Discarded debtors

A very wise book cautions:

Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you.

Too many people are starting to find this out firsthand.

The streets are empty. Trash rustles down the road past rusted barbecues, abandoned furniture, sagging homes and gardens turned to weed.

This is Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland and a town ravaged by the subprime mortgage crisis roiling the United States.

Faded "for sale" signs sit in front of deserted houses. The residents are gone, either in search of new jobs after the factories shut down, or in shame after being evicted for missing their mortgage payments...

Laura Johnston, 50, says that her street -- about 10 minutes away by car -- was alive two years ago. Today, half the houses are abandoned.

"Folks could not afford their payments. They were asked to pay loans which doubled. They could not afford it, some lost their job. Lenders were greedy. They threw them out of their homes," she told AFP.

"I'm very upset. I missed my friend Helen. She disappeared overnight. She did not even say goodbye."

If only the vulnerability were confined to a few neighborhoods. But as our enemies realize, we are no longer financially secure or economically independent. We traded our birthrights for trinkets, and the collectors are coming to call.