Shame on Us

This morning, Good Morning America had a segment they called “Faces of the Credit Crunch”. The segment featured several ‘average Americans’ and the trials they have faced since the recent economic downturn. It went something like this:

What I want to know, is that if this paper kiting scheme had continued to function, if the price of housing had continued to go up and the bubble had not burst but solidified, would all these banking firms have sent the taxpayers on the order of 10K per household with the possibility of more in the future?

We all know the answer to that one.

But they expect us to cover their losses, due to their incompetence, and do not even expect to have their bonus cut.

Had they not been greedy, they would have railed long and loud at the CRA requirements, and done so in a way that all of America would have heard.

The onus would have been on the Congress from the onset, for trying to buy votes with loan guarantees.

Instead, they saw an opportunity to take whatever down payment and other money from the poor, with a guarantee on the property for payment, and then come along when the buyer defaulted and foreclose on the property later (after taking these po' folks' money), and flip the house in a rising market.

Only the bubble burst.

But once again, Congressional "help" only succeeded in stripping the "poor and underpriveledged" of what assets they had, not in improving their lot in life. How typical.

Retirement: I expect to work until I die, did before this mess.

Business: sink or swim.

School?

Save your money, work your way through, learn a trade, too. By the time you can afford college you will have some perspective, and without the government backing five figures a year in tuition, you will have less debt and the price should come down some anyway. What you get will be a degree you earned in more ways than one, and you will be less likely to spend your time on frivolous pursuits.

If you just want to drink beer, you can do that after work or on weekends without spending all that money on classes to sleep through.

I watched this segment this morning. It was really disappointing to see the propaganda that ABC is now doing, all disguised in the name of “news”. For a while, ABC was the better of the three mainstream news organizations, but anymore, they are just a different flavor of the same agenda.

The next thing they showed was McCain and Obama agreeing with the bailout bill in the Senate.

Geez. And I thought McCain was AGAINST all the pork spending in congress.... If this bill passes, we will have now reclassified “mental illness” as any other regular illness, therefore mandating that normal health insurance policies include it amongst its coverages.

If McCain would have voted “no”, he would have proven to the majority of Americans that he really DOES listen to us and that he has the courage to go out on a limb, especially when it flies in the face of conventional wisdom. So much for the “Maverick” title. This vote demonstrated that McCain is fully engaged in the same-old same-old that he has been running against.

Can you say “Massive Increase In Health Insurance Costs?”

Retirement: I expect to work until I die, did before this mess. Business: sink or swim. School? Save your money, work your way through, learn a trade, too. By the time you can afford college you will have some perspective, and without the government backing five figures a year in tuition, you will have less debt and the price should come down some anyway. What you get will be a degree you earned in more ways than one, and you will be less likely to spend your time on frivolous pursuits. If you just want to drink beer, you can do that after work or on weekends without spending all that money on classes to sleep through.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

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