
The free money offered during the housing bubble turned many good people into thieves. People are basically honest and will do the right thing if given the chance; however, people are also opportunistic, and if encouraged and enabled to steal, many ordinarily good people will go down the wrong path: Lenders led many astray. During the housing bubble, lenders were desperate to loan money in what they thought were low-risk, high yielding investments. The advertising to entice homeowners to become loanowners was both effective and too-good-to-be-true. The housing bubble turned many good people into thieves. Most were petty thieves who merely gamed the system to get free money. This same group now feels completely justified asking for principal reduction as…[READ MORE]