Brad Miller: “the financial condition of American working and middle-class families is a mess. Wages are stagnant, health care costs…”

“the financial condition of American working and middle-class families is a mess. Wages are stagnant, health care costs are exploding, the individual savings rate for 2004 was 1 percent, and credit card debt is more than $800 billion. The bright spot is that 69 percent of American families own their own home. The equity that American families build in their homes by years of faithfully paying a mortgage is the bulk of the net worth, the life savings, of most homeowners. Homeownership is more than an investment. The deed to a home is a membership card to the middle class. Families living on the fringes of poverty can begin to get their footing when they own their own home and become part of a neighborhood where parents know their children's playmates. Financially vulnerable families are even more likely to have to borrow against the equity in their homes to provide for life's rainy days, however. Every American homeowner faces a mountain of documents when they borrow money to buy a home or when they use their home to secure a loan. Many vulnerable homeowners borrow knowing only how much their monthly payment will be, only to learn later that they signed away a big part of their home equity, of their life savings. There are lending practices that should offend anyone with a conscience.…”