The Courage to do Nothing
There is an increasing backlash against the biggest government meddling in private enterprise, and its takeover of whole sectors of the economy, since FDR. (Though wait until Obama tries to ram his ‘universal health care’ down your throat). The ‘whisper’ campaign against socialist notions and bailing out Wall Street ”big men” is beginning to be heard. Idiocy and massive greed got “them” to this point. Why is it my responsibility to help them get “out of it”? Actions have consequences and chickens come home to roost.
At least a few GOP’ers had the unmitigated gall to at least question why the US taxpayer should be doubly screwed; first by the banks and mortgage companies charging outrageous interest rates on “adjustable” rate mortgages once the initial “tease” rate is expired and the “homeowner” is unable to finance, and then as a taxpayer paying for the pathetically poor decision making of banks and mortgage companies.
I have customers coming in who lost their homes when their interest rates jumped to 13% and even higher on very modest priced middle class homes. Most people can’t afford a jump from $1100 a month to $2500 a month and the casualty rate among the middle class due to the insatiable greed, fraud and get rich manipulations of large numbers of unscrupulous people is staggering. Those holding the billions in potentially bad mortgage debt should be forced to negotiate with homeowners instead of bailed out by those same people now wearing the label of US taxpayer. With the government stepping in we will only be back to business as usual instead of changing the way business has been practiced in the past.
I’m not taking a hundred percent stand one way or the other on this bailout (not that it matters) and I could still be persuaded to support it, but I am suspicious of it and am glad to see some voices of caution being raised about what is now happening in D.C. As far as I can see, this does very little for the little guy, and that concerns me greatly as one of the little guys who will be desperately attempting to refinance at the end of the month to avoid possibly becoming just another statistic in two short years. The key has got to be to stop the massive cycle of foreclosures and help keep people in their houses. Anything else seems to be just putting more “lipstick on the pig”.
Quotable: “‘Just because God created the world in seven days doesn’t mean we have to pass this bill in seven days,’ said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.”
Or at all.
E the Wise
DFV the Scribe
Andre the Defiant
Wes
pg - your humble messenger
hairybeast
Drowning Creek
Mo K.
Sting the Away
That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. America will make it through this and be financially stronger for it in the long run
Bipartisan anger is a good thing. Maybe some of the elected officials are worried about facing their constituents this Fall at the voting booth if they do something stupid that hurts the middle class.
The working people who pay their taxes, read and UNDERSTAND contracts before they sign them, live within their means, keep a good credit rating and are fiscally smart are pissed they are going to have to pay for others greed and ignorance.
There’s blood in the water…
Drowning Creek
September 26, 2008 at 7:38 am
ARMs have been around since the early 80s. Interest rates were quite a bit higher then, if I recall. Except back then the government wasn’t forcing lenders to give money to people that couldn’t afford to pay their mortgage.
“At least a few GOP’ers had the unmitigated gall to at least question why the US taxpayer should be doubly screwed;”
It’s Ok to say it, Dave…John McCain and Sarah Palin are on that list.
“Those holding the billions in potentially bad mortgage debt should be forced to negotiate with homeowners instead of bailed out by those same people now wearing the label of US taxpayer.”
WaMu tried to do exactly that. You can see in the news this morning how well that worked out. They couldn’t get loans from investors to rework the deals, unlike Fannie and Freddie who, as we are now perfectly clear on, were not private but blatantly government backed. WaMu couldn’t convince people to help them with bad debt. F/F could. There’s only one reason why.
I’m glad to see you taking the side of the fiscal conservative Republicans in Congress, though. Paulson still has it mostly right, though, have the government take the bad debt, spread it out, then pay the taxpayers back when the market recovers. Just a matter of keeping too many cooks out of the kitchen at this point.
Falze
September 26, 2008 at 8:06 am
Dave you simply do not know what you are talking about. The only thing going on in D.C. is politics. After they finish caning their whipping boys, you seem to favor those ‘evil business men’ whipping boys, they will pass something.
I love this populist screed. Because it is happening to ‘real people’, not those other folks, but Dave’s folks, it is wrong. Somebody must be at fault! Dave the libertarian suddenly throws his rugged individualism out the window. There are no facts to back up Dave’s accusations, just anger. He only has class envy to support it.
That is ok because he lumps the politicians into the mix. He blames everyone but the people who bought more house than they could afford, and as Jeff points out – signed those loan contracts. You need to tell those folks to bootstrap themselves Dave. Who was greedy here?
