Have I mentioned that recently?
Trust, Underwater
By MATT BAI, The New York Times
Published: March 18, 2010
In 2004, newly married and having decided to embark on the next phase of adulthood, my wife and I bought a house. This was back in the delirious days of multiple offers and outlandish escalation clauses, when you had to bring your checkbook with you to an open house, just in case someone else tried to buy the place while you were poking around the attic. I called a mortgage broker somewhere in Florida, and she was thrilled to hear from me, practically breathless. I felt as if I were the 10,000th customer to come through line at the Safeway, my arrival heralded by streamers and sirens and all kinds of free stuff falling from the rafters. Did we want a five-year adjustable-rate loan or maybe even rates adjusted on a monthly basis? Why not just pay just the interest rather than the principal? Did we also need a bridge loan for a few months, to hold us over from one house to the next? How about a ”second trust” – that is, two mortgages instead of one – so we could put less money down, maybe even as little as 5 percent of the purchase price while avoiding the penalty of private mortgage insurance? We might as well open a home equity line of credit on top of the mortgage, she said, so we could borrow another six-figure sum with the tear of a perforated check. Countrywide, the nation’s largest lender, would happily give us that free, and, hey, you never knew when you might decide to add a skylight over the kitchen, or maybe a stone turret.
Duh.
Welcome to the real world you privileged little prick.
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It’s a small state.
…and he does a good job of it.
Matt has been a reasonable voice for those of us wanted a great deal more from this legislation.
You should at least change the headline.
He is voicing here what was rampant for his generation – and as such is a valuable piece of propaganda laid out to describe what was going on.
It’s ironic writing.
He is not a moran, darn it.
And I don’t know if he was privileged – if he was, all the better – it’s the “privileged” who often lead a revolution.
and revealing….
the poor baby……
wonder what the homeless would have to say…..
perhaps utterly clueless would be a better qualifier….
the poor r not bright enough to believe in fairy tales….
only the self perceived meritorious….
the myth of modernity…..