Via Andrew Sullivan - the gory details.
It's really disturbing to see swanky homes, of the sort US-bound desis probably dream about, abandoned in such a hurry that the owners left behind furniture, equipment, computers, children's toys, even certificates... and it's all trashed (except the certificates) because the logistics of donating to charity don't work out. It seems worse than not having had any of that stuff in the first place. But as Andrew Sullivan (and others) say, these victims are as much to blame as predatory lenders, for taking loans they probably knew they couldn't afford, rather than living more modestly but comfortably and within their means.
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7 comments:
Do you think that fast track immigration for those who can buy those houses will help?
Hm. While the problem at least partially started with these bad loans/mortgages, I don't think that's where the problem is right now. The loans have been securitised, packaged and re-sold and others are left holding the bag. But I'm not expert enough to judge, really.
I doubt also that the numbers of people willing to purchase such homes outright will be significant, even with immigration.
The whole thing was bloody scary. They spray paint grass to make it look green?!
spacebar - that's the US. They wax apples to make them shiny.
That's California where they paint their grass and water the grass in the middle of the freeway, and where you have to pay for the sunshine. Kind of like Bombay, except in California they paint their grass and water the grass in the middle of the freeway, and grow ice plant beside the freeway to make everything look nice, which is why they have to pay for the sunshine, and pay yearly car tax based on the value of their car instead of a fixed price like in Texas, where they don't water the grass in the middle of the freeway or put ice plant on the side of the freeway, and don't make things look so nice as in California, so you don't have to pay for the sunshine, so you can get the sunshine for free.
But all I've ever seen are shiny apples; that's the way apples grow in this part of the world, shiny, with a little numbered label stuck it.
They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum,
And they charged all the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em.
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
All I've ever seen
are spotless, shiny apples.
That's the way they are
in my part of the world.
And looking, one by one,
I eye those shiny apples,
and pick an apple here,
or pick one up there.
Where those apples came from
I rightly cannot say,
though this I know for sure,
it's from my part of the world.
"But where's paradise?" I say,
"Where's paradise for me?"
It's not here, but over there,
where the apples aren't so shiny.
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