Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for coming.
I heard the conversation around good debt and bad debt, and I get it. However, isn't there the factor, whether you have an individual who perhaps has a mortgage that is a little more than they can afford if interest rates go up or a person who has a boat and a mortgage and can't pay both, that ultimately, if you can't afford your debt, whether it's good or bad, you stop paying for it and that, therefore, causes problems within the economy? This notion that if you have good debt, that's all fine, and if you can't afford it, well, it's still considered good debt, versus someone who can't afford their boat payment....
My colleague just said that this hurts the economy. I'm wondering, what would hurt the economy and the housing market more? Would it be telling individuals that if interest rates were to go up, they could only afford this type of mortgage, or allowing them to have whatever mortgage they prefer without stress-testing it to the realities of the economy and the situation right now, and having homes and mortgages being defaulted? That is the option. You tell someone, “You can afford a little less”, or they bite off more than they can chew, and in economic situations mortgages default. How was that experience for the U.S. on people's biggest investment in their homes?
When defaults happened on mortgages, so did value, so all that equity that was discussed was no longer there. Wouldn't that hurt the housing market dramatically if we didn't prepare and protect for risks like that?