A Senator with some common sense???

It appears there may actually be a Senator in congress with some actual common sense! I honestly can't believe it... as you can see in my previous post, I had contacted Senator Shelby with a somewhat sarcastic message expressing my opposition to the Wall Street bailout currently being pushed hard by Bush, Paulson and Bernanke... and low and behold, Senator Shelby came out today stating there is "no deal". I really hope he continues that stance. Below is my follow up/brown nosing message to him:

Senator Shelby, I emailed you on Saturday opposing the Wall Street bailout and mortgage socialization bill being pushed by Bush, Pauson and Bernanke. Today I was very, very glad to hear that you are standing your ground in opposition to this terrible waste of taxpayer dollars. Please, please continue to do so! I don't know why so many republicans, Bush included are pushing this so hard... it contradicts so many principles that this country, the constitution, and the Republican party are based upon. By not allowing this bailout to go through I am certain there will be more pain on Wall and Main street... but that is what needs to happen... that is the free market at work flushing the garbage out of the system. Our country will bounce back and we will have 700 billion dollars less debt to pass on to our children. Thank you for taking the moral stance on this issue. I am very grateful for your service.

The Trillion Dollar Bailout

Wow, I really didn't see this coming. The Fed and President Bush in all of their wisdom are now proposing a complete bailout of Wall Street and just about every greedy soul who was involved in and profited from the housing bubble. The cost to taxpaying Americans for this will be enormous, probably in excess of 1 trillion. Here is my response to this bill in the form of an email I sent to my Senators:

Senator Sessions,

I just wanted to clarify my understanding of the bailout plan currently being proposed by President Bush, Mr Paulson and the Fed. I know this is a large, complex and unprecedented situation, but this is how I understand the root cause and proposed solution in very simple terms:

1. Wall Street investment banks decide to loan anyone who could fog a mirror money without checking if they could pay it back (an make a huge profit in doing so)
2. Some mortgage broker and REALTOR talk Joe Walmart employee into buying a home he can not afford (and make a huge profit in doing so)
3. Joe stops paying his mortgage because he can't afford it
4. The bank loses money because Joe is not paying back his loan
5. The government steps and uses taxpayer money to buy the bad loan from the bank so they don't lose any more money
6. The government uses Fannie Mae to write down Joe's mortgage by 50% so he can afford to stay in the home he should have never bought in the first place (Joe gets a house at 50% off complements of the US taxpayer)
7. Average responsible American taxpayer foots the bill for all of this

What I don't understand is how the any politician, and in particular Republicans, can justify spending what could be over a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to bailout Wall Street and individuals who made poor financial decisions. Please support me and thousands of other average taxpaying Americans by voting NO on this bailout!

Respectfully,

The Rise of US Socialism

I guess the Fed has decided to throw out all of those old fashioned capitalistic principles that our country was founded on. With the US taxpayer funded bailouts of Bear Sterns, Fannie May, Freddie Mac, and now AIG along with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars now loaned out to banks like WAMU backed by worthless mortgage securities, the US is looking more and more like the communist USSR than the world leader of capitalism and democracy. The Federal government now owns about 1/3 of the nations' rapidly foreclosing homes and condominiums (about 5 trillion dollars worth), backs our insurance policies, provides our retirement income and medical care, and so much more. Where is all the money coming from to fund these vast programs you might wonder, out of thin air... borrowing, borrowing and more borrowing. The federal government deficit for 2009 is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 1/2 trillion excluding the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and based on the governments "funny" accounting rules. However, including the military operations and using more traditional accounting rules, that number is more likely in the trillions. In fact, according to most intelligent economists, including Alan Greenspan himself, federal deficit spending is completely unsustainable. Unfortunately our politicians don't have the moral courage to do anything about it... instead they prefer to dig our country deeper and deeper into a hole that we will never be able to escape.