Things Running Through My Head….
April 15th, 2008 | by Cranky Liberal |Here are the things running through my head today.
1. The Truth Hurts
Hey sunshine, wanna know something, the truth hurts. Life isn’t a Hollywood movie script where the good guy always wins, the leading man gets the girl or the plucky side kick gets his moment in the sun. No, life sucks sometimes and is full of hardship. I think we’ve become a nation of people in denial about this. That’s what’s wrong with politics, that’s what’s wrong with society.
Politicians succeed not because they SOLVE problems, but because they ignore them and tell you how great everything is. Here’s a clue - the more flags and balloons they put up, the bigger the pile of bullshit they are going to lay at your feet. They thrive on phony controversy because YOU don’t want them to tell the truth. It might hurt your feelings to hear an honest answer. It might piss you off to hear you might have to actually (gasp) sacrifice a little. You’d rather blame the messenger than listen to the message.
You get the government you deserve.
2. There Is No Return to the “Good Old Days”
One thing that chaps my ass is unwarranted nostalgia for the past. That phony feel-good sentimentality towards a by-gone era makes me sick. In the 80’s Reagan used that sentiment for the 50’s to sell his “family values” message as if suddenly Mom would be able to stay at home and vacuum with pearls around her neck ala June Cleaver. It was crap. It’s still crap when Hillary tries to wax poetically about returning to the good old days of her HUSBAND’S administration.
Newsflash - the 90’s are gone. They are not coming back. Electing Hillary Clinton is not going to bring that type of high-powered economy back magically. Hell electing Bill Clinton isn’t going to bring that type of economy back. Like grunge music and funny Jim Carrey movies, those days are a thing of the past. In the 90’s, we were not competing with India and China for tech jobs. We didn’t have $3.50 gallons of gas. We were not living in a post Tech-boom, post 9/11, and post globalization world. Casting your vote for Hillary because you remember the good times is stupid. You don’t move forward by driving in reverse.
3. Whose Going to Bail Me Out?
With all this talk about the housing industry fiasco, I just want to ask one small question - who the hell bails out the millions of Americans who were prudent if things go wrong? Sorry if my heart isn’t bleeding for the idiots who bought a $400,000.00 house on a $40,000 a year salary. Predatory lending certainly was a problem but so was greed by the wanna-be homeowner. Just like they stuff their face at Thanksgiving Dinner (or hell, any dinner really) they had to have a house so far out of their price range that they shouldn’t have even been allowed to look, let alone own. At some point grab a calculator and do the frigging math.
Ohhh I can already hear your shock. Cranky, how can you say these things, these poor (and many are not poor, just stupid) people need help. Yeah, whatever. I bought my first house way out of town and way under my loan maximum so that I could afford the payments no matter what happened to our income. We bought our second house the same way (it was bigger and closer, but within our budget). We took out a traditional loan instead of these fancy scams that allowed people to delude themselves and have worked to pay it down every month. WE did it the right way and you know what? If I lose my job no one is going to bail my ass out. No one. Nope, the guys that did it right, who were prudent and responsible are going to get jack shit. No Senators screaming we need to “stop foreclosures” no Congress(wo)man wanting to intervene. Nope, just a notice from the bank that it’s been fun, now gets the hell out.
That my friend pisses me off. The people who bust their ass to do it right in this country are fucked every which way but loose. Our costs go up, our wages go down and no one offers to help us. Not that we would take it anyhow. The people who do it right are not interested in handouts or bailouts. We just want a fair chance at making a life for our families at least as good as the one’s our parents (or parent) made for us. For most of us that gets harder every day. Who’s going to “fix” that problem?
The same people who always do: Ourselves.
13 Responses to “Things Running Through My Head….”
By DizzyDezzi on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
Get out of my head!
For the last 8 years, my husband tried browbeating me into buying a house. He’s in the military and so long as he able-bodied and willing, he figured the Army is a “guaranteed income” and that should be enough to consider buying a home.
I called “bulls&it” every time. I had to remind him that if he got hurt, we would be out that “guaranteed income” to continue making payments. He cried, “I’ll get a better job”. I pointed him to the massive loss of good paying jobs going to India and other parts of the world. Reminded him that Wal-mart would NOT help pay the mortgage, even if we both worked there.
He cried, “but we can get zero-down” and I reminded him that only meant that our payments would be bigger come payday. There was no way we were going to pay less in mortgage than we pay in rent under the scenario he was dreaming up, even with the “guaranteed income”.
He tried to ignore all the sob-stories I heard from friends who were mortgage brokers and friends who were having a hell of a time getting a crappy house, much less a nice house, such as he wanted. I had to remind him that we didn’t even have the finances to get new furniture to outfit a new home…forget about mortgage payments (on a superficial note: there is no way that I wanted to move in to a nice new home with crappy “vintage” furniture).
But, over the last couple of years, he has started to see the light and now comments regularly how thankful he is that I convinced him that “now” was not the time to buy a home. We have very little debt, now (a whole other story and only thanks to my taking the credit cards out of his wallet and cutting them up) aside from our vehicles and now we are actually able to save money. I’ll be damned if I toss it into a home that’s worth more on paper (and in property taxes) that it is on the reality-based housing market.
