Thursday, January 1, 2009

What the Housing Crash Can Teach Us About Marriage

It's not news anymore. We all know that home foreclosures are skyrocketing and hundreds of thousands of Americans stand to lose their biggest "investment."

But take a step backward 2 to 4 years. I can recall the frantic push for universal housing ownership. I can recall ads and marketing blitzes telling renters that they too could likely afford a mortgage even if they thought they could not. I recall state and federal government campaigns to increase "minority" home ownership, especially among Blacks and Latinos.

Now what do we have? Now the press is saying that all these government-encouraged home purchases were ill-advised and irresponsibly financed by mortgage companies. A huge proportion of those Black and Latino home buyers are now losing their homes to foreclosure and the rate of home loss will multiply each year when their "alluringly low" adjustable mortgage rates adjust higher and higher.

So what does this have to do with marriage you ask? The lesson here is to ignore the corporate and government campaigns to encourage marriage. Corporations and government have an interest in marriage only to suit their own ends. Just as in the frantic rush to get everyone in a owned-homes against their best interest, corporate America and government wish to get you married just to flaunt growth statistics and reap marriage consumption profits (new homes, new cars, new furniture, etc) , and resultant tax benefits.

Smart men should never allow government to advise us in our personal lives. In the final analysis, millions of Americans will meet their financial ruin because of policy agenda "campaigns."

Do not let this be you; ignore the calls for men to marry or expect your financial house to be "foreclosed" and turned over to the Financial Bank of Ex-Wives.

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