Ad hominem tu quoque

Posted by Kromey at 3:51pm Jan 7 '10
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"You're doing it, therefore your assertion that it's wrong is invalid." This concept is entirely bogus, which is exactly why it is considered a logical fallacy. That big businesses walk away from their financial obligations in no way implies that it is okay for others to do the same.

The only good salient point in the entire article (which strangely only persists for the one paragraph where it is raised) is this one:

Mortgage holders do sign a promissory note, which is a promise to pay. But the contract explicitly details the penalty for nonpayment -- surrender of the property. The borrower isn't escaping the consequences; he is suffering them.

The entire rest of the article is hogwash based on bullshit, but this point is extremely valid - no one who's "strategically defaulting" on their mortgages is escaping their consequences. And this doesn't even include the huge damage to their credit rating, which has tremendous and lasting consequences.

Okay, there is one other good point raised in this article:

If the Mortgage Bankers Association is against defaults, its members, presumably the experts in such matters, might take better care not to lend people more than their homes are worth.

Although it still misses the entire point of the whole situation - it's not that anyone was leant more than their homes were worth, it's that far too many people were leant more than they could afford to repay, resulting in a crashing housing sector that depressed home values below the debts that allowed their purchase.

In summary, this guy's mostly an idiot and doesn't know what he's talking about. His only two good points he seems to have hit upon by accident, and one of those he still didn't get right!

Yeesh, talking about logical fallacies, and then I succumb to an ad hominem attack in the last paragraph! Let me rephrase: This guy's article is idiotic, which suggests that he does not understand what he is writing about.