Stupid.

There, I said it.  I tell my 4 year old not to use that word, and I seldom say it out loud, but there’s just no other word that fits this situation.

Everyone including President Obama, the major media outlets, my coworkers and most of congress are talking about the tragedy of the recent home foreclosures.  Not just that, they’re (even some GOP senators) talking about how something “must be done” to help keep people in their homes.

We can all agree how sad it is to lose your home; I personally came very close in 2001 after the dotcombomb but that’s a different story.

Here’s the problem with nearly every one of the sob stories that get paraded in front of us non-stop by our loving 24-hour news cycle:  They nearly all have variable rate loans.

Yup, maybe one out of 20 stories is about someone who lost a job or something, but nearly every one of them is about someone with a variable interest rate mortgage that has now adjusted up out of reach of their income, and the home has dropped in value so they cannot refinance to a lower payment. 

Here’s the problem with that:  If you needed the low variable rate to afford the home – you couldn’t actually afford that home.

I’ll repeat that in case you didn’t hear me:  If you can’t afford the fixed rate loan, you can’t afford the house.  Period.

So what do we call someone who can’t afford the real payment, but takes the low introductory payment with no idea what they’ll do when it matures? 

Irresponsible? Short-sighted? Long-term planning ability disabled? Unable to read or find a source of information or even ask someone older who owns a home so we’ll listen to the shady realtor trying to make some quick money syndrome?

Don’t let my kid hear, I think “stupid” will do just fine.

UPDATE:  Heres a great article by Michelle Malkin detailing some specifics of recent sob story mortgage “victims”

DMobile Economic irresponsible, mortgage crisis