Hypocrite: the man who murdered both his parents... pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. ~Abraham Lincoln
When Rick Santelli made his CNBC rant about bailing out homeowners who were upside down on their mortgages and couldn't make their monthly payments, I found myself, just for a moment, in agreement. I wonder how much of my tax money is going to be expended to help the irresponsible get out of messes they created. Frankly, it ain't right. Why do I and millions of others who are working our butts off to pay our own mortgages have to bail out people that had eyes and dreams bigger than their wallet and managed to find irresponsible bankers to enable their premature ambitions for a home? We shouldn't have to give them this assistance.
But that's not the point.
Santelli and others are guilty of extreme hypocrisy, the type that only raises its moral head when it serves a particular constituency. Nowhere was this more evident than in the US Senate and House of Representatives when the stimulus bill was being debated. Oh the horror, the outrage, the ignominy that we were about to spend billions on homeowners and small businesses and infrastructure projects. My gawd, what good can this possibly accomplish? Are we creating a socialist state? Tax cuts for middle-class wage earners? Surely, this cannot trickle down. Tax cuts are for rich people and big corporations, aren't they?
Where were these screaming opponents of irrationality when the Bush administration was writing blank checks to Wall Street and the auto giants with no strings attached? That was something that simply had to be done or our economy might plummet into chaos. And once they got the resources, the banks could then start issuing loans to get businesses going again. Except they didn't. The home mortgage refinance game seems to be doing quite well just now but new business loans and new home loans, the precise types of financing the banks were supposed to facilitate, just aren't happening. But all of our tax money is in those institutions.
Aren't they already nationalized?
All of the financial services firms and banks are fretting about President Obama executing a plan to nationalize but that appears to have already happened through the nature of the investments made by taxpayers. The US government spent $45 billion of your tax dollars to buy 6 percent of Bank of America, a company that is only valued at about $195 billion. Even I can do that math; it ain't exactly a deal for those of us who look at our paychecks and see big chunks going to Washington.
So back to those people who we are bailing out of their mortgages. I'd much prefer my tax money be used to help them than those idjits on Wall Street that have rolled up "perceived collateral" into "tranches" and sold it to even bigger idjits to get our economy into a pyramid scheme where even the schemers didn't quite know what the hell they were doing. But when it all went to pieces, the free market capitalists cried for help; they needed the government to keep them from total collapse. The only time they really like free markets is when they are getting ridiculously rich. They hate capitalism when it all falls down. Privatize the profits. Socialize the debt.
Which means Rick Santelli and the politicians complaining about helping out the little guy need to shut the hell up. If they'd been truly against government bailouts, they might have spoken up when Wall Street put out its elegant hand. Now that the little guy is asking for an assist, they're all wailing. Be quiet. Keep your hypocrisy to yourself.
The bailout boat has left the harbor with full sails and it's on a beat to the coast of an even bigger crisis.
Also at www.moorethink.com
Our society is suffering from a belief that “if it is good, my side did it. If it is bad, your side did it..“ Go look at the voting records. Don’t take my word for this, go look at the voting records. The resistance to bailing out Wall Street and the auto giants came from the conservative sides of both parties. It was a horrible plan and Bush received little support from his own party. A goodly number held out until the end, even as more 'sugar' was added to the bill to bribe them. There was no resistance to the plan from the liberal end of Congress. So, who was it that wanted to let the fat cats go scott free?
When you walk into a bank and say "I want a mortgage to buy a house" you're not expecting them to give you more money then they can get back from you. This whole sub-prime mortgage thing was feasible based on the idea that house values wouldn't go down, an idea believed in as strongly as fact, until they did. No one seemed to actually believe that all of this "extra math" being done in our financial system was going to collapse upon itself so greatly. Even the people who have the information and understand the system did not have the ability to recognize how exacerbated the problem would become. The banks said they could afford the mortgages, how can we expect the homeowner's to think anything else?
But I really don't get this idea that tax dollars are "our money." Tax dollars are the governments money. The idea that taxes are "our money" is just a common state of mind, not a fact. If you don't like the idea of "paying the government" then think of it some other way, you end up with the same amount of money in your pocket.
The other morons applauded and laughed which just shows the mentality in America. These job losses and foreclosures aren't just numbers they are real people with real problems that they didn't create.
The stimulus bill was 1100 pages, giving $787 Billion Dollars to what should have been local issues and infrastructure. My state just got hundreds of millions of dollars that our governor gave to HHS. It is helping people on welfare get health insurance. We are borrowing money from China to pay for welfare that our state legislators didn't take the time to plan for. This should be OUR state's LOCAL issure.
