Pulling down the subprime blinds

I take exception to the claim that it’s difficult to figure out how “it happened or exactly who’s to blame” for the refinancing problems illustrated by Vicki Miller in “Refinancing spurred subprime crisis,” (The Mortgage Meltdown, July 5).

Here you have a person making $26,000 a year, with less than $17,000 in take-home pay, increasing her primary mortgage by $28,000, next taking out a second mortgage of $13,000 and then borrowing an additional $5,000 for energy efficient windows.

Regardless of the questionable loan disclosures and sales practices, the fundamental issue is that people somehow believe that money falls from the arms of lenders without any connection to their ability to repay it.

Wake up people. Homes don’t make the monthly loan payments, borrowers do.

Marc Branson

Anaheim

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So far, during your Mortgage Meltdown stories, I have yet to read anyone saying they knew what they were doing.

I’ve read about the victims, people who were persuaded, lured, promised cash. We’re to believe that they all signed papers not reading what they signed? Were they blindfolded at signing or mislead by “fancy mortgage jargon?”

Personal responsibility means: If I borrow too much money from my home when I know I can’t afford it, I might lose my home.

Elisabeth Bernhart-Chatfelter

Lake Hughes