The Mess We're In

Sometimes you have to stretch the memory to get to the root of things. Way back before Bill Clinton left office, he lifted the regulations on Wall Street. It was in his last days so the change took place in the Bush administration. That was about the deal of insuring those risky Wall Street bets on the risky loans for people who could not afford the houses they bought. They bundled the loans and sold them to investors who posted them on Wall Street and got more people to invest. If you understand that, you are probably hiding your money in a mattress, if you have any money.

Next, the Democrats took over Congress about the time Bush was reelected. With Pelosi in charge, they blocked every piece of legislation the president sent to them that would help the country. Government was almost at a standstill for several years. Why would a Democratically controlled congress block even good legislation? The answer is to make the Republican president look bad and pave the way for a Democratic candidate to get elected president. Maybe some think no political party would put the country at risk to gain power in Washington DC. Maybe pigs fly too.

The housing problem is little different than the Savings and Loan disaster of a few decades ago. The associations stretched the bands of the market and it snapped leaving many in financial distress. That also cost a bundle. It was not caused by a failure of the system but was a result of greed.

Here is the danger we face. The government is putting up the money (which they don't have) to prop up companies that played the stock market (with money they did not have) and lost. Who did have the money? The citizens of our country had the money and trusted it to Wall Street. That's like giving a monkey a banana and telling it to not eat it. The danger is that instead of a free enterprise system, we are slipping into a socialist system where everyone depends on the government for everything. In the free enterprise system, you take your chances and if you loose, you start over. In the socialist system, you take your changes, and if you loose the government gives you back the money you lost and takes part in the company. We all know how good the government is at making a budget balance.

The problem is if you give a teenager all the money they need, they will never go to work and become responsible citizens. If the government gives the companies all the money they need, they will never take responsibility for their actions. Since when do we reward crooks who run crooked companies, well, since just a few months ago. Probably a lot of the people giving away taxpayer money also lost money in this mess and are trying to recoup it by building the companies back up.

Our country prospers only when the government minds their own business.

Whose to say that we can't do without the stock market anyway? Everything doesn't have to be national or international. If banks did their job, businesses would have the expansion capitol they need. The stock market is a trumped up casino where people bet their few thousand that they can make a million off it.

Brown Paper Bag

Bag, poke, sack...you know, it's what you tote your lunch to school or work in. People who hyper-ventilate also use them to blow in when they have an attack. Perhaps it would be good to send a few to Wall Street and maybe even to Washington. They are for sure having a panic attack. Throw money at the fire, that will put it out for sure.

I've thought about Wall Street and it may be true what the old people said way back...that it was like gambling. We can kick it around to see. You take a working man who has enough money in his pocket to pay his bills and support his family. He remembers stories of a place where he could take his paycheck and double it maybe triple it, maybe even win the big one. Well, he didn't win and came home with empty pockets. The wife and children had a tough week ahead. He thought about it all week, no lunch money but he could handle it, he thought more. He was a pro now, last time the casino tricked him but he is old school now and come Friday, he'd show 'em. Tired and nervous, his wife begged him not to go, the children wanted to play ball that evening. ' You'll see, I got it figured out.'

Late in the night, he comes home. His pockets are empty, the gas tank is empty. Everyone wakes up sad. Monday, the power is turned off and he has to borrow money from his parents to get it turned back on.

Now take Wall Street and read the above scenario over again. Isn't it that even when people have enough, they still want to step up that ladder quicker than the normal will take them? Double-down, double-or-nothing...well, people are there waiting for people to prove they can beat the system. Most cannot!

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