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February 19, 2009
THE NEW raw DEAL
by Jack Lee
Rewarding failure and punishing success, it's the new American way, get with it. For example, if you happen to have no savings because you live on the edge with a pile credit cards and now you can't make your house payment...don't worry, enter the Homeowners Protection Act!
President Obama is taking from those of you who still pay taxes, then borrowing on your future earnings for the next 30 years and those billions raised will go to reduce the mortgage for some flake! And the government expects he will suddenly reform his ways that got him into financial trouble in the first place.
Being a flake will qualify you for government help!
But, here's how you won't qualify: Imagine that you have scrimped and saved your whole life, that you ate Top Ramen for lunch for years, that you only went to matinee's at the theater and you skipped the $6 popcorn and the $4 soda. Imagine, that you held down two jobs because you had a plan to buy a home of your own some and then one day you actually did, but by then home prices had gone up 300% in the last 24 months! Ok, so you bought a smaller, older home than you wanted, but even then you could barely meet the payment. Thanks to your lifestyle choices and working 60 hours a week, you got by, but it wasn't easy.
Now thanks to crooks on Wall Street and incompetent fools in government (these are interchangeable) your home value has plummeted and it's worth $100,000 less than your mortgage. You could buy a newer, bigger home for less than what you owe on this one, but your integrity says you will stay put, you will cling to the hope that in another 10-15 years your home value will eventually catch up with your heavy mortgage. If you are that guy, the backbone of America...you're screwed.
Welcome to the new America, where everybody is subject to layoffs, except government employees and welfare recipients and both of those classes are growing exponentially.
What's next??? Expect government to be nationalizing our banking system. Even the biggest banks are nearly broke now. Bank of America has falled from $40 a share to $4 a share. Get a clue...the worst is yet to come. Prepare yourself.
Posted by Post Scripts at February 19, 2009 9:29 AM
Comments
"Now thanks to crooks on Wall Street and incompetent fools in government your home value has plummeted and it's worth $100,000 less than your mortgage."
I don't want to be a poop, exactly, but anybody who bought at the height of the bubble does deserve a little bit of the blame too. "Wall Street" had a whole lot help in their ruinous enterprise. Frankly, anybody who bought in the last ten years is complicit, as is anybody who bought mortgage-backed securities. We have met the Boogy Man, and he is us.
Posted by: Libby | February 19, 2009 11:11 AM
Libby I agree with one very BIG caveat.
The people in positions of power could pass legislation that discourages, rather than encourages, stupid, lazy, greedy, underhanded behavior. Instead they have repeatedly legislated to create ideal conditions for this massive mess of unethical/dependent/greedy behaviors. Most of them have made millions in the process. And it is this same group of people, and those who support them, that have also been eschewing and making fun of moral values that might make for a more ethical, decent, responsible, self-sufficent citizenry.
Many of the people you hold "equally" responsible have been warning what was coming for a long time. They also voted for less government. They held to moral living. They were willing to play the risky game of life taking chances with their savings only when they had extra to invest. They did their best to make sound decisions and they didn't blame others if it went bad...they took the hit. They ran their own lives honorably and ponied up taxes even as they protested. Now they're told they will just have to pay again.
This is insanity. It is about power, manipulation and control. It is power corrupted absolutely.
Posted by: Tina | February 19, 2009 2:44 PM
Libby maybe you and I knew it was not a wise choice to buy at the top of the market, because we could see how inflated the home market was, but a lot young couples who were first time home buyers were 100% convinced that home prices would keep getting higher, so they might as well buy now. Every real estate agent I knew was singing that song.
Well, my son bought about 2 years ago in Stockton, sure it was a big mistake, but he's toughing it out. There are nice new 2000 sf homes for sale just down the street for $60k less than he paid for his little home... a shame he won't be buying one of them.
Of course I tried to tell them to wait, but you know how it goes......oh well, life is full of learning experiences.
Posted by: Jack | February 20, 2009 12:39 AM
Stockton? Really. Oh, geez. The Stocton-Tracy area is so hideously overbuilt and under infrastructured, I won't go through there if I can possibly avoid it.
There's a moral quandary for you: to walk away, ruin your credit, stick it to the system (but in 10 years your crime is expiated), or spend 10 years watching Stockton become one vast slum (which is very likely to happen to over the next ten years), and then ten years after that, maybe, climbing back out. I dunno.
Posted by: Libby | February 20, 2009 9:22 AM