Plenty of
people who go on wild drinking binges end up with sound reasons to
avoid repeating the experience: painful hangovers, lasting
embarrassment, ruined relationships, encounters with police. But
that doesn’t stop some of them from doing it again. Maybe these are
the same people running the federally backed mortgage
companies.
The possibility comes to mind because these two entities, known
as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have decided to lower the down
payment they require on some mortgages from 5 percent to 3 percent.
The horrific lesson of what results from encouraging marginal
borrowers to buy homes has somehow vanished from their memories,
writes Steve Chapman.
What we should have learned from the vast trauma we endured is
that the federal government should stop trying so hard to enable
Americans to buy homes. People in France and Germany lead
productive and satisfying lives despite much lower rates of
homeownership, according to Chapman.
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