You reap what you sow.

I'm probably going to get flamed for being hard-hearted, but I have to chime in about what's happening on the financial front. So here goes.

Financial markets are a damn mess. Why? For months we've been hearing words like, "sub prime mortgage crisis" and "credit crunch" and "government bail out," etc. But most people who just work everyday, direct deposit their checks and pay their bills really don't understand exactly what's happened. I'll make it as simple as possible. Several years ago, some genius decided that one of this country's goals should be for every single person, citizen or not, solvent or not, should own a home.

Many, many, many people were in NO financial position to do that. They couldn't afford it, plain and simple. But the mortgage lenders figured they could make a quick buck by giving them mortgages anyway - in other words, they gave loans to people they knew would never be able to pay those loans off. People who KNEW they had no hope of paying those loans off took the loans anyway. The mortgage companies made a quick buck from closing costs, fees, etc. associated with making the transaction and figured they could collect a few payments before it all collapsed, and the homeowners got to live in houses that were way beyond their means for a while.

Then the inevitable happened. Interest rates rose. As they do. It's called an economy. All those people who "bought" homes they couldn't afford, with no money down, sometimes even borrowing in excess of the cost of the home to cover the transaction costs, etc., because they had no savings or cash of any kind (THIS is who you loan six figures to?) with adjustable rates, suddenly couldn't pay their mortgage. Shocker. They lost their homes, and the financial institutions who held those loans - the greedy morons who made the loans in the first place or the ones who bought the loans, hoping to get cash in - got left holding the bag. They figured the government (meaning the taxpayers) would bail them out, and at first, that was happening. But the bag got way too heavy, and now they're going under, one after another.

Well, of course they are. You make a bad deal, you lose money. You make enough bad deals, and lose enough money, you go out of business. Any half-wit could've predicted it. I live in a starter-home neighborhood. When all of this was going on, when I saw person after person in my neighborhood buying homes I knew they could *never* afford, I remember telling anyone who would listen that most of my neighbors would be gone in 2 years when their adjustable rates did just that and increased. I was right. And I'm not finance whiz. I can barely figure out the tip when I go out to eat, but even I could see that a disaster was in the making.

The goal should never have been an ever-increasing homeownership rate. The goal should have been an ever-increasing number of people living in a fiscally responsible way, with low debt, savings and spending habits within their means. When everyone is doing that, then homeownership rates will increase without putting the country's entire financial sector at risk. When all you're looking for is easy money, a free lunch, and immediate gratification without the work and sacrifice of legitimate gain, this is what you end up with - a financial sector in ruins and people in default.

All sides are at fault - the people who wanted what they hadn't earned, the politicians who wanted to tout inflated and unnatural and unsustainable statistics as evidence of their economic success, and greedy financiers who wanted a quick buck with no regard for the consequences either to the people they made the deals with, their companies' financial health or the country.

I'm disgusted with everyone involved.