Watching the Marcitz

An article published on March 14th by Joe Nocera of the New York Times finally called it out clearly that homeowners who got  in over their head shouldn’t be helped by the government. Take this part from Mr. Nocera’s article:

I suppose you could argue that most … lacked the ability or the financial sophistication of someone like Mr. Hedges. But it shouldn’t have mattered…

“These were people with a fair amount of money, and most of them sought no professional advice,” said Bruce C. Greenwald, who teaches value investing at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. “It’s like trying to do your own dentistry.” Mr. Hedges said, “It is a real lesson that people cannot abdicate personal responsibility when it comes to their personal finances.”

And that’s the point. People did abdicate responsibility — and now, rather than face that fact, many of them are blaming the government for not, in effect, saving them from themselves…There is a powerful sense that because the agency was asleep at the switch, they have been doubly victimized. And they want the government to do something about it.

And how about this snippet:

“The government should come and say, ‘We bailed out so many others, we can bail you out, and when you will do better, you can give us back the money,’ ” he (Elie Wiesel) said at the Portfolio event.

But why? What happened … is terrible. But every day in this country, people lose money due to financial fraud or negligence. Innocent investors who bought stock in Enron lost millions when that company turned out to be a fraud; nobody made them whole…People lose it all because they start a company that turns out to be misguided, or because they do something that is risky, hoping to hit the jackpot. Taxpayers don’t bail them out, and they shouldn’t start now. Did the S.E.C. foul up? You bet. But that doesn’t mean the investors themselves are off the hook. Investors blaming the S.E.C. for their decision to give every last penny to Bernie Madoff is like a child blaming his mother for letting him start a fight while she wasn’t looking.

OK, now for a little truth-telling. As you may have been able to surmise this WASN’T and article about housing bailouts but about victims ot Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme but isnt’ the sentment the same? In fact its worse than that with respect to homeloaners.  Here Mr. Nocera is saying that vicitms of an outright fraud and theft don’t deserve government help.  The victims in the housing industry are, for the most part, NOT vicitms of fraud (yes there was some but seriously its a VERY small part of the market) and therefore should get even less help. I mean if you aren’t going to help vicitms of crime then why would you even help those that are victims of themselves and just plain bad circumstances.

Does it make any difference that the money lost was in investments as opposed to a house?  Technically it shouldn’t (you spend less either way) but housing has been given a special, irrational place in society as something different.  True you don’t live in your investments but you can always rent, you don’t have to actually own a house (and if you hold a mortgage you don’t “own” your house anyway, you have an option to own in 15-30 years).  But renters are the invisible detritus of society but that is a topic better covered here.

Thank you Mr. Nocera (you can also email him your thanks as well) for being a voice of reason! Please help the New York Times editorial department see that reason as well. Or is that not what you really meant?

(You can see the original text of Mr. Nocera’s article here.)

P.S. See how the Obama administration has now come out AGAINST  in-bankruptcy loan modifications in this article.