This shows a very incomplete grasp of the situation. The barn is on fire, you no longer have time to calm the horses to get them out. The liquidity crisis will continue to bring down institutions long before this ‘idea’ could be attempted. No one who has any understanding of things as they now stand would be willing to risk the world’s financial health on punishing a class of people. Congrats Dave you and George Soros agree. Sorry this is just silly.
The government already backs the vast majority of that debit. Where the hell have you been? This not a question of whether the government should get involved. It already is. LOL
Better watch out you evil bankermen! Or were gonna get Laissez-faire on your ass!
pg - your humble messenger
September 26, 2008 at 9:06 am
I am sympathetic my friend. The best chance for you to be able to refinance is for credit to flow again. The only way for that to happen in time for you and others is for this ‘hyper-risk-averse’ climate to relax. Dave it is not that institutions do not want to work with people like you. They can not even borrow money to keep themselves liquid.
Now we can let things run their course. Government can chose to not stop to help the person they ran over. It will take years. Many more financial companies will fail. It will spread to other areas of the economy. People will lose homes. The ones that don’t will lose value. Or government can attempt to help stop the flow of blood it caused.
The reason we are here is because the government tried to do too much for the little guy.
ADD: Krauthammer says it better than I my friend.
pg - your humble messenger
September 26, 2008 at 9:30 am
Thank you, PG, for saying much of what needs to be said. I would add that it is not just that Dave, E, and others are viewing it incompletely; they actually manage to get it completely backwards. “We” are not bailing out “them.” Wall Street is not getting saved. For goodness sake, those banks are gone boys, vanished in the night. The remaining question is this: Will the destruction wrought upon the big banks also now be passed on to small businesses, families, and average citizens. Without even knowing it, Dave and E say, “Please let it be so!”
The bailout seeks to contain the damage to Wall Street and to the short term. Dave and E want it to flow into the hinterlands and last a generation.
DFV the Scribe
September 26, 2008 at 10:39 am
Incidentally, if your looking for E’s comments on this, you won’t find them yet. I’m basing my reading of his opinion on a phone call he made to me last night. It’s probably not quite fair to hold him accountable for what he said though, because I could tell that he was drunk on populism at the time.
DFV the Scribe
September 26, 2008 at 10:41 am
I don’t like the bailout. Not one bit. But DFV and PG are right. This is a matter of businesses waking up and suddenly having no working capital.
Can we please make it so people can’t run these mortgage failure speculation scams anymore, though? Please? Can we kinda make it so our market doesn’t run on Ponzi schemes in general? Can we at least TRY? This question is for both candidates.
Wes
September 26, 2008 at 11:02 am
Dave, the bailout is the lesser of 2 evils. If we do not provide a way for banks to free up credit lines so that htey can loan money to businesses, builders, home buyers, then we basically stop the GDP of America. Our assets will be picked up by foreign countries with the most money (Hint: oil countries).
If this bill is passed it will keep the money flowing and keep us out of a depression, maybe not out of a recession though.
The debt will be held until the markets turn and they can sell the mortagegs on the bond market as they are now. In addition thebanks must sell these mortgages at 60-80% discounts ot get then off the books.
I sure would not mind buying your mortgage at 20 cents on the dollar. I would rake in the money after all that interest you would pay over 30 yesars. So will the government and the tax payer.
BTW – I can get you a nice mortgage for your refi…give me a call
mbucky
September 26, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I’ll take the “populist” smeer with pride. I have long been a champion of the average American and the middle class (and those who aspire to that level).
I do tend to defer to Mbucky on matters both spiritual and financial. Maybe I need to place a call…
E, I need you. (
Dave the Sage
September 26, 2008 at 7:06 pm
You champion yourself and only those like yourself David.
pg - your humble messenger
September 26, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Good enough for me. Except for the middle class, the downtrodden, the average American, those who love this country, our friends and allies etc. etc. That’s quite a few.
I am no more interested in being dominated, exploited and nearly skinned alive by big business, big corporations and big banks than I am by socialists, big government or those who call themselves ‘progressives’. I gladly carry both the torch and the pitchfork when it comes to defending free enterprise and the freedom of man from those who seek to bleed him dry or limit his liberty.
I make no apologies and am proud to be a defender of ‘the little guy’. I can think of few other labels I would gladly wear with such pride.
Dave the Sage
September 26, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Fine, then dispense with your conservative cloak once and for all. You are a religious fundamentalist who claims conservative credentials to further your cause.
Just be honest. I say this without rancor. Conservative thought does not involve protectionism, nativism, nationalism, and class warfare. It does not fear what it does not understand.
