New way to reduce your mortgage: Stop paying!

An article late last week in the San Diego Tribune offers up some very realistic, yet depressing advice about the current state of home ownership: Many homeowners would be best off if they simply stopped paying their mortgages. How so? The passage of the bailout bill meant that help for homeowners was assured. After all, politicians can't risk bailing out corporate America, while letting poor little homeowners lose their houses and be out on the streets.

If you've got little to no equity in your house and find it a struggle to pay the mortgage, just stop paying. The government is making it clear that we shouldn't have to sacrifice to stay in our homes regardless of the fact that we may have bought one we couldn't afford, lied on our mortgage application, or otherwise have gotten ourselves into major financial trouble.

The government is going to take "troubled" mortgages off the hands of banks, and plans on doing whatever necessary to keep homeowners in their homes: write down the principle owed on mortgages, give homeowners better interest rates (whether they deserve them or not), offer term extensions to stretch out the payments. The government will see to it that everything possible is done to keep you in your house.