No, because I have a moral code. You son't so, you are far more likely to be led to slaughter by fallacious and specious arguments and warped logic.

I did not recognize that as a point because it is so patently ridiculous. You have no right to harm others or act immorally in the best interests of those to whom you are responsible. The bank, or any other coporation, does not have the right to act immorally in order to meet those obligations. It does not have the right to defraud consumers or clients, to steal or embezzle or lie about their actions to drive up stock prices. Assertions that such actions are taken in the interests of meeting their obligations or benefiting the shareholders are as absurd and false as the assertions of a mafioso that he commits his crimes and brutal acts for the benefit of his wife and kids.

If carrying out your obligations in a transaction would be disadvantageous to your family, you should not enter into that transaction in the first place. It's not the bank's fault you failed to plan for the long anticipated bursting of the housing bubble, and technically speaking, they have nothing to do with the home purchase. They loaned the money, and the recipient of that loan went ahead and bought something he could not afford. That does not excuse him of his obligation to pay back the bank.

I owe no obligation to their stockholders. If they can do whatever is legal to advance their interest why should regular people feel a moral obligation to not do the same? Because it has nothing to do with what they can or can't do! Wrong is wrong, regardless of what legality is or what another might be doing. Unless they are breaking the transaction, you have no right to do so on your own. The fact that you made an unwise deal does not free you of your obligation to meet it. You do not pay fees or prices for commodities out of a desire to benefit the seller or the service provider, you do it out of fairness, because you are receiving something in exchange. If you purchase something from a store that turns out to be less desirable than you thought, you do not have the right to cancel the transaction and withold the money you owe them. They gave you something for your money and you owe them the money. Your own projected expectations for the commodity you purchased are irrelevant. Likewise with a house. They have the right to take your house if you fail to repay the loan with which you purchased, BECAUSE YOU OFFERED IT TO THEM WHEN YOU TOOK OUT THE LOAN! It was part of the deal. The fact that there is a minimal penalty for failure to pay the loan does not make your absconding with the money MORALLY acceptable.

The bank's explanation that it has to enforce the penalties for failure to pay back its money "because of the obligations to the stockholders" is merely an excuse for not performing charity. In fact, that it not the basis of their right. They may take your house, simply because it is their right. They have the right to refuse extensions of a loan, they have the right to refuse to renegotiate the loan, and they have the right to exact the penalty for failure to repay the loan, for exactly the same reason that you have the right to walk past a bum on the street without putting money into his cup. The assertion of their obligations to the stockholders is simply an excuse like "Sorry pal, I don't have change" or "Well, I need the money for my family, I can't give it to every bum who asks." THAT is the appropriate parallel. Refusing to pay back a loan with that justification is like justifying stealing or shoplifting on the grounds that your family has better uses for your money, so why not take whatever you can get away with, since you have no obligation to the owner of the store to give him your money.

What you argue for is a rejection of civilized values and a return to barbaric mores of "take what you can" and the Good of the Clan trumping all rights or morals. That might almost be acceptable if you were genuinely advocating that position out of a preference for it, rather than picking and choosing when civilization works for you and rejecting it where it does not.

And you didn't respond to any of the rest of it. It might be legal, but it is just as immoral and fraudulent as an employer who declares his business bankrupt in order to default on his financial obligations to his employees. In addition, the legality of an action has no bearing on the morality.

Because you're a selfish asshole who shirks his obligations. THEY did not set the rules. YOU cooperated with them in setting the rules when you borrowed money from them. They demanded your house as collateral before lending you the money to buy it, in order to ensure that they would get paid back. Why are they obliged to ignore, forgive or go easy on a debt they did not induce you to undertake? You asked them for money to buy a house, and the problems with that transaction do not remove your moral obligation to uphold your deal with the bank.

You are also falsely comparing the two positions. The bank's potential exercise of their legal rights that has you so exercised would be in reaction to your failure to live up to your end of the agreement. The fact that they will take action to recoup some of their loss if you cheat them does not excuse your cheating them, any more than vandalism or causing accidental harm or damage or assault is justified by the victim's being insured against that damage.

How about the inability of people to get a decent or viable loan, because the banks can't afford it thanks to defaulters costing them money? The banks WILL lose money on the default, regardless of whether or not they get your house in return. If the house was a better deal for them than the debt, then nothing would prevent you from going in like a decent human being and saying "Look, this whole mortgage thing is not working out, so why don't I just sign over the house and you call it even?" If the bank is just out for money, a position you seem to have conceded, why would they not accept such a deal, or even openly solicit & encourage defaulters?

If the banks continue to lose money on mortgages, they will institute more and more stringent controls on repayment issues or else go out of business. Either way "society as a whole" will have a harder time obtaining loans with which to purchase houses, from either many fewer lenders, much less loan capital available or far more strict rules and obligations set out in order to ensure the bank can recoup its money.

Your opinion does not matter. Your moral obligation is the same as towards anyone who loans money - you have an obligation to pay them back, regardless of their moral character or degree of rigor/laxity in ensuring their interests. It doesn't matter from whom you are stealing - theft is wrong, regardless of if it is from the poorest bum on the street or the wealthiest and most powerful corporation in the world. Likewise, you have an obligation to pay back anyone to whom you owe money, whether it is an IOU in your kid's piggybank or a few bucks you borrowed from your buddy or a bet on the game or a loan from your parents or a charitable organization or a bank or even a mafia loan shark.

Regardless, it does not change the facts. You incurred an obligation of your own volition. Your subsequent distate for the obligation does not alter the nature of it nor does the fact that the bank will act in its own interests. You GAVE it the right to act in that manner when you borrowed money from it and offered collateral. That is the essential point you are missing here - the bank has MET its part. The bank gave you the money, as evidenced by the fact that you have purchased a house. You are stupidly and obnoxiously acting as if you and the bank are suddenly facing off in a vaccuum and you had nothing to do with this circumstance of having to give the bank money or else they will take your house. You are in this situation because the bank extended you funds, and now are acting as if the bank's rights to recoup that money gives you an equal right to prevent it from doing so if that course of action is more profitable to you! It is not a contest over who can get the best deal and you are entering this contest with a clean slate, but you know that the bank is going to try to "screw" you as soon as you let your guard down. What you are forgetting is that YOU are the one with the asset. You are holding the bank's money, and their actions are based on an all-too common lack of decency on the part of people in your position. You only see the tendency of insitutions to act impersonally and solely for profit doing "whatever is in their interests" as if that is some sort of wrong and act like you are doing them a favor by repaying the loan. In fact YOU are the "bad guy" with the money and the bank's projected actions are the result of people treating a bank like it does not matter because you can dehumanize it, and justify retention of money that properly belongs to the bank. The bank is not coming after you because they have a legal excuse and seek profit whereever they can get it - they want their money BACK!

You speak of mutual respect and whatnot, when in fact, you are changing the rules halfway through. In your juvenile complaints that you have no moral obligation because the bank is not being nice you first, you are overlooking the fact that in the scenario you present, the bank has already given you the money. Your repayment is not a nice thing you are doing for them, it is returning a courtesy. Why should the bank not tell you to screw yourself and save up for the house, rather than get the house first and pay back the money for the house? Why can the seller of the house refuse such a deal and demand the money up front, but the bank is a jerk for letting you live in a house it has paid for, while you pay it back and apparently begrudge it repayment of its own money?