Hey thanks for the comment and the "guide." I love this tool - I think it's a great way to get conversations going about what's happening in the world.

I'm definitely sorry to hear about your younger brother - foreclosure on your dream is never a good feeling

Agreed the banks were definitely crazy to offer a 22 year old without a solid job history a loan. There's always someone out there willing to sell something to just about anyone.

Did they use your brother's vulnerability during the sales process? I'm sure they did and while it's not right, there's plenty of sales "sharks" out there that do it.

Did he "let" himself be mislead and not either spend more time getting more inform...

Hey thanks for the comment and the "guide." I love this tool - I think it's a great way to get conversations going about what's happening in the world.

I'm definitely sorry to hear about your younger brother - foreclosure on your dream is never a good feeling

Agreed the banks were definitely crazy to offer a 22 year old without a solid job history a loan. There's always someone out there willing to sell something to just about anyone.

Did they use your brother's vulnerability during the sales process? I'm sure they did and while it's not right, there's plenty of sales "sharks" out there that do it.

Did he "let" himself be mislead and not either spend more time getting more information or involve someone he knew who might be more experienced with these types of things? He may have - I don't know.

I know I made a lot of decisions when I was younger that I look back on now and say "what was I thinking, why didn't I do a, b, or c???" I think most of us have.

It sounds like at the very least, this was hopefully a good learning experience for your brother?

I can't speak for your specific situation, but I think in general there's fault on both sides when these things happen - the banks and the consumer - with the obvious exceptions here and there when banks/people blatantly lied, falsified documents, etc.

My argument in general is that both the banks and individuals are dealing with the consequences of their actions. It shouldn't be left to the taxpayers to help them out.

I also don't feel plans to reduce the principal in people's loans and permanently freeze their low interest rates - saving them tons of money - is fair since they're now getting much better deals than people who were more conservative and only got into loans they knew they could afford.

You know, in the end, my brother was fine, but I think the bank took a loss. He lost the house and ruined his credit, but he has settled into an apartment, found a factory job, gotten married, and had a son. He is 25 now, and he is starting to be more developed. He has some form of autism or attention deficit or something. He did not finish high school until his was 21, and he went to an alternative school. He's gullible and trusting and ignorant about money. Its hard to explain but several of my family members, because they have mental illnesses, have limited grasps on the full context of things that are happening. They are easy to convince that if the bank says you can do it, they are bein...

You know, in the end, my brother was fine, but I think the bank took a loss. He lost the house and ruined his credit, but he has settled into an apartment, found a factory job, gotten married, and had a son. He is 25 now, and he is starting to be more developed. He has some form of autism or attention deficit or something. He did not finish high school until his was 21, and he went to an alternative school. He's gullible and trusting and ignorant about money. Its hard to explain but several of my family members, because they have mental illnesses, have limited grasps on the full context of things that are happening. They are easy to convince that if the bank says you can do it, they are being honest. This is not something I think we should bail out because it does reward bad banking. But I believe we should have regulated the field, using our government, before the problem started.

You really have no idea how ignorant about money people can be, and I speak personally of my own learning curve once getting out of poverty. I lost thousands through uninformed decisions such as using credit cards. I did not know how incipient they are. Once I was middle class, I realized that many middle class people pay off their cards every month. As a poor person, I had no one to teach me anything, including the urgency of paying off the cards each moth. So many things I never learned. Not about usury interest, not about investment, not about growing wealth.

The max I would loan my brother is $100. To me, banks just went nuts. There are so many simple people, including my own parents, who could easily fall for a bad deal. My mom would have lost her place in the 90s, because she signed onto a balloon payment, but my grandma heard about it and paid the last $5,000. Oh, the house was $26,000, and the seller believed my mom would not get the money and he could get his place back. He knew she lived on tiny disability payments and had kids.

You know you bring up a great point - education about money and how to handle it/make it work for you vs. you working for it.

Believe it or not, that's one of the things Donald Trump promotes about this country - we don't include teaching our kids about money in our education system.

Kids aren't taught in the school system about these things and as a result, if you don't have anyone or any means to educate yourself, you can get stuck pretty quickly.

I'd love to see basic accounting and money management classes included in our public school system as mandatory classes, maybe at the high school level. That way kids are at least given the basic tools to get started.

Regardless though, you'r...

You know you bring up a great point - education about money and how to handle it/make it work for you vs. you working for it.

Believe it or not, that's one of the things Donald Trump promotes about this country - we don't include teaching our kids about money in our education system.

Kids aren't taught in the school system about these things and as a result, if you don't have anyone or any means to educate yourself, you can get stuck pretty quickly.

I'd love to see basic accounting and money management classes included in our public school system as mandatory classes, maybe at the high school level. That way kids are at least given the basic tools to get started.

Regardless though, you're right, banks and their salespeople can be sharks. To them it's all about making money, not trying to work with the person to do what's right for them