by Joi Hall

Created on: December 28, 2008

In 2002 - early 2007, Millions of people signed on the dotted line, in contractual agreement with mortgage lenders. The rave for 5 years was Subprime mortgages, "Pick a Price", Bad Credit Loans, and Adjustable Rate Mortgages ....... GET IN WHILE THE PRICE IS HOT! Millions of consumer home buyers jumped on the Bad Credit Loan band wagon. They got in while the price was hot....Sizzling Hot! They didn't know that they were just months or a fews year away from getting burned.

The silent time bomb ticked away as millions enjoyed their new homes that they should've never been able to afford. They lived their dream of home ownership, they planted their new gardens, and bought new toys from refinancing and pocketing thousands of dollars. Some refinanced over and over again. Some consumers purchased several houses and decided to invest in real estate. Some started new companies and small businesses. They didn't even know that after paying a few mortgage payments to their lenders it would be snatched right from underneath them; leaving millions in a state of nightmare as their dream of home ownership quickly faded along with their equity.

Meanwhile, the mortgage industry spent millions of dollars in advertising and media to make billions of dollars off of consumers that were about to be trapped in a huge spiders web. Like Hitler, these mortgage companies started a Holocaust, costing the finanical lives of millions upon millions of consumers to go into foreclosure.

Some would argue the point that no one put a gun to the consumers head. No one forced them to sign a document that they didn't understand. Shouldn't they have asked what an Adjustable Mortgage would mean in a few years when it adjusted? Shouldn't they have calculated what even a slight increase to their interest rates would mean? Did they really expect for the economy to boom for the rest of their lives. Shouldn't they have listened to economic forecasts?

And then the other side of the coin would argue, but what about business ethics? What about the mortgage companies that knew interest rates would adjust and what it would cost the economy, the consumers, and the houseing market? What about Loan officers that promised their clients a refinance. "When your rates begin to adjust, come back to me, I'll get you into a new loan with a fixed rate." Whose to the blame? The ignorant for lack of knowledge or the unethical business practices of the mortgage industry?

I won't make that call. It's a judgment that I won't pass

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