A Wealth of Concerns

Many people rely on their real estate agents and brokers as well as the mortgage lenders to assist them in getting the best deals when they purchase a home. Many of the folks who are finding themselves in foreclosure were not looking for McMansions, they simply wanted their own home. I have heard from a lot of folks who were told they could afford more because of ARMs and other less than perfect mortgages. My husband and I, when we were looking to buy, took a first time home buyers class to make sure we knew the ins and outs of mortgages. When we were told we could get more house with an ARM, I knew that it would great when things were going well but if market changes caused that rate to go up, we could be screwed and end up losing our home. I was not willing to put our security on the line, and I did not want a mortgage that my payment could change. I would not consider anything but a traditional mortgage so I knew that no matter what, my payment would be a set amount. Many folks did not set out to end up in a position where they would lose their home but were led to believe that they could afford more home than they should. Many of the people who go in to buy a home don???t know much about mortgages and do have to rely on those in the business. When they are led into an ARM without the full knowledge of what can happen, they are being set up to fail, just as they have been . We cannot put all the blame on those who are being foreclosed on without spreading the blame to those who convinced them that it was the way to go.

Lehman Brothers and Fannie and Freddie gave lots of $$$$$ to Barack Hussein Obama's campaign - now we are being asked to bail out these people. When Broken Obama ran in Chicago, he was funded by people who are now serving hard time in jail on 17 felony counts. The ones who like him are failures and felons...come on Newsweek. I guess you have no idea how to ask hard questions to get to the bottom of this.

Happy to read such thoughtful comments with an article; it just really surprises me, happily.

As a public high school teacher, the current state of our public institutions reflect our values as a society, from my point of view. We are bailing out these failing institutions with taxpayer dollars while the state of our public school system continues to decline. Good teachers are being laid off and class sizes are growing. No child left behind is a law that requires improvements without the promised funding to implement these improvements. And our schools are listed as "failing schools" because of unrealistic goals that are never supported or funded by the federal government in the first place. What is left in our public schools is often a stressed out skeleton staff that does not have the ability to properly educate our students, which we would hope will lead us someday to more effective ways of running this country.

Meanwhile, these corporate lobbyists have effectively secured deregulation and what they consider "optimal" conditions for their financial success (deregulation). And a few well-connected people have lined their pockets with enormous amounts of other peoples' money.

This sort of short-term gain at the expense of long-term growth way of thinking have really infected our entire way of running our society.

Unfortunately middle and lower class young people (the MAJORITY) of our future do not have the money or the resources to hire corporate lobbyists. Their teachers and their schools have very limited resources. And there is little to NO organized efforts to effectively support the reform and progress to lead our public schools to educate and prepare our future. In every other developed and developing country we compare our students' progress with, there is a clear and dedicated effort to improve, fund, and prioritize education. In America, we are starving our schools while bailing out reckless fat cats who've thrived on greed. Is this the American Way? Or have we lost our way?

Hopefully (as we say in school) we will learn from all of this and use it to improve, grow, and succeed.

A Fable for Our Times-

Once Upon a Time, "Credit" meant going to a bank, and if you could make a very substantial down payment and your record was good, financing an auto purchase for two years, or a house for thirty. At some stores, "Credit" also meant "90 Days As Good As Cash!!!".

Then "Credit" became three years for an auto, and despite the naysayer's cries of doom, the sky did not fall.

Then five years, then for longer than the auto would last... and STILL the sky did not fall!

And then, sayeth Wall Street, "Let there be Credit Cards!" And truly the plastic did flourish and multiply, fruitfully (at least for the credit card industry).

And Lo! Anyone could now have Anything, Any Time, and Put Off Payment... forever! And again Wall Street did gather the low-hanging fruit.

And then, said the Republicans, "let there be no more Glass-Steagall! For surely Wall Street knoweth what is Best For Our Country!! "

Yea, verily, said the Democrats: "and also let Everyman possesseth a Large House, procured on Everlasting Credit, for surely this is the right of Everyman."

"With my Blessing" said the Lord of the Fed, the Honorable and Saintly Mr. Greenspan: "For truly the Marketplace Will Regulate Itself!" (for this is written on the Sacred Stones). Let us see no Evil and now let us also gather the Higher-Up Fruit!!

"Hallelujah" said The Government of All The People, "Let Us Print More Money and Not Count Wars so that we too may Put Off Payment forever." And so the money was printed and the wars were not counted, but for some strange reason the more Money there Was, the less that Other Countries desired it.

And so it did come to pass that at a certain time, the Fuit was all Gathered, The Sky did in fact Fall, and that time is now upon us.

And Democrat blameth Republican even as Republican blameth Democrat. Everyman pointeth to Someone Else, and each and every one of them proclaimith it to be "All Your Fault".

And all forget the Eternal Words of Kelly: "We have met the enemy, and He is Us!"