What's happened to integrity and obligation?

I just had a call from a potential buyer who wanted me to to help him look for a larger home. After an extended conversation which included many details I'm not going to go into here, I present to you the following Cliff notes version~

"Ok, Mr. Buyer, you would like to buy a home. Tell me, are your currently renting or do you have a home to sell first?" I ask.

"uh...honestly, we probably owe more than our house is worth".

"Why are you moving?"

"We would like to get a bigger home since there are so many good foreclosure deals out there."

"So, what are you going to do with your current home?"

"Oh, we qualify to buy another home without selling our current home. So we figure we'll buy another house and then just let our current house foreclose."

"DANGER!!! DANGER!!!" Yells my brain. " Step away from the phone!"

"Um....Mr. BuynBail...uh..I mean Mr. Buyer...did you know this is called mortgage fraud?"

"Oh..did I say I was going to walk away? Uh..I meant to say I'm going to rent out my other house. Yea, that's what I'm going to do."

Right. A blind armadillo could see through that one.

"I wish you the best, Mr. Buyer, but here's the bottom line... I really won't jeopardize my license or my ethics in your quest to buy a larger home. "

So, what's the deal??? Can you even begin to imagine our parents doing something like this? I know my parents lived through the depression and scrimped and saved to buy their first little house. I mean, people back then walked 10 miles to school... in the snow... all uphill...without shoes (or something like that) and actually had integrity. Where did all that go?