‘Bleed him dry’. Spare me that crap. You signed the contract. You are the one who wants to limit the rights of the business man now. You demand the contract be rewritten. ‘Da man is holding brother Dave down!
Sorry, but this kind of Rightist rhetoric scares me. It always has.
pg - your humble messenger
September 26, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I have to go to bed now. I hope I did not hurt your feelings Dave. This is just the same ole point of separation we have between us. I still love you.
pg - your humble messenger
September 26, 2008 at 7:48 pm
To put it as directly as possible: Dave wants to refinance his house. Without the bailout, he won’t be able to — credit froze up. The whole purpose of the bailout is precisely to allow people just like Dave to do just what Dave wants to do. The Bush administration did nothing to save the banks, which is why they all failed. They are, however, stepping in now to save people like Dave from the bank failures. I wish Dave would just let them.
DFV the Scribe
September 26, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I don’t believe my input matters one wee bit there Mr. DFV, and if they would like to ’save me’ one way or another that is fine with me. (:
It is all how one defines ‘conservativism’ I guess PGW. No one has really defined me an anything else. I don’t really care about labels that much, I care about right and wrong and the best interests of my country, my culture and the American way of life. Believe me, name calling like ‘nativist’ and ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘nationalist’ don’t really faze me anymore even though they are half truths at best (not that I have that big a problem with significant portions of any of those philosophies, I can move easily in many different ideological circles). I’ve met people far more nativist, reactionist, populist, and fundamentalist than myself. I’m a squish compared to many. But priniciple deserves no apologies, and I offer none.
-Not to play semantics, but according to the accepted definition of ‘fundamentalist’ I am not one. Nor does my church or pastor father consider us as such. We would fall under the ‘evangelical’ definition. My wife and female children wear shorts, I wear nice jeans to church etc. and my wife can even speak to me without being spoken to first. (: And I think my old fellow CR’s and now fellow bloggers could attest to me being a certified conservative, though they may disagree with me on specific issues such as this one before us. What is great about us CONSERVATIVES and GOP’ers is that we are not afraid to think our own minds and not necessarily follow some narrow, pre-determined ideological creed or screed. General principles guide our ideology, not specific policy positions.
Just thought I’d clear that up.
Dave the Sage
September 26, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Don’t take it personally, Dave. I’ve been called an outright socialist on numerous occasions.
Wes
September 26, 2008 at 10:30 pm
It is a bit rough when you are the minority on something, but I expected it when I posted this. DFV was actually very kind and mild mannered compared to what I expected for this post. But I thought presenting another side to this topic was worth the risk and what Conclub is all about… Carry on Conclub!
Dave the Sage
September 26, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Wes you are a socialist. Dave you are a fundamentalist. I just judge you by your words.
I do not understand your definition of fundamentalism Dave. You might think I was using it as a pejorative. I wasn’t. Let’s see if we can find some third party definitions to see if they fit…
I mention religious beliefs not because they are what I was talking about, but because excepted definitions of a fundamentalist include none of this ‘My wife and female children wear shorts, I wear nice jeans to church etc. and my wife can even speak to me without being spoken to first.’
Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, James Dobson, and the late Jerry Falwell are, or were, all fundamentalists.
One can certainly be both an evangelical and a fundamentalist. They are not mutually exclusive. You seem to have a view that a fundamentalist is a ‘cultist’. I am sorry, that was not my intent. I share some of these views myself, with the emphasis on some.
We seem to share something else – The dislike of people trying to co-opt the American conservative movement for their own ends.
pg - your humble messenger
September 27, 2008 at 11:05 am
First I never said there were people who are not more or less to the left or right to you. I do think being a little of those things at times make you a bad person. Nor was I calling you ‘names’ as you put it. Those are ideologies, not names. Just as socialism describes the views Wes expresses on here. Saying a person is a socialist is not name calling. Geez you guys are sensitive.
I am quite sure that to the extent one does believe in, and actively engage in those principles mentioned above, and the behaviors they foster, that person is not a conservative. A ‘half-truth’ has no meaning to me.
Let me confess that I believe you use terms like ‘semantics’ in a pejorative sense with me. I chose the words I use carefully and with purpose. They have specific meanings. Sometimes we just do not like what they mean.
It is fine though. I do not think Goldwater was right when he said…
Extremism in the Defense of Liberty Is No Vice!
I still love Barry, and I still love you.
pg - your humble messenger
September 27, 2008 at 11:28 am