since we're talking about mortgages

[hunter]

10. All this cheerful advice about mortgages, credit card debt, and car loans...

... crumbles under mountains of medical bills and fights with health insurance companies.

One of the scariest times in my life was when my wife's COBRA plan timed out in the midst of her chemo. We were both otherwise uninsurable, I was self employed, my wife's pharmacy bills were over a thousand dollars a week, and we were days from foreclosure. Needless to say, I wasn't paying the bills on our maxed out credit cards and the interest rates shot up to 30% plus. (Read the fine print.)

At the last possible minute my wife was accepted to our state's "high risk" insurance pool so she didn't have to interrupt her treatment and we begged enough money from family to bring our mortgage current, money they couldn't comfortably spare. Immediately our mortgage was sold at a discount to some vulture company that bets against the success of people in our circumstances, friendly on the surface, making money selling the homes of people who don't make it for a profit.

My wife recovered and we've not suffered any medical crisis so severe since, but that's when I stopped giving a shit about credit or credit ratings. Most of the financial wreckage from that time has been cleaned up but I never want to borrow money again.

This experience has also made me a hardcore socialist. In a truly civilized society everyone has a secure comfortable home, healthy food to eat, clean water, educational opportunities, and good health care regardless of their circumstances.

We are not a civilized society.