Monday, September 29, 2008
Bailout, no Bailout
I may be the only person I know who thinks a bailout would be a good idea. I have no problem heading toward socialism, in fact it sounds like a step in the right direction. I would like the bailout to come, however, with prison sentences for the people responsible for making the decisions to give loans to people who clearly would never pay them back.
About 10 years I thought I would try to buy an apartment. Our household income was about $60,000. The bank pre-approved me for an $800,000 loan. I think I still have the paperwork somewhere. Pretty extravagant. If I was a risk taker, I would have bought an $820,000 house because I had $20,000 for a down payment. I would like to find the person who signed my pre-approval and send him to jail. I think it was Marine Midland Bank. Where did that bank ever go?
Emily Bazelon recently said she didn't understand why a bailout couldn't be accomplished by helping individual people pay off their mortgages so they could stay in their houses and keep the cash moving through the system. The payoff amounts could be adjusted downward so that the banks wouldn't profit ridiculously, the house owners would have to still pay cash money out of their pocket, and over time the cash coming through the system would help repair some damage. It sounds logical to me too.
I would like for every profiteer to suffer for their misdeeds. After they get out of prison I want them to live under a bridge, wear shoes from Payless, shop for clothes at Conway and eat at Tad's for a fancy steak dinner. And when they find new jobs, they can serve me a cafe con leche at the corner bodega.
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9 comments:
I would like the bailout to come, however, with prison sentences for the people responsible for making the decisions to give loans to people who clearly would never pay them back.
Why?
What crime would this constitute?
I am not a lawyer, and I really don't understand this in a deep way but when stock holders get ripped off, or if management makes decisions that cause the loss of billions of dollars it seems as though there is some kind of fraud for personal gain involved. I think that ripping off stock holders by making profits out of fake loans which is essentially what happens when you "loan" money to people who don't have money, means. Maybe conspiracy to defraud stock holders. If all these bankers knew they were dealing in bad loans, and selling them to each other it's racketeering. There must be something in there, some law that was violated by flagrantly abusing the system. I would like to challenge a lawyer to figure it out. I bet someone could make a good case.
By the way, my not well thought out (or written) anger that generated this post was written right after I checked the diminished value of my life savings. What a mistake, better to ignore it for a few months and hold my breath.
I like you, just sayin'.
Not sure on the bailout...but I kind of always liked Tad's.
I had to meet with my lawyer (also my cousin so really my lawyer and my cousin) and he's a pretty smart guy, told me some good stories about the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, and when I asked him about putting the people responsible for the irresponsible in prison, he said he's been advocating this for 14 years when he first got wind of what was going on.
Also, I'm not in favor of ANY bailout, but I do believe in govt intervention when needed, and regulation to keep people from stealing from ME. The problem isn't the bailout, it is trusting those in office to put together a package that makes sense and is not a criminal act unto itself. That is where we have a trust issue.
Also, I'm not in favor of ANY bailout, but I do believe in govt intervention when needed, and regulation to keep people from stealing from ME.
Maybe we should make fraud a crime or something.
Well that's exactly what I'm saying, fraud. And what I meant about "any bailout" is that it has to be the right bailout, not any old scheme that continues to make the rich richer while the rest of us lose our jobs (and houses if applicable, but our only houses, not our 2nd or 3rd houses; and as a note, I'm a renter so I don't really give a shit).
What we have here is a total and utter loss of trust. Nobody trusts these idiots to decide what proposal will work actually work to stabilize the economy and punish the people responsible (well that's me, I want punishment, maybe others don't care about that).
Also, if the plan doesn't succeed none of our elected officials want to be associated with it, so they split the vote, and they can each say they voted for something that didn't pass but would have been the saving grace if somebody would have listened to them, and the ones that vote for it can say they did vote for it but didn't have the support so they aren't to blame. Nobody steps up boldly to take the political risk and we enter the next great depression.
Soon we'll be eating our shoes. Or Tads "steaks." And wearing shawls to guard against the chill. And color will go away, all will be black and white, and a little hazy and flickery. We will read by the gas lamp, and have to type at home instead of in Starbucks. We won't go to school past the 9th grade. We will have layers of wallpaper peeling. And we will have to darn socks instead of throwing them away.
Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats’ Bailout Betrayal
by Chris Hedges
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/06
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