Small Business: Tax Cut Deal Won't Spur Hiring

During the last 20 years, home prices were increasing at ins@ne rates, and everybody was told that "Now is the best time to buy", and if they didn't buy, they would be priced out of home ownership (the American Dream) forever.  Realtors and investment counselors and mortgage brokers, etc., all pushed home buying and stretching to buy more house than you could afford right at the moment because "it wouldn't always be that way -- You'll get raises in your job, and even if you didn't, the way that houses are appreciati­ng, you can sell or refinance in a couple of years and still profit/be in the black."

The one common thread, the one gatekeeper to this was the Banker.  When banks assumed the risk of loans and weren't able to turn around and sell what they'd gambled on (and in such a hidden way, too), they made sounder judgments about the applicants and the circumstan­ces likely for repaying the loans they were handing out.  

This didn't just happen.  You may have been surprised by it, but nobody in any of these businesses were.  Books were written before the meltdown, warning of it, but it all fell on deaf ears.  
About Small Business America
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost