jam40jeff

I hate the exurbs as much as you, but the foreclosure problem is both in cities and the suburbs. It is not just because a bunch of people bought huge McMansions they couldn't afford. Besides, not everyone can afford a fixxer-upper. You may get a lower price on the home, but there are usually serious issues which need to be corrected before the house is livable and violation-free. For someone that has just put a lot of their purchasing power into obtaining a home loan, how are they supposed to come up with the capital to fix the house up?

OK, so I lied about no more posting (much to the chagrin of the mods). Thanks, MTS, Aisle 2 cured my pissiness. (By the way, I was attempting to stop as I could feel the frustration of the day building, it had very little to do with this trhead but other things going on at work, so no I am not taking anything personal here.) I would take it even further and say that some pretty intelligent people were duped, especially people that had never lived on their own, or never owned a house before, or both. Many of these people didn't buy a house for what the bank told them. They may have bought a house for half what the bank told them, when in reality the bank gave them a value 3 times what they can afford. Trusting the number the bank tells you is one thing (and probably not the best idea, although I'd hesitate to call someone stupid for believing the lender), but believeing YOUR ESTIMATES when they come out to a value half of what the bank told you is hardly stupid. So a lender tells you you can afford a $200k house. You buy a $100k house and really can only afford $80k because you didn't anticipate medical expenses, house repairs, how much you'll spend to maintain the house, etc. Add to that that many of these people may not be able to find a better job or may have lost their job altogether, and that they can't refinance because the value of their house has plummeted below the principal they owe on the home (or at least low enough that the bank won't refinance) and you can see how a lot of honest, intelligent people may have gotten into trouble. I will reiterate that there were of course some greedy people, and they deserve blame. There were most assuredly a good amount of stupid people as well, and they deserve some blame. But in every case, the banks KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING to these people, regardless of whether the people realized it or not. That is what makes them culpable in my book. Here's an example: If someone tricks a person who is mentally retarded into doing something most people would know not to do, who would you blame? The same can be said here. Of course people with IQs well above 60 were duped, but the point is that the situation was difficult to plan for and comprehend, even for some fairly intelligent people. Is it right to blame people who didn't understand what they were getting into when they were being pushed by people who DID understand what they were pushing these people into and did it anyway?

Perkins was effective in keeping him from getting an angle to the basket and forcing him to shoot tough 12 foot hook shots over him. I don't think Z is quick enough or strong enough to do this, Anderson is not strong enough or tall enough, and Ben is not tall enough.

I don't blame them for it all. I blame them for a lot of it though. Is everything all or nothing with you? I never said nobody had the bigger is better bug. I never said all of the blame was on the banks. I just can't get on the "all people losing their houses were greedy idiots" bandwagon. EDIT: And with this post I will retire from this thread for the day. I am in a super-pissy mood and I am sure I will unnecessarily offend someone with my tone if I post any longer. I still stand by the principle of what I have posted, however.

Then we may need to make use of D. Jackson and all 6 of his fouls then. I would be completely fine with Howard going to the line 20 times and making his 50% there. I'm not sure we have enough players on the bench for that strategy. :)

It's not about not having a job. Those aren't the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about the people that have a job and aren't perfectly sure what mortgage they can afford. It's even harder to guess whether you are being conservative enough on your estimate when the bank is giving you outrageous numbers to compare against (especially before it was widely publicized how unscrupulous they were being). The "no job mortagees" are used to justify all of this the same way "welfare queens" were used to justify bashing public assistance. They are a small minority of people who are in trouble with their mortgages. Of course some mortgagees were dishonest, ignorant, or just flat out stupid signing these mortgages. But there were also intelligent people who really thought they could afford the mortgage (especially first-time home buyers) that were duped into buying a little more than they really could afford, especially if some unexpected expenses came their way. The banks know the most about what people can and cannot realistically afford, much moreso than people who have never owned a home before. That is why I place most of the blame on them.

They get open 3's when we have to double down on Howard to prevent his 20/15 from becoming 45/20. We just don't have anybody that can handle him like Perkins was able to. That's why he worries me.

let it go or do something. If it bothers you that much do something! Maybe he already has! Do you really think Charles is going to change what he says based on a couple letters or emails from peons from Cleveland? We aren't all as powerful as you.

I agree that a lack of personal responsibility is the cause of a lot of the current problems. However, I think you severely downplay the role (and fault of) the greed of banks played in causing this crisis. In any given field there are people who do it for a living and others who only have to deal with it on occasion. You can't expect those who buy a house a couple times in their life to be experts in the field like the bankers who do it for a living, just the same as you can't expect someone to go to court and defend themselves against someone employing a lawyer whose job is to win cases. It's a lot like car repairs. Would you expect every single person to know as much about their car as an auto mechanic? Should each person be called irresponsible and an idiot if they took their car to a mechanic and the mechanic damaged their car in the long run? Should they have known the problem with their car and been able to figure out that the mechanic did something wrong even if it wasn't immediately apparent? There needs to be some protection against professionals duping the lay in a given field. Not everybody can be an expert in everything. EDIT: And when I talk about people being duped, I'm talking about banks telling you you can afford something two to three times what you really can. I bought a house for less than half of what the bank told me I could afford, and still wouldn't have been able to afford it had I not gotten a better job after I bought the house. I had run all the calculations and thought I could afford it, and even though i knew the bank was full of crap, when they throw these outrageously high numbers atg you and tell you they won't sell you something you can't afford, etc., etc., even when you know they're full of it deep down it makes you feel a little better that your own (seemingly conservative) estimate is fine.

It's not that they think their purses will be safe, it's that they're drunk enough that the thought doesn't even cross their mind as to whether or not it's safe to leave their purse unattended, it's just the easiest thing to do at the moment.

http://ilp.nba.com/?aff=994da1ac-5f96-4084-9472-4af05ed4b78d It's worth it! It's the playoffs with the best Cavs team in history!

sperated?

Brad Daugherty, bah! I never liked that marshmallow. As soft as Z. Larry Nance and Mark Price made that team.

While I was still in college I worked part time helping to write software used in medicine for automatically analyzing digital imagery to detect medical problems. They definitely benefited from paying me a super low hourly wage to get some quality work from me! :)

I'm a Really Smart Dude and I agree with punch as well.

The Amtrak station in Cleveland is right next to Cleveland Browns Stadium.

First sentence question, second one statement? It's too early in the morning to confuse us MTS! :-P

What was defending Kobe yesterday? :)

Ditto, while I agree the credibility is possibly as questionable as a Forbes list, it is nice to have low credibility polls that shed a favorable light on Cleveland to counteract the ones that do the opposite since many people do buy into these things as being truth.

Mark Bradley owned FOX 8.

You really butchered that one, Mayor. :)

So you would agree, you people, need a little color but going to a tanning salon is overkill? YOU PEOPLE?!?!?! :-P Yes, but I guess I can't speak for people that are very light. I get tan pretty easily, and just being outside for normal activity in the summer gives me a decent tan. I never purposely try to tan, but that might just be because I don't need to. Even if I was very light and didn't tan easily, I can't imagine it being that important to endanger myself doing it.

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,7006.msg390750.html#msg390750 I agree it can be difficult to find things sometimes, especially for a new forumer that hasn't gotten acclimated to where things are and how they're organized yet. Welcome to the forum.

No.

I read through that thread as well and it seemed as though he was being complimentary of Cleveland (at least in part) due to the fact that he had been called out for saying some really bad things about the city previously. (At leastg based on some other comments it seemed that was the case.)