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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

And also quite a reform for juries to hold people responsible for having a little common sense. How can you step onto a moving sidewalk without knowing you will eventually need to step off?

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Demolishing those houses is the right decision.

I'd agree that the bank never should have foreclosed on these houses. They'd have been much better off signing those houses over and changing the debt to an unsecured loan. The debt (or some portion of it) would remain valid but the owners would continue to have a place to live, the property would be maintained, and the bank wouldn't have to assume the liability of the house.

Unfortunately, once a bank owns a house, the bank is responsible for the house.

Banks are not trying to create a housing shortage. They are trying to deal with a surplus that includes properties that they believe have no chance of becoming profitable. This does include giving houses away, which is preferable to spending money to demolish them. Banks are for-profit entities, and destroying these houses is an example of the free market dealing with a surplus by destroying items with a negative value, not an example of manipulating the market to create a shortage.

Even if the houses aren't demolished, they can't let anyone live there. That would be a lawsuit just waiting to happen.

(I have no comment or opinion on your monopoly power statements. I suspect that subject is deeper than can be explained in one of these posts. Feel free to provide a link where I can read a more fully developed analysis supporting that claim).

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