Bailout Gallows Humor:
I don't usually read the letters in the Washington Post, but this one today cracked me up:
While witnessing, but not participating in, the home real estate frenzy in 2005 and 2006, I kept asking: Who is the idiot buying up all these mortgages issued on inflated home prices to all these people who have neither the capacity nor the intention to repay the loans?
Now I learn it was me.
TED THACKER Ann Arbor, Mich.
Wall Street, with dark skin dressed in cowboy attire, puts a gun to its chin and tells the government, "Give me $700 Billion or I'll blow this n****r's head all over this town!"
Example, excerpt:
"These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
In the process I finally grasped budgeting, personal responsibility and started to accumulate some personal wealth of my own.
Now, I find out that I might be on the hook (as a taxpayer) for over $300,000 of some other numbskulls poor financial decision making and it ***** me off.
I don't find any humor in what Ted said.
Sounds like some kind of Orson Wells science fiction program. If the those loans are mispriced then would'nt investors buy them? You would think all those sovereign wealth funds would jump at the chance to make an easy $2.1 trillion
It's called Sarbanes-Oxley and "mark to market".
And they won't be worth the 2.1 T for a while (years?), and the questions is which ones will be profitable.
I'm still chuckling.
What is frustrating is that it was obvious to anyone paying the slightest attention that this was going to be a trainwreck and futher these same people would cry a river later when they couldn't afford their Alt-A NINJA loans because prices had fallen. I threw up in my mouth a little when I watched the congressional hearings this week with all the "what we need is more diversity" or "we need more minorities and women in banking". It was amusing though to watch Hank and Ben working hard to keep a straight face in response to such suggestions. "We got the message loud and clear" Hank the shark says to congresswoman moron.
In the end it seems like no matter what happens it will be the path of maximum frustration for a middle class worker like me. Maybe I should start reading about Stoicism.
I know, I know. If I distrust the government so much, why would I support the bailout. Yes, I think a major portion of the $700 billion will be wasted. However, the consequences of *not* doing it appear to be far, far more awful than swallowing the bailout.
George wants to help them out, but he's got some problems too. After seven and half years of non-stop binge spending, his own credit cards are maxed out, and he's got a FICO credit score of about 300. He's also got just about enough cash to buy a iced soy peppermint mocha at Starbucks. (He doesn't have much taste either.)
So how can he help his friends in need? Well George has an idea. He's got a really fast color laser printer. He'll just print up some new money on his laser printer.
You might be worried that George is going to be arrested for counterfeiting, despite his good intentions. But both Republicans and Democrats have already declared George's laser printed "money" to be legal tender.
But there is a fly in George's luncheon soup. He needs *cash* to pay for the copy paper and ink cartridges for his laser printer-- since Staples refused George's "IOU" after his credit card was declined.
Donations to help George and his friends can be sent to the Department of Internal Revenue, Washington, DC. Just write "bailout" on your check, so they know you've earmarked the money for the purchase of laser printer supplies. It takes a lot of paper and ink to print seven hundred billion dollars. Almost a trillion little IOU's.
2006, my husband and I found out it was a wee bit easier to buy a house, both of us in our early 30's we decided it was time, and why not we worked hard for this.
My husband is a good man, steady job and a good income, no problems foreseen in the future, we have two small children who deserved a home, not the crappy apartment we lived in.
We were considered lower income, my husband grossed 60,000 a year. In Chicago that's unfortunately not much.
So lo and behold a commercial pops up saying that we CAN buy a house, and here we have the American Dream, Lakewood springs. A cute little subdivision 60 miles out of Chicago.
So we go, and guess what, we got the house!!! Yay, My American dream began...or so I thought. Countrywide was our mortgage, everything seem A-OK, then slowly but surly look at this, the gas prices went up a little, a little? ok a tad too much, we can make it....whats this? higher, Oh God what are we going to do...now its at WTF is this, we can't afford it...wait, what do you mean that our taxes jumped from 1,200.00 to 6,600.00 we only been here a year.
then the BOMB fell onto our "American Dream" little world
"Im sorry but due to gas prices, we can no longer keep you with us", my loyal husband was out of a job. :-(
Boy the transportation business seemed like a good position for my husband 5 years earlier.
My husband, The U.S. Army Veteran, who worked hard for our "American Dream" is now getting the shaft from unemployment, The man who is a proud member of the 1st Calvary division is now standing next to the illegal immigrant working on a machine. just to keep a roof above our head, but its not enough. and me working 12 hours a day and the local CATERPILLAR factory for my measly 11.75 hr, and my husband doing the same, we could not save our house. and we lost it.
So Ted, are we included in your "no intentions to pay" we had every intention, we had our "American Dream"
Also if this clears things up for some of you since Race seems to be a very important factor, No we are not black, nor Mexican, we are Caucasian, and would probably fit perfectly in your perfect little worlds.
So I'm sorry if I caused you problems with my foreclosed home, I tried everything. I really did.
Take Care,
I hope none of this ever happens to you people.
Things like this were the problem.
The housing bubble was built on widespread, decentralized fraud. Lots of innocent people got caught up by it (including most people who simply wanted to buy their first house in the last few years).
Nick