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Are you morally obligated to repay a loan that you take?[W:461]

Is there a moral obligation to repay money you borrow?

  • If you borrow money, you are morally obligated to repay it.

    Votes: 91 92.9%

  • I feel no moral obligation to repay loans I've taken out

    Votes: 7 7.1%
  • Total voters
    98
Papa bull said:
These bankruptcies were the foundation of the financial crisis and subsequent "great recession". We ALL paid for these defaults.
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No, no, no... Bankruptcies have nothing to do with the recession. Some on the right argue that US borrowers taking out overly large mortgages and then being unable to pay them played some role in the recession, but most economists don't consider that one of the major causes at all. Keep in mind that the recession was global, so nothing that occurred only in the US is likely to be a primary cause. The reason that whole mortgage line is popular in a certain segment of the population in the US has more to do with the fact that they prefer to spin the recession as somehow being poor people's fault when obviously that is pretty absurd that poor people would somehow trash an economy almost entirely controlled by rich people.
 
Re: Are you morally obligated to repay a loan that you take?

I spent 20 years working as a loan collector for people who did not accept non payment for any reason. I had no problem with my conscience either because IMO when you take someone's money and promise to pay it back the contract is written in blood. "If you can't do the time don't do the crime".
 
tuhaybey said:
No, no, no... Bankruptcies have nothing to do with the recession. Some on the right argue that US borrowers taking out overly large mortgages and then being unable to pay them played some role in the recession, but most economists don't consider that one of the major causes at all. Keep in mind that the recession was global, so nothing that occurred only in the US is likely to be a primary cause. The reason that whole mortgage line is popular in a certain segment of the population in the US has more to do with the fact that they prefer to spin the recession as somehow being poor people's fault when obviously that is pretty absurd that poor people would somehow trash an economy almost entirely controlled by rich people.
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The huge financial crisis that spawned this recession wasn't the fault of poor people. It was the fault of deadbeats. Millions and millions of them. Some were poor and some weren't.
 
Papa bull said:
The huge financial crisis that spawned this recession wasn't the fault of poor people. It was the fault of deadbeats. Millions and millions of them. Some were poor and some weren't.
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Again, no, that is false, as I explained.
 
tuhaybey said:
Again, no, that is false, as I explained.
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Denial doesn't explain anything: Massive Foreclosures Continue to Fuel Recession

Denial is just denial.

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entral Cause of Credit Market and Economic Woes Gains Momentum
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jesse Van Tol (202) 464-2709
April 16, 2009 jvantol@ncrc.org
Massive Foreclosures Continue to Fuel Recession
Central Cause of Credit Market and Economic Woes Gains Momentum
Washington, DC – Mounting foreclosure numbers released today reinforce the reality that the economic crisis gripping the nation is far from over. In March, more than 340,000 homes fell into foreclosure according to Realty Trac, a 46% increase from March 2008. Foreclosures are, and have been, the epicenter of the collapse of the housing and credit markets and overall economy. Throughout 2007 and 2008, forecasts saw a near-term bottoming out of the nation’s economic woes, only to be contradicted by the reality that the credit markets and economy will continue to sour until the foreclosure crisis abates.

President Obama recently unveiled the most comprehensive and aggressive foreclosure prevention program to date, the Making Home Affordable Program (MHAP). But, the possible effects of MHAP on foreclosures are not yet known since it is not yet fully operational. Several programmatic aspects of the plan are being re-examined and possibly refined. These issues include, but are not limited to, providing better guidance on the treatment of second liens and unaffordable loan principal balances, interest rate increases after the first five years of loan modification, protection of servicers from possible law suits when performing loan modifications and the voluntary nature of the program from the perspective of investors.
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Papa bull said:
Denial doesn't explain anything: Massive Foreclosures Continue to Fuel Recession

Denial is just denial.
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That is about foreclosures, not defaults. They're arguing that banks need to be stopped from foreclosing, which I would certainly agree they should have been at least until the recession abated a bit.

Anyways, they aren't saying foreclosures are the cause of the recession, they say that they are one of the things prolonging the recession, which I would agree with.

Don't just assume you know what caused the recession based on what you heard on talk radio or conservative blogs or whatever. Obviously they're going to come up with some kind of "the little guy did it" explanation when the big guys do something wrong, right? That doesn't make it so.
 
tuhaybey said:
That is about foreclosures, not defaults. They're arguing that banks need to be stopped from foreclosing, which I would certainly agree they should have been at least until the recession abated a bit.

Anyways, they aren't saying foreclosures are the cause of the recession, they say that they are one of the things prolonging the recession, which I would agree with.

Don't just assume you know what caused the recession based on what you heard on talk radio or conservative blogs or whatever. Obviously they're going to come up with some kind of "the little guy did it" explanation when the big guys do something wrong, right? That doesn't make it so.
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Wow. The denial is strong with you. Even putting it in bold, highlighted text from a source liberals should trust didn't stop the denial.
 
