Thank you Mr. Dobbin for sounding this alarm. All around me I'm seeing the fallout from this reprehensible scheme: families on the verge of collapse due to the persistent stress (psychic, emotional, health and wellbeing, financial, etc.) resulting from the maintenance of an impossible mortgage during such uncertain economic times. As for the workplace, the condition is obvious: jobs are being lost, with no sign of relief. Very few new opportunities are available, and most of the work that is available pays minimum wage up to twelve dollars an hour. One can hardly maintain rent on that allowance, yet alone a mortgage.

A conservative thinker will maintain that, like smokers, these people brought it on to themselves. They shopped for the house, they signed the deal. No wrong doing here. If they can't keep up their end of the bargain, that's too bad. Those are the rules. But your article provides the context by which to see through the "new rules" that were applied to play the markets...an in-house ponzi scheme, seems to me.

Of course the trouble all begins when a home is no longer a home, but "real estate". The history of this game, and how it was stepped up in the post-war decades to replace old-school investment strategies such as stocks and bonds--the simple days...this is at the crux of it all. What a crazy game it has become, turning over houses and turning into landlords (no license required) all if you qualify for some nifty credit.

I feel sorry for those folks who were snared. My advice to you: liquidate and get out now. Sooner than later. This one bubble is bound to burst.