A Tired President, A Timeline Reminder
March 8, 2009 / 10:22 am • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierDoug Ross documents the money, power, corruption timeline that resulted in the current economic mess. [This is so important, you need to see it.] AJ Strata adds more.
Greta doesn’t want finger pointing. Why not? How the hell do we avoid future problems if we don’t identify and name those who created the problem? The best way to create this problem again is to ignore how we got here to begin with. And Americans want to be told sweet things and this is troubling Brian Williams’ heart. Funny, when things were good, Mr. Williams didn’t seem troubled by jumping on the ain’t-it-awful bandwagon. It was positively de rigeur to say how bad things were under Bush when the unemployment rate hovered around 4%. Now, under President Obama, suddenly the press wants to tell good stories and there’s nothing good to find?
Worse, low-income loan recipients and lender behavior has not changed. People are getting FHA loans and defaulting before they make one payment. From the Washington Post:
Many industry experts attribute the jump in these instant defaults to factors that include the weak economy, lax scrutiny of prospective borrowers and most notably, foul play among unscrupulous lenders looking to make a quick buck.
The spike in quick defaults follows the pattern that preceded the collapse of the subprime market as some of the same flawed lending practices that contributed to the mortgage crisis are now eroding one of the main federal agencies charged with addressing it. During the subprime lending boom, many mortgage brokers and small lenders milked the market for commissions and fees by making as many loans as possible with little regard for whether they could be repaid.
Once again, thousands of borrowers are getting loans they do not stand a chance of repaying. Only now, unlike in the subprime meltdown, Congress would have to bail out the lenders if the FHA cannot make good on guarantees from its existing reserves. And those once-robust reserves are showing signs of stress, raising the possibility that taxpayers may have to pick up the tab for the first time since the agency was established in 1934.
We need to point fingers, Greta. We need to know WHY this is happening. We need to shame and jail those who are engaging in these vile practices. And the greedy recipients of these loans need to be named and shamed, too. And don’t forget the corrupt politicians mentioned at the beginning. They started this mess and profited from it.
So, we have those who cannot afford homes defaulting and then wanting taxes to increase so they can be bailed out by those who were responsible. As James Joyner says:
It’s dangerous for a republic to operate on the basis of the lower classes voting themselves a larger share of the earnings of the upper classes. It’s one thing to appeal to a sense of noblesse oblige and quite another to treat others’ wealth as a piggy bank to be raided at will.
The fact is, there is no “magical” way to get out of the mess we’re in now. Not making the mess worse would be a nice start.
Americans elected a man who can speak well but has zero leadership ability and even less judgment when it comes to picking people who can do the job. Evidently, he has to be the smartest man in the room. That’s scary for a variety of reasons. And he’s tired:
Imagine sitting in a board meeting of a once successful company, one focused on an abysmal income statement, and the chairman reveals he’s overwhelmed.
Or it’s half-time in the locker room of a football team with a storied past, one down by about 3 touchdowns, and the head coach looks at each of you players and states that he’s overwhelmed.
Or you’re the patriarch of a large and usually propsperous family farm, one that’s coming out of a dreadful growing season, one where family members are looking to you for wisdom and you state that you’re simply overwhelmed.
Yes, imagine. So a mess made by the government, citizens who don’t want to point fingers (mostly because they’d be pointing at themselves) and a President who’s fatigued. Sounds like a recipe for success!
3 Responses to “A Tired President, A Timeline Reminder”
March 8 2009 / 5:28 pm
Reply
In my opinion, everyone is quick to make predictions of what they would do or could do to correct the problems left by the Repulican administration, but very little thought is given to how you would actually feel in the position Barrack Obama is in. I said before the election that I would feel sorry for whomever got the white house, McCain or Obama because of the huge mess that they were going to have to fix. I’m very pleased with Mr. Obama’s efforts. We are facing something our nation never has and we need new approaches. I don’t expect our public leaders to be perfect. I expect them to do the best in their ability to do what is right.
To defend myself against future postings. I’m not one of the people with a bad mortgage. I own my home and I am employed full time. In fact getting more hours than before the ecomonic downturn.
March 8 2009 / 9:28 pm
Reply
I think “feel” is probably the best word you could use Nick. It is not about feeling.
By the way, the country has been through this before. Many times. It is not so amazing that the economy is struggling, only that people think that trillions of dollars given to special interests will turn the economy around.