what they're doing is morally indefensible I don't generally classify actions as morally indefensible or not; 1 bit of information seems awfully limiting. So w

what they're doing is morally indefensible I don't generally classify actions as morally indefensible or not; 1 bit of information seems awfully limiting. So while this seems somewhat immoral to me, it doesn't strike me as a major moral fault, which is what I think of when people bandy about the phrase "morally indefensible." any costs to the bank their behavior incurs is largely going to be borne by good-faith mortgageholders and new prospective good-faith home buyers I think we have to keep costs in perspective; there is no data to suggest that this is happening in significant numbers. So costs must be small. And since occupied homes retain more value (and vacant homes cause adjancent homes to lost value), economically, this might be better for everyone, including the banks. Historically, real estate industry figures have often complained about strategic defaults with no real data to back them up. Furthermore, these costs pale in comparison to an industry simply abandoning its underwriting standards wholesale. When all the banks decide that they're not going to bother verifying income before loaning people hundreds of thousands of dollars, that's going to cause massive problems down the line, and those problems dwarf any caused by the defaulters described in this story. Here's to hoping it catches up with them sooner than later. Given that there are finite resources devoted to law enforcement, it seems bizarre to sic them on these people. Surely there are better targets for law enforcement attention? Like, maybe, every bank officer who decided to abandon their own underwriting standards?