The Big Short (2015)

elidib said:

yep. ITT: poor people be stupid!

in reality: you pay 800/mo rent for a shitty apartment, apply for a bank loan for a pretty nice home and are approved. monthly payment: $750. somewhere down the line, you have a car emergency, health issue, major home repair that needs to be done, or lose your job which wipes out your bank account and sends you into the "payday loan just to pay bills until i get paid" spiral.

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Well, no. It was take on a loan with a $1000/mo payment for a "dream" house way bigger than their shitty $800/mo apartment. Live happily ever after... for 3-5 years until their first ARM rate adjustment. Suddenly their payment is $1400/mo and woops I can't afford $1400/mo!!!!

As to the posters who blanket mock people who were taken for a ride...

Should they have known better? Yes. But like most things in life there SHOULD be some expectation that the industry "experts" (shady mortgage brokers in this case) who know better than you what the inner workings of a deal like this are, have some modicum of decency and integrity. It's easy for many people to get taken in situations like this. No different than everyone that SHOULD know better when they take their car in for a fix if their mechanic is a lying sack of shit doing unnecessary work and upcharging them. Yet...

Big Phoenix said:

I like how this movie all but ignores for 5 seconds(and even then acts like the stripper was being taken advantage of) the fact people buying homes where just as culpable in the housing market crash as the people selling homes and servicing mortgages.

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That's all there is to it. The only people I know who got screwed on houses are people who let themselves get screwed. Bad credit? Sub prime loan with ARM? GUESS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU.

Khane said:

Well, no. It was take on a loan with a $1000/mo payment for a "dream" house way bigger than their shitty $800/mo apartment. Live happily ever after... for 3-5 years until their first ARM rate adjustment. Suddenly their payment is $1400/mo and woops I can't afford $1400/mo!!!!

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Fucker said:

That's all there is to it. The only people I know who got screwed on houses are people who let themselves get screwed. Bad credit? Sub prime loan with ARM? GUESS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU.

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One of the original purposes of those loans was for people with bad credit that were still good risks to get another shot. You get the thing, pay it for a couple years, credit score improves, refinance. In the early 2000s those loans were heavily outperforming expectations. The demand for the related financial products went up. Duetche Bank loved 'em. This is of course before the "just show up and sign your name" era of Countrywide style home loans. This was when things were still mostly legitimate.

Fucker said:

That's all there is to it. The only people I know who got screwed on houses are people who let themselves get screwed. Bad credit? Sub prime loan with ARM? GUESS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU.

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Hindsight is 20/20. People who never even considered mortgages previously were being solicited endlessly with promises that these ARM rate adjustments would never amount to much, AND PROBABLY WOULD GO DOWN! What happened with those loans had never happened before, they would have just listened to the ridiculous advice of their parents. "Buying a home is always a good investment!" sound familiar?

Plenty of people who actually did know better gambled like morons anyway. But plenty of people expected they weren't being straight up lied to by charlatans masquerading as bankers and mortgage brokers.

That's another weird bit, the mailbox just filling up on the daily with offers for free money. Shockingly if you bait the trap enough times with enough Benjamins the mice will eventually go for it.

Arbitrary said:

There was a nontrivial amount of out and out fraud as well with a heaping helping of it during the fraudclosure aftermath.

I have some sympathy for the regular people but of course everyone is responsible for the decisions that they make. Practical mathematics isn't really a part of many people's education. I went decent schools in decent areas in a decent state and the amount of time devoted to sound financial advice, credit card math, mortgage math and the like is close to zero. While we're not educating students on this stuff what we are teaching them are all the ugly bits of American consumerism wrapped up in the American Dream of Home Ownership.

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I don't have sympathy for them because it was my family in the 80s. In the mid 80s my lower middle class parents bought a house they could barely afford and lost it less than 5 years later when the electric workers union benched my dad for several months. They saved no money because they were living beyond their means. I suppose I am grateful for living through that as it has assured my family will never be in that situation, but it also makes me unsympathetic to the plight of the whiny, pitiful poor schtick. I remember growing up with no money, parents getting divorced due to money and personality clashes, having the church deliver sacks of food because we couldn't buy groceries, and eating damaged Jenny Craig meals because that was the only food in the house since my mom worked there and got to take home the damages stuff for free. I remember it so well that I was absolutely certain I would never live like that again once I could do anything about it. I busted my ass to make sure that it came true, and if a poor ass kid from Oklahoma can do it then there isn't a reason anyone else can't do it either. That is triply true these days since the internet has enough information to allow even the stupidest people to access step by step guides on how to get out of debt and stay out of debt. After that, it is all caring enough to succeed.

Arbitrary said:

That's another weird bit, the mailbox just filling up on the daily with offers for free money. Shockingly if you bait the trap enough times with enough Benjamins the mice will eventually go for it.

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This sleazy shit has been happening for at least the last 5 years with reverse mortgages targeting the elderly. I can't believe that shit is legal.

Anyone who feels sorry for someone who agrees to a 30 year mortgage without understanding what variable interest rates or balloon payments are is a moron

Yeah, thinking about it more sympathy is the wrong word. I've been in more foreclosed homes/estates than most and I'm not sure I can think of any that I actually felt bad for. Let's go with empathy. I can appreciate that some people went through some hard shit on a human to human level. Sisyphus may have been a fuck but pushing a boulder up a hill forever still sucks the root.

Khane said:

Well, no. It was take on a loan with a $1000/mo payment for a "dream" house way bigger than their shitty $800/mo apartment. Live happily ever after... for 3-5 years until their first ARM rate adjustment. Suddenly their payment is $1400/mo and woops I can't afford $1400/mo!!!!

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But don't worry, in 3-5 years your home will have doubled in value so you can just sell and make a hefty profit!

Yeah all parties share blame, but one side is ignorant while the other was malicious