well, if they'd gambled on the stock market rising eternally too, would you bail out their 401K's?
Please explain how a mortgage instrument (typical holding time: 7 years) and an investment instrument (typical holding time: 35+ years) have anything to do with each other.
Because so far, the only logic I'm seeing as to why homeowners should be bailed out is because (due to the fall in house prices) they can't simply sell. If we're going to propose a bailout of homeowners because their asset lost value, I want to know why we don't propose the same for other classes of assets. I dunno about you, but the beating my house price has taken in the last year is less than the beating my 401K has taken in the last month.
Re: middle ground
Please explain how a mortgage instrument (typical holding time: 7 years) and an investment instrument (typical holding time: 35+ years) have anything to do with each other.
Because so far, the only logic I'm seeing as to why homeowners should be bailed out is because (due to the fall in house prices) they can't simply sell. If we're going to propose a bailout of homeowners because their asset lost value, I want to know why we don't propose the same for other classes of assets. I dunno about you, but the beating my house price has taken in the last year is less than the beating my 401K has taken in the last month.