Many of the same cast of characters, the same con artist loansharking culture that germinated and grew during the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama presidencies spanning the S&L Crisis of 1990 to the repeal of Glass-Steagall driving private label MBS violating centuries of tested underwriting standards resulting in the biggest heist in history pulled off against the American economy culminating in a devastating collapse of mortgage markets and a financial blowout, this segment of the financial culture has found military members to push their addictive financial meth on.
And before anyone says it’s the fault of military members, we need to understand the history and conditions that allow this addictive financial opium to be peddled in a military service background.
First, these loans are just as damaging as alcoholism and drug addiction. A young service family that is trying to learn the ropes of growing a family in an environment of low pay for military members, they are doing their best to create a good environment for their children, many who will become military members one day.
These families need financial counseling for sure but such counseling is not a cure. These families are an inch away from food stamps if not already on them. But giving pay raises is not the solution.
We want our service members of rank at least E-5 or higher to have the opportunity to grow a healthy solid family, to eventually buy a home in a decent area. E-4s and below can live in barracks or rent apartments in town and should be counseled as to costs associated with having children at such low ranks. It doesn’t take that long to be promoted to E-5 so they should know to wait before having children (at one time you could not be married until a rank of E-5 was attained). And we want them all to eventually have children and to have a great home environment for their children.
There is a way to achieve the above and it does not require anything new, it only requires looking back to the military life of yesteryear, not so long ago actually.
Before severe military budget cuts were made starting in the GHW Bush presidency, military members of certain ranks could live in a modest home on base and their children went to military schools which were rated higher than public schools. They could save a lot of their pay for a down payment on their eventual first home purchase.
Single-family homes of modest design are not expensive and can be put up quickly on bases. Rather than raise military pay to meet the high costs of living offbase and providing prey to liar loan scammers, the idea is to remove the prey from the con artists waiting to push them into GSE guaranteed loans they cannot afford, pushing them into financial distress, perhaps to foreclosure, to divorces, to children raised in broken homes. The social military family bloodbath created by predatory loan brokers is every bit as devastating as cocaine, meth, heavy alcohol.