A tale of two houses

Adam is a computer programmer in a medium-sized hi-tech company। Susie, his wife, works as an accounting supervisor in a small import export company. They have no kids, yet, because they want to save enough money as the down payment for a house so that their kids (when they have them) can grow up in the backyard of their own house. They can be said of a typical middle class American family.

They have just bought a house। After a few years of hard working and disciplined savings, they save enough for their first house. Actually, more than enough, according to their real estate agent. The money they save is good for 25% of the purchase price of their first house. They can buy a bigger house, according to their real estate agent, with less down payments or with higher mortgage banks are willing to lend. They decide not to, because they figure that with their current level of commitments, they can still keep their mortgage payments even if one of them loses a job.

The house next to theirs is a bigger house, owned by George and Betty। George and Betty also moved in at about the same time as Adam and Susie. During some casual chats in their front yard, Adam and Susie learn that George is a construction worker and Betty works as a part-time sales in a small nearby electronics store. They were able to put zero down for their house, because their real estate agent taught them to do so, and because of the recent housing market boom.

Then it’s November 2008। Banks are in big trouble – Lehman Brothers collapsed. Stock market has plunged great time. The housing market has collapsed. Numerous houses have been foreclosed.

Adam and Susie are still doing okay because they have saved up some money for the rainy days। But not George and Betty. George has not had any work for more than a month as developers are not building new houses. Betty has just been laid off because no-one is buying any non-essential things such as electronic games.

George and Betty have missed their last mortgage payment, and they feel that their house is en route to foreclosure। They know that Adam and Susie have some savings; they are thinking of stealing from them, or perhaps even rob them. But they are too timid to commit such horrible crimes.

Then out of nowhere, a white knight comes to the rescue। Even though he is a black person, but to George and Betty, he is really their white knight. Who is he? He is the newly elected president Barack Obama! Barack Obama has decided to use taxpayers’ money to save those who cannot afford their mortgage payments so that they don’t have to lose their homes.

George and Betty say, “Barack Obama is a godsend। Now we don’t need to rob or steal from our neighbor, the government will just do it for us. We don’t need to commit such crimes; it's illegal, but when the government does it, it’s all legal.”

Charles Dickens once wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Note: This post is a republish from A tale of two houses on wordpress and has been back-dated to refelct the original date of publish.