Solving the mortgage problem will be painful

THERE has been a lot of rhetoric in recent times about the need for blanket mortgage debt forgiveness.

The argument generally goes that seeing as we the taxpayers have basically given our money over to the banks to keep them solvent, why shouldn’t mortgage holders in difficulty get the same treatment?

From a populist perspective this argument has certain appeal, but when one thinks more about it, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.