Bail!

I’m more than vaguely annoyed that taxpayers like myself (and probably yourself) have to bail out companies that made stupid decisions and gave housing loans to people you shouldn’t lend lunch money to if you ever want to see it again. I realize something probably had to be done to keep the whole country from being dragged under, but I’m still annoyed.
I'm less annoyed (but still annoyed) with the people who bought houses they could in no way afford because a little flash ad on MySpace said they could get a $500,000 mortgage for $500 a month. Not everyone can be good with money; it's just not everyone's gift in life (it's certainly not mine), but can't a person be reasonably expected to know that these loans were too good to be true? Like I said, less annoyed but still annoyed.
But I was reading some news just now, and I'm seriously annoyed, to a pissed-off level, even. Check this out:

I have helpfully highlighted in green what should be blowing your mind about now - an epic bailout was just passed, and there on the side of that very story is one of those ads that got us here in the first place! They didn't even change up the format of the ad to try and make it look like it's not the same shady people as before; it's the same nonsensical dancing people with a link to get your spanking new payment on the house you couldn't pay for the first time you bought it. I can't believe they're using the exact same format for the ad - have people genuinely not caught on to the fact that if the ad involves little dancing people, really low mortgage prices and more than one exclamation point, it's not for a reputable institution?

Granted, it's a little more realistic this time; $133,000 mortgages for $679 is a little more believable than the half million dollar, adjustable rate credit destroyers the pushers were pushing last time. But it still seems to me like it's the same companies getting away with it all again. It's as if crashing the stock market and causing thousands to lose their homes was just a move in an overall strategy to keep bleeding money out of people who don't have any. We're not bailing you out so you can keep scamming people, making bad investments and destroying the economy, jackasses!

PS - did you happen to catch the macabre reminder of how this financial "game" can end? It's down in the corner under "Most Popular": "Woman in foreclosure shoots self."

- v -