I look at the people who I know who are crying about how they made some dumb-ass moves when buying their home and find that I have very little sympathy for them. Some of them mocked me for being a worry-wart and now, they are the one who are worrying about where they are going to live in 6 months. I’m just worrying about when my husband can be redeployed from Iraq to help me with the household chores.
And, you are exactly right, when it comes to making our world a better place, we cannot and should not rely on the government to help. We can only rely on ourselves. Besides, if we can’t (at least try to) do it for ourselves, why should the government be motivated to help us, anyway?
By Cranky Liberal on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
Great story Dezz
And you know what people forget, WE are the government. If we don’t help ourselves, then the people we elect are not going to be the kind who actually can help us. Like I said, you get the government you deserve.
By Jet Netwal on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
I’m of no mind to return to the 90’s. Been there done that. Looking ahead is all we have. You can bet that’s the direction our competition is looking.
By Dusty on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
Cranky,excuse me but..for decades we have been a government of the Corporations and by the Corporations.
They are getting the bailouts..not the ‘people’.
By admin on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
Once again you get the government you deserve. You want to not pay taxes, you get bad government. You want to “deregulate” everything, you get corporations that run the country for their benefit. You decide that its easier to elect a guy you “want to have a beer with” than someone who tells you the truth about the world, you get America as we know it.
And people who over extended themselves because they didn’t follow sound fiscal policy (ie dont buy what you can’t afford) will get bailed out on this too, if only to keep the jerks who allowed this to happen in power.
By Dusty on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
Well, your right that decades of deregulation are the cause of lots of these problems. Clinton dereg’d the banking and finance industries.
As far as telling ‘us the truth’ they all say they do that..especially Weathervane McCain. But he isn’t..and we know that. But do the rest of the voters who get their news in soundbites from the Corporate Media news hour or half hour know that?
By Jet Netwal on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
Yelling at the folks who didn’t vote for this crap isn’t exactly fair, Cranky. Al Gore did win the popular vote in 2000. More of us were against the beer drinking analogy than for it. Not by many I admit, but they had to steal the seat to get it originally.
As for the bad loans, there are people who knowingly overextended themselves, and there are far more who were willing to be convinced. Like any situation, applying for a loan pits the little guy against the big professional. I’ve said this ad nauseaum, but banks and mortgage brokers are in the business of RISK MANAGEMENT. This is what they do. If they say no, you go home without the money. End of story. Nobody held a gun to the lender’s heads to write these shitty loans. They knew they were bad, and they sold them off as fast as they could.
There is plenty of culpability to go around here.
By Dusty on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
. Nobody held a gun to the lender’s heads to write these shitty loans. They knew they were bad, and they sold them off as fast as they could.–Jet, that is IT in a nutshell. Yet, the lenders are being helped and the investment houses that bought the shitty paper are getting huge bailouts.
They are like the used car salesmen, and while people should be more like Dezzy and make hard considerations before they make the biggest investment of their lives..many of them bought into the bs fed them by the lenders who do not disclose shit btw..only what they have to..and thats not much. I used to work for them and shop their agents to see that they only disclosed what they had to by law. And believe me when I say that is all they give the clients. The bare minimum as required.
By admin on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
Listen when i bought my first house they told me I would qualify for a house there was no way I could pay for it. I declined to spend that much money. Yes the lenders are in business to lend money, even stupid money. There were many who were crooked and real regulations need to be put in place (you know, you get the govt you deserve), but I stand by my statement. People willingly entered into stupidity and now are crying foul. That infuriates me.
I wonder if those same people would be willing to fork over more of their earnings from the home sales to help the country if they had gone up in value and not down? Of course not. They would lament that it was “their” money and the government shouldn’t tax it at all. Yet they all want Daddy to come in and scare the big bad lender away now that the shit has hit the fan.
What’s that old saying? If it looks to good to be true, it probably is. Those of us who played by the rules, did it the right way and actually tried to be responsible are going to have to bail out both the greedy big companies who just wanted to sale a loan and the greedy little bastards who bit off more than they could chew. It’s great being middle class isn’t it?
By Dusty on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
Cranky, real regulations were in place at one time. Primarily Clinton deregulated the banking and finance industries as I said above, and in a post I wrote somewhere recently.
The whole deregulation bullshit was foisted upon us by Congress, in bills they passed without any thought to the consequences..which we are seeing now. Look at the cable dereg bill..our prices are through the roof and nothing can or will be done about that either.
Corporate welfare that the Oil industries still get. Someone has to overturn those laws..the Dem’s currently don’t have a big enough mass to do that.
I am saying your blaming people for the acts of their congress critters..yes some folks are well-versed in what is going down..but most folks get their information from the MSM which is now code for the Corporate Media. They don’t want us informed..they want us subservient.
I too think too many people bought the lies of the lenders..should we help those folks making 40k a year that bought a 400k house? I say no..but we also shouldn’t be bailing out the lenders and the investment houses either. It works both ways.
By Jet Netwal on Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
OK. Educate me. What bailout for the individuals are we talking about here? I see a lot of forecloures nationally, which means that these borrowers are not getting a free ride anywhere but to an apartment and shitty credit for seven years. The lenders are see relief tho, and to quote you up-post, that chaps.