Bread Upon the Water

By now, most of us with a mortgage are aware of the new crisis we face emerging from the lending industry. That many facts are still in evidence should only be obvious to anyone trying to find them.

The President in his address last night can be quoted on many fronts. On the frontier of financial precedent, “These are not normal circumstances.” But this is not entirely true, since the Clinton administration strong-armed the banking industry to exclude down payments and include welfare payments and unemployment benefits as income for “underprivileged” mortgage applicants, a situation that has been on the rise for at least the last twelve years, I would say the word “normal” has been squeezed a little bit too hard by the political expediency for rapid absolution, and from what George Bush also obviously had adopted into his administration.

But is this all the President’s fault? Obviously not – the players in this expanding drama are not all able to hide. A very long list of congressmen and senators have been generously padded with cash by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, institutions which have severely blurred the line between free enterprise and government bureaucracy, while at the same time growing over the past sixty years into enormous entities. “We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action.” Quoting again, let me point out that “decisive” is not always an “encouraging” term. Incrementally the government has made “decisive” decisions, which have encouraged the current crisis almost to the point of inevitability. The word “decisive” does not necessarily steady my knees at this point.

Well, you can finger point at other factors as well. When CEOs continue to garner massive and unprecedented pay raises for poorly performing stocks, one immediately begins to suspect either the stock holders have been misinformed, which is the operative euphemism in Wall Street for “lied to,” or as is now obvious, the stock holders feel adequately insured by federal government guarantees, for all the largesse of financial nonsense going on in plain sight. I am sure, if all the congressmen and senators who were and still are, being paid generously by the very companies committing this massive malfeasance of money-mortgaged morbidity, actually muster themselves into a higher state, of even the mildest conscience of mind, there will be “decisive” reforms, or at least attempted “decisive” reforms, passed with the grand intention, and publicity, of shoring up our economy.

There will also be pork . . . lots and lots of pork . . . for what better time to hold down the “tax-paying whores,” that we appear to be, for one more trick. Obviously, since saving the American economy is so vitally important to ordinary people who actually have to work for their money, those turnip-museums and avant-garde steel confusions that always seem to end up in our city parks and bus depots everywhere for no apparent reason, will be in the ascendancy for many years to come.

Jesus said, (another quote), “Cast your bread upon the waters and it will be returned to you in good season.” Well – cast away my brethren! Perhaps on this good earth good deeds will follow. I think Jesus was referring to Heaven, but then again, perhaps excellent management will prevail in government, conscionable stewards will be rewarded with salary incentives to redeem all the bad paper in the mortgage industry with someone’s actual names still on them, the financial markets will rebound in a few years and the American taxpayer, after an arduous stint in “rehab for whores,” will receive a dividend from the also rehabilitated “pimps” in our government who for once feel obligated to do the right thing. NOT.

Oh yes, I have to include the American taxpayer. You see, a lot of us voted for the scoundrels who created this mess. A lot of us still think we should get something for nothing. Co-enabling has been somewhat of a national pastime and pulling our own wagon has never been a popular theme. So, next time you see someone you know who voted for “that guy,” slap them in the face and give them some “tough love” . . . and some better advice.

Your candidate is not like the quarterback for the New York Jets. He is on your team and you may feel compelled to remain loyal as any good fan is expected to do, but he is not a quarterback starring in a favorite diversion. He will be the leader of the free world.

He will control a sizable portion of your future and if he tells you he can give you something he can’t control, don’t vote for him, because he will inevitably . . . hurt you.

When the economy falters our efforts are arbitrarily sapped and an unseen announcer seems suddenly to narrate our demise. “That retirement you're expecting just sank 15% in 8 hours. Your extra job will have to be taxed harder tomorrow and your kids are going to raise their offspring in a cramped one-bedroom apartment.”

If that slap in the face doesn’t cause a flinch, then it's too late. That American is so fully anesthetized by the years of crap he’s been listening to, that he doesn’t have even the slightest remnant of self worth, not even a mere reflex, to pull away from the hot light bulb of nonsense upon which he is charring.

Milton