Stockton's magical misery tours

This part is particularly sad:

Pete Ponce de Leon, a 50-year-old machinist, said he and his wife were barely keeping up with their monthly mortgage payments, which shot up from $1,700 a year ago to $2,500 now. He said he cashed in two IRAs, sold his tools, sold a truck and was bracing for another rate increase this month. Along the way, he lost his job, and his lender refused to cut him a break.

"Why don't they just screw us all at once instead of a little at a time?" said Ponce de Leon, who has found another job and hopes to renegotiate his mortgage.

Asked whether the higher payments took them by surprise, Ponce de Leon struck the same note as many other homeowners in trouble. "We just thought we'd be OK," he said, explaining that he and his wife had planned to use what they'd expected to be the rising equity in their home to refinance the adjustable loan at a lower rate.

It was a bet that backfired. Like homes almost everywhere else in California, the Ponce de Leons' lost value and their interest rates kept going up.