The author claims that 30 year mortgages are a "scam" like student loans. Student loans are a scam because they are not dischargeable even in bankruptcy proceedings; this distorts the true cost of student loans. They are financial millstone for life. Meanwhile, with a mortgage, the worst that can happen is Chapter 7 liquidation. You lose the house but are no longer liable.
That still can be pretty bad in the US if you are not in a nonrecourse state [1]. If the amount the house sells for in foreclosure is not enough to pay off the mortgage the lender can come after you for the difference. Chapter 7 will protect some of your stuff, but you still could lose a lot of money from your bank accounts and your non-retirement investment accounts.
It's a lot nicer in the nonrecourse states. In those states if you can't pay the mortgage the lender only gets whatever the house brings in foreclosure. They cannot come after you personally for any shortfall.
Being in a nonrecourse state makes mortgages a lot less scary. For those in such states you do have to be careful if you refinance or get a second mortgage though, because it is often only the original purchase mortgage that is required to be nonrecourse.
[1] Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Utah, or Washington.
That doesn't make them a scam. These loans are highly unnatural and issued to young people with no credit history and no definite plan to ever repay. If you let people go bankrupt on them, they would max the loans out and default almost immediately.
>Meanwhile, with a mortgage, the worst that can happen is Chapter 7 liquidation. You lose the house but are no longer liable.
That is the worst that can happen for a borrower IF they qualify for Chapter 7. These loan defaults are damaging to society as well. Even when the banks get the houses back, they lose at least tens of thousands on each one in the process of selling them.