[DannyCox]

Reminds me of the early 1980's and the insanely high interest rates we had up here in Canada. At that time, I was living in Alberta, and Carol and I bought our first home in 1982. We purchased it through Alberta Home Mortgage Corp. (Government Institution)which was subsidizing the 21+% interest rates. That went fine for about a year, then the bottom fell out of the housing market, prices dropped, and AHMC stopped the subsidy. Our mortgages tripled, and we, along with over 20% of the home-owners in Alberta, lost our home.

The good thing was Alberta had the Homesteader Law which allowed owners to walk away from their homes without further liability. Due to the huge amount of foreclosures, it didn't even affect your credit rating! We ended up renting for a year, and then buying a bigger, much nicer home that had been foreclosed for half the price of our first one!

That did teach me a big lesson, and to not ever live beyond my means. Sub-Prime mortgages were obviously going to fail, and it was just greed that drove people into them. I know, as 26 years ago, I was one of those who thought I could get a lot for a little.