How did a strawberry picker earning $15,000 a year qualify for a $720,000 home loan?

Racism, of course.

Ignoring the fact that he was living in the U.S. and never bothered to learn English…

“It’s all very nice and beautiful,” Rosa tells me through a translator. “The neighborhood is very peaceful. The problem is not with the house at all. It’s the price of the house.” […] Neither Rosa nor Alberto speaks English, so they were completely dependent on their real estate agent and their mortgage broker for advice and to translate and educate them about the process.

…and ignore the fact that they tried to buy a house they knew he couldn’t afford…

One of the first homes they were shown was a “new” four-bedroom, two-bath house in Hollister for $720,000. When the Ramirez’s heard the price, they worried that they couldn’t afford it.

So instead of wondering why someone would move to a country and not bother to learn the language, or requiring someone who knew they couldn’t afford a purchase show some personal responsibility, let’s just cry racism.

And when the racism bell tolls, all the race pimps come out to play.

Last week, a coalition of civil rights groups, including the National Council of La Raza, the Center for Responsible Lending and the NAACP, called for a national six-month moratorium on foreclosures — after observing that the subprime crisis disproportionately affected minorities.

So is it a case of poor minorities being taken advantage of, or is it a case of someone trying to live beyond their means and paying the price for it?

But for Rosa and Alberto Ramirez and many others like them, a foreclosure moratorium won’t help. It’s not that a better loan would have remedied their situation — it’s that they can’t afford the home they bought.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

And I don’t feel sorry for the lenders going belly up either. You give a guy making $15,000 per year a mortgage for $720,000, don’t come whining to us when it doesn’t work out.