That’s sticky. The “unbanked” are served by pawn brokers and check cashing shops, but what they charge for their services doesn’t meet the ethical standard.
Should there be a national bank where anyone can get an account?
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It’s great that you’re in that situation. I think the point is that not everyone can afford to buy a house, especially now, but that was true a decade ago. Also, not everyone has great credit and can get favorable interest rates. Also, not everyone has money for a down payment. Also, not everyone can pick up and move to a place where rent/mortgages are cheaper. Also, some people get cancer and it fucks the stability they have, or they lose their house in an earthquake, fire, or flood…
The whole point is that not everyone has access to the same set of choices and options, and that most of us are subject to accidents, mistakes, and events beyond our control. Some of us can better absorbed the impact than others. Some of us would be out on the street with a single hospital visit, some after a series of unfortunate events that they have no control over.
The lending crisis is a crisis to lots of people, people who wanted to same security and stability you (and I) currently enjoy. They wanted a place to call home, a decent job that paid their way through a life that demands an exchange of currency for the majority of necessities of life. I’m not sure that makes them idiots, merely human.
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I’m not sure it is a “lending crisis” six years later. Whatever it is, is just the norm.
No, not everyone can afford to buy a house. That said, many people don’t even try to save to do so, even if it is an aspiration.
All of us are “subject to accidents, mistakes, and events beyond our control.” That’s called “life” and the Buddha had a lot to say about it. 
I wasn’t discussing how close to being on the street folks are. This was a side thread off of that.
Fair enough… My point was that not everyone has the same set of choices as you or I. Not everyone can save, because their entire paychecks go for the necessities of life. And I’m not sure calling people idiots is really helpful. We still have interest rates set at near zero, so someone thinks it’s still a crisis and the banks are still hoarding money like smaug as if it’s a crisis. There are plenty of people still digging their way out of the recession. Underemployment is still a thing… It probably depends on your economic situation over all whether or not the past 6 years have been a crisis of lending and stability. We’ll see what happens once the fed raises the rates.
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I grew up on foodstamps with a single mom and we moved every single year to a new place or apartment as jobs and lack of money dictated. I had to get the government to pay for school lunch, got new clothes once a year, and was lucky if I ever saw a doctor or dentist.
I really don’t need a patronizing lecture on the instability of life. Thanks!
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Well, your comments came off as patronizing too, even if that’s not what you meant.
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Great, we’re even.
You know what… not very compasionate. I get constantly ignored and overlooked. I really don’t need your pissiness just because I disagreed with you.
Sometimes I think conversations somehow end up like this. I can’t explain it, but it resonates with me.
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I don’t know how old you are but if you grew up pre 1996 your and your Mother’s experience of poverty was vastly different from those of families who are poor today. [The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act][2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act substantially changed how US society treats those down on their luck
Three assistant secretaries at the Department of Health and Human Services, Mary Jo Bane, Peter B. Edelman, and Wendell E. Primus, resigned to protest the law.[27] According to Edelman, the 1996 welfare reform law destroyed the safety net. It increased poverty, lowered income for single mothers, put people from welfare into homeless shelters, and left states free to eliminate welfare entirely. It moved mothers and children from welfare to work, but many of them are not making enough to survive.
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A macro thinker talking with a micro thinker about a Big Issue never seems to go well.
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In my comments, I wasn’t attack you, I was pointing out that not all people have the same set of options as you do. If that’s an attack, then I’m sorry. I call it reality. I’m in possession of many options that friends and family are not privileged to have, just as you are. I know you generally agree with the concepts and theories of privilege, as I’ve seen you deploy them quite often here in conversation. I also know it can be quite tough to look at ourselves and where we are in regards to the social pecking order.
So, feel free to call me patronizing if you’d like and dismiss me, as I’m often dismissed by many people because I’m a middle-aged woman, because I’m not an engineer, or a rational, logical thinker, or whatever else. But I was not calling you out, other than to note what I felt was you’re being dismissive of others struggles today. If you weren’t, then please say so.
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Ummm…that’s not what they’re doing! 
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Fair enough. I’m just feeling tired and disagreeable today.
It had nothing to do with your gender, age, or profession though. I know you’re a woman (obviously after interactions) but little else about you. I’m certainly not simply being disagreeable because of those things about you. If anything, I’m being equal opportunity today so it is on me.
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It’s hard to play leap frog in armour - I think the top one’s stuck. The bottom one doesn’t seem to mind though.
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But see how happy they both look? Especially the one saying, “Hey! I’m a mountain goat!”
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I’m 44 and, yes, the system got a lot worse. That wasn’t really about my point, which was I grew up largely in precarious poverty so I’m pretty familiar with how that goes, as opposed to the folks I know who had stable childhoods with houses, money, etc. I was very fortunate later to wind up with my grandparents taking me in and paying for my undergrad education while giving me a stable home. Otherwise, who knows?
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