Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
Later, you say that money has value, but do you realize that money is the exact same thing as the products of the housing bubble? If someday the USD were to enter into hyperinflation and all your money becomes as valuable as the paper its written on, am I allowed to come over and tell you that it was your mistake to not have expert level understanding of finances, economics, political science, and the inter-workings of the current political governing bodies in order to see this coming so you could have exchanged your USD for some other currency or commodity?
But the level of complexity is nowhere near the same. Expecting someone to predict long-term currency volatility is not in same neighborhood as expecting somebody to think through some very basic, financial decisions before they commit to a massive, discretionary obligation. Whether someone thought leveraging something they couldn't qualify for if they had to prove their income, could only afford to contribute 2-3% of their own money to, and could only justify the decision on the bet that the value will increase ahead of their need to take out another loan are not issues that go over the heads of the populous. They chose to do it anyway because of our fundamental cultural character trait of material greed.

I believe you'll argue (because you have previously) that you cannot fault the middle class for purusing a standard of living beyond their means, and that that absolves (or at least, justifies) their self-destructive behaviors associated with debt, lack of savings and gross over-leverage. We can argue that point separately, but if you are correct, then I would argue that that represents a fatal flaw in our manifestation of a middle class, and one that contributes as much as anything to the inability of that middle class to self sustain. It also is frequently the key factor that determines who progresses to the next economic level -- and barring lottery winnings, inheritance and other outliers, it's frequently those who shun non-productive leverage, living and investing within their means, and purusing productive risk who make it.