Luke and the Mortgage Crisis
I’m not opposed to flip-flopping. Things change. People change. It’s best not to be too committed to an idea unless it is really really important.
I’ve changed my position on gay rights, or gay people, not that I was particularly committed to anything previously. Sometime in the 1960’s or so I dropped “fag” from the lexicon, and occasionally one would wonder about so-and-so, but I was a staunch advocate of nothing, a moderate advocate of keeping it in the closet, and gay issues had no immediacy while gay people on TV seemed, well, “different” and vaguely threatening, like immigrants or Muslims.
Then Luke showed up at my office, announcing clearly but without provocation that he is a gay primary parent in his household and that he thought I could make money by hiring him. I considered the options, greed outdueled fear, and Luke was on board. Pretty soon Luke was a regular, the kids and his partner were around the office, we went to their wedding celebration, and Luke was like everyone else. Reducing the gay thing to a personal level one on one with a real live person made it go away.
I’m looking at the mortgage crisis. A lot of people bought things they couldn’t afford on the assumption that rates always go down and values always go up. We call those people “morons”, and the damage will play out for the next five or ten years. I haven’t really bought into any “the evil banker made me do it” philosophy or “the system”. Most of it was just a toxic blend of greed and stupidity. That’s my position and I’m not sticking to it.
So, on the News at 10 I saw a couple in a modest home south of here. The adjustable mortgage went up significantly, the wife got cancer, had to stop working and the husband got laid off. The house is being foreclosed. I do not know them, but somehow whether they were morons and what they should have known do not seem so important. I hope they have health insurance. I wish the bank would figure out that it is cheaper to let them stay than to have the foreclosure and sell at the expected loss. I changed the channel.
I’ve changed my position on gay rights, or gay people, not that I was particularly committed to anything previously. Sometime in the 1960’s or so I dropped “fag” from the lexicon, and occasionally one would wonder about so-and-so, but I was a staunch advocate of nothing, a moderate advocate of keeping it in the closet, and gay issues had no immediacy while gay people on TV seemed, well, “different” and vaguely threatening, like immigrants or Muslims.
Then Luke showed up at my office, announcing clearly but without provocation that he is a gay primary parent in his household and that he thought I could make money by hiring him. I considered the options, greed outdueled fear, and Luke was on board. Pretty soon Luke was a regular, the kids and his partner were around the office, we went to their wedding celebration, and Luke was like everyone else. Reducing the gay thing to a personal level one on one with a real live person made it go away.
I’m looking at the mortgage crisis. A lot of people bought things they couldn’t afford on the assumption that rates always go down and values always go up. We call those people “morons”, and the damage will play out for the next five or ten years. I haven’t really bought into any “the evil banker made me do it” philosophy or “the system”. Most of it was just a toxic blend of greed and stupidity. That’s my position and I’m not sticking to it.
So, on the News at 10 I saw a couple in a modest home south of here. The adjustable mortgage went up significantly, the wife got cancer, had to stop working and the husband got laid off. The house is being foreclosed. I do not know them, but somehow whether they were morons and what they should have known do not seem so important. I hope they have health insurance. I wish the bank would figure out that it is cheaper to let them stay than to have the foreclosure and sell at the expected loss. I changed the channel.
posted by Contraria | 4:17 PM
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