Extracted from The Wall Street Journal Oct. 22, 2008

Darryl Williams blamed mortgage companies for granting the easy loans that fueled the boom. “I don’t like hearing that the people who got houses and couldn’t afford them are the bad guys,” said Mr. Williams, a 55-year-old warehouse-services manager. “These are families with children.”

Then Steve Sherman Sr. spoke. “I am one of those troubled borrowers not making any mortgage payments,” Mr. Sherman said. The 61-year-old shipping and warehouse supervisor refinanced his house in Los Banos two years ago for $365,000, spending much of the new loan on home renovations. Now, he figures, the house is worth $140,000.

Mr. Sherman said that while he can afford his payments, he had planned to sell the house in a year or so to supplement his retirement income. But now, he figures, he couldn’t afford to live there as a retiree. So four months ago he stopped writing mortgage checks, setting the cash aside in his retirement savings. He says he’s waiting for his lender to kick him out or to reduce his loan amount. He’d also be happy for the government to modify his loan.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the coming wave of mortgages that were going south and the pandering of politicians seeking to curry favor with the masses.  In that post, I described what some have refered to as a “moral hazard”; the tendency for folks to not take responsibility for their actions when an over-protective Governmental Nanny is willing to bail them out.

Seems the moral hazards are upon us as evidenced by the extract above.  Darryl Williams blames the mortgage companies for making loans to folks who could not afford them.  Fair enough. But Darryl, what would you have said when the banks refused to lend to less-than-stellar financial risks?  The Acorn folks were screaming “red-lining” and racism.  Not saying you would do that; just wondering….

But there is no limit to the scorn and derision that should be heaped on Steve Sherman Sr.  Here’s a guy who admits he could afford to make his payments but won’t because he’s “waiting for his lender to kick him out or to reduce his loan amount. He’d also be happy for the government to modify his loan.”

He claims  “I am one of those troubled borrowers not making any mortgage payments”.   Steve, you’re not  a “troubled borrower not making mortgage payments”; you’re a parasite sucking the life-blood from the taxpayer and simultaneously depriving the truly needy of assistance.

What ever happened to honesty, integrity and self-respect; keeping one’s commitments and living up to one’s promises?

The $700,000,000,000.00 extorted from the taxpayers will never cover the toxic loan exposure in the housing industry as long as greedy, avaricious leaches such as Steve think the American taxpayer is their personal piggy bank.