other people are.
Which all goes back to ethics.
You either have them or you don't.
Apparently, you don't.
Do you know John? John Edwards? He's probably looking for an Aide. You might work out.
millions are now facing the dilemma of making house payments on a property that is not worth what is being paid.
.
after originally promising to repay the bank, is there a "moral" obligation to continue in a dwelling, even at a loss ... or is it best to exercise the "legal" right of foreclosure and pay the consequences ?.
There is a college professor who writes an Ethics column. Some of you need to read it.
Here is his blog, which, oddly enough covered this question very recently:
http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/
One of the byproducts of the recent financial turmoil has been a precipitous drop in home values in the United States.
As a result, some home owners are finding that the value of their houses is less than the amount they owe on their mortgages.
A reader from West Virginia writes inquiring about the ethics of homeowners who default on mortgages that they can still afford to pay but choose not to, because the underlying property values have dropped so precipitously that it is financially preferable simply to walk away.
"Is this kind of 'strategic default' blameworthy be cause it constitutes a failure to keep a promise?" my reader asks.
"Or, since the borrower is willing to accept the contractually mandated consequences of defaulting, is it simply a reasonable economic response to the invisible hand of the marketplace?"
The practice the reader describes is legal. The question is, is something ethical simply because it's legal?
If a homeowner cannot afford to make payments on her mortgage and cannot sell her house at a price that will yield enough cash to pay off the mortgage so that she can move on, she might be left with no choice but to default on the mortgage and turn over the house to the bank. There's obviously nothing wrong with this from an ethical standpoint.
A key component of my reader's question, however, is that he's talking about homeowners who "can still afford to pay but choose not to."
It might be a reasonable economic decision to walk away from the property, but is it ethically acceptable?
I think not. A mortgage agreement is not a promise to do one of two things, either to make the payments or to give up the house. It's a promise to make the payments, period. Giving up the house to the bank is a penalty for not keeping the promise, not one option within the promise.
In this regard, the situation is comparable to the law: The fact that the law imposes a penalty for, say, stealing someone's car doesn't mean that a person can ethically choose to steal the car if he is prepared to accept the penalty. The requirement of the law is not to steal the car, and the implied promise of citizen ship is to obey the law, not to weigh the costs and benefits of breaking it.
Every mortgage comes with the risk that the value of the home might go down during the course of the mortgage, and the homeowner knows that going in.
The homeowner promised to make the payments, in return for which the bank advanced the purchase price of the house. The bank has lived up to its share of the agreement, and the right thing for the homeowner to do, if he can afford to make the payments, is to live up to his end.
He should honor the commitment as long as he is financially able to do so.
Whether or not the property is worth anything in 20 years is irrelevant. It is a contract that was signed. Like the contract for purchasing an automobile.
Do you purchase an automobile believing that it will go up in value? Do you default on the loan because you decide that the value of your Dodge Dart is now less than the car salesman and your BIL told you?
If you purchase a piece of property thinking that it is always going to go up in value you are stupid and should only be a renter.
if you've been exposed to american entertainment at all during the last forty years, it would be difficult to be unfamiliar with the sci-fi character, "mr.
spock.
" spock was a character in the series, star trek, the son of a "vulcan" father and a human mother.
Thank you TD!
a whopping 8.5lb, at 1755 hrs bright as a button, shattered now!.
Congratulations!!
she told me yesterday that she holds out hope for me to be like the prodigal son and come back.
(between us, i don't think that's gonna happen)..
Hey, I wonder if we are related?
Sister Robdar, I think the *Creatures* thing has to be something they've picked up over the years from the mags. My aunts, her sisters, talk exactly the same way. One aunt was telling me about her new cat and she started in about what a beautiful creature it was and how Jehovah creates such beautiful creatures. I looked at the phone like an alien was in it.
Too weird. ha ha ha
she told me yesterday that she holds out hope for me to be like the prodigal son and come back.
(between us, i don't think that's gonna happen)..
I have to try the "I'm praying to Jehovah for guidance" line and see if that works.
Anything to get her to stop. Seriously, some days, I cringe. Most days when I see her on caller ID. That is sad when so many here do not have a relationship with their JW families. I know that. Yet, when you do, all you hear is "come back, Jehovah wants you."
she told me yesterday that she holds out hope for me to be like the prodigal son and come back.
(between us, i don't think that's gonna happen)..
I took the mags, threw them in the garbage and put used cat litter on top of them. That was a small bit of satisfaction.
As for the IHBS offer, I totally ignored it. She has gotten more zealous lately. When she says it to me on the phone, I flat out say "NO". The way I say it pretty much tells her that if she pushes I am going to say something pretty rude.
While I want to keep my relationship with her alive and upbeat, I just can't handle the continual "Jehovah" crap. When I challenge her on JW issues, she backs right down and suddenly is busy/tired/ill. Never fails. So she knows I have info she can't refute.
One other thing I hear a lot of is "Look at all the creatures Jehovah created. Aren't they beautiful? He created so many beautiful things. All the creatures."
She has a real thing about "creatures". It has to be an Awake, psueso NatGeo thing. (puke)
she told me yesterday that she holds out hope for me to be like the prodigal son and come back.
(between us, i don't think that's gonna happen)..
I just got my monthly Watchtower and Awake! delivery. Along with a very overdue (one month late) anniversary card.
The magazines were, oddly, in another language!!! WTF?! I have no fxing clue why she would give me those complete pieces of garbage in English, let alone what looks to be Croatian. Seriously. TP maybe? The price of Charmin is going up, but...
She also sent me an e-mail telling me Satan controls the world and the System is ending and I need to come back to Jehovah. All I need to do is let her start an In Home Bible Study with my husband and I and she can get us in before the Big A. This was last week.
In her card, the anniversary card, she told me she is praying to Jehovah that I'll come back and bring my husband with me.
UGH.
UGH.
UGH.
My husband saw the mags on the counter, asked "What the fxuck are those doing here? Why does she keep sending them? Oh, nice card, except for the totally fxcked up message, geeze."
And he just shook his head and walked out of the room.
That kind of shit is why come to this board. I feel like I am in a weird time warp. A psycho ward dealing with her. I want to yank out my hair sometimes.
Beards--Yum!!! My husband had a full beard when I met him. I loved it. He shaved it a few years later for an office job.
When the weekend rolls he doesn't shave on Friday. No one seems to notice. Or, if they do, they don't say anything since he's in charge. I love stubble, beards, any type of hair growth on a man's face.
