I don’t want to get too carried away with this and suggest that online bank ING is above reproach, but it’s letting several hundred of its customers skip a monthly mortgage payment.
It’s interesting, based on interviews of two of the beneficiaries of this action, what kind of impact this has had on customers.
What’s even more interesting is the fact that ING, based on the most current list of financial institutions to receive money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, hasn’t yet asked for money from the $700 billion rescue plan.
Merry Christmas, ING customers!
I’ve heard a lot of complaints by business people about the media and how it has hurt them by writing bad news. Sensationalizing, they say. Trying to sell papers, they say.
My kneejerk reaction is to say you’re wrong, we’re just reporting the news. My second reaction is to say, well, maybe, there has been a lot of bad news and people do seem to be pretty down. I’ve looked for the good news nuggets and tried to get them in the paper. And we’ve gone out of our way to differentiate between the disastrous national housing market and the merely mediocre local one.
My third reaction is to get a little ticked off: people need to know what’s going on to make important decisions. For every retailer or salesman who says we should tone down the coverage, there are hundreds of people who probably ought to think twice before spending $1,000 on Christmas. In these times, being a little scared is appropriate.