访谈录 2008-10-12&10-14 买不起还买，危机找上来（在线收听）

Now over the past decades, more Americans than ever became homeowners for the first time, many of them we now find out couldn’t handle their responsibility of maintaining those homes and it turns out they may have known that going in as well.

Investment sage Warren Buffet offered this theory about how millions of Americans got in over their heads.

Most people aspire to own their own home and when somebody makes it very easy for you to do it by saying “you don’t really have to put up any money” or you know, “we will give you 100 percent mortgage”, you are gonna do it.

Um, everybody looks for their American dream and they do their best to try to get that, that dream and I know, for us, we thought we were gonna be okay.

Today, Kerry and Mary Jane Byrd are far from okay. They are facing foreclosure on their dream home in New Jersey.

Did you feel that you were getting in over your head? They can’t grab your hand and force you to sign in blood.

No, I don’t think it’s our fault. If they really want to give you a mortgage, they’ll find someone to give you a mortgage.

So just who is to blame for this ongoing economic crisis, Wall Street or main street?

I don’t feel it’s necessary for us to try to bail, to have to bail them out. They should be taking care of us, the people that they’ve wronged.

Not everyone agrees.

I lost my home to foreclosure. I didn’t go to the government and go “Hey, listen. I am losing my home. I think you guys should bail me out.”

Leah Talley took out a loan for a home she couldn’t afford and she knew it.

There was this little voice, little Jiminy Cricket voice going “don’t, don’t do this. They valued that loan at too high  a value.” I went ahead and did it anyway.

Like many victims of the mortgage crisis, Leah and Byrds do agree on one important point.

Well, have you told your son that there’s a chance that he may not be living in the place he’s been living in half his life?

I made a promise to my kids and they right now have a place to live in, but, how much longer? Once we get ourselves back on our feet, we won’t be in this, this, uh, situation or predicament ever again.

Nearly 400,000 Americans facing foreclosure will get a lifeline after Countrywide Financial reached an 8 billion-dollar settlement with 11 states to help those homeowners rework their mortgages. We know, there are so many more suffering.

So interesting when she said that Jiminy Cricket voice in my head said “don’t do it, don’t’ do it.”…