"Dave LaCourse" wrote in message
...

obviously, the measure of 'wealth' has evolved since Smith's time. . . .
it's strange days we're in when someone who thought they could afford a 5
series now feels they should benefit from the services of your food
pantry.

Obviously. It's even stranger when Barney, Dodd, and Obama told those
poor people that they could afford $400,000 homes when they only made
$50,000 per year. That is the crime, Tom.

Well, US bankers for at least a century told borrowers that the
maximum house price they could afford was 3 or 4 years' gross
income, "told" not merely in words but in deeds, viz. refusal to make
loans outside that envelope. All of a sudden, the new idea was
proposed that anyone could afford a house costing 8 years' income
(and no evidence offered why this might be the case.) Why should
anyone be so simple as to act on this belief?

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)