Comments on: Woman Chooses Death Over Foreclosure

Mass. Wife Faxes Suicide Letter To Mortgage Company, Then Fatally Shoots Herself

[aggiekat2004]

Yeah, but back then a carpenter could make enough money to support his family on a single income. That''s not the case anymore. With consumers demanding less expensive goods, jobs going overseas, illegals pushing the wages down because they''ll do the job for less, and with our materialistic "designer" mentality, it can''t be done anymore.

[avigil2]

Sadly, death for some is the only way out.

[txgrouch2006]

newster1 wrote
had they qualified for a $350,000 house they would have bought that one.
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There''s something I agree with.

Check her age. She''s 53 in 2008. She was born in 1955. A BABY BOOMER. Her entire behavior is the classic BABY BOOMER mentality.

[nothappyatall]

xxunknown said: "I dont understand how, in the 1950''''s people could live well and save money on a single income."

Simple, house back then were small, usually 1,000 sq ft or less in size, single floor often with no basement now today''s McMansion houses in the burbs run 3,000 sq ft and up, 2 stories and a basement, attached 2-3 car garage, pool, 2 SUV''s, furniture on credit, snowblower on credit, $2,500 ride-on lawn mower on credit.

[nothappyatall]

Just imagine how different this wage earning family''''s finances would have been if they could have kept more of their own money.
Posted by Meg001"

They like everyone else would have bought a HIGHER PRICED house and be in the same boat, the fact they bought a quarter of a million dollar house proves it, had they qualified for a $350,000 house they would have bought that one.


"Houses are now priced at 15 times what an average American worker can afford."
In the 50s anyone who worked a hard 40 hour week could afford a house."

Not in the midwest and many non-Californicate areas where houses are REASONABLE and you can buy a decent older 2 BR house on land for UNDER $50k, my 2 br 1930 farmhouse with full basement on 1/2 acre of land was under $10k in a small town where most houses are all under $50k
So don''t give me that BS about house prices, you want to live in Los Angeles or San Diego you''re going to pay $500,000 for a SHACK- you CHOOSE to live there! , $500,000 in the midwest would buy a mansion on ACRES of land

[libsluv2spit]

maybe it is simply a matter of ''her making one bad decision after another''...deciding to kill herself over a house is one of them...

kinda like a "i eat because im depressed and I am depressed because i eat"..its a sorry excuse that does not solve anything..

[txgrouch2006]

getoffmine wrote
The thing is the husband was working and had no idea about the pending foreclosure.
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That''s bugging me, too. Probably the husband could have done something if he knew. But she was hiding it from him.

The thing about depression is, if there was no foreclosure, she would have killed herself over something else. She was just looking for an excuse. What if she CAUSED the foreclosure just to give herself the excuse she needed?

[uradum1]

Greed. Banks and mortgage companies couldn''t care less about Americans or the economy, they ONLY care about getting richer.

[txgrouch2006]

The point is, the prosperity of the 1950''s and 60''s was NOT NORMAL. It was an historical aberration. Prior to that, we had lived through the Depression and WW2. Then the country went to the opposite extreme.

The result was that a generation developed UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS. They didn''t understand that such abnormal prosperity COULDN''T LAST. And it didn''t.

Even to this day, the Baby Boomers have the drug-enriched unrealistic expectations they developed in their childhood. That''s why the dive into borrowing more money than they can realistically afford - and just like the rest of Boomer history, entire industries grew up to profit from their reckless self-indulgence.

Today''s home mortgage crisis is just another in a long string of Boomer-induced catastrophes that we will be seeing more and more in the future.

For example, do you REALLY think the Boomers have saved ANYWHERE NEAR ENOUGH to retire? What will happen when they start retiring with nothing to retire on? What will happen later on when they get elderly and they have no way to pay for their elderly care?

Batten down the hatches. HERE COME THE BOOMERS!!! Again.

BTW, if this lady was 53, guess what year she was born. A BOOMER!!!

[txgrouch2006]

xxunknown wrote
I dont understand how, in the 1950''''s people could live well and save money on a single income.
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Several reasons. In the 1950''s, most of the industrialized world was still rebuilding after being destroyed in a war we didn''t start, but we sure finished it. The rest of the world had to buy everything from us, which spelled PROSPERITY.

Most households had only one breadwinner, and the other spouse stayed home to raise the children without having to pay for daycare. Less cometition for jobs meant higher wages.

