I would love to hear John Edwards spell out what he considers “predatory lending.”

In some cases, the elderly, I guess I can see how someone gets lured in, how someone trusts a verbal agreement, and thinks that it is somehow legally binding, and/or would overrule what is written in the documents. (If you don’t speak English, you should not be signing documents written in English. This strikes me as rather common sense.)

But for many of these folks now telling their “hard luck” stories to the press, they didn’t read carefully the documents they signed, they didn’t think about what would happen when their adjustable rate mortgage adjusted rates, they didn’t imagine that housing prices could ever go down, etc. Those of us who like the free market system need to figure out what we do with people who are gullible and foolish, who sign agreements without understanding them. Because apparently there are quite a few of them, and they’re itching for Uncle Sam to come along and take care of them.

Well, at least Edwards isn’t calling for a federal bailout of house flippers who got caught betting that the market would only go up, and fast, forever…

…yet.