One thing I don’t see mentioned all that often about the liberal, progressive mindset, is their policy of just up and walking away from unpleasant situations, often leaving others to clean up the messes they leave behind. Confronting a situation head on is to be avoided at all costs, especially if doing so will result in the liberal, progressive person in question “looking bad” in the high-school-derived conception of “reputation” most liberals have.
Case in point: famous (in her own circles, anyway) Hispanic writer Alisa Valdez-Rodriguez is tired of paying a mortgage on a house that the current economic crisis has devalued, and tired of living in Arizona, which apparently refused to change its culture to please her, so she’s going to–
— Sell her house and eat the loss?
— Move and rent out her house, still paying the mortgage until the housing crisis resolves itself (as these things do) and her house goes back up in value?
No no no, that would be falling into the oppressive, capitalist trap! Instead, she’s going to Stick It To The Man and Show Them All — she’s going to just stop paying her mortgage (take that bank! I hope she writes a snarky letter and I hope they publish it in the newspaper to public ridicule) and move back in with her dad! I’m sure her kids are just thrilled.
Now for some full disclosure: I’ve had my moments in finance — let’s just say my credit is in the trash heap because of my own bad actions in the past where I’ve just quit paying. However, I own my bad decisions, I don’t blame them on the evil capitalist credit companies who forced all those Visas and Mastercards and student loans down my throat. I don’t write self-aggrandizing posts about how defaulting on my car loan made me some sort of champion of the poor. I walked open-eyed into buying a car I couldn’t afford. No one made me. I learned my lesson.
But liberal, progressive, always-right people like Valdez-Rodriguez never learn their lesson. They are the teachers, see — we are the ones who have to sit open-mouthed like baby birds and receive their regurgitated wisdom. They never see the real consequences of their actions, because they can always blame it on this ephemeral “oppressive, capitalist system.” But I worked for a mortgage company for fourteen years and I can tell you the bad facts, not the unicorn-dust wishes and fairy tears dreams of the liberals. The bad facts are this:
— Pressure to prove their non-racist bona fides notwithstanding, the fact that a Hispanic female has stopped paying her bills out of pique will only add to the perception that both Hispanics and females are both worse credit risks than WASP males. It won’t be stated out loud, ever, but it’s something “everyone will know,” just like “everyone knows” that African-Americans are also lousy bill payers, that Indians (from India) are incredibly annoying to deal with because they insist on arguing about every damn thing in the fine print, Arabs can’t seem to help trying to bargain the price of everything, the Chinese are extremely anal and tight as ticks, and so on. You don’t like it? TOUGH SHIT. This is the way people think, this is the way people always think, and none of your racial quotas and doublethink thought policing will change this fact about the mortgage industry and finance in general and human nature forever. Sure, the fact that mortgage companies and banks made loans to minorities with little or no credit, because they had a gun to their head called “bad publicity if you don’t.” That doesn’t mean they didn’t do it without qualms among the flunkies — i.e., the loan officers and underwriters who actually have to process the paperwork. But no one cares what flunkies think.
— This will, of course, just add to the present crisis. In fact, the whole system of unspoken-yet-known judgmentalism was a natural way of making sure stuff like what is happening now be kept to a minimum. You know what happens when you fuck with nature.
— Far from easing relations between the various races and ethnic groups in this country, the PC meddling by the Concerned Ones has only made things worse. Sure, the previous system was prejudicial, but you know what? It actually made things in the long run better for minorities. Having to prove they had good credit meant minority groups had to make sure they ignored the siren call of the “helpers” who promised an easy way into the mainstream, easy ways which usually meant more obligations than say a poor immigrant family could handle. It meant they had to work hard, not lay around waiting for a welfare check. It meant, eventually, that when they came back with good credit they got a good loan, because when the meddlers are kept out of it money talks and bullshit walks. And it meant that the reputation of the minority person’s minority group was therefore also improved. A rising tide lifts all boats (for example, the reputation of Asians as studious, hardworking, and thrifty is certainly an improvement over what people used to think of them).
But now that’s all screwed, or at least badly set back. Now somewhere there are African-Americans or Hispanics or what-have-you sitting in their overpriced houses whose value is currently halved, who can’t afford to pay the mortgage because they got an ARM and the rates shot through the roof and therefore so did their mortgage payment, who feel an increasing bitterness at the oppressive, capitalist, white Them who told them they wouldn’t have any problems, sure, go buy that huge, swollen home on your ten-dollar-an-hour wages. Thanks, liberal helpers, for clearing up this country’s racial problems overnight!
And lastly:
— If Ms. Valdez-Rodriguez thinks she’s going to get away scot-free from this “unpleasantness,” she’s got another think coming. For example, she’ll be hounded by first the bank, and then the collection agencies. Then she’ll find that a trashed credit rating means she won’t be able to get any credit. Duh! And she’ll find that she needs credit in this economy. Why am I renting out a $550 a month one-room apartment at the age of 45? Well, for one thing, I don’t have any relatives to leech off of like she has. She’d better hope daddy doesn’t get tired of her or her kid’s shit and throws her out the door. Having to be perpetually on the good side of someone, even a beloved family member, does things to a person’s psyche, though your mileage may vary. Maybe she’ll be happy but her kid will start acting out. Etc.
But back to that trashed credit. All those calls from the credit companies offering to increase your rate? Say good-bye to those. She’ll be lucky to keep the cards she has. Though I’ll bet you an announcement that she’s cutting up her Visa and stopping payment will come next. You know, stuffing your money in a sock under the mattress isn’t as efficient as you think it is.
Another thing: she’s a writer, so she gets royalty checks, right? In other words, she gets paid. Watch the screams hit the roof when she finds her income being garnished. You think Uncle Sam won’t get personally involved in Little Miss Wash-My-Hands’ mortgage follies? There’s taxes in them thar houses. These are usually handled by putting them in escrow, but if no one’s making the house payments, how will the government get its share? Well, from the bank, but — if I were the bank I’d already be on the phone to the IRS. But that’s just me.
(Via.)