I do not want to wreck anyone’s day with this depressing post and its headlines, but we must face reality and stay aware of what’s happening to our fellow Americans.

Although there are most likely several factors affecting people negatively, the current financial mess is too much for some. Certainly, borrowers taking on too much are to blame, but the lender has responsibilities too—arguably more than the borrower. These lenders understood the risk, and they were in a better bargaining position than the lay borrower to determine who should take up what and how much. The lenders gambled and the borrowers lost.

Personally, I’m willing to take a chance with an all-democratic government—House and Senate—and with a liberal president. I’m tired of watching out-of-touch Republicans who govern with their prejudices and false god (free market ideology) drown much needed legislation regarding issues like energy and the financial crisis.

These headlines illustrate the pain of some Americans across the country:

Facing foreclosure, Pasadena woman may have killed herself…

Ohio woman, 90, attempts suicide after foreclosure…:

A 90-year-old Ohio woman, facing eviction from the home she has lived in for 38 years, shot and wounded herself this week, becoming a grim symbol of the U.S. home mortgage crisis.

However the 90-year-old woman’s troubles improved. From the Akron Beacon Journal:

The shots that 90-year-old Addie Polk fired into her chest as she was about to be evicted from her foreclosed Akron home were heard in Washington, D.C.

On Friday, as Congress was preparing a bailout of Wall Street, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Cleveland, took the House floor and decried Polk’s plight.

By midafternoon, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) announced it would dismiss its foreclosure action against Polk, forgive her mortgage and allow her to return to the home where she’s lived since 1970.

Murder-suicide sends shockwaves through financially stressed America…

Foreclosure: ‘They were preyed upon’…:

Parkes, 44, has an IQ of 56 and the math skills of a first-grader. Sakry is 43 and, like Parkes, faces challenges when it comes to planning and maintaining budgets. Despite their limitations, three different lenders persuaded them to keep refinancing their home until they burned up the equity in their house and could no longer afford the payments.

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