Throughout our class discussions and assignments, I found myself intrigued by the topic of the Financial Crisis of 2008. The film “The Big Short”, although offering a thorough explanation and summary of the events that transpired, did not quench my sense of curiosity on the subject. For this reason, I decided to interview someone who might offer a different perspective on the crisis. Working in the mortgage industry for almost 30 years now, Lynn Driscoll certainly accomplished this for me. The interview obviously contained numerous comparisons and connections to the film “The Big Short”. Many of the concerns raised by Lynn Driscoll were also raised in the film. Most interesting of these coalitions was their examination of who was really to …show more content…
As evidenced on several occasions throughout my interview with Driscoll, it is clear that banks prayed on low income borrowers more than any other social class. This is not to say that this is because they were more uneducated that other social classes and thus easier to take advantage of but rather their desperate need of a loan that made them perfect targets for the bankers’ scheme. As I aforementioned, to keep their scheme in motion banks needed to acquire a large number of mortgages. To do this, as explained by Driscoll, lenders participated in lending that “did not do appraisals on property, or did not verify income, or had extremely relaxed guidelines on verification of income”. With this type of lending, low income borrowers were able to receive loans they should not have been approved for and bankers were more than happy to accept while fully aware the rates were too high for the borrower’s income. Driscoll admits, “some loan officers charged a lot of fees and made a lot of money per loan, and often those loans were made to low or median income borrowers”. We, of course, know this did not end well for those who signed onto these unforgiving loans. These borrowers could not keep up with their mortgage payments and were “underwater” as the value of their homes fell well below that of their mortgage. Many, because …show more content…
Walley speaks of this sad reality in her book “Exit Zero”. More specifically she describes this reality as a lack of ‘upward mobility’, or one’s ability to attain a higher financial status, within our society. She explains how our society is constantly creating factors that make it exceedingly difficult to climb the social ladder. Essentially the message Walley conveys to her readers is that the so-called “American Dream” is nothing more than an unattainable goal. I think this is a fact Driscoll would resonate with. She, herself, said in her interview that in order to see our economy improve for the betterment of all people, “We need to make it easier for them (the lower bracket) to get a