Putting our Mortgage Problems in Proper Perspective

I had lunch yesterday with Elena Panaritis, who does work on housing finance in emerging countries. She was telling me that it is difficult to develop a mortgage market in Botswana, because people there don't live long enough to pay off mortgages. Life expectancy in Botswana has dropped from 65 to 40 over the past fifteen years. HIV/AIDs is the culprit.