Papa bull said:
Wow. The denial is strong with you. Even putting it in bold, highlighted text from a source liberals should trust didn't stop the denial.
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Re-read your source. It is saying what I explained.
 
tuhaybey said:
Re-read your source. It is saying what I explained.
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What part of this are you unable to comprehend:

"Foreclosures are, and have been, the epicenter of the collapse of the housing and credit markets and overall economy."

Tell me which big words are confusing you and I'll see if I can help you understand what they mean.
 
Papa bull said:
Wow. The denial is strong with you. Even putting it in bold, highlighted text from a source liberals should trust didn't stop the denial.
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Your source is like 5 years old. What applied in 2009 may not be applicable in 2015 as far as the economy goes.

“The most effective preventative vaccine for the blight caused by vacant, abandoned foreclosures has proven to be a short and efficient foreclosure process,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Meanwhile, markets with lengthy and lengthening foreclosure timelines have unintentionally created a zombie foreclosure breeding ground.As we see a backlog of delayed distress finally hit the foreclosure pipeline in some of those markets, the problem is coming more to light.” Zombie Foreclosures Still A Problem in Many States | Mortgage Blog | Mortgage Information & Tips | Mortgage101 Blog
 
Declan said:
Your source is like 5 years old. What applied in 2009 may not be applicable in 2015 as far as the economy goes.

“The most effective preventative vaccine for the blight caused by vacant, abandoned foreclosures has proven to be a short and efficient foreclosure process,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Meanwhile, markets with lengthy and lengthening foreclosure timelines have unintentionally created a zombie foreclosure breeding ground.As we see a backlog of delayed distress finally hit the foreclosure pipeline in some of those markets, the problem is coming more to light.” Zombie Foreclosures Still A Problem in Many States | Mortgage Blog | Mortgage Information & Tips | Mortgage101 Blog
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LOL!!!!!! The cause of the financial crisis didn't change. Mortgage defaults (and the subsequent foreclosures) caused a financial implosion and a lot of them were these "strategic defaults" where unethical people with no character shrugged their shoulders and walked away from their upside down mortgages, leaving everyone else stuck with the losses.

Mortgage defaults were, in fact, the epicenter of this financial crisis.
 
Papa bull said:
LOL!!!!!! The cause of the financial crisis didn't change. Mortgage defaults (and the subsequent foreclosures) caused a financial implosion and a lot of them were these "strategic defaults" where unethical people with no character shrugged their shoulders and walked away from their upside down mortgages, leaving everyone else stuck with the losses.

Mortgage defaults were, in fact, the epicenter of this financial crisis.
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No they weren't. They were a primary symptom of it because of the credit crunch that followed the housing bubble burst because the banks themselves were so heavily invested in mortgagees that they could not exchange them for liquidity in the shadow banking system whether the mortgages were in good standing or not. This was a global crisis and it was not caused by a few "strategic defaults"
 
Declan said:
No they weren't. They were a primary symptom of it because of the credit crunch that followed the housing bubble burst because the banks themselves were so heavily invested in mortgagees that they could not exchange them for liquidity in the shadow banking system whether the mortgages were in good standing or not. This was a global crisis and it was not caused by a few "strategic defaults"
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I can only shake my head and wonder how in the world you could possibly assume that the flood of mortgage defaults that fueled the financial crisis as mortgage backed securities became worthless were actually just a symptom of the financial crisis instead of the cause. You are basically trying to assert that people defaulted on their mortgages because the banks were heavily invested in them. How much the banks were invested in mortgages had no bearing whatsoever on whether Joe Blow, you or anyone else was going to stop making mortgage payments.

Stats showed that, on average, foreclosures occurred on people that hadn't made a mortgage payment in over 500 days. That's about a year and a half of living free rent at the expense of the mortgage company and ultimately everyone else in the country as the losses spread around and we all shared the pain. There's not much difference between that and outright stealing.
 
Papa bull said:
The huge financial crisis that spawned this recession wasn't the fault of poor people. It was the fault of deadbeats. Millions and millions of them. Some were poor and some weren't.
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Sure, and the lenders who begged deadbeats to take the loans, raked off billions in bonuses and profits, sold AAA rated dog crap all over the globe, had no role in it....

If you stand on a street corner begging poor deadbeats to take liar, NINJA, 110% of equity, ARM, loans from you, you'll have an unlimited number of takers. When they go bad, it's YOUR fault.
 
JasperL said:
Sure, and the lenders who begged deadbeats to take the loans, raked off billions in bonuses and profits, sold AAA rated dog crap all over the globe, had no role in it....
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They didn't borrow money and refuse to pay it back. You can blame them, TOO, but you can't honestly argue that they're more to blame for the implosion caused by all those defaults than the people who actually defaulted on their loans. Personal responsibility really doesn't mean anything to you at all, does it?
 
