The giant wave of foreclosures and huge drop in real estate values have left many homeowners in Las Vegas dishing out monthly mortgage payments that are meaningless in investment terms. It's money they may never recover. Why not walk away, take the credit hit, and start over, rather than throwing good money after bad at a home that won't likely see any equity return for at least a decade and in some case, much longer?
We look at the moral dilemma of walking away. Borrowing and lending as a practice, lives and dies on one basic principle: the sense of duty debtors feel toward their creditors. Have we now entered a period of time where walking away from debt has become more acceptable, more normal?
Our guests include Felix Salmon, finance blogger for Reuters and Megan McArdle, finance and economics blogger of the Asymmetrical Information, and writer for the Atlantic Monthly.