Revolutionary response to home forclosure

[Magda Hassan]

"When I see that I owe $160,000 on almost a $350,000 home..."

Hell...doesn't that mean he has about $190,000 in equity?
That's a hell of a lot more than I have in mine...and I am still making the payments. He signed the loan documents. And if he is smart enough to read the bulldozer instructions, he is smart enough to read what he signed when he took on the loan.

Sorry, but I saw nothing in this story to tug at my heart strings. He has IRS liens on his business property and a home worth between a quarter and a half million dollars. The bank took a risk that he signed on to.

I wouldn't be in the house I am in if it weren't for a bank that took the same kind of risk on me. They make a profit on that risk and I am benefiting from the transaction.

If I lose my job tomorrow and can't fulfill my part of the bargain that I signed off on, is it OK to destroy what the bank gets in exchange?

Just askin'...

Banks/corporations are not people. They don't live or die. They don't need food or water or clean air to exist. Nor do they need a house. They are a legal fiction and exist only in the abstract. If some one doesn't pay their loan nothing happens to the bank. It will continue to exist as the legal fiction it is. On the other hand if a person loses their home it will result in much serious disruption to all aspects of their life and their families life - food security, health, education, employment, intact family, everything is dependent on secure housing. It can be a matter of life and death. If some one falls behind or stops in their payments what is it to the bank if they continue to remain in the house? Nothing. In fact, the bank will have a better chance of getting 'their' money (another legal fiction and only true wealth can be created by human labor not banks) if people are left in their house as it will not cause so much disruption and dislocation to other areas of their life and they are in a better position to pull through a difficult situation and get back on their feet and resume payments. Losing your house can result in one losing ones family, job, mental and physical health. Once that happens the banks can say goodbye to ever getting 'their' money but in the process of evicting them they have created real pain and misery for living breathing humans and which more often than not has a flow on financial cost which must be borne by the community as a whole.

To me it is particularly obnoxious that some one who has managed to pay 50% of the loan (not even counting the usurious interest) would be treated this way by the bank. He has obviously done the right thing by the bank for a long time to be able to pay half of it back and the bank seems very unreasonable to me.

If people lose their job in these economic times it is not their fault. It is systemic and needs to be systemically dealt with. By making it personal and evicting a family by foreclosing on the property this is just sociopathic behaviour on the part of the bank.

In the US and some other capitalist countries people are limited in their housing options. There is very little public/social ownership of property and that is certainly not encouraged either. Unless one is lucky enough to inherit a house you either have to rent from some one who already owns a house they don't need to live in or you have to buy one which also requires borrowing large amounts of money. Because a basic necessity like a home has been treated like a commodity in this society the price of houses does not reflect the actual cost of a house which is, after all, just a few bricks, timbers, concrete and other materials combined with human labor. Banks themselves, as we know, have much blame to carry for creating a bubble in the housing 'market' and its subsequent collapse. They are just reaping what they sowed if they make it so unaffordable for many and in the process destabilise the whole economy just so they can make huge profit for making loans out of nothing. The housing market is heavily skewed in favor of the 'owners' - landlords or banks so taking out a loan in those circumstances is a loaded dice in any case. 'Mortgage' does mean death gamble after all. Better the bank lose but they're such bad losers.

I'm with the guy who bulldozed the house. Even if he is a lazy prick. Which I doubt. And I'd be with you too Bruce if you lost your job and couldn't make your loan payments either. It's not like you would choose to lose your job. And the bank can choose not to be a sociopathic bastard in dealing with your changed circumstances.