The Globe never fails to amaze me in it's inability to get a story correct. It makes you wonder if they ever fact check ANYTHING over on Morrissey Boulevard. Or do they simply make up stories that they "want" to be news regardless of the facts.
A recent example was the column by Brian McGrory that appeared on March 19, 2010 titled "This, too, is hard work". In the article Mr McGrory tries to teach us that, despite the daily news of our battered economy improving, people are still hurting and that the "good news" has a way of dehumanizing the unemployed. Those millions still out of work are no longer flesh and blood, parents, spouses, children, or bread winners for extended or atypical families, they're now just "lagging indicators". In order to humanize the unemployed he presents Ralph Hynes from Stetson Street in Swampscott. Ralph becomes the "everyman" struggling to maintain his dignity and to keep his finances in order until he can find another job.
Unfortunately, the publicly available data (thank god for the Registry of Deeds on-line) paints a very different story of our "everyman" and presents a potent picture of just how the economy got into the mess from which it is slowly recovering. And why didn't Mr McGrory tell us the whole story so we could make up our minds for ourselves?
All you really have to do is to go to the South Essex Registry of Deeds to get the truth. You see, Ralph and his wife Cynthia bought a condominium in Swampscott for $224,000 on 10/31/2001 with a mortgage to East-West Mortgage for $203,000. (Don't worry, this is all public information). So far so good for Mr Grory's story, but he didn't tell the reader that the Hynes' did what too many people did during the real estate bubble .... they borrowed against the equity in their condo and they borrowed sub-prime.
After owning their condo for less than 2 years they decide to borrow $250,000 from Full Spectrum Lending on 07/31/2003. Less than a year later, 04/12/2004, they borrow $264,000 again from Full Spectrum, and finally on 09/05/2006 they borrow $303,444 from Beneficial Massachusetts. Because all of the mortgages are fixed rate they don't list the interest rate but, if we simply use the "Average" rate for the dates of the mortgage from the "Freddie Mac" on-line mortgage charts, we can estimate that, after cashing out this additional $100,000, their monthly mortgage payments are about $600 higher than when they bought the condo! And now they're have trouble paying their credit cards ??? Where the hell did the $100,000 go? Mr McGrory, I'd love to have read that in your column.
But wait ...... there's more!!! You see the town of Swampscott filed a "tax taking" on their property in August of 2009 (Book 29022 Page 580) because the Hynes' haven't paid their real estate taxes. Yes, this was after Ralph lost his job, but the notice is for the 2008 and 2009 taxes. We start paying 2008 taxes in the fall of 2007, that's about 1 1/2 years before he lost his job. Further, the town sent the Hynes' a demand notice on July 2008 just in case they forgot to pay. So why wasn't he paying his taxes BEFORE he lost his job?
And now we're supposed to believe that his wife surprised him with the letter from the bank that it was going to foreclose? Banks don't initiate foreclosures in Massachusetts until you are at least 90 days late. We're to believe and feel sorry for Ralph that he had to drop out of MRI Imaging classes ...... because he didn't know he was 90 days late in his mortgage payments? Give me a break.
But I will admit that at least the title of the essay is correct, It is hard work. It is hard work to spend every penny that comes into your hands and not plan for any possible problems in the future. Yes, It is hard work to be a deadbeat and look for sympathy. And it must have been really hard work for Brian McGrory to get so much of the Ralph Hynes story so wrong. Fortunately for the Globe, Brian was up to the challenge!