Restaurants are feeling the pain with $4 gas and tightening pursestrings, so they’re sharing the pain by offering “recession specials” — slightly cheaper offerings to help strapped clients enjoy some of the finer things. These deals aren’t really that great compared to cooking in but it’s better than no discount at all.

Padre’s Modern Mexican is going out on a limb and offering any drink for free when the customer brings in a foreclosure notice. Although drinking is usually not the solution for problems like this, I suppose it’s an opportune display of thoughtfulness for what has to be the beginning of a tough time.

I expect to see more deals like this as businesses try to keep sales up in the midst of economic downturn and people losing their homes.

I’ve watched lots of shows with Mr. McMahon, including TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes, Star Search, and of course The Tonight Show and it is a bit sad to see him in this situation, if for no other reason than he seemed to be a jolly guy on those shows and gave away lots of money for PCH sweepstakes. And it’s not as if the guy wasn’t working: he had the house on the market for two years, and had a neck injury that put him out of work for a year and a half. (Most people would be thrilled to be able to work into their eighties.)

Still though, $644k behind in payments? That’s a lot of money. Crazy money. It’s probably a year’s worth of payments or more. The bank finally cried uncle and is trying to take what it can get.

I can’t say that I’d handle my finances differently if I had that much money rolling in, including a $7.2 million settlement for mold. If the house is on the market now for $6.25 million, why didn’t he pay down the mortgage and refinance instead of take out more money? That kind of crazy income should make it a piece of cake to live comfortably for the rest of your life, but I imagine there’s enormous social pressures in those circles to live beyond your means. (”What?! Ed McMahon has only a 2,500 square-foot house?!”) Or maybe he ended up living a bit longer than he had thought. Who knows?

Foreclosure happens to famous people, too.

Mr. Winget maintains that the blame for the massive foreclosure flood rests on the borrowers:

I think the primary cause of the crisis is that people were irresponsible and bought more house than they could afford. Money was easy to get and they took it and didn’t give much thought to the FACTS. And the facts were that their mortgage was going to go up at some point. “But no one told me that!” Bull. It was in the paperwork. If you didn’t read it or understand it, that is your own fault.

Here he’s referring to adjustable-rate mortgages. Harsh words, but that’s his style, and I think he’s largely right. (This isn’t the story you’ll hear from prominent political leaders, because it’s just about guaranteed to turn off voters. It’s much more palatable to believe that it’s someone else’s fault.) Buying a house is definitely something where the timing can be controlled. The prospective buyer can sign the contract or not. The buyer can look for affordable houses with a low, fixed-rate payment or an unaffordable house with payments that are low now, but which rise far beyond their ability to pay later.

Check out the rest of the interview over at All Financial Matters.

• The foreclosure process — how one gets to that point, what’s involved, how it can be avoided
• The social effects of foreclosure
• How widespread foreclosure affects society and the economy
• How one deals with foreclosure after it’s happened

With each foreclosure there are winners and losers. I hope to present both sides fairly. Foreclosures involve people, so it would be unfair to forget this or dismiss it.

Beyond that, we’ll see where it goes! Thanks for stopping by!