I can'r give you an exact footnote, but a few years ago I saw a bit of film of a group of investment executives celebrating how one of their deals had left a bunch of middle class families high, dry and cut off (I believe it was some kind of insurance investment scheme, if I'm not mistaken). Maybe someone here can remember the clip, I recall it made a big media splash at the time.

They were laughing and squealing with glee about how their marks were moaning and crying about getting rooked in this deal, and they (the businessmen), had so cleverly outmaneuvered those sniveling fools.

I suppose it must be hard to feel sympathy for people who's own greed lures them into some get-rich-quick scheme that backfires, leaving them up the proverbial creek without a paddle. But I believe today it is part of the business ethos to deliberately manufacture these conditions, and they justify it to themselves by feeling that those dumb enough to fall for these deals somehow deserve to be taken for a ride. It betrays real contempt for the customer.

Your story reminds me of one from my ex-boss, who got caught up in the ARM swindles of the 2000's, and wound up taking a bath on TWO houses, one in Florida and one in Texas. After retiring from a very good job (and his professional wife doing the same) with pensions, savings and real estate, they soon found themselves in a deep hole they're still trying to dig themselves out of. Their retirement turned into a nightmare, and they will die in debt.

I didn't buy my first house until '98 when I was in my early fifties. I got a fixed-rate, 15-year, 6.5% VA loan which we paid off 4 years early--on a 30 year old fixer-upper. It meant sacrifice and doubling up on payments, but we got out from under that weight just in time for me to retire early when my own job went in the toilet.

I'm not any smarter or harder working than anybody else, but I was brought up by parents brought up during the Great Depression. They drilled it into my head that there is no Money for Nothing.