It sure seems like lots of ethics stuff is swirling around today, and I have no idea where I’ll be going with it at this point.
I’m counting on you to help sort it all out…
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Ethics Alarms 
Alec Baldwin news:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2023/04/20/alec-baldwin-manslaughter-charges-dropped-rust-shooting-halyna-hutchins/11706249002/
-Jut
Interesting, that USA Today article does not mention what the WSJ had in their article:
New evidence indicates gun may have discharged without trigger being pulled
In fact, USA Today repeats that FBI forensic testing showed the opposite.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/charge-against-alec-baldwin-dropped-in-rust-shooting-95f2bedf?mod=e2tw
Last summer, we decided to sell our home in Northern Wisconsin and move to a warmer location. Through a series of buyer misfortunes, we ended up not selling. As spring is trying to sprung here, we started discussing selling again this year. Our main hesitation was rising mortgage rates. Now, Biden’s mortgage changes have forced us to put our plans on hold. How in the world can anyone justify punishing responsible citizens for having good credit? I’m astounded at the audacity, but also enraged that this is allowed to stand.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/real-estate/former-obama-housing-chief-slams-bidens-unprecedented-mortgage-plan-not-way
” How in the world can anyone justify punishing responsible citizens for having good credit?”
Equity…though not the type you’ve accumulated by being responsible property owners…
Same way you can punish financially successful people by making them pay more in taxes than those that aren’t successful.
Same way you can punish healthy people by making them pay more for health insurance in order to make up for the unhealthy people (The ACA did that).
The long term implications are scary. Why would anyone forego instant gratification for responsible financial stewardship? Good credit rating used to be the benefit, but now it’s a penalty. Having money to put down on a house results in a further penalty. Society cannot function in this fashion. If there’s no benefit to being responsible, nobody will be responsible.
“If there’s no benefit to being responsible, nobody will be responsible.”
Exactly!
I am in the mortgage industry and preach that. Incredibly, when borrowers with lower credit scores [due to late payments, collections, being overextended, etc.] ask me why they can’t get the best rates offered, my stock answer for 25 years has been, “If everyone qualified for the same rate, no matter what their credit score, there would be no incentive to pay their bills, let alone on time!”
You are a higher risk and with that comes a higher rate – DUH!
But now,…this?
“Yeah, everything is upside down out there. The whole world is upside down.”
Bedbug Eddie
The Pope of Greenwich Village
Michelle K wrote, “How in the world can anyone justify punishing responsible citizens for having good credit?”
I can only surmise that the punish you are referring to is the mortgage interest rates. Here’s a bit of facts for you about mortgage rates, these rates really aren’t that bad in comparison. How can I say such a thing?
My wife and I purchased our home in 1984. The mortgage rates were pushing 15%, we assumed the mortgage that the previous home owners had when they purchased the house the year before, that rate was 12.5%, it cost us about $50 to move in, yup $50. A year or so later the interest rates dropped significantly, we refinanced to 9.5%. A hand full of years later we refinanced at somewhere around 6.5% and did some much needed remodeling to our 25+ year old home. We then refinanced again a couple of years later to a 15 year mortgage at somewhere around 4.5%. Then we sold the house to our daughter and purchased a condo at about 3% and paid off the condo shortly after. Our daughter stayed in the home for about a year and then found a good deal locally and the interest rates had dropped to about 2%.
Perception of mortgage rates are tunnel visioned relative to what people have seen in the recent past and do not reflect how the rates fluctuate wildly over the years.
I’m gonna guess that you have a reasonable amount of equity in your home. If you want to sell your home, the inventory for homes for sale is low these days and you should be able to get a good price for it, someone will buy it even if the rates climb to 8% or more.
Steve, I’m actually referring to the changes to mortgages beginning May 1st. (See linked article)
The Biden admin is changing mortgage structure to force those with good credit to pay more (think PMI) to subsidize those with poor credit. Add that on top of rising interest rates, and it’s no longer so attractive to sell and get a mortgage with double my current interest rate and a good credit penalty I pay monthly.
Michelle K wrote, “The Biden admin is changing mortgage structure…”
Changing does not equate to changed.
You didn’t say that in past tense meaning that it has already changed, so get it done before the proposed changes take effect – IF they actually take effect.
Steve, I’d recommend reading the article. I wasn’t aware of this change until yesterday, and unfortunately don’t have time to list my house and buy another before May 1st.
Oop’s, I missed that May 1st part Michelle. There is still time for them to rescind this ridiculous rule.
They’re going to use this equity nonsense and set up lower income people that likely shouldn’t have a mortgage to financially fail later. This brings back memories of what happened 30+ years ago with all the adjustable rate mortgages sucking ignorant and lower income people into homes that they really couldn’t afford. Foreclosures went through the roof and this was part of the reason.
I had a lender try to push that adjustable rate mortgage crap on my wife and I for a refinance after I specifically told them going into it that I wouldn’t agree to one, they tried to use my wife’s financial ignorance as leverage, I got up and we walked out of their office, we closed all our accounts with them and went straight to another local bank.
I’m not sure how they could possibly walk this back. This administration has tied itself to the DEI cross, regardless of the cost to the country. I hope they do realize the foolishness, but won’t be holding my breath.
As NP pointed out, there are ways around the good credit problem (whoever would have thought I’d be saying good credit is a problem), but they aren’t really ethical.
If we sell our house and buy another, we’d need to buy a crappy house so we can pay for it in cash or cheat the system to get a decent rate. With those as our options, I’ll just keep my really nice house with a low rate and no penalties in my colder region.
“I’ll just keep my really nice house with a low rate and no penalties in my colder region.”
Not the worst thing in the world, MK; you’re not too far from Lake Superior (Salt-Free-n-No Sharks!), Iron County (Waterfall Capital of the Known Universe) plus:
We Like It HERE
We are very close to Superior, and just east of Hinckley. This winter was mild in temps, but brutal in snow amounts. I’m getting to the age when shoveling, plowing, and filling the outdoor wood stove are starting to lose their appeal. Thankfully, I likely have few more years before those activities will have to be hired out to those with stronger backs and sterner hips.
They are changing the way the rates are calculated so that people with higher credit scores her higher rates than people with lower scores. They are also giving higher rates to people who put down higher percentage down payments than people who put down no money or small down payments. Thus, they are actually incentivizing people to lower their credit scores and put less money down up front, which is one of the most asinine things I have ever heard.
To be fair, you can lower your credit score fairly easily by simply temporarily maxing out your credit cards. You can make a big payment after securing the loan instead of putting them money down as a down payment. There are and will be ways around this bullshit. It is not particularly ethical to incentivize people to do such things, however.
Guess they’ve forgotten the lessons from the last housing crisis when we were giving loans to anyone with a pulse.
How’d that work out?
I went to corroborate this the first time I heard about it, and ended up reading all about biden’s big housing crisis fix he’s rolling out. Funny, but this little poison pill wasn’t mentioned. The white house info on it is long on goals and aspirations, short on details, as usual. It really is a shame, because some of the ideas they laid out there have merit. Being able to get traditional mortgages on manufactured homes, encouraging the rolling of construction loans directly into mortgage totals, and incentivising the building of moderate sized apartment complexes all seem like rather sane ideas. It’s just a shame that it’s going to come hand in hand with trillions in expenditures and massive power handed to the federal government. And I’m not sure why so much of it was listed out as going to the department of transportation. Weird.
Proponents of uncontrolled illegal immigration like to pretend that there are no negative consequences to massive influxes of people from other countries, but of course ignoring reality doesn’t make it go away.
https://cis.org/Report/Americas-Public-Schools-Canaries-Coal-Mine-Biden-Border-Crisis
How is this ethical to anyone involved?
It appears that the smear by various media outlets of Clarence Thomas’ friend, Harlan Crow, as having a Nazi memorabilia fetish was a serious misrepresentation (who’s surprised?) of a few items in a large and wide-ranging curated collection: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jewish-friends-gop-donor-associated-justice-thomas-defend-nazi-fetish-claims-foolishness
Yeah, another matter I haven’t been able to get around to writing about. I have a fork and a spoon from a Nazi field utensil kit hanging around in our silverware drawer. Thees are among several bits of Nazi memorabilia Dad brought home from the war—he paid for them with his foot. I don’t know what to do with them, frankly, but MSNBC would surely claim that this proved I was a closet fascist.
Or at least a silverware drawer fascist.
You could always donate the fork and a spoon to a museum in your area, there are a few of them around. Just pick up the phone and call one and someone on the other end of the phone will likely be able to direct you to someone else, eventually you’ll get to a human being that can give you definitive answers.
Sure, but I don’t want to. It’s a piece of history; it’s a link to my Dad, and I don’t believe in “evil objects.” My son also has a pair of high-powered binoculars with a Nazi eagle on it: Dad used that for everything from bird-watching to baseball games.
Oops, I misunderstood your statement “I don’t know what to do with them”.
As well you should have. It was misleading.
I could have been a smartass and explained how a fork and a spoon work. 😛
Okay, I’m not that restrained and was a smartass anyway.
I have a couple of Nazi dress daggers my dad picked up. He only had to trade packs of cigarettes, not a foot, to a ship captain for them (he didn’t smoke, so even that wasn’t a sacrifice). So far, they have never harmed anyone on their own, but they’re kept separate from firearms so they don’t get any ideas.
Dad had a Nazi dagger too. I don’t know what happened to it. I think it went to Argentina…
A few days ago, pres. SloJo commented on the incident of an old (84) white man shooting a black teenager who showed up mistakenly at his door:
“Last night, I had a chance to call Ralph Yarl and his family.
No parent should have to worry that their kid will be shot after ringing the wrong doorbell. We’ve got to keep up the fight against gun violence.
And Ralph, we’ll see you in the Oval once you feel better.”
No mention of what new magic laws might have prevented this, unless he’s implying there should be an age limit beyond which it’s dangerous to others to assume an individual is competent. If that’s the case….
He also doesn’t appear to have called or invited the family of THIS SIX YEAR OLD AND HER FATHER, shot by a convicted (black) felon neighbor, after a basketball rolled into his yard.