Nothing Is Free

Well, here we are around 40 days until Election Day and things have gone to heck in a hand basket. I always figured the closer one got to the presidential Election Day, the smoother the sailing got. Issues will have to get changed around a lot for that to happen this year. Here we are this week trying to save the biggest financial crisis this country has seen in many decades, some say since the ‘30s. I have to be honest – I don’t understand it and I don’t think I could even bluff my way through it. The surprising part of all of this is that it seems that all the politicians and candidates all understand the issue and are blaming each other. Not only do they understand the problem, but they also know it was someone else’s fault. Can you imagine that happening in an election year? To go a step further, all of the “experts” on the news channels all pretend to know what is happening with the financial crisis, who caused it and how we solve it before election. I think they’re all blowing hot air. We know what got us in this mess and that everyone let it go until it almost ripped our nation apart. We’re pretty sure what it’s going to cost us to dig our way out in the near term, but no one knows what it is going to cost us in the long run. For now they say $700 billion – around $2,000 for every man, women, child and illegal immigrant in the country. I think this all started because Congress wanted to give us a bill giving Americans something for nothing. Just look at all the people that got housing loans with no down payment, no job and no way to pay the loan back. Then the loans were sold time and time again. There is tons of money out there looking for a fast gain and this fit the bill. But when a person or a family has to walk away from a home somebody has to pay, and it looks like it’s going to be the American taxpayer carrying the load while some corporate executives are getting millions in bonuses and wages. If I got awarded every time I goofed up, I would really be a millionaire. A good friend sent me a fact sheet about the Community Re-investment Act of 1977. Congress enacted it during the Carter Administration. We should have known. This act was passed into law due to pressure for affordable housing despite considerable opposition from the mainstream banking community. The law mandates evaluation of each banking institution to determine if it has met the credit needs of its entire community, then that bank’s record is taken into account when the federal government considers a bank’s application for deposit facilities, including mergers and acquisitions. This law is responsible for millions in loans that failed to have enough security to be considered a viable loan prior to the enactment of this act. Now we pay for it. Dennis