The bailout...a lose-lose solution

So now that Congress has passed the big, porky bailout plan I am left to shake my head at the idiocy of politicians. I am seriously disappointed in McCain as well, because he ought to have said no to this, said 'there is no way that i'm letting a huge enormous pork-filled non-solution steal $700 billion from the American people who still overwhelmingly oppose it' but he didn't. Sigh.

And I am very tired of the irresponsible reporting and finger pointing. There are some very, very simple causes to this problem, which go back for 15 years. Even Saturday Night Live got part of it right this week, for goodness' sake! These are listed in what I feel is order of accountability:

1. Government (both parties) for forcing the banks to broker loans to people who were a credit risk, who actually couldn't afford home ownership. All of this 'everyone deserves to own a home' business is socialist crap, which has in the end SERIOUSLY hurt the financial stability of low-income and minority homeowners who shouldn't have owned a home in the first place, but have now lost them and any creditworthiness for the foreseeable future.

2. Mortgage lenders/Fannie Freddie. They (the private lenders) went, hey, I can finance risky mortgages at high rates, which sounds scary, but isn't any risk to me because Fannie Freddie will buy them from me. And Fannie Freddie went around yelling 'racist! elitist!' when people started pointing to the riskiness of its portfolio, and threw obnoxious amounts of money at democrats, including Obama (which should be illegal anyway, congressionally chartered companies shouldn't be able to contribute funds to politicians or parties, but that's another post...) in order to essentially cover its butt. Oh, yeah, and there's that whole fraudulently accounting thing. WHY ISN'T ANYBODY IN JAIL OVER THIS?!

3. Greedy American homeowners. Not only did people finance themselves beyond the max to own a home, but many of them took out every cent of equity they had in a home to finance an insanely consumeristic lifestyle. Now, I know that the whole mortgage lending thing is confusing, and many people were duped into loans they couldn't afford unknowingly because of unscrupulous lenders/advisors, but there were a lot of people who thought, huh, I can buy a big fat mcmansion because I can. Or even a little, mini Mcmansion that was really beyond their budget (a word many americans don't have in their vocabulary). I am just SO tired of the lack of personal responsibility. Government says 'nothing is your fault, poor oppressed people' and the people take their thumbs out of their mouths long enough to say 'that's right! Not my fault! Now, i'd like another handout, please.' (I know, i'm just a tad irate. At some point there will be another post on personal responsibility, and the moral duty to succor the needy, and exactly how that should be handled).

Now, after saying that i'm all for personal responsibility I will admit that much of the connecting of the dots was done by Glenn Beck (or, most likely, his research team). I got his email newsletter today and said 'thank heavens! I don't have to do the research for this myself, because it's a time-consuming bear.' So here's the link to his email to his family regarding how we got into this mess, with all kinds of links if you want to do further research i.e. don't want to take my or his word for it. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/16171/

Now go balance your budget and tighten your belt. And buy some extra basic baking supplies (flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, powdered milk) and canned goods next time you go shopping. I promise, you will not regret it (if you rotate them into your use before they expire!)