These days, there is a lot of noise about debt forgiveness, in the form of mortgage cramdowns and moving up the effective date of changes in federal student loan repayment policies (forgiveness after 20 years, a cap based on income, etc.)
Maybe it’s a character flaw on my part, but these stick in my craw.
Ignorance and lack of “smarts” have “explained” how some borrowers were supposedly snookered into bad home mortgage deals.
Okay, ignorance is a hazard. What, then, caused people smart enough to get in to college to get in over their heads, debt-wise?
As far as frequency of foreclosures is concerned, “experts” predict that as many as 1 out of every 5 mortgages could default if Congress doesn’t “do something”.
Here’s a conflicting data point: in our son’s neighborhood, which has 164 houses, only one has been put up for auction in the 10 years we’ve owned there.
So, let’s cut the bull and call mortgage debt forgiveness for what it is: a gift in a year before a tough Presidential election to some of the most affluent and politically important regions in the United States: California, the Southwest and Florida.