It's not like walking away from a mortgage gets you off scot-free. The entire point of a mortgage is that it's a contract. If walking away from the contract and enduring the penalties associated with doing so is less financial pain than keeping with the contract, then why not?<p>It's not like these 'underwater' people are going to immediately move to some island in the Caribbean with bags full of money and sit on the beach in the sun living the good life until the end of their days while the poor, sickly bank dies alone and impoverished in a gutter somewhere.