The Class War We Need
By ROSS DOUTHAT
NYT
The rich are different from you and me. They know how to game the system.
That’s one interpretation, at least, of last week’s news that Americans with million-dollar mortgages are defaulting at almost twice the rate of the typical homeowner. It suggests an infuriating scenario in which the average American slaves away to keep Wells Fargo or Bank of America off his back, while fat cats and high fliers cut their losses and sail off to the next investment opportunity.
That isn’t exactly what’s happening, most likely. Just because you have a million-dollar mortgage doesn’t make you a millionaire, and a lot of the fat-cat defaulters probably aren’t that fat anymore. Chances are they’re more like Teresa and Joe Giudice from “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” tacky reality-TV climbers who recently filed for bankruptcy after their decadent lifestyle turned out to be a debt-enabled fantasy.
Still, watching the Giudices sashay through their onyx-encrusted mansion, and knowing that thousands of similarly profligate homeowners are simply walking away from their debts, it’s easy to succumb to a little class-warrior fantasizing. (Pitchforks, tar, feathers ... that sort of thing.)
(More here.)
NYT
The rich are different from you and me. They know how to game the system.
That’s one interpretation, at least, of last week’s news that Americans with million-dollar mortgages are defaulting at almost twice the rate of the typical homeowner. It suggests an infuriating scenario in which the average American slaves away to keep Wells Fargo or Bank of America off his back, while fat cats and high fliers cut their losses and sail off to the next investment opportunity.
That isn’t exactly what’s happening, most likely. Just because you have a million-dollar mortgage doesn’t make you a millionaire, and a lot of the fat-cat defaulters probably aren’t that fat anymore. Chances are they’re more like Teresa and Joe Giudice from “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” tacky reality-TV climbers who recently filed for bankruptcy after their decadent lifestyle turned out to be a debt-enabled fantasy.
Still, watching the Giudices sashay through their onyx-encrusted mansion, and knowing that thousands of similarly profligate homeowners are simply walking away from their debts, it’s easy to succumb to a little class-warrior fantasizing. (Pitchforks, tar, feathers ... that sort of thing.)
(More here.)
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