Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/14/redlining-2-0.html
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“Some people will rob you with a fountain pen.”
-Bob Dylan via Arlo Guthrie
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It’s sad the Henry Winkler became the harbinger of sorrow.
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Wealth concentration in a tiny minority working as intended.
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Just had long time residents / members of our HOA go through foreclosure do to a Reverse Mortgage, it was soul crushing watching two elderly folks get booted from their home, the particulars of the event remain partially unknown to me.
And Henry Winkler, what the fu#k are you doing!
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paying off his reverse mortgage.
when I first heard of them and some basics of how they work I immediately thought ‘what could possibly go wrong?’
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I remember reverse mortgages for medical expenses being heavily marketed to gay men with AIDS back in the 80s and 90s, when many men with AIDS had immediate medical expenses, but didn’t expect to live very long.
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Jumping the loan shark.
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Holy shit this is ghastly
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I’m a little surprised Henry Winkler is doing these ads, given his reputation as a nice guy.
In the Chicago area, Tom Selleck is the face of reverse mortgages. For some reason, that didn’t surprise me at all.
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Truly. The reverse mortgage commercials would be bad enough without him, but otherwise Winkler is one of Hollywood’s true nice guys. It’s a shame he tarnished himself by shilling for these grifters who prey on the elderly and infirm.
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Alex Trebek has also been used in ads for reverse mortgages. I suspect they haven’t done enough research into them, and just bought whatever line they were told to convince them to stump for these companies. Fred Thompson, when he was still alive, also shilled for them, but he was always a jerk.
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I haven’t seen the reverse mortgage ads with Trebek. I have seen him in ads for life insurance, but that seems a bit more respectable, at least AFAIK.
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They go for the same casting types as the term insurance company ads do: familiar, reassuring grandfatherly men with grey hair who other old people (the target audience) remember from network TV. If you’re target ting anxious elderly people it’s a winning formula, and the advertiser will pay big bucks for celebs like these. SNL spoofed this using Sam Waterson:
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Reverse mortgages aren’t inherently a bad idea, but they’re just a small part of a bigger fucked up financial system. The health care issue is the biggest part, and even with O-Care that hasn’t been solved, and you can’t really blame reverse mortgages for that. But the predatory lending tactics and intentional deceptive sales tactics and paperwork are something that can be solved. Should be solved. And they could be solved retroactively if Congress or the President gave a rats ass about poor people. So yeah, just another reason to vote for a democratic socialist in the next election.
Just going to leave this here;
(This is the reason Biden will be the dem nominee)
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Wrong Guthrie. Woody.
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“A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun.” – Don Henley.
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Damn it… I thought that was just a joke on Modern Family.
(Maybe it was a joke, and Winkler started doing this after that, meaning life-imitates-comedy?)
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It’s just good to see Gene Cousineau is getting work.
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Damn! I meant Woody and had him pictured in my head but then I was thinking about that hospital scene in Alice’s Restaurant. Thanks for the correcto-mundo!
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