There were no H1-B visas. There''s that "less competition for jobs" thing again.

We had just invented the transistor, and the rest of the world didn''t know how a computer worked. We had a monopoly on key technologies.

All of that spelled PROSPERITY that lasted into the 1970''s. You COULD live well on one income, and still have money left over to save and to spend on leisure activities, plus you had the FREE TIME to enjoy them.

The Carter years put an end to our prosperity.

[dbjean]

DSR57 - Walk a mile in her shoes and then talk to me. Ever faced foreclosure? Yeah, what she did was the unthinkable. BUT when you are THAT CLINICALLY DEPRESSED, normal thinking is out the window. All you can think about is to stop the pain. OF COURSE it was the worst decision, but in her right mind, she never would have done it! It''s called DEPRESSION. Look it up!

[xxunknown]

ubrew12: Sigh. Thanks. What is our solution? It scares me that everything is getting more and more expensive (groceries, gas etc etc) and my pay raises arent near to catching up with the increased expenses. I have a good paying job and I find myself wondering when I will get into debt. I cant seem to save anything. I guess just getting by is good enough.

[ubrew12]

xxunknown said: "I dont understand how, in the 1950''s people could live well and save money on a single income."

Income bracket:....%Change in income* (1970-2000):
Bottom 90%:..... -22.5%,
90-95%:...... 0.4%,
95-99%:...... 19.5%,
99-99.5%...... 47.0%,
99.5-99.9%...... 90.0%,
99.9-99.99%..... 227.0%,
Top 0.01%..... 412.0%
*as a share of ALL U.S. income. Source: ''Perfectly legal'' by David Cay Johnston

This shift in wealth was due to REAGAN, i.e. it was BEFORE BUSH CUT TAXES AGAIN. These statistics were compiled by Milton Freedman (founder of supply-side economics) and are NOT liberal biased. You''ll find Pat Buchanan pointing out the same statistics.

I don''t think this nation can afford to stick it to young mortgage owners and young taxpayers, for policies enacted by Reagan that essentially put his good times on a credit card. If there''s a solution to this mess, its got to come with some realization that our ''house of cards'' economy has been hugely profitable, for ''some'' people, and NOT for others.

[voltaire333]

This is someone who was looking for a reason to make an exit, and looking to blame someone else for her unhappiness. We are all responsible for our own happiness or miserableness, short of being tortured in prison or some similar plight. I know of homeless people on the street who are apparently happier than this woman was.

[xxunknown]

I dont understand how, in the 1950''s people could live well and save money on a single income. Now, we seem not only not to be able to save but we are all in debt and its with duel income households.

[ubrew12]

Prelgovisk said: "Suicide is the ultimate expression of selfishness."

Fortunately, we have optimistic expressions of selflessness as a counterbalance. For example, Leona Helmsley left her fortune ($8 billion) to care for dogs. So, we won''t be seeing any doggy suicides anytime soon, thank God. Maybe if humans were less selfish, Helmsley would have left that species some of her billions.

But Helmsley understood the selfishness behind women who stick guns in their mouths and pull the trigger, as do many of our Evangelical Christian friends.

[susieq_13]

This world just gets sadder and sadder by the day. May she RIP.

[luvny-2009]

Mortgage Co are not trying to work with people! I know someone trying to do a short sale meaning selling the house for all they can get even if it''s short of the money owed. They are like a few thousand away and the mortgage people are playing a game and making this person go half nuts. They were told one thing then the mortgage agreement was another. The TRUSTED them and signed. The guy is no long with HSBC!

[n_mitsoulis]

DEATH TO AMERICA IS 2 YEARS AWAY

[tweety_223]

Suicide is never the answer...it only devastates the family members that are left behind and tortures the individual that committed the suicide for eternal life.IMO With the economy the way it is now, banks should be much more flexible and understanding with foreclosures. When someone loses their job due to downsizing or layoffs, the banks should work with them to ensure they don''t lose everything. I understand the banks/mortgage companies need their money as well, but when someone gets laid off, that is no fault of their own. Now I say "go for it" with individuals that just quit their jobs and decide oh I just won''t pay for now - they made the decision to lose that income. Society is really failing those struggling to survive...and everyone needs to step up to help get this world back into a decent environment, economically, environmentally and spiratually to ensure that our children grow up to be happy, healthy and successful and to live a long prosperous life. God/religion needs to be brought back into society as well as old fashioned parenting and schooling. IMO