It’s impossible not to turn on the news lately and not listen to the breathless reportage of the problems within the mortgage industry. Of course, it’s a CRISIS now and WE MUST DO SOMETHING. Quite naturally in the America, the land of growing government, the something we need to do is get the government involved.

This is what is termed “unintended consequences”, folks, because it was only a short time ago that the same breathless reportage was prating on about how the mortgage industry was unfairly restricting access to mortgages for the poor, the minorities, etc. And just as naturally, our Congress, ever happy to pander to anyone with a vote, figured that they could just jack around with the mortgage industry and subtly induce them, via the sledgehammer of Federal law, to go out and change time-honored standards so that mortgages were available to people who, for various reasons, weren’t quite up to the standards of mortgages under the old rules.

Remember Ronald Reagan’s words? “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”

Chickens, meet roost.

I got news for you, people. A lot of people who weren’t good enough credit risks to rate a mortgage under the old system, well, they got mortgages under the new system, and the fact that now they had a home and a mortgage to pay did NOT (surprise!!!) turn them into fiscally responsible citizens who would SUDDENLY begin making good financial decisions.

So now, that single mom who was raising kids in an apartment, she’s got a house of her own. And she can’t make the house note, and the utilities, and the car note, and the groceries. And unlike the apartment, when something breaks in her house, SHE has to get it fixed… And she’s still making the wrong decisions. Instead of running a couple of years more with the old car, there’s this sleek NEW one… and she’s GOT to have a cellphone, and a new TV, etc., etc., and then the end of the month comes and the income is a whole lot less than the outgo, even with WIC helping out on the groceries and CHIP helping with the kids’ medical expenses. And a couple of cartons of cigarettes a week, well, that’s a NEED and so the mortgage doesn’t get paid and somehow that’s the NATION’S FAULT, or it’s (New BUZZWORD Alert) the result of PREDATORY LENDING.

Yeah, that’s it, PREDATORY LENDING! Like EVERY big financial institution is just going out there and grabbing our poor and disadvantaged (and stupid) and threatening their lives so they’ll borrow money for a new home. Just so said PREDATORY LENDING institution can wait until the poor and disadvantaged (and stupid) stop making payments so that the PREDATORY LENDING institution can foreclose and take ownership of some house trashed out by a bunch of people who couldn’t manage their finances in the first place.

No, bunky, the lending institutions HOPED they’d make money. They only make money when people who BORROW the money actually PAY the money back. And for every one of those poor and disadvantaged (and stupid) who’s in trouble and about to go under, there are dozens who took advantage of the situation and actually DID become home owners and made the right decisions and are enjoying a better situation in life. I know some of these people.

But just like hurricane victims, responsible people who take advantage of a boost to better themselves, those people don’t make the news…

And the news people, they NEED a crisis just like a skanky ho NEEDS another rock of crack… So we have a mortgage crisis…