We would never have been in this fiscal crisis if government hadn't intruded into the housing market.
Pres. Clinton lowered Community Reinvestment Act codes in 1995, and HFSC member since 1991, and current Chair, Barney Frank, railed against calls for more regs.
This artificially inflated housing prices with many unqualified buyers. When those unqualified buyers defaulted, they flooded the market with many foreclosed houses, driving housing prices down. This debacle also provided the "toxic" loans to banks, which they bundled and traded as commodities.
Pres. Obama promised not to pass earmarks. The stimulus bill was full of earmarks and the FY2009 omnibus bill has about 8500. Government needs to stay out of the private market. No bailouts to business or private entities.
We should also have a 12% flat tax with no subsidies or write offs for anyone. We are all equal. When are we going to start acting like it?
And don't you think maybe it would be fair to keep in mind that may of those "irresponsible" borrowers were ENCOURAGED to take out these loans by those lenders? When I applied for a home loan, the mortgage company insisted that I was qualified for a loan a full 30% higher than what I asked for. I already had a home picked out, so there was no temptation to look in a higher price range, but people are routinely urged to "prequalify" - which also encourages them to buy the absolute maximum house.
When it comes right down to it, I can ask for a loan for a million bucks whether or not I can afford the payments. But it's in the lender's hands whether or not to approve that loan. And any lender that would approve the loan is the blooming idiot.
Just because someone insists you are qualified for a loan 30% higher than what you asked for is no reason to accept it. Unfortunately, some people do. Also, some people who get their credit limit raised think it is their obligation to spent that money.
As a friend of mine once said, when commenting about the equity I had in my house that I refused to pull out, "That is your money, why don't you use it." Is it any surprise that his home was lost due to foreclosure?
While this has been and will continue to be a very difficult time for millions of people, and still no one really knows how it will all turn out, one thing is certain. Future generations will benefit from the lessons being learned in our current economic crisis.
We can only hope that, this time, we don't forget these lessons after 50 years, as was done after Great Depression (One) in the Thirties.
Most of "those" people are hurting these days.
Lets face it, these banks love privatized free markets when they can abuse the public and profit up the wazoo, but as soon as the rug was pulled out from under them, who did they turn to? The government, which is ran by/for the people. Socialism/Nationalization is already here, whether you want to admit that or not. And guess what? Socialistic concepts are not ALL inherintly evil. They may even save our collective ass.
So, I think that point is clear.
What is not clear is why people like Santelli rail against aid to homeowners ($75 Billion) when our Government [first under Bush] gave away $350 Billion under TARP and another $120 Billion to AIG and several TRILLION through the Federal Reserve... all to Wall Street.
So, Wall Street can receive government charity, but when it goes to actual taxpayers -- that is so repulsive?
I am trying to understand the logic of both sides here, but all I can see is a myopic economic view filled with hypocrisy and undertones of elitism & racism.
I have listened to Fox, CNBC, some Rush, (turn your head and spit), and off and on most of the other news channels since I am out of work, and have found out the following: every one of these stations and people are screaming that what President Obama is doing to try and help the country is wrong. But not the first one of these entities has come up with even just a little bit of a viable alternative.
"...those idjits on Wall Street that have rolled up "perceived collateral" into "tranches" and sold it to even bigger idjits to get our economy into a pyramid scheme where even the schemers didn't quite know what the hell they were doing. But when it all went to pieces, the free market capitalists cried for help; they needed the government to keep them from total collapse."
Building on that idea, the Wall Streeters and the right wing are eager to place blame on home buyers who's eyes were bigger than their budgets, but isn't that exactly what these wall street money shufflers were doing? The only difference is that the "slouches" that took on mortgages that were too big were not the professional money shufflers. Who should know better? The average American who wants a mortgage, or the professional money shufflers? Hypocrites galore!
Furthermore, people like Santelli are quick to blame those who took out mortgages they could not afford while absolving the mortgage companies who gave them the loans. They were absolutely giddy with their ability to write loans with no documentation and they didn't care what happened to the borrowers. Those loans were sliced and diced so many times that no financial institution would suffer if the borrowers defaulted. These unscrupulous bankers are still getting bailed out.
everybody wants to punish the Market but a majority people especially you don't have one iota of understanding how it functions.
well since now that every American owes China approximately $50,000 for each citizen, why not let them own 100% of the USA. after the dollar collapses as a result of all this bail outs with worthless paper floating around with no value. we'll really see how Socialism works.