Tuesday, September 30, 2008

My three cents…

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs and e-mails these past few weeks and months about the election, the economy, the war and other less volatile subjects (like cute kids and puppies.)

Anyway, it seems to me that there are so many people out there who write brilliant things, that there is really nothing I could say would matter. But I want to say something. So here goes.

I don’t hear too many people talking about how our current president has failed us. He has failed us. I could have predicted this 8 years ago. But I didn’t have a blog then.

If Sarah P*lin were a man named Steve P*lin and he were a 44 year old with her exact same set of circumstances (including limited executive experience, banned from talking to the media and zero foreign policy experience) I think there would still be calls for him to step down. The person is just a weak candidate period.

Everyone is mad at Wall Street, but I’m pretty ticked at the predatory lenders—hucksters who convinced people it would be perfectly fine to buy that big house. Imagine the billions of dollars of profits that were reaped by those real estate professionals from closing costs alone? Are people just gullible? I think wishful.

Were they stupid to believe they could simply refinance that ARM balloon payment before the fifth year of their mortgage? I think they were dreamers and in retrospect would have been better off going with that offer to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. Yes, the buyers have responsibility for what they did and what they signed. But there were some seriously greedy people behind what we see today.

My final thought? The Republican presidential nominee couldn’t run a laundromat.

Can I say that?
-Monica

4 comments:

Martin said...

Cool, can I leave my unrequested opinions here?

I honestly think that people just want to forget about the Bush years now. I know I would. He's kept his head down the last few months, basically he's preparing for some golf.

Sarah P. is weak at this level. The more she has to show of herself in areas she's not comfortable with, the more evident it becomes. I feel embarrassed for her. She's done a good job up to now, but she's YEARS off being a serious candidate for a position like this.

People on wall street have no right to be mad, they should be ashamed. They've played a game with different rules to all other areas of business, they've mismanaged, taken risks that have outweighed the benefits, screwed up and are now looking for public money to bail them out.

If I were American, I would be livid, and in no way accepting of the bailout without SERIOUS preconditions.

I wouldn't want to see them p!ss away 700bn more than they already have.

...phew, that feels good.

Susanica said...

Of course you can leave your opinions xbox--but only if I like them because I control the "publish" button. Seriously, I like the idea I'm hearing that if anything the gov should buy out people's bad mortgages--then at least the gov would have a part in any future profits as a part owner. Believe you me, many people here are VERY angry about it all. -M

Martin said...

buy out people's mortgages?

but that would be helping those who really need it, don't be ridiculous....

CT said...

This post is a few days old, but I'm just catching up and had to comment.

People may want to forget about the Bush years, but we can't afford to. McCain talks a good "maverick" talk, but very little about his policies would be different from Bush's. People seem to think that just because it isn't Bush in office anymore, things will be different, but it's just not true.

Anyone who thinks McCain's judgment is different from Bush's needs look no further than his VP pick. Selecting Palin for VP is the height of irresponsibility and recklessness. She simply is not fit. That decision was made out of the selfishness of his campaign strategy, and not out of the best interests of this country. Think his judgment is going to magically improve if he's in office? Not likely.

And as for the bailout...I don't pretend to know much about all this stuff, but from what I've heard, the deregulation of the Bush years gave realtors and Wall Street the ability to create a house of cards based on the fallacy of giving people loans they couldn't afford, and assuming they will pay them. Are the people also somewhat responsible? Sure. But when you've got undereducated, uncertain consumers sitting across the table from a slick, fast talking, hard selling, reassuring lender/realtor, it's not a level playing field. Practices have bordered on fraud, for example, in many cases consumers did qualify for standard loans, but they were purposely steered into subprime and balloon payment loans.

And political leadership has not helped. The Cali legislature just passed a bill that would put a lot of restrictions and oversight onto lenders and realtors. What happened? Even with the ongoing crises, Arnold vetoed it, saying it would hurt the housing market. WHAT HOUSING MARKET???

*deep breath*
K...done now.

Hi!!