Brokers can only sell what they have available. I'll give the journalists a lesson in Business 101: If it's out there, and I don't sell it, someone else will. If it's not illegal, unethical or immoral to sell, by not selling what is available, I'm wrongly taking food of my kid's plate. And because I put a crimp in another advisor's schedule--a lawyer, a realtor, etc.--maybe I don't get the referral for the next piece of "good" business.

Lenders make the rules. Lenders decided what they would loan on. The fact that they trotted out these products may make them terrible at predicting risk, but it doesn't make them necessarily evil. If we weren't talking about someone's home and instead were talking about yacht loans, this discussion would never happen. The fact that homebuyers and cash-out refinance addicts chose to play Russian roulette with Home Sweet Home, instead of determining whether they could *really* afford the payment they saw in black and white, is the only reason the moral stigma is attached to this whole mess.

In fact, the biggest reason the brokers are so interested in doing this business is because financially many of us have no choice. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had problems for years and before they got nationalized started getting reactionary about how they lent, getting even more restrictive than they were in 1995, cutting off the flow of funds to the market. Jumbo lending, securitized by valuable real estate, is worthless. There are almost no financial products left, to be lent to people with no equity or money, with damaged credit, who may lose their jobs soon. The lending industry and economy are dying, yet Alyssa wants me to feel bad about trying to stay in business while keeping someone in a house? I'm not buying it.

The banks did not "willingly and knowingly" create any bubble. Greed is blind. The banks did not plan to do anything; they simply failed to plan. And what many people don't understand is that everything, EVERYTHING revolves around the bank being able to lend at a reasonable cost. Every business relies on being able to go to the bank for a credit line to cover suppliers, payroll, etc backed against its warehouse merchandise or receivables--they simply cannot function without credit and never could since the creation of the Joint Stock Companies that founded Jamestown and Plymouth.

A cramdown on the scale being proposed would create such catastrophe for the banks that lending would essentially cease or revert to usurious terms. The consumer would pay for the problem in the end, not the Big Evil Banks.

Written by someone who has never actually originated or underwritten a single mortgage loan. Do you tell your doctor you can do better by just going to WebMD? Thanks for the input, it's a good thing posting opinions on the internet is free.

[On the second death, there is always federal estaet tax due on any amount above $2 million]

This year,it's $3.5, next year there is no estate tax at all. The following year it reverts back to $1 million permanently unless Congress passes another law. Given the MASSIVE federal spending on soon-to-be-dead corporations, my guess is that the estate tax isn't going away anytime soon; it's easier to raise taxes on transfers of unearned wealth than it is to raise income taxes on working stiffs.

That being the case, the solution is simple and should be known by any decent financial planner: life insurance. Malcolm Forbes bought a massive policy before he died to cover the estate taxes due on his death, which protected all his wealth to his heirs. Everyone with significant assets--and at $1 million, including your house, it's not hard to reach--faces a transfer problem at some point, not just gay couples.

BTW, not everyone with wealth understand this. I remember reading Suze Orman complain that 50% of her wealth would go to the IRS instead of her partner for the same reason. Yet she bashes permanent life insurance, which would cost pennies on the dollar compared to the estate tax she would owe. Not too smart.

[Suppose we had lived together all this time, and had pretty much the same life... but without a marriage license. In that case, if one of us died or we got divorced, the law would treat us, more or less, as if we *had* been married. Why? Common-law marriage recognizes that when people share a bedroom together, they also tend to share bank accounts. And sometimes they have babies. Or pets.]

I hope you are or spoke to an attorney about this....because common law is not federally recognized where estate tax is concerned. Common law may be recognized by specific states, but is not recognized by all. Massachusetts, for example, has no common law recognition:

http://www.madivorceonline.com/mapages/Alimony/commonlawmarriage.asp

So whereas Massachusetts has an estate tax, common law marriage would not shield such a couple. (The estate tax exclusion here is only $1 million, BTW). So check with your state whether there is a local estate tax and whether common law marriage is even valid. The bigger point, though, is that it is NOT federally recognized for tax sheltering.

And since so many people here seem to be guessing as to what the IRS estate tax exclusion amount is, here's the link to that info (on the bottom of the page):

http://www.savewealth.com/planning/estate/taxes/

Note that the exclusion after next year is only $1 million.