So too, ethics.

Trust - goes both ways. If the bank expects to trust you to make payments (even when it is financially stupid to do so) then the flip side of that trust is to expect that the bank will be supportive and helpful with long term, trusthworthy customers when there are issues and problems in the other direction.

The reason for the lack of trust and the willingness to simply hand over negative equity homes is that the banks have shown, time and again, that someone's love for their home, their history of payment etc. etc. are meaningless to them. If you can't pay, expect people trying to change your locks without notice (while you are home in some cases), foreclosure threats or attempts even if on shaky ground legally etc. A great many banks have shown that all that they care about is doing things that suit their own interest exclusively.

In short, the banks have already destroyed consumer confidence in them. As such, the consumers have little to no desire to give the banks an inch either.

If the banks had shown heart and courage in helping homeowners, refinancing loans and accepting that some of the responsibility for the housing bubble was theirs rather than all of it falling on their customers, then perhaps people would feel more loyalty.

But given the rapaciousness of the behaviour of US financial institutions of late, it should come as no surprise at all that homeowners now also look after their own interests firsts and the banks can go hang.

The banks made this bed. Now they will have to lie in it.