Wait a minute. The feds said if we spent trillions bailing out banks it would fix all that...........

The bailouts were meant to return the financial institutions to solvency, and to free up liquidity so businesses could keep their doors open. I don't recall anyone ever saying that the bailouts were meant to clear the slate so we could return to the days of Wild Wild West lending.

The quote below seems to indicate pretty good reasons for the "Why", and even points to a specific problem unique to the target market.

So no, the bailouts were not intended to return us to irresponsible lending, or irresponsible borrowing.

Don't confuse him with facts. He's a Teabagger. Teabaggers only believe the lies they are told.

Yeah, crap, either side could just blame Bush or Obama for the problem of bailouts, and they'd both be happy and go their own way mumbling to themselves.

Is there a number percentage wise of how many loans went bad.I know there were a lot of boats floating around as repo's the last few years,but there are a lot that are being paid as agreed.

The problem seems to be people who strip their drives and engines out of their boats when the payments get tough. There needs to be a law enacted that allow this type of fraud to be handled as a crime and the people that do this should pay for it dearly. Until they tie the drives and engines to the HIN, apparently nothing stops this theft, which prevents a lot of people who need financing to not have access to it.

Oh christ almighty, the last thing we need is another law. The smart financing companies include the engines in the secured asset agreement.

Exactly my point. Lots of businesses had to close down as a direct result of dried up lending, that includes boat businesses. Its obvious the bailouts didn't work.

I don't think its irresponsible to buy a new boat with a loan anymore than it is to buy a new car. They both lose their value the minute they are driven away. Gap insurance covers the difference in case of a loss. The irresponsible lending blame lies in homeownership.

You mean like this one?

Obama: "My health care plan will NOT mandate individuals by health insurance"

As I understand it, the problem isn't necessarily that there aren't laws or that people don't get caught. I am not a lawyer, but at the very least I see a combination of grand theft—removing big-dollar engines from a boat that no longer belongs to you—and maybe even fraud. The problem is that the bank, more often than not, ends up with an asset missing key parts and, at best, has to go through the trouble and expense of not just recovering those assets (engines and drives) if they haven't been thrashed but getting them back in the boat in which they originally belonged.

Forget legality for a moment. Think like someone lending money. Think like a banker. If the "collateral" you're lending on—the boat itself—has a good chance of being devalued before you can repossess it if that becomes necessary, why would you even bother making the loan?