ARE THE REAL VILLAINS OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS ON YOUR TV?

The real villains here, the truly bad seeds at the heart of this crisis, have gone unpunished thus far and are still in operation. They are Jeff Lewis and Ryan Brown of Bravo’s Flipping Out, Armando and Veronica Montelongo of TLC’s Flip This House, Kristen Kemp of TLC’s The Property Ladder, Kendra Todd of HGTV’s My House Is Worth WHAT?, and the TLC, Bravo, HGTV, and Fine Living networks in general. All of them encouraged people to take out massive loans in order to buy and renovate homes and sell them at a profit when, really, most people have terrible taste, and furthermore, are bad at laying tile. These shows are still on! WHY?

Actually, My House Is Worth What? seems to be on the way out. That’s too bad, as lately sellers were finding out their houses were worth a lot less than they expected. Maybe the HGTV folks don’t like that, but it seemed a useful corrective . . . .