Understanding the Issues: Education

I think your upbringing contributes more to your common sense than you think.

What's basic to you may not be so basic to others.

And I would say if people are not willing to take 100% responsibility for their actions and decisions, and instead choose to place blame on others, they're not worth helping.

Anyone who recognizes that their actions put them in a bad situation, they've probably learned from it. And I'm all for helping them. Take the mortgage crisis. If people weren't properly educated by lenders that their payments will increase in 5 years when the adjustable term expires, and they now realize that they needed to ask more questions and be more scrutinizing when acquiring financing, then I'm all for helping to bail them out. But if people want to point fingers at the lenders and call themselves a victim, that indicates a person who is likely to repeat the same mistake.

In order to truly learn from a bad decision, you have to recognize the ways in which you could have prevented the bad decision from being made. In the case of mortgages, the realization has to be that next time I'm going to be mindful of all the ways in which my monthly payment can potentially change.
so as long as these people admit they were wrong, or uneducated, you are all for helping? give me a break, and get off your high horse

But there's no difference between your scenario and someone who grew up without any guidance and made a bad choice, but who now wants help establishing the very environment you and I were lucky enough to have as youths.

My last post was getting more to the heart of the matter. As for the direct response to your point here, you are absolutely right. That's why I've been saying throughout the thread that I'm all for helping kids with after-care (I recognize the thread is long and you may not have read every post).

The kids cannot help the situation they were born into, I'm fine with giving them after-care programs to keep them out of trouble and help guide them. Once they're provided these types of things though, if they're still making bad decisions as adults and showing no signs of learning from it, those are the folks I'd like to see cut loose from the social programs.

the mortgage crisis is a bad example. this is something my wife called, almost 20 years ago. times were good, and rates the best ever. lenders were doing anything they could to get people into housing that would make them " house" poor. all but guaranteeing the rates wouldn't creep back up. all the big money players in this got rich, and now the every day Joe's are out. that probably sounds pretty fair to you, schneed. screw the little guy. make him fend for himself. and if he cant, its his problem. this is politics at its worse

I think your upbringing contributes more to your common sense than you think.

What's basic to you may not be so basic to others.

Othewise why do we have the mortgage issues that we do now?

In some cases, the lenders were actually behaving criminally, which even the most educated person could have fallen victim.

But I think we also have it because people were too afraid to ask the lender enough questions because they didn't want to appear stupid. You don't need an education, you don't need two parents, you don't need a middle class income as a child to understand that if you don't understand how something works, you shouldn't get into it. That to me is basic, not taught, we're born with that.

Everyone has the common sense to make that correct decision. But not everyone got over the fear of asking the questions that may have seemed stupid.

We keep talking about needing guidance in order to make decisions.

Aren't most decisions made with basic common sense? How much guidance do you need for that? That's my whole thing here, how much do parents REALLY affect your upbringing? Plenty, I'm not saying it plays no role, but it doesn't play a big enough that it excuses away a lack of common sense.

If you go into a lender, and they tell you you're going to have an adjustable rate mortgage and your payment will be $500 a month for a $300,000 house, shouldn't a red flag be going up in your head? You mean to tell me you need a good home and a good upbringing to be able to tell when something seems too good to be true?

When someone tells you $500 payment on a $300,000 house, your first question should be OK what's the catch? If they say no catch, you have a legal case.

You don't have to know financing or know how real estate works. But you should be able to follow your nose when you smell something rotten. And at the very least, you should be able to ask "How is it possible for me to pay $500 a month on a $300,000 house?" Ask the basic questions until you understand it, even if they seem stupid. If you can't understand how it works on a basic level, then you shouldn't be making that deal. Isn't that just basic common sense/street smarts? I don't think you need a tremendous support system to exercise common sense and decent judgment.

Not everyone is like you or as smart as you. No one really knows what percentage were duped by lenders and what percentage knew what they were getting into. What you can't do is tell me all of them are f*ck'ups.

the mortgage crisis is a bad example. this is something my wife called, almost 20 years ago. times were good, and rates the best ever. lenders were doing anything they could to get people into housing that would make them " house" poor. all but guaranteeing the rates wouldn't creep back up. all the big money players in this got rich, and now the every day Joe's are out. that probably sounds pretty fair to you, schneed. screw the little guy. make him fend for himself. and if he cant, its his problem. this is politics at its worse

I can't say I understand what you're saying about a mortgage crisis 20 years ago? Rates were great in the 80s. I'd like to comment further but I can't say I understand what you're talking about.

As for the little guy comment, I perceive myself to be one of the little guys. I'm a guy just like anybody else. I just take responsibility for my actions and do what needs to be done to make good decisions.

Not everyone is like you or as smart as you. No one really knows what percentage were duped by lenders and what percentage knew what they were getting into. What you can't do is tell me all of them are f*ck'ups.

Ones who were victims of criminal behavior, no, definitely not fuck-ups.

Ones who weren't, I can't call them fuck-ups because lenders still behaved unscrupulously. But they still could have done more to protect themselves.

My last post was getting more to the heart of the matter. As for the direct response to your point here, you are absolutely right. That's why I've been saying throughout the thread that I'm all for helping kids with after-care (I recognize the thread is long and you may not have read every post).

The kids cannot help the situation they were born into, I'm fine with giving them after-care programs to keep them out of trouble and help guide them. Once they're provided these types of things though, if they're still making bad decisions as adults and showing no signs of learning from it, those are the folks I'd like to see cut loose from the social programs.

It is long, and I have missed a couple of things along the way (see my earlier post to firstdown), but this one I think I'm tracking.

The difference I am exploring is that we agree on the ends, but not the means. I think the parents deserve the help, while you believe it's the kids who deserve the break. That's what my comments have been geared toward. I do recognize that you are for the proposal, assuming the conditions you stated.

It is long, and I have missed a couple of things along the way (see my earlier post to firstdown), but this one I think I'm tracking.

The difference I am exploring is that we agree on the ends, but not the means. I think the parents deserve the help, while you believe it's the kids who deserve the break. That's what my comments have been geared toward. I do recognize that you are for the proposal, assuming the conditions you stated.
So the parents that have shown that they make the bad choices and have the social programs allready need more help? What has the billions of dollars that we have allready spent done to correct the problem? Nothing. Sure you can go out and find examples of how people have used the social programs and bettered their life and then contributed back to the community but there are far more that just keep using the system for every penny they can get. The one good thing about after school programs is that it does go directly to the children and not to the parent. I just feel its a jod that is better delt with on a local level than depended on the fed gov. and having to play by their rules to receive the funding. Also if the money is not just a hand out from the fed gov the local community will do a better job on using the money wisely.