Papa bull said:
I can only shake my head and wonder how in the world you could possibly assume that the flood of mortgage defaults that fueled the financial crisis as mortgage backed securities became worthless were actually just a symptom of the financial crisis instead of the cause. You are basically trying to assert that people defaulted on their mortgages because the banks were heavily invested in them. How much the banks were invested in mortgages had no bearing whatsoever on whether Joe Blow, you or anyone else was going to stop making mortgage payments.

Stats showed that, on average, foreclosures occurred on people that hadn't made a mortgage payment in over 500 days. That's about a year and a half of living free rent at the expense of the mortgage company and ultimately everyone else in the country as the losses spread around and we all shared the pain. There's not much difference between that and outright stealing.
Click to expand...

The foreclosures you're whining about were an inevitable consequence of a massive, global housing and debt bubble. It was never possible for those loans to be paid back or for the housing values to remain in the stratosphere, totally unhinged from the income required to support those bubble prices. So the cause was the bubble - the only question is whether the bursting would happen quickly or less quickly.

Besides, what you're arguing is a bunch of deadbeat borrowers are capable of bringing down the world financial system. Just to state the premise is to laugh at it. That kind of excuse wouldn't work for a used car lot.

Credit Manager: Sorry boss, we're bankrupt. A bunch of deadbeats decided not to repay their car loans.
Boss: Did you check their credit?
CM: Sort of.
Boss: What kind of down payment did they make.
CM: None - it was a great way to sell lots of cars!! Had em lined up around the block!
Boss: We'll just repossess the cars and sell them. How bad can the losses be?
CM: Well, we valued them at new car prices - made more money on each loan that way!! So we'll only get half or less of the loan amount...
 
JasperL said:
The foreclosures you're whining about were an inevitable consequence of a massive, global housing and debt bubble. It was never possible for those loans to be paid back or for the housing values to remain in the stratosphere, totally unhinged from the income required to support those bubble prices. So the cause was the bubble - the only question is whether the bursting would happen quickly or less quickly.

Besides, what you're arguing is a bunch of deadbeat borrowers are capable of bringing down the world financial system. Just to state the premise is to laugh at it. That kind of excuse wouldn't work for a used car lot.

Credit Manager: Sorry boss, we're bankrupt. A bunch of deadbeats decided not to repay their car loans.
Boss: Did you check their credit?
CM: Sort of.
Boss: What kind of down payment did they make.
CM: None - it was a great way to sell lots of cars!! Had em lined up around the block!
Boss: We'll just repossess the cars and sell them. How bad can the losses be?
CM: Well, we valued them at new car prices - made more money on each loan that way!! So we'll only get half or less of the loan amount...
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There wouldn't have been a financial crisis if there wasn't an avalanche of borrowers defaulting on their mortgages. But since you have no use for the concept of personal responsibility, you can't imagine how we could hold the millions of deadbeats that defaulted on their loans responsible for the economic crash that caused. That would be expecting people to be personally responsible. Can't be having that, huh? Your utter contempt for personal responsibility is noted. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
 
Papa bull said:
They didn't borrow money and refuse to pay it back. You can blame them, TOO, but you can't honestly argue that they're more to blame for the implosion caused by all those defaults than the people who actually defaulted on their loans. Personal responsibility really doesn't mean anything to you at all, does it?
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Of course I can because it's the lender's job to extend loans to persons who can repay it, and to secure adequate security if they don't, and to protect the shareholders from inevitable loan losses - maintain adequate reserves. The problem is lenders thought they'd found a magic way to eliminate the risk of lending massive sums to people with dodgy credit, and they ramped up leverage, 30 or 40-1, raked off billions in profits and bonuses, and found out that in fact the general wisdom of the ages was still correct - making loans to deadbeats on bubble housing values is HIGHLY risky.
 
JasperL said:
Of course I can because it's the lender's job to extend loans to persons who can repay it, and to secure adequate security if they don't, and to protect the shareholders from inevitable loan losses - maintain adequate reserves. The problem is lenders thought they'd found a magic way to eliminate the risk of lending massive sums to people with dodgy credit, and they ramped up leverage, 30 or 40-1, raked off billions in profits and bonuses, and found out that in fact the general wisdom of the ages was still correct - making loans to deadbeats on bubble housing values is HIGHLY risky.
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Like I said, your liberal contempt for the concept of personal responsibility is on display. It's a philosophical difference between us that makes it impossible to agree on this. You want to hold all the people who shrugged their shoulders and walked out on their obligations harmless. I know they caused a whole lot of suffering for a whole lot of people because it profited them to bail on their personal obligations, undertaken legally and willingly. Here's to me and f*** you. It's the liberal mantra, it seems.
 
Papa bull said:
There wouldn't have been a financial crisis if there wasn't an avalanche of borrowers defaulting on their mortgages. But since you have no use for the concept of personal responsibility, you can't imagine how we could hold the millions of deadbeats that defaulted on their loans responsible for the economic crash that caused. That would be expecting people to be personally responsible. Can't be having that, huh? Your utter contempt for personal responsibility is noted. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
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There wouldn't have been a financial crisis without a WORLDWIDE debt and housing bubble. When that collapsed the defaults were inevitable.

And what I'm doing is placing the "personal responsibility" burden on the lenders. It is their JOB to make good loans, get adequate security, to decent credit risks, with an adequate loss reserve. If you're a lender depending on "personal responsibility" of strangers with dodgy credit and no history of repaying loans that require maybe half their paycheck each month, on housing prices maybe double historical averages based on income, etc. you're an idiot and when your bank fails, look in the dang mirror.
 
Papa bull said:
There wouldn't have been a financial crisis if there wasn't an avalanche of borrowers defaulting on their mortgages. But since you have no use for the concept of personal responsibility, you can't imagine how we could hold the millions of deadbeats that defaulted on their loans responsible for the economic crash that caused. That would be expecting people to be personally responsible. Can't be having that, huh? Your utter contempt for personal responsibility is noted. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
Click to expand...

People couldn't have "strategically" defaulted on the loans when the market was rising. It was only after the system was collapsing that there would have been any strategy to the defaults. While I agree that people should pay their bills--I wouldn't have defaulted if I were underwater during all that as a choice--you are putting the cart before the horse on this aspect of the Great Recession.
 
Papa bull said:
I can only shake my head and wonder how in the world you could possibly assume that the flood of mortgage defaults that fueled the financial crisis as mortgage backed securities became worthless were actually just a symptom of the financial crisis instead of the cause. You are basically trying to assert that people defaulted on their mortgages because the banks were heavily invested in them. How much the banks were invested in mortgages had no bearing whatsoever on whether Joe Blow, you or anyone else was going to stop making mortgage payments.

Stats showed that, on average, foreclosures occurred on people that hadn't made a mortgage payment in over 500 days. That's about a year and a half of living free rent at the expense of the mortgage company and ultimately everyone else in the country as the losses spread around and we all shared the pain. There's not much difference between that and outright stealing.
Click to expand...

"Stats showed that, on average, foreclosures occurred on people that hadn't made a mortgage payment in over 500 days. "

You're getting attacked left and right, and yet you're the only one who keeps posting things that are true and that nobody else seems to know.
 
Papa bull said:
Like I said, your liberal contempt for the concept of personal responsibility is on display. It's a philosophical difference between us that makes it impossible to agree on this. You want to hold all the people who shrugged their shoulders and walked out on their obligations harmless. I know they caused a whole lot of suffering for a whole lot of people because it profited them to bail on their personal obligations, undertaken legally and willingly. Here's to me and f*** you. It's the liberal mantra, it seems.
Click to expand...

We might be able to agree there's a middle ground here, but you've proved unwilling to lay any but the most incidental blame on the people in charge of making loans to these people.

I'd love to be a lender with you as a boss. I would extend loans to anyone who walked in my door, make record bonuses, and when all my borrowers started defaulting, blame it on them and you'd believe me. It would really be a dream job. And the thing is, that's how the system worked during the bubble. The bosses and the system as a whole literally showered lenders like me with record bonuses, lenders whose ONLY concern was closing any loan that could possibly fit into the "hold your nose and stamp approved" box, and when that wouldn't work, the lenders fudged the numbers until the loan DID fit into the box.

That's the people who get no blame in your world. It's really amazing.
 
JasperL said:
There wouldn't have been a financial crisis without a WORLDWIDE debt and housing bubble. When that collapsed the defaults were inevitable.

And what I'm doing is placing the "personal responsibility" burden on the lenders. It is their JOB to make good loans, get adequate security, to decent credit risks, with an adequate loss reserve. If you're a lender depending on "personal responsibility" of strangers with dodgy credit and no history of repaying loans that require maybe half their paycheck each month, on housing prices maybe double historical averages based on income, etc. you're an idiot and when your bank fails, look in the dang mirror.
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Right.... and it's not the borrower's job to repay loans they took willingly and freely.... Like I said, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
 
Declan said:
People couldn't have "strategically" defaulted on the loans when the market was rising. It was only after the system was collapsing that there would have been any strategy to the defaults. While I agree that people should pay their bills--I wouldn't have defaulted if I were underwater during all that as a choice--you are putting the cart before the horse on this aspect of the Great Recession.
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Declan - nobody faced foreclosure because they were underwater. In fact, you can be seriously underwater and still continue to live in your home for many years until the value increases while the principal balance decreases.
 
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