What is this? A country where people cannot find work, have to sleep in the streets, abandoned houses, under cardboard in parks?
What kind of country is this where women, men and little children go hungry while it throws out more food than entire counties have for their population? What kind country is this where cities limit the number a volunteer organization can feed at their soup kitchens? What kind of country is this where those without a home sleep in sewers, parks, beaches -- and get rousted by the police as if they had committed a crime?
What kind of country is this where a person without the money to buy insurance is turned away by doctors, to sicken and die as over 40,000 people a year do? And insurance companies deny legitimate claims for those who have paid their hefty premiums. And CEO's pull multi million dollar salaries out for themselves while telling parents and adults -- "die!" And no regulatory agency makes them pay legitimate claims.
I was taught this was a civilized, great country. Instead I see it full of people who have no compassion for their fellow man, are selfish, greedy and only care about their own interests, what they can accumulate -- toady to the rich and have utter vicious contempt for the poor.
WHAT IS THIS COUNTRY ALL ABOUT?
AMEN. We send all this money to foreign counries and we have people right here going to bed hungry every night and that is if they are lucky enough to have a bed. Then good Americans get passed over for jobs because they can't speak spanish. Why do I have to learn spanish to get a decent job in America? They say they take the jobs American's don't want, but they also take the jobs we do want. I once intervied for a job I really wanted, It was a great job. Pay was good, hours were good and benefits were great. I didn't get it because they needed someone that could speak spanish to be able to talk to all the people that come to America and refuse to learn the language.
eastxgranny, I'm not sure who the "AMEN' is for. You seem to be disagreeing with GothamGal and ROLLINGCURLERS is just asking questions.
That's what I'd like to know: what is this?
This is about SOCIALISM. Socialism for the financial industry -- the banks, the insurance companies, the investment bankers. Socialism for the rich. We are in the depths of a depression caused by the greed and fiscal irresponsibility to the point of madness by the mortgage banking industry, the bankers, the investment bankers of Wall Street. And the insurance industry, AIG its most arrogant example.
They induced people, the proletariat, us to make mortgages they knew would go in default in short order -- the people unable to pay. Some of the mortgages were entered into under questionable (fraudulent) means. And then wrote and traded paper among themselves. making billions in profts for themselves -- on a house of cards they knew would topple as soon as they raised the interest rates, as they knew they would. They knew they would cause foreclosures all over the nation and the ramifications of all those people defaulting -- what it would do to all the busneses and industries who relied upon the housing market. The Fed interest rate didn't rise -- it's still hovering around zero percent to these banks. Yet they raised those 4.5% interest rate mortgages to as high as 8.13% for no reason other than to CAUSE the foreclosures.
Did they lose any money when all that paper went bad, the mortgage loans and derivatives written against those bad mortgages? No. Not one red cent. Instead of prosecuting the crooked SOB's as was done in the mid 80's of those in the S&L scandal, instead our government, US, loaned and insured what amounts to $4.3 trillion dollars. That is money that is a debt burdening not just us, but our children and grandchildren yet to be born.
They were "too big to fail" so we gave them money that will be paid back with our blood, sweat and tears, meanwhile over 7 million jobs have been lost, more than families have lost their homes and everything they worked for -- been reduced to poverty, and some to the streets. The purpose of banks is to take our deposits, give back some interest, and loan it out to keep businesses going. Did they do that? NO! They used the bailout money, these 'too big to fail' banks to buy up smaller banks, turned a deaf ear to businesses who needed capital to keep their businesses running and then raised interest rates on credit cards to the proletariat, us, to Mafia knee-breaking rates. Still paying .25% for their money from the fed, they turned around and raised credit card interest rates to as high as 30% -- to everyone, good customer as well as marginal.
Doesn't anyone see what has happened? Doesn't anyone see what has been done and is being done? The middle class is being broken down to poverty level. And we have given all the 'gold' to the institutions and people already rich. The government has taken from us the product of our labor, our sweat and blood -- and our children's to create mega banks and insurance companies, even bigger yet, which are bleeding the life's blood and property, the homes from the common folk, us. And making everyone poorer every day.
Someone do the math to check my premise. Take $4.3 trillion dollars and divide it by 300 million people. The figures I come up with would make a millionaire out of every American citizen. There would have been no foreclosures and if we were to go into debt, in my opinion, it should have been to make the citizens financially stronger so we would be among the richest people in the world. No houses would have gone into foreclosure. Cars would be purchased and GM and Chrysler might be afloat and not have to be sold to foreign interests. The jobs that were lost -- at very level of our economy, including even the professions -- law firms have had to close -- would still be there and businesses making money. We could have continued to be a productive economy, our effect felt all over the world -- imports still coming in from the EU and from all over the world, their economies not had to to go into recession, too.
We, as a people have toadied to the rich and like rats in a cage, turned upon each other to gnaw their legs off -- scorn, shun and show nothing but contempt and miserliness to those whose fortunes have turned sour. We look to others struggling to just feed their families from South of the border and some want to shoot them on site. They are not the problem. The mega industries we have mortgaged our souls and our childrens and grandchildren's to are the problem.
We have created financial Goliaths of these industries by giving our earnings, our 'gold' to them Instead of demanding the banks fulfill their role, loan money out to businesses and consumers are they required to do, we are turning on others in the same boat, six people competing for every one of the few jobs available.
Why is this? Is it because we don't stand back and look at the big picture? Is it that we don't see the big plan? And how it is financially breaking us and mortgaging every one of foresseable descendant's futures? If anyone had said the bailout of these industries was laying a $30,000 debt on the shoulder of every American, would we have protested and said, "NO! Let the bastards fail. They made the bad deals, wrote the bad paper. Let them take the consequences." That is the capitalist way.
To turn on our fellow human beings, though, is not the answer any more than the solution for caged rats crammed together without adequate space or food is to gnaw at and eat other. That is what many are doing by writhing against the poor, the refugees and those who came seeking a way to feed their families. By begrudging the ability to see a doctor and get medicine when one is sick is not the answer, either. Not one human being for another. It seems a basic human right to get medical help when one is sick. Not to be told by our fellow human beings, "If you can't afford insurance, die!"
Becoming bi-lingual is a plus. To be able to communicate with those in our country whose primary language is Spanish is a plus. To understand them, deal with them in business. And share a common goal. Get this country back to being a capitalist republic of a democracy.
We are all becoming serfs. We need to put the pressure on Washington to turn this boat around, get our money and the jobs back. We need to demand of them, What in the hell is this!!!!
I'm sorry but SOME of the blame for the mortgage problem lies with the consumers or lendees who did not do their homework and/or wanted more than a prudent person would take on. They were willing to take someone else's word for what they could or could not afford instead of thinking for themselves.
posted by whims
over 2 years ago
I'm with Whims. So many of the people who lost their homes found themselves in the street because they failed exercise the power to think for themselves. They knew in their heart of hearts they would be on very thin ice by signing those suspect mortgage papers when they did not have the income to support the payments, or the savings to ride it out when times got tough. They chose instead to trust a bunch of theives to lead them to prosperity. Ever hear the saying that "you can't cheat an honest man?" I am just as disappointed in the bankers as I am with the victims of those bankers. The recent bank problems only reinforced what we learned and failed to remember from the bank scandals of the 80's: What's the best way to rob a bank and get away with it? Own one!
Just because you show up at my table, it doesn't mean I have to feed you...........
ROLLINGCURLERS, I loved reading that! Wow it how true.
There are a lot of interesting comments here about this. This has been posted on eons a time or two, in this group and others, and has been bouncing around the Internet for nearly five years. What's fascinating about it to me is that it hasn't changed at all, and it could have been written yesterday. What does that tell you?
As far as the mortgage fiasco....part greed, part stupidity, and part bad luck. I personally know a couple of people who have lost their homes, but they both bought them long before the mortgage boom. Dishonest mortgage brokers conned lots of people into loans that they couldn't afford, but that does not let the buyers off the hook; stupidity is not a good excuse. However, let's not forget all those who have lost there homes because they lost their jobs.
