Sumorani.... i have seen a lot of people buy average town homes and are unable to afford them.... not everyone is going bankrupt due to buying luxury houses they could not afford.... i have seen a lot of people go through this and are struggling, paying for an average sized house on 3 average incomes comming in....
... they cant even refinance cuz the value of their house has gone done due to the economy....
actually the crisis hasnt come coz people bought homes beyond their means ..
The crisis has actually hit us coz the "credit" dried up at the economy level ... the investment banks invested in many high risk deals... when credit dries up , you cant find buyers ...all their credit is blocked in Forex /properties ... they MUST sell some of their investments to get the ball rolling ... but cant find any buyers, now they want the government to buy their failed investments, to get some cash in hand , the government will only be able to do that with the taxpayers cash !
and ultimately businesses require some degree of credit , when they arent able to get, it which means they only have to resort on the cash in hand ... hence the pressure ...
when thier business gets limited and profits get hit , they end up making job cuts ... and job cuts = not being able to pay for the mortgage ...
hence we say its the bankers fault!
PS .. its the banks responsiblity to keep a check on how much they can lend to the public or the businesses ...
To general public, bankers were presenting a golden opportunity .... it was the bankers responsibility to know where they had to stop the lending ... they should have refused when they were giving out 90% mortages etc ...even though the risk of getting that back from the customer might be slight .. why take the risk !