My first wife passed away when I was 51 years old and I remarried. This was 23 years ago. My present wife did not want anything that belonged to my first wife, so I gave my son the house and all the belongings. My present wife and I started out as two teen-agers, without a pot to pee in. I sold the tractor-trailer that I owned, went to work for a freight company, took the money from the sale of the truck and we made a down payment(20%) on a house and took out a 30 year mortgage. In 9 years, we paid off the 30 year mortgage, every year I would send the mortgage company an amount to be applied to the principal only and in 9 years we had the house paid off. In those 9 years, we paid off two new cars, new furniture for the house and since ’96 we have been debt free. You know how we did this?? BY WORKING OUR ASSES OFF! Every time Overnite Transportation asked for workers on week-ends, I would sign up.

I said all that to say this, I worked my ass off to pay off our mortgage and other debts and I certainly don’t feel good about taking my tax dollar and helping the “stupid” of this nation!!!!!!!

Why the banks didn’t care if the people couldn’t pay back the loans was that they had no intention of holding the mortgages long term. They just bundled them up as securities and sold them as “investments” to clueless investors, and we all know what happened as a result of that fine “innovation”.

On the other hand why people would take out mortgages they knew they couldn’t pay back is beyond me. Probably fast talking loan officers were part of the problem, and buyers that were clueless about finance was the other part.

I never thought debt was a good thing so we were always careful when we took out mortgages. We made sure we could easily make the payments, and like you paid extra toward the principle so we could get out of debt ASAP.

As I look around at the mess this country is in I am very glad we got of debt when we did.

It’s hard to deny the any of the comments you made.

Over the past three decades the framework of partisan politics dynamics have become more pronounced, aggressive, and in the end, has shown little to no regard for the public welfare than any time in history.

The unraveling of the American Dream started in the Reagan years with massive deregulations affecting utility companies, mainstream corporations, environment, and the introduction of the “Least Restrictive Environment Laws” that has forever changed the way medical services are provided and more importantly it allowed for an untold number of mentally ill to be dumped into the streets by state hospitals and institutions.

In 1994 Clinton began his quest to overhaul the Communities Revitalization Act…which he used to force other government agencies into pressuring lending institutions to give mortgage loans to those way under qualified…and to make the Fed dump a huge amount of money into the banks and such to accommodate the loans.

Wealth in our type of economy is only created by the loan system. So Clinton created his new and improved wealth system by modifying the basic economic system and thus was the beginning of the “SUBPRIME” lending schemes.

In 1999 came the Gramm -Leach-Bliley Act, which was an repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1938, which prevented banks, insurance companies, and wall street from competing. BAD MOVE. This legislation hit the reset button and started a business practice among these entities that went totally out of control. The politician in 1938 had learned a valuable lesson from the previous 10 years that played a significant role in the creating the serious problems before and during the Depression era.

In 2000 came the nail in the coffin legislaton by Congress. The Commodities and Futures Modernization Act that allowed mortage lenders (and other types of loans) to be bundle up into “securities” to be trade in the market place…thus creating the demand for “derivatives”, which in affect are default insurance policies for covering all of these mortgage bundles.

The worst part of this legislation is that it removed most of the oversight feature by the SEC and the CFTC to maintain legal control over these mortage bundles turned into securites, which in essences a securites is the closest thing to cash that we have in our monitary system. But the mother bummer of it all was the alteration of control over derivatives markets.

This became a serious problem because those lending institutions who were creating these bundles failed to keep in tact the underlying collateral documentations that went along with the individual mortgage notes.

When the mortgage/securities industries realized that the false economy practices of the previous near 30 years was sliding into a major default…and then every swinging bank and insurances company who were selling derivatives…”Couldn’t Payoff the Defaults”.

It is estimated that we have $85 Trillion in bad derivatives (now called toxic assets). And world-wide it is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $500 Trillion.

All of the worlds market places and lending institutions are blaming the U.S. for sucking them into a fatally bad securities scheme. And rightfully so…we did, thanks to a group of very corrupt people in our government.

Now in the background of all this mess…the banking institutions, insurance companies, and Wall St. who have been paying off our Congregssional members and lord only knows the influence they have over the FED…they were Licensed Thieves. Our government sanctioned their right to steal $Trillions of dollars around the globe.

And at this date…they have been given untold billions more (so far without the need of accountability) by our corrupt government. These private lending, insurance, and market institutions own our elected official.

These modifications in our economic system were completely bipartsan. Regardless of party affiliation these life altering changes were supported by all.

They never counted on these changes to blow up in their faces.

All members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the FED are all guilty…all of them. They did what they did in order to meet their obligations to the lobbyist and special interest who virtually bought them out lock-stock-and barrel…and out of their own ego-centric power lust.

Our government has moved beyond being merely being corrupt. They are now tryants addicted to power and will go to any length to sustain it. The only value the American people have to these collabortive dictators is to keep filling the Federal Reserve accounts to support their ongoing efforts to control every single resource available to our nation. That includes human resources.

So much for the American Dream. Welcome to our new roles as “Indentured Servants” rather than being “We The People”. Enjoy your newfound enslavement.

Jobs Jobs Jobs is why this crisis is worse than it should be. On average, we’re losing half a million jobs each month in this country.

Point the finger directly at the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, and Government.

Correcto-mundo, Griff…

These folk are doing every thing in their power to divert us from what is genuinely going on by play the adverserial game between the parties…but these asses are in it together…and they’re all guilty as hell.

Gregg

Clearly, there are corrupt and evil people, but I believe they have been facilitated by the amateur and professional speculators who seek profit without adding value. This is the indifference of conservative ideals, not American ideals.

The American Dream died with American Ideals. I can’t say it any better than George Lakoff: “For progressives — who start with empathy for others and responsibility for both themselves and others — markets should serve to make people free; free from want, free from harm, free from fear, free to meet one’s needs and fulfill one’s dreams. In short, the job of markets is to serve the common good; allow everyone who works to earn a decent living; help achieve freedom from want, illness, harm, ignorance, bigotry, and fear; preserve the natural world; and serve democracy.”

Actually, of course, this type of popular misperception is part of our problem. Loans create debt not wealth. An entry on the liability side of the balance sheet. In this case balanced by the (fully encumbered) house on the asset side – until the recession/depression deflation hits. Then we see the financial fallout. They’re ain’t no wealth, and never was. Just a place to send money every month.

Mike Whitney has a few more details:

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney06262009.html

Kent Shaw

“It is estimated that we have $85 Trillion in bad derivatives (now called toxic assets). And world-wide it is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $500 Trillion.”

Those who purchased the credit default swap “insurance policies” need not have had an interest in the underlying asset, the actual mortgages to individual homes. Individual entities were allowed to, and consequently were, simply placing bets that mortgages they were not holding would default. This should NEVER have been allowed. And now taxpayers are supposed to cough up real cash to pay for these (I declare to be) fraudulent transactions.

I wonder if I would be allowed to take out an insurance policy on Henry Paulson’s life. There is no logical difference from taking out a credit default swap on his mortgage.

Kent Shaw