Here’s a good perspective from David Nickalus of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Nickalus takes a hard look at whether FHA Secure is helping out borrowers who were tricked or bailing out the lenders and borrowers who thought they could beat the risks — I suppose it’s a bit of both.

Nickalus muses:

Of course, not all of those 2 million borrowers deserve either sympathy or government help. Many knew they were playing a speculative game, betting that they could refinance or sell for a quick profit if housing prices kept rising.

These folks aren’t victims. They bet on a continuation of the housing bubble, and they lost. But they — and the lenders who were all too willing to make no-documentation, interest-only loans — would benefit from some of the more ambitious proposals floating around.

He’s right. Although with the standards for FHA Secure a lot of the borrowers who were playing it unsafe well be kept out, some irresponsible borrowers will be getting help that they probably don’t deserve. As my father always said: Life’s not fair.

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