US Subprime Mortgage Industry - The Greatest Economic Tragedy Under-told

Everyone acts surprise at the slightest negative news regarding the sub-prime mortgage industry "crisis". What Einstein truly believed that giving someone who had no legitimate or recorded means to pay for a $100,000 home a loan for not only $100,000, but requiring them to pay increasing monthly payments via Adjustable Rate Mortgages.

The mortgage and real estate industries saw their membership swell and profits soar. Some buyers needing another shot at getting their own home took advantage of the opportunity. Life was good for all. Investors bought homes like they weren't going to be anymore built with little or none of their own money at risk. Economics 101 tells us that a negative plus a positive can only equal a negative. You can not keep putting up good money for no or negative return and expect a positive return. This just took a while to become a front page headline.

But I think this is systemic of what has become the new American way to highlight the flash and the dream, while ignore the substance and the reality. We have become a nation conditioned of a "me first" mentality, to have a sound-bite attention and memory span, and we do not want to hear anything that may involve less than joyous or painless feelings. The Media displays images of people with American Express Credit Cards living the "good life", never showing them when that bill comes due. It happily shows the picture of person's joy who wins the lottery when living in a double wide, but rarely shows that person 4 months later when he is broke and have no friends and their family won't speak to him. As well the Media blasts images of people with 6-pack abdominals and Adonis bodies to sell a pill, yet don't mention that it takes a healthy diet and a religion of exercise that may require sweat and aches. We have become a nation that demands that our vegetables have sugar on it so as not to have to taste their natural bitterness. Many do without vegetables all together. We demand foods that our "sugarless", yet sweetened with chemicals made in a lab, i.e., nutra-sweet and Splenda. And still demand a healthy